J. B. Rockwell
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How I Got My Agent, Kimberly Fernando

4/23/2023

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In a few words, she found me in the slush pile. But...before that, came a lot of pain and anguish. I mean, a lot, a lot. The plus years of a lot. So let me tell you about that to hopefully encourage some of you to keep going.

Firstly, how about some big picture statistics:
  • Started writing: 2012
  • First book published: 2014 (small press)
  • Total books written: 15
  • Total books published: 7 (all small press)
  • Total queries sent: Many hundreds
  • Average request rate per book queried: +/-5%
Not great numbers but not terrible either. Still, there were times I strongly considered just chucking it all in and many more times when an agent request convinced to keep on plugging. I actually thought I'd finally made it when an agent signed me in 2015, but that all unravelled disappointingly quickly. Short-lived though it was, I learned a ton from that relationship, including red flags and what I both wanted and should realistically expect from an agent.

So, that happened and I moved on, and eventually I started querying the weird western that got me my agent. Ya want a few stats for that? Sure ya do, so let's hit it:
  • First query sent: January 2021
  • Total queries sent: 122
  • Major revisions: 2 (based on agent R&Rs—both agents ultimately declined)
  • Manuscript requests (full and partial): 8 (including Kimberly's)
  • Initial query to Kimberly: 7 March 2023
  • Full request received: 8 March 2023
  • ‘The Call’ with Kimberly: 29 March 2023
  • Accepted Offer of Representation: 12 April 2023

A few things worth noting in those statistics:
  • Those R&Rs from other agents were invaluable--I’d actually never received a R&R  before (much less 2!) so that’s when I knew Little Weird Western was something special. I took all of their input to heart and  implemented as much as could without changing the core of the novel and what it meant.
  • When I queried Kimberly, it was with that twice-revised manuscript--by far the best version of the novel I'd queried to that point. 
  • I have never, ever gotten a full request within a day of querying, much less a response to said full request within 3 weeks of submission. Again, I credit those R&R revisions. They helped me polish the concept and make it shine.
  • The ~2 week delay between Kimberly’s Offer of Representation and my acceptance was for professional courtesy: there were other agents who had requested the manuscript and I wanted to notify them of the offer on the table and give them a chance to respond before I accepted.

So, with all the agents out there, how did I end up querying Kimberly? Simple: while scouring the MSWishList site for leads, I stumbled across her post. From there, I checked out Kimberly's website to learn more about her agenting preferences and spotted this little nugget of pure gold: 
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Sometimes you get lucky and all that patience and rejection pay off. We've all see the posts from authors racking up double digit agent requests and signing after just a few months (or weeks) of querying. That happens, but this also happens--there are a lot of authors out there querying for years to try and make it. If you're one of those (one like me), I hope this post offers enough encouragement to keep you going.

​To all the authors out there reading this, I hope you find your Kimberly, too. 
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    J.B. Rockwell
    J.B. Rockwell grew up reading fairy tales, folklore and mythology, as well as anything and everything about ancient cultures and their history, and never lost her taste for any of it.  She currently lives in West Virginia with her husband and four (yes, four) cats, all of whom provide inspiration for her stories, whether they know it or not.
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