in 12 (challenging) steps

Hi! I'm Becky. I've written two young adult novels and am in the developmental stages of a third. I'm also a full-time portrait photographer who specializes in photos of families and newborns.

I've been dragging my feet on adding a blog to my author site. It's hard enough maintaining the one for my photography site. But the main reason I haven't started one is because I knew this would be my first post, and it's hard to relive the querying journey. Rejection is embarrassing.


​If you'd rather watch me talk about getting an agent vs. reading about it, check out this TikTok, where I summarize my journey in 2-3 minutes.

Here's the (slightly) longer version:

1. I wrote a novel.

The biggest hurdle to getting a literary agent is you have to actually write a whole novel. LOL.

In spring of 2020, I had to shutter my non-essential photography business, which freaked me out. Until that point, I spent at least 12 hours a day working on that business and had just gotten to the place where I felt like I had everything figured out. My marketing was working, and I was fully booked months in advance. Then, it all came to a halt. What was I going to do with all that time?

Well, ten years prior, I got an idea for a YA novel and had been making notes on it here and there every few months or so. I always said I'd write it when I had time. Welp, I suddenly found myself with lots of free time.

I wrote the novel over the course of ~4 months and LOVED it. I had so much fun laughing and crying along with my characters. It was a much-needed escape from the panic attacks brought on by the pandemic. It wasn't until I finished it that I was like, I guess I should look into publishing this thing!

2. I called a published friend.

The first person I thought of was my former colleague and friend, Constance Sayers, who has (as of this writing) traditionally published two books - A Witch in Time and The Ladies of the Secret Circus. (They're both truly excellent. Go buy them!). I reached out to her on social media, and she wrote back right away, agreeing to talk to me about the publishing biz.

She was so generous with her time, spending about an hour on the phone with me. She told me all about her publishing journey and how people go about getting book deals. I found this new world so interesting! I told her about my book, and she offered to introduce me to her agent. I didn't know it at the time, but that's so not a normal thing for an author to do. And I definitely didn't expect it!  I told her it wasn't ready yet (I hadn't started revising), but I would reach out again when I was.

3. I revised and sent my manuscript to beta readers.

I laugh about this now, but when I was writing, I was excited when I surpassed 100K words. I love reading longer books and was striving to write one myself. I had no clue that most YA novels are supposed to be between 60-90k words, with a little more allowance made for fantasy and sci-fi (mine is speculative/grounded sci-fi). My first draft was 118k.

I naively didn't think it would matter that much. One of my beta readers, who knew better than me, asked what I was planning to do about my word count. I was like, yeah, it's a little long, but I'll be okay. I thought my book was just that good. (Insert face palm emoji) I now know that many agents automatically reject manuscripts that don't fall within the word count window for the genre, no matter how intriguing the concept.

​I did five rounds of revisions and wrote my friend back to tell her I was ready to query. I googled how to write a query letter, cobbled one together, and was about to send it off, when I had another idea...

4. I consulted a query expert.

I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it earlier, but one of my sister's neighbors, M. M. Finck (whom I consider a kindred spirit), is also agented and runs a business that helps authors with their query letters! BINGO! I sent her a note saying something like, "Hey, I'm about to start querying. I've done a bunch of research, and I think this letter is good, but would love your opinion." I pasted in my letter. She replied, "Let's talk." LOL.

​I'd made a WHOLE BUNCH of query faux-pas. I used rhetorical questions. I called my story "thrilling and fast paced." I used too-old bestselling YA books as comps. I was way too vague. I focused on plot instead of story. I could go on and on.

She told me to cut as much of the book as I could to get it closer to the industry-standard word count. I pushed back at first, saying that would disrupt the flow of sentences (insert another face palm emoji), but I eventually found a way to get it down to 111k (still too long, but again I thought my book would be the exception). She read and critiqued my synopsis and sent me a fresh draft of a query letter, suggesting I edit it to fit my character's voice.

I've since learned that a query letter is a fluid document. You'll always be revising it. You'll always be improving your pitch.

5. I sent off my first three queries.

My first batch of queries went out the door in September 2020. Of the three, I got two full requests (that means the agents read my sample pages and wanted to read the rest)! The first was from Constance's agent and the other was from an agent of a friend's friend. The second one I decided not to submit to. Something about him felt "off," especially when he offered paid editorial services for my book (never pay an agent for editing).

But wow, that was a great response rate! I sent off my full manuscript to Constance's agent with high hopes for an offer, even though I didn't see any YA books on her list. A week later, she sent me the kindest rejection ever. She didn't connect with the YA voice of my protagonist, but said the story was great. She assured me that someone would snatch it up in a hot second, and I should keep sending it out. So I did.

6. I sent DOZENS more queries.

Emboldened by the results from my early batch, I started querying in earnest, sending out 5-10 queries at a time. And I racked up rejection after rejection. As much as people tell you not to take it personally, as often as you hear that EVERY author gets rejections, it does feel personal. It hurt a lot. I cried a lot. I would get my hopes up with every new batch, with every revised query and first pages. And they'd come crashing right back down again days, weeks, and months later when I'd open an email to the word "unfortunately."

7. I seriously thought about giving up.

By December 2020, I'd received 40-50 rejections and probably another dozen I hadn't heard back from. My soul was crushed. I hated feeling sad all the time. I sat down with my husband and cried while telling him I couldn't do it anymore. He bolstered me up, convinced me to keep trying, but first, I needed a break.

8. I took a mental health break.

I took off querying for the last couple weeks of December and the first week of January. I needed time to heal and feel like myself again. I wanted to enjoy the holidays without worrying about rejections rolling in at any minute. It was the best decision.

9. I joined the writing community and figured out what I was doing wrong.

When my brief hiatus was over, I lucked out by winning query and first page critiques through a few Twitter contests and charity auctions from agents and published authors. I entered Author Mentor Match, and though I wasn't chosen, I was given wonderful notes from mentor Carolyn Tara O'Neil. I also had an English teacher friend critique my first chapter, and I found critique partners through Moms Who Write. The important word in this paragraph is obviously "critique." Beta readers are great, but you need industry professionals to analyze your work to help you figure out what's holding it back.

I joined Pitch to Published, a paid membership group which teaches authors how to pitch their books and get agents. We workshopped our query letters every week and our first pages twice per month.

I cut more of my manuscript, getting it down to 96K. I finally got rid of the prologue I'd been hanging onto. I removed unnecessary dialogue tags and changed "telling" passages to "showing." I tightened up my sticky sentences and eliminated a ton of adverbs. I even cut a couple characters.

With fresh pages and a writer-approved query letter, I jumped back into the trenches.

10. I started pitching again in April 2021.

I attended a virtual writers conference in early April and paid to pitch 5 agents through Zoom. It was scary but also so fun, and I ended up getting 5 requests, including three full requests. LET'S GOOOO!

I opened the spreadsheet I'd created over the winter of 125 agents interested in my genre, and sent queries off to the first ten. After another ten rejections, I made more revisions, searched my list again, and prepared another batch.

11. I got my first (and only) full request from a cold query.

I sent out a fresh batch of queries one afternoon, I went back to update my spreadsheet, and by the time I got back to my email, I had a full request. I burst into tears. After taking 30 minutes to calm down, I sent it off. That was May 7th, 2021.

12. The news you've been waiting for!

Ten days later, I was working on photos when I got a call from an unknown number in New York City. Usually, I let unknown numbers go to voicemail. They're inevitably about my car's extended warranty or an offer for a business loan. But something about that NYC area code had me picking up.

"Is this Becky? This is Michelle Wolfson. I've just finished reading your manuscript. I've actually read it twice now, and I love it."

I burst into tears again. My husband stood beside me and kept whispering for me to keep my cool. She and I had a short conversation about what she loved about the story and what she thought needed changing and whether I'd be open to changes. When I said yes, she offered me rep! She asked if I had any questions, and I said yes, but I couldn't think of any of them (I was in shock!) so she suggested we chat again the next day so I could prepare.

I had a big list for her the next day, but she patiently answered my questions. I knew it was industry standard to ask to speak with one of the authors she represented, so I did that, and then said I'd make my decision in a couple weeks (also industry standard since I had open queries and a few fulls out from the virtual pitching).

After she connected me with one of her signed authors, Kimberly Sabatini, and we had such an insta-bonding conversation, I knew I would be sad to sign with anyone else!  I signed the agency agreement on May 27th. (Happy dance!!)

Michelle represents some of my favorite authors! I'm still in shock to be on the same list as them.

This is just the beginning of my author journey. To read future posts and get first dibs on publishing news, join my mailing list on the right side of this page. Can't wait to share more!