Success Story Interview - Amber Leigh

An Interview with Amber Leigh (AmberLeigh on QT) upon receiving an offer of representation from agent Andrea Hurst of Andrea Hurst Literary Management.

09/14/2026

QT: Can you tell us a little bit about the book for which you've found representation? What inspired you to write it?

Amber Leigh:
The Submerged is a YA dystopian about a girl born into an underwater survival colony who discovers her entire life is a reality show—and the boy hired to engineer her suffering may be the only person willing to help her escape.

QT: How long have you been writing?

Amber Leigh:
Two years

QT: How long have you been working on this book?

Amber Leigh:
Six months for this one, it really just flew out of me!

QT: Was there ever a time you felt like giving up, and what helped you to stay on course?

Amber Leigh:
Yes, there were times that I didn’t know if my writing was good enough to get representation. I had more people read the book and give me feedback, and then worked with an editor on a developmental edit which gave me motivation to keep going.

QT: Is this your first book?

Amber Leigh:
No, I wrote and unsuccessfully queried a book before this

QT: Do you have any formal writing training?

Amber Leigh:
No

QT: Do you follow a writing routine or schedule?

Amber Leigh:
When writing this book I followed Stephen King’s writing routine. I worked on the book every single day, aiming for 2k words per day, no distractions, until it was done.

QT: How many times did you re-write/edit your book?

Amber Leigh:
There were three main drafts, a very rough first draft, a more polished second draft and then a third where all the scenes are locked in and I just edit line-level stuff. In total there is about five-seven drafts.

QT: Did you have beta readers for your book?

Amber Leigh:
I had one beta reader for the full book and multiple for the opening chapters.

QT: Did you outline your book, or do you write from the hip?

Amber Leigh:
I wrote from the hip! No outline. Just a vague idea and figuring it out along the way.

QT: How long have you been querying for this book? Other books?

Amber Leigh:
This book I queried for one month. The last book I queried I gave up after 6 months and 100 rejections.

QT: About how many query letters did you send out for this book?

Amber Leigh:
95 for this one! I had really strong interest with a lot of requests as soon as I started querying it so I decided to go all in and send it to as many as I could.

QT: On what criteria did you select the agents you queried?

Amber Leigh:
I had a list of A, B, and C agents. A were the top tier: big agencies, famous authors repped, or really good fits for their MSWL. B was agents that matched but I wasn’t sure about, or newer agents and C was agents that were open to my genre and queries so worth a try!

QT: Did you tailor each query to the specific agent, and if so, how?

Amber Leigh:
I did not for this book! My hot take is that I think personalization in the day of agents receiving 500 queries a month and authors having to send out 100+ queries per book is outdated.

QT: What advice would you give other writers seeking agents?

Amber Leigh:
Don’t sleep on social media. I made a book trailer on Instagram that my agent watched and said that was the reason they wanted to read my manuscript.

Query Letter:

Dear AGENT

A girl born into an underwater survival colony discovers her entire life is a reality show—and the boy hired to engineer her suffering may be the only person willing to help her escape.

THE SUBMERGED is a dual-POV YA sci-fi novel complete at 74,000 words. It combines the voyeurism of The Truman Show with the moral stakes of Dry by Neil Shusterman and the corporate exploitation of The Getaway by Lamar Giles.

Seventeen-year-old Maeris Morrigan has never seen the sun. She was born in the Hydrosphere, an undersea colony built after a nuclear catastrophe left the surface uninhabitable—humanity's last hope, or so she's been told her entire life. In her world, oxygen is currency, food runs short, and the number on her wrist counts down the days she has left to breathe.

But the Hydrosphere is no longer just a survival colony. It's the most-watched show in history, streamed to an audience of millions and Maeris, who has no idea she's being watched, is its breakout star.

Two hundred and fifty meters above her, nineteen-year-old Corvin Caen has just been hired to write her storyline. He dreams of the day he can afford to leave Sector Three for an apartment overlooking the ocean in Sector One. As Corvin manufactures one disaster after another to keep her trending, Maeris begins to question her reality. The truth she's circling is one the network will kill to protect. A thousand people have been kept under the ocean for nothing but the money they generate.

The longer Corvin watches Maeris, the less he can stomach who he’s becoming. The boy who only wanted that ocean apartment must decide whether he's willing to burn it all down to help her escape. And Maeris needs to decide if she'll risk her life and everyone in the Hydrosphere to reach the Surface.

I’m the founder of a media company and have been writing scripts and marketing campaigns for businesses for over a decade. I’m also a mom raising children in a social-media-obsessed generation, which inspired me to write THE SUBMERGED.

This book stands alone with series potential. The full manuscript is available upon request.

Welcome to the Hydrosphere. May the Ocean have mercy on your soul.

Amber Leigh