Agent: Laura Bennett
Agency: The Liverpool Literary Agency
Website: www.liverpool-literary.agency
Check out our #Agent121 page to book your own appointment.
“I met my agent, Laura Bennett, through I Am In Print’s #Agent121s. Laura’s wishlist aligned perfectly with my YA Post-Apocalyptic. However, my financial situation didn’t allow me to afford a paid session. Thankfully, they were offering a free spot for those who needed it. I’m usually hesitant about taking part in such events, I never think I’ll be good enough to be noticed, but I thought, why not? What’s the worst that can happen? Another no? I’ve been querying for a month, so I was mentally prepared for rejections. Little did I know that 15-minute call with Laura would end with her requesting my full, and then offering me representation a month later. If you’re a querying writer, and you’re debating whether or not these agent121s will lead to anything, my advice is: take the shot. You never know where that “yes” is hiding! Plus, you receive feedback on your work from an agent, so you get something out of it anyway. I’m so grateful for the opportunity that Sarah and Elane granted me. So grateful to have met Laura, and so excited to see where this journey leads us both!”
How many years had you been writing before you found your agent?
Technically, I’ve been writing since I was a kid, I’ve always had immense love for storytelling. But it was around 2018, sometime after I finished university, when I decided to take my writing more seriously and consider it as a potential profession. I started to focus on my original work more and tried to educate myself about the craft in order to hone in my skills. It was about four years after I started writing seriously, and two years after I queried my first book, that I found my agent in 2022.
Did you find your agent with the first book you decided to write??
No. However, the first book I wrote did inspire much of the book that did get me my agent, and it is more or less its source material if you will. The original book I wrote, which was Adult Post-Apocalyptic, was too ambitious a project for my not-very-experienced self at the time, that I had to shelve it and start something anew, more manageable with my skillset, which was a YA Contemporary. That was the first book I queried, but it didn’t really work out. I got about two or three requests out of eighty-something queries. But I did learn a lot about what agents look for, both in books and in query letters, so when I started working on my next book, I knew exactly how to tackle everything.
It took me quite sometime to get my next book where I wanted it to be, but when I was done with it, I was fairly confident in it, and optimistic about the querying process. As it turned out, it was that book, my YA Post-Apocalyptic, THOSE WHO SURVIVE, that got me my agent.
What was the inspiration behind the book that ended up securing you your deal?
Call me a boring cliché, but I’m a huge fan of zombies. The one thing I always craved in zombie fiction is a focus on the characters and the human struggle. I love the gore as much as the next person, but I found most zombie media focused a little too much on the action, horror and gore aspects, and not much on characters, their struggles and dynamics. My favorite franchise of all time, which was the main inspiration for my book, is Resident Evil—namely the games. I grew up with videogames and this was one of those games I wasn’t allowed to play as a kid. I would only sneak peeks at my uncles while they played. But as a teenager I got a chance to delve into the franchise properly and fell in love with it.
The original project I wrote was, initially, a Resident Evil fanfiction. And the main character in THOSE WHO SURVIVE, Ashley Brown, was an original character I introduced in that fanfiction. However, if you were to put the book and that fanfiction side by side now, you wouldn’t think there was any connection, and that’s a good thing. It’s what happens when you grow and develop your skills, when you get better understanding for what did or didn’t work and how to transform something to fit a more coherent vision that matches up better with your current skillset.
Aside from Resident Evil, there were other works that inspired me, including, but not limited to: The Walking Dead (games and TV show) and the Last of Us (the game). I wanted to write something that contained my favorite aspects of every one of those titles, but combined into one.
How many #Agent121 sessions did you have before you met your agent?
I only did one #Agent121 session and that ended up being the one that got me my agent.
Were you also querying agents at the same time? If so, what type of response were you getting?
Yes, of course! As a writer you have to take every opportunity you get, because there’s a lot of rejection to face, and so it’s about shooting every shot you have and hoping one of it hits the target. I had only sent one or two batches of queries, and the responses I had gotten at the time were form rejections. So despite my confidence and optimism when I started querying, I did question the quality of my work, which is what made me want to get an agent121 session to get direct feedback from an agent. However, not long after my session was booked, I got positive responses and requests from those batches I sent. So it was really just a matter of being patient and trusting in the process.
Roughly how many rejections did you receive before getting your agent?
I don’t remember and, unfortunately, I lost my premium subscription to querytracker so I can’t check the exact number. But I was averaging one request in 7-10 queries. And I ended up with 8 total requests. I want to say the total number of queries I sent was somewhere around 60 or so, possibly more.
Who became your agent?
The lovely Laura Bennett of the Liverpool Literary Agency, the agent I had an Agent121 session with!
What happened after your #Agent121 with this agent? (Did you send off your full manuscript straight away, for example? Did you meet them in-person?)
Yes, Laura requested my full manuscript during the session because she loved the sample I sent, so I emailed it to her almost immediately after the session was over. It was a really happy day for me that day. Getting to hear an agent compliment my work directly. I was very anxious to hear what she had to say and was preparing for criticism, but it was really all the sweetest things.
How long did the process of being offered representation take? Did you have any other offers at the same time?
It took about a month or two—Laura had kept me posted in the meantime with her progress and informed me when she started reading the book, which had taken her a week or less to read before she offered me representation.
No, I didn’t have any offers at the time, but I had the manuscript out with a few agents already, to whom I reached out after to inform about the offer.
How did your publishing deal come about? Did you get one or multiple offers? How many books was your deal for?
Considering how much slower things have gotten in the publishing industry over the last few years, it didn’t take us that long to get a deal. We started submission in January 2023, and it was June 2023 when we got a deal from HarperCollins’s One More Chapter, and it was for two books.
What have you learned about the publishing industry since being represented?
I think the most important lesson I learned is that it all comes down to finding the right people, at the right time, with the right book. A lot of unpredictable factors play into the journey as a whole. The only thing a writer can control is the quality of their work, and making sure they are presenting the best possible version of it that they can produce. Everything else that follows is out of our hands. You just shoot your shots, all of them, and hope you’ll find the agent or editor who will love your book as much as you do and support you.
How did you hear about the #Agent121 service?
I heard about it from an agent I was following on twitter, during the time I was querying my book. She tweeted about it and it piqued my interest, so I decided to check it out.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers looking to get published?
Don’t give up. It’s straightforward, but if you’re serious about being published, don’t give up. The entire process can be very disheartening and discouraging. Often times we’re stuck looking at the success stories but are oblivious to how many rejections and “failures” the writer had to face before getting to that success story. It’s important to remember that failure is not the end. Rejection is not the end. The first book I queried flopped hard, but I learned a lot from that experience and I used that knowledge to my advantage when working on my next book. It’s important to be confident in your work, but it’s also important that you be open to improving and becoming better at the craft, to learning new things even from objectively bad experiences.
Do you have any tips on making the most of an #Agent121?
Have a list of questions ready. If you have specific concerns about your book and if you had already sent out queries and got rejections, make sure to ask the agent about those specific concerns. I would also recommend querying agents first before getting an agent 121, just so you feel out what the response is to your book and so you have an idea about what things you might want to discuss with the agent during the session.
When is your book being published?
Originally it was going to be 2024 but we decided to push it back to 2025! We don’t have a specific date at this time, but I’m very excited (and still very much in disbelief).
Agent: Laura Bennett
Agency: The Liverpool Literary Agency
Website: www.liverpool-literary.agency
Check out our #Agent121 page to book your own appointment.