Ask Me Anything!

You Asked...I'm Answering!

Good morning, publishing world! It’s been a while since I’ve posted on this Substack so I want to start by giving a HUGE shoutout of thanks to Vicky Weber at CMA Lit for filling in the gaps these last several months.

When Vicky and I started this Substack, it was supposed to be a shared responsibility whereby the two of us traded off making posts. But as I’m sure you’ve noticed, I’ve dropped the ball and Vicky has carried it about 85% on her own. So HUGE thanks to Vicky! For those who don’t know her personally, let me just say she’s absolutely the kindest, most helpful, authentic, wickedly knowledgeable person I know, and I’m truly grateful for her partnership and friendship.

Okay…so back to today’s post…ASK ME ANYTHING!

As the subject suggests, this is the post where I answer your questions…so let’s get started!

QUESTION 1: I’m looking at all the agents on QueryTracker and there are so many. How do I know which are legit and which aren’t?

ANSWER: Good question. For starters, I will say that the website owner of QueryTracker does his best to vet the agents and publishers before including them on the database, but it’s inevitable that a few will slip through. So it’s important to do your own homework. Toward that end, you may have to be creative. Here are a few tips:

1. Alway check the agency website to make sure the agent is listed.

2. If you have a subscription to Publisher’s Marketplace (or have a friend who does), check the agent’s sales records on the PM website.

3. Check out the Association of American Literary Agents website (AALA). While not every agent will be listed there, this is the professional organization which dictates the ethics for literary agents and does a nice job of vetting agents before allowing them membership.

4. Google is your friend. Type in the agent’s name (and/or the agency) and see what hits you get. How hard do you have to look for them? Are they active on social media?

5. As much as I hate to suggest this, maybe check Reddit.

6. Talk to other querying authors. What do they know about the agent/agency?

7. Do a Google search for “AbsoluteWrite Water Cooler + <agent name>” to see what other authors are saying about them.

The bottom line is to do your research. No agent is better than a bad agent. An agent with no background of sales or success from an unknown agency can be a red flag. But a new agent aligned with a reputable agency will likely have strong mentorship even if they don’t have any sales yet, and sometimes a new agent is hungry and has more time to work with you and shouldn’t be disregarded on the basis of sales. Just be certain they either know their stuff, or they’re mentored by an agency with a strong record.

QUESTION 2: I jumped into querying before I was ready and didn’t realize. As a result, I got a lot of passes including passes from my dream agent. Recently, though, I found a critique group and have done extensive edits on my manuscript and it’s really ready this time. Have I lost my chance with my dream agent?

ANSWER: Oof! I think most of us have done this, so the answer is “maybe not.” While every agent and agency has different guidelines, some agents would be open to taking another look if you’ve done significant edits. So check their website to see if they address this. If they don’t address this, there’s no harm reaching out and politely asking if they’d consider taking a second look at your fully revised manuscript. All they can really say is no, and most of them will be kind about it. And if you find one that’s a jerk about it, then you’ve probably dodged a bullet.

QUESTION 3: What’s the biggest mistake I can make when querying?

ANSWER: There’s not a single answer to this question, so let me give you a short list.

1. “Throwing spaghetti at a wall.” By this I mean not fully researching the agents you’re sending out to or having a dozen projects you send to the same agent or agency within a short period of time. One thing authors may not know about QueryTracker on the agent’s side is that we can see every query you’ve sent to the agency, when it was sent, and what communication you’ve had with the agents at that agency over a period of time. This isn’t usually a big deal, and I almost always ignore it unless the numbers catch my attention.

   I once received a query from an author and noticed out of the corner of my eye that the author had queried my agency something like 47 times. The number was so high that I couldn’t help taking a look, and when I did, the author appeared “desperate.” Of those 47 queries, she’d queried most of our agents at least once on each project, and there were something like 15 projects in the span of something like 18 months. For me, that was a bit of a red flag. It suggested to me that the author not only didn’t seem to care which of us took their project, but they probably hadn’t taken the care to make sure each project was ready for querying. It’s great to be a fast writer—I, myself, can write a manuscript in about three weeks—but then, you have to take ample time to edit that project to the best of your ability, send it to critique partners and edit again, then send it to beta readers and edit once more. That many projects in that short of time indicated, to me at least, that the author was throwing spaghetti at a wall. Please don’t do that. Make sure every project you send to an agent is well-written, edited well, and you’ve taken the time to make sure the agents you’re sending to are the best fit.

2. Aside from throwing spaghetti at a wall, and probably along the same lines, is not being fully “ready” to query. If you haven’t taken the time to be sure your manuscript is in the best condition you can possibly make it, you’re setting yourself up for failure. So take the extra few weeks to be as certain as you can be that it’s the best you can make it. That doesn’t mean someone won’t suggest something to you that causes you to make further edits but it does mean it’s as ready as you can make it for the period of time you’re in.

3. Maybe the biggest mistake authors make is not following an agent’s submission guidelines. Please…go to the agent’s website and follow their submission guidelines TO THE LETTER. I can’t tell you how many places I have it listed to NOT query me by email, but I still get about five email queries every week. The most frustrating are from those who have clearly done enough research about me that they know I don’t accept queries by email. While I reply to all queries sent to me through QueryTracker, queries that are sent to my email make me feel truly disrespected, and I automatically send them to trash without reading.

That’s all I have time for today, but if you liked this “Ask Me Anything” post, I have an announcement to make:

Beginning December 2, 2025 at 8:30 PM Central time, I’ll be hosting a twice monthly “Ask Me Anything” on TikTok Live.

For each of these segments, I plan to include a guest host—other agents, authors, possibly publishers—and give querying authors or anyone in the BookTok community the opportunity to get their burning questions answered in real time.

So join give me a follow on TikTok, join me with my first guest, (my client also known as “The Brat”) Kelly Beck, and tell all your friends!