(AKA Agent POV Demo)
What you’re about to learn is powerful and for OwnVoices/diverse authors ONLY.
If you are NOT an OwnVoices author (defined as a PoC, queer, trans, disabled, neurodivergent or otherwise marginalized author writing novels with protagonist(s) from the same marginalized communities as you belong to) please scroll past. This was not written for you.
If you know another diverse author who would benefit from this, please share this with them.
But the insight and tools I’m about to show you need to stay within the community. If you’re here, it’s because you already know non-diverse authors have an automatic advantage, and if this gets into their hands the gap between us and them could quickly become insurmountable.
Look, I know I give literary agents a lot of shit.
And I stand by it.
But despite what it may feel like when you get that response to the full you’ve been waiting on for 9 months only for it to be a 3-sentence rejection…
Most of them are not villains.
What it’s like on the other side of the slushpile, for literary agents, is something you cannot truly understand until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.
And when you truly do this, when you walk through the querying process through their eyes, it makes the key to triggering obsession crystal fucking clear.
The TL;DR is, imagine working a 12 hour day, then coming home and having to try to get through the 20 novels sitting in your TBR list. Only for a few more to be added every week?
No matter how much one loves reading, how many Barnes & Noble tote bags one owns, this is nightmare inducing.
The only thing that can break through that kind of bone-deep exhaustion is something that transports them. Possesses them. Breaks them.
That’s easy to understand in principle.
But I think it would be much better to show you: how agents are experiencing your manuscript in its current form, and how they feel when they come across something in the slushpile that grabs them by the lapels.
Jessica plows through the door to her office with a kick and wobbles her way to a desk cluttered in papers. Dodging a tilting stack of ARC copies on the floor, she sways to the side, the lunchbag, purse, and computer case on her arm precariously close to toppling her over. And…
Dammit.
The coffee in her other hand sloshes over the rim, leaving a fat blob of liquid soaking into her silk blouse.
Fucking perfect.
She doesn’t know how she manages to put the mug down without spilling the contents–small mercies–and she swipes some of the papers to the side to make room for the bags biting into her arm. She rubs her shoulder. That god-forsaken purse is going to leave a mark for sure.
It is NOT her day. She doesn’t remember snoozing her alarm, just the panic as she startled awake at the second one she always sets just in case, blaring fifteen minutes later than she needed to be up and going. With three chaos agents–ehem kids–under 7 to get ready for the bus, the next hour was a blur of shoving lunchboxes into hands, tossing granola bars across the counter, and tucking in uniform polos. And of course Tommy, Laura and AJ did not give a single shit that she was already late and did their best impression of clowns at Barnum and Bailey.
She had to jog to the subway–in heels!--and just barely managed to slip through the doors, squirming in between a burly man in a muscle tank who smelled like he had never heard of deodorant, and a frazzled woman trying to shush the one year old wailing in Jessica’s ear.
Which wouldn’t have mattered if she was on for one stop, but the journey from Cypress Hills in Brooklyn to Hanson Literary’s fourth floor office deep in the Financial District was long enough that she wished she’d stopped at Duane Reade’s for some earplugs. And noseplugs. And maybe a blindfold while she was at it.
Then her heel got stuck in a freaking sewer grate, nearly snapping in the process…
And then the coffee. Naturally.
She doesn’t have the time to spare, but takes a second to breathe in deep through her nose.
Sure, she has a client call in five minutes, followed by sending notes on three client manuscripts, marketing copy to review, a team meeting at 3, two books to prep for submission, and that was before she even gets to the fulls waiting in her inbox…
Jesus.
But she can do it. She’s an old hat at this by now. Gulping down her coffee and sending up a quick prayer, she plops into the none-too-comfy leather rolling chair behind her desk, pulls out her laptop, and gets to work.
The day passes by in a blur, her eyes a bit gritty from hours staring at a computer screen by the time she shuts off her desk lamp and packs up for the day.
At least she’d gotten through most of the prep. It came at the cost of a protein bar and a smoothie scarfed down in place of lunch, but it’s something.
She still hasn’t even had time for the fulls.
Sigh.
At least the subway at 6:30 shouldn’t be as crowded. If she’s lucky (ha!) she’ll maybe even be able to snag a seat for once, instead of being packed into the corner like a sardine and trying not to touch anyone.
This the headspace with which most agents are approaching your full manuscript.
Frazzled, already distracted, and trying to fit it in on their commute or in between client meetings. Often after work or on weekends.
Offers some perspective, dunnit?
So let's see what type of manuscript can cut through all of that noise...