My Agent Journey

I really shouldn’t be writing this blog post, instead I should be writing the two books I’m simultaneously on a deadline for (my fault.) But I’ve had one very exciting career change that I want to chronicle before those feelings get all muddled between the worlds I’m trying to cook up in my head. If you haven’t already seen online, I now have an agent! Alex is so cool, her agency is awesome, and I can’t think of a better literary home. This is not a “how I got my agent” post, because I don’t think that would help anyone out. But we’ll get to that.

I’m almost to the year anniversary of my being a (published) author. And I never thought I would get to say that out loud. But the fact is, I’ve always been writing, it’s even what I originally went to college for before I fell in love with archaeology and anthropology. But I had never finished a story, and I felt like it wasn’t a dream I was supposed to have.

If you’ve read FIREREND—well the acknowledgments to be specific—you’ll know that I sat on that story for four years because I didn’t have the guts to finish it. Golden Ruin is where I found my courage, and the first complete novel I have ever written. Once I had the first, messy manuscript in my hands I decided it needed to be in the world, but how was I going to do it?

I looked into traditional publishing first, I think some part of me has always craved the validation that someone other than my mom would say my writing is any good. But with a queer, genre mash-up story, I was scared. Scared no one would like it, scared it would die in the inboxes and queries of the traditional publishing world. I never even started the query process. So, without any idea what I was really doing, I decided to self-publish. It’s hard, and can get SO expensive, but it’s a process I have genuinely come to love. I like working with a cover designer, picking out editors I vibe with, designing the chapter headers and scene breaks myself. There’s something very rewarding about holding a creative piece in my hand that I had a say in the entire way through. And I thought that was going to be it for me.

And then, out of the blue, Alex emailed me to say she’d picked up a copy of Golden Ruin and wanted to know if I was interested in representation. I immediately texted my brother a screenshot of the email, “idk if I even want an agent” I had said to him. The truth was, I did want an agent, I did want to try.  But I was even more scared than I was before. What if I wasn’t good enough to hack it, and I was already an author? What would that mean to me? My career? But I looked into Alex, her books, her clients, her agency. And I knew I wouldn’t have even responded if it probably wasn’t going to be a yes. But still, when we got onto a call together I was so nervous. I was convinced she’d change her mind, or I’d talk her out of it somehow. Clearly, that didn’t happen, and now I am lucky enough to be a part of her incredible team and MWLA as a whole.

I’m excited, I’m inspired, and I have a LOT of writing to do. Alex is very cool and very understanding that we didn’t find each other in the traditional way. I still want to self-publish, so that means I’m going to be bouncing between books and writing them simultaneously for a good while. If I’m being honest, I thrive on the chaos of it all. But I also feel a lot of imposter syndrome. How did I get that lucky? How did I jump past a bunch of steps? I also feel restless. Traditionally, when you’re speaking to an agent you already have a manuscript in hand, and I don’t have that. It feels like I’m racing a clock that only exists for me. Some part of me wants a book out there so that I can prove this wasn’t all some fluke.

I also feel kind of sad. I’ve made a lot of incredible friends already in the writing community. I’m *already* an author. But I get the feeling a lot of people are only taking me seriously now that I have an agent and am pursuing traditional publishing. That’s another reason why I’ll be proud to be a hybrid author. Indie and self-publishing is just as valid as traditional. I hate the looking down on others, even within the community. I have no idea how I’ll balance the two, what that split will actually look like. But I’m so grateful to have an agent who’s not only letting me try, but supports it.

This is the start of a very exciting new step for me as an author. I am so grateful to all of the people I’ve met in the last year, and everyone who’s read or supported my books. I am quite literally here because of you all. And now, I have to get back to the two very different worlds I’m creating, the stories I can’t wait to share with you.

More to come soon.

<3 Emma