Q-#0001 — on querying, the short version
The working man's version of a "How I Got My Agent" post.
It’s a rite of passage at this point — but let me write a version you can read on your lunch break, first.
Hey there, it’s Seren! I recently signed with a literary agent for my Adult Historical Fantasy, APPARATUS. While I queried for a relatively short amount of time, there’s still quite a bit of fun (and suffering) I experienced to dig into. Yet, if you’re like me, you’re most interested in two things —
my statistics.
who I signed with.
So, this version of a “How I Got My Agent” post (HIGMA) will show you just that. We can talk about everything else some other time.
But first, some context on APPARATUS.
The Manuscript • 🔖
APPARATUS is the book of my heart and a pain in the ass. For all intents and purposes, the book is an Adult Fantasy, but if you want to get specific, it’s an Adult Historical Fantasy that’s also a Dark Academia with a strong queer Romance B-Plot.
In short, the manuscript follows a displaced Ilokano conjurer named Rivers as they attend the same education program their older sibling did, who abandoned their family to do so. Any more information than that might be too much for a very public newsletter/archive1, so here’s a vague list of things within the story instead —
American Prohibition-Era setting (Think Gatsby, flappers, and bootlegging).
Writing-based magic system.
Annoyances to ??? to reluctant coworkers to ?!?!! to lovers (maybe)?
Critiques of imperialism, academic elitism, and the militaristic use of higher education.
Scholars who are not good at school.
It’s irreverent and abrasive at times, but also charming and melancholic at others. I loved writing this manuscript, and I like to think it showed to everyone who read it.
Querying Stats, Simplified • 🍎
In a nutshell, here were my stats from this round of querying.
Queries Sent — 25
Passes/Step Asides (Query) — 8
Requests — 11
Passes/Step Asides (Full) — 5
Withdrawn/No Answer (Queries + Fulls) — 9
Offers — 3
Time Spent Querying: ~2 months
I took a three week break in the middle, more on that in a different post.
My request rate was 44.0%, according to QueryTracker. I was only able to send out 25 queries before my first offer due to being slow and picky. But honestly, because I was super selective, I was more than happy to sign with anyone I queried.
Of course, I have to say that this is not the norm for querying, especially at the time I’m writing this post (Spring of 2025). It’s not uncommon for people to be querying for a very long time with upwards of 100 queries. Frankly, you should cast your net wide when you query! I was planning on sending out more every week I was still querying.
This was my second time querying a manuscript, and it went much faster than my first2. I hope it’s in part due to the fact that I’ve both improved as a writer and that agents could tell I loved this manuscript more, but who’s to say? In all honesty, there’s no real single right way to do this.
A Brief Reflection • 🪻
While I remain adamant that much of my success this time around was due to luck and good timing, these observations are still true; I achieved the above stats with a manuscript that —
was around 120,000 words.
APPARATUS was ~119,300 words when I queried it. I thought for sure this word count would end up killing the manuscript at the query stage, but it didn’t.
Granted, I and many of the agents agreed that we should pare it down a fair bit. Unless your manuscript is an Epic Fantasy or something akin to a Space Opera, I can’t recommend querying something this long as a debut. Printing books cost money, and it’s risky to print books this long by an unknown author.
featured a protagonist who uses they/them pronouns.
I’m not sure how faux-pas this is now, but a few years back, I was told that having a prominent character who uses any pronoun aside from he or she would be too “confusing” or “risky” for a debut.
I hope people aren’t still being dissuaded from venturing outside of the gender binary with their characters, especially now. We need trans, nonbinary, and genderqueer stories more than ever.
had a query with a frankly stark biography section.
In truth, I’ve been a part of mentorships and fellowships (hi cohort-mates! 👋🏽). Some of my prose and poetry has been published online. I didn’t include any of that in my bio this time around. You don’t need anything splashy down there. If you have nothing publishing- or writing-related, that’s fine! This was all I had —
Like Rivers, I weaponize my Filipino heritage in America daily by staying queer and curious. Writing cutting and unabashedly Southeast Asian speculative fiction remains my main passion in life, though I do enjoy a difficult video game from time to time.
This is to say that every path out of querying is different. For most3 of my time with it, I was confident that APPARATUS would be the one to snag me a literary agent. And it was! But this was my second attempt, and the amount of work I put into it resulted in many sleepless nights.
And on that note; yes, I was lucky. I was fortunate to write a concept that agents favored at just the right time, but I still wrote a damn good book. So many of these “How I Got My Agent” posts can border on self-deprecating, and while it’s important to stay grounded, you shouldn’t have to stamp down the joy you feel when success comes your way. This industry is weighted against Black, Indigenous, People of Color. Queer folks, disabled folks, etc! Getting an agent is just the first step, but it’s become so difficult for us. And many wonderful stories get silenced because of the artificial barriers in place.
So, at the risk of sounding conceited, I deserve the success this time around. If you’re a queer BIPOC, you deserve every victory you fought for and much more. Get loud! Be proud of yourself! I hope you write more stories and create more art; brave, bold, and beautiful.
Oh, and I signed with Shannon Lechon at Azantian Literary Agency (ALA). Nearly forgot that part.4
Until next time — take care, and happy writing!
✦ Seren.
🎨 || Luncheon of the Boating Party, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Oil on canvas. 1881.
I have an irrational aversion to documenting things for others to see. I’m not superstitious in the slightest, but I fear that the life I have at present will be much different than the one I will have in the future, much to the scrutiny of others. So naturally, I started a newsletter that also functions as a public journal (sarcasm).
I actually still had fulls and partials of my first manuscript out when I began querying APPARATUS, so I had to withdraw them. My first manuscript was good, but it was a genre I wasn’t planning on writing often, so I didn’t want it to be my debut.
This hint of uncertainty is related to the three week break I took in the middle of querying. March might have been the most stressful month of my life, honestly.
To be clear, I adore my agent lmao, but our story can be told another time.