Friday, March 4, 2011

My Agent Story

I promised the more coherent details of finding my agent.  For those who missed the announcement on Tuesday, I am excited and honored and delighted to announce that I have officially signed with the fabulous Vickie Motter of Andrea Hurst Literary Management. (Yes, the adjectives are ALL very important to that sentence). 

I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am. 

The last few days have been a whirlwind. Here’s how it happened:

I first read about Vickie Motter on Krista V’s website Mother. Write. Repeat. (Thanks, Krista, for your wonderful agent interviews!) Thinking that my YA contemporary might be a good fit, I sent my query to Vickie in early January. Over the next couple of weeks, she requested a partial, then more pages (along with my author bio and synopsis). While I was on vacation in Florida, she requested the full! The worst part of vacation was that I couldn’t send it to her until I got home!

Vickie made THE CALL on 2/24. I had convinced myself it would be a revision request. When she said, “I’m offering you representation” I think I stopped breathing. Because her next words were, “have you been holding your breath this whole time?”

We won’t talk about all the questions I forgot to ask during our conversation—but she was kind enough to respond to everything I needed to know via email the next day!

I officially signed with Vickie on March 1. My only regret is that she’s on the other coast. Not because I don’t think she can do a great job from there—I’m confident in her ability. It’s just that I dearly long to say “I’m not available today, I’m having lunch with my agent.” Maybe someday.  

I’m thrilled to start the next phase of my writing career. I will be working on revisions with Vickie in preparation of subbing my novel to publishers this spring. I’m terrified. I mean, um, completely confident.

Oh, and I need to say that I would definitely NOT be where I am without the support and friendship of my three crit partners. Ansha Kotyk, Laura Pauling, and Jen Carson—have been cheerleaders, task-masters, copy-editors and good FRIENDS. I can’t believe how lucky (I mean, how smart!) I was when I sat next to Ansha at the 2008  NESCBWI conference. Love you guys!

And thanks to Vickie Motter for loving my story and taking a chance on me. I’m so excited to be working with you! 

I'm not really a superstitious person, but my co-worker took me to lunch the day I accepted Vickie's offer.  I grabbed a bag of chips and my drink. When I got to the table, I looked at my chips. The universe just told me I made the right choice.



I know you all want to know the stats, so here they are:

I started querying officially in June 2010. I sent a couple of “too early” queries earlier in 2010, but that’s another post. According to QueryTracker.net, I sent 67 queries. Of those, I had eight full requests and four partial requests. 

So my advice to all my writer friends is KEEP QUERYING. (After, of course, you write a great story, have it critiqued, and revise, revise, revise.) It just takes one agent to love your story—but it might take a bit of work to find that one person. 

I’ll blog more about my query and my book soon, so stay tuned. 

Check back on Monday for a party!! Get your recipes ready! Psst...There might be an agent query critique up for grabs, as well as other cool prizes!

35 comments:

Laura Pauling said...

Yay! You posted it before I left! Congrats on achieving the first hurdle - after writing a great book - on getting published! You deserve it.

Charmaine Clancy said...

You should be very proud - enjoy this special time :)

Erin MacPherson said...

Hi Kristine! I saw Laura's tweet about this and I had to stop by and say congrats. I'm so proud of you and I hope you spend some time celebrating the excitement of getting an agent. For me, that was the hardest part... once an agent believes in you and your work, it's only a matter of time before you get the big book deal. Congrats... and can't wait to see your book on the shelves!

Kristine Asselin said...

Thanks Laura, Charmaine, & Erin. I'm milking it for as long as I can. :) And then I have to get to work!

Kristin said...

Those are my favorite chips! HA!
Sooo excited for you, Kris! :) Keep the good news coming.

Unknown said...

YAY!! I'm so happy for you, Kris!!

Tina Laurel Lee said...

Yay. What great story!

Krista Van Dolzer said...

So fun to hear more of the details. I'm now where you were at a couple of weeks ago, and yeah, it's twitchy:)

Good luck with your revisions. I'm sure it'll be a blast! I mean, who doesn't want to work on revisions with their agent? :)

WORD VERIFICATION: flash. How boring is that?

Elana Johnson said...

I missed it, but YAY! Congratulations! Can't wait to see your book on the shelf.

Alicia Gregoire said...

This is still fantastic news!

Cambria Dillon said...

Congrats again, Kristine! And you had the same reaction I did when Vickie called -- I totally thought she was going to ask me for revisions, too! I can't wait to hear more about your journey and have fun with the revisions!

Anonymous said...

Huge congrats! Very exciting! I saw the news on query tracker and wanted to stop by. Oh, and I know Ansha from Romance Divas. She's a complete sweetheart!

Ansha Kotyk said...

Huge Hugs! Milk it girl. You deserve it, you put in lots of hard work to get this far. Revel in it!

Myrna Foster said...

Dang. Those chips look good. Thanks for sharing your story. Congrats!

Kristine Asselin said...

Kristin--it's not a brand I've seen in my area before. So it really was the Universe speaking. :)

Marisa & Laurel - thank you!

Krista - the twitching will stop. I promise.

Elana - Thank you! I can't wait for Possession!

Alicia - can't wait to see you at our Meet Up in April!

Cambria - thanks. Glad I'm not alone! I want to hear about your journey too AND your book!

Rebekah - thanks! Ansha's the best!

Ansha - see above comment, you're the best!

Mryna - They were. :)

Vickie Motter said...

Congratulations! O, wait, I'm the agent. So congratulations to me too for snagging such a wonderful author. It's weird, but I've never eaten Miss Vickie's chips before. They even spell the name right!

Kristine Asselin said...

Thanks, Vickie! Congrats to you too--you got me! If you find Miss Kris chips in your neck of the woods, we know we're in trouble...

Julie Musil said...

OMG OMG OMG!!! Kris, this is so awesome! You deserve this, and I couldn't be happier for you. I've read Vickie's blog, and she sounds like such a great person to work with. You two will make an amazing team. And those chips? It's cosmic!

Amie Borst said...

that's awesome! good for you!

Kristine Asselin said...

Julie - thanks so much. I love Vickie's blog too--she's got great tips and you get a good sense of what she likes.

Amie - thanks!

Anita Grace Howard said...

I'm so happy for you, Kristine! And I can't wait to read your story all over again on QT. Enjoy the ride to publishdom, and keep us posted along the way. :-)

I'm rooting for you to get a deal very soon!

(raven1)

Kristine Asselin said...

Thank you so much Raven! I enjoyed following your story on QueryTracker--and I'm really looking forward to your book. It sounds great!

MG Higgins said...

Very inspiring! Thank you for sharing your journey. There's hope!

Jennifer Shirk said...

Came over from Laura's blog to say CONGRATS!!

Kristine Asselin said...

Thank you so much Melissa and Jennifer. It hasn't even been a week yet and I'm still afraid I"m dreaming! It's starting to feel real though.

:)

Stina said...

Congrats on your great news, Kris. :D

Heather said...

COngratulations on signing with Vickie! You are in very good hands.

Sophia Chang said...

Your story is amazing and inspiring. My first thought was, "Are there even 67 agents in my genre?" :)

Came over here from your CP Laura - so glad to meet you.

Kristine Asselin said...

Stina - thanks!

Heather - thanks, I think so too!

Sophis - thank you so much, and yes, I would have to say there are at least 67 agents in your genre. And I don't even know what you write. :) Good luck.

Diana said...

That's great. Congrats to you!!

Lori M. Lee said...

Thank you so much for sharing your story! Congrats :D

Casey McCormick said...

Congrats again, Kris!! Great story. So excited for you!

Louisa said...

wow! congrats! i remember critiquing your query at writeoncon.

Theresa Milstein said...

Yay! I'm so happy for you.

Are you going to NESCBWI this year?

Kristine Asselin said...

Thank you so much everyone. I WILL be at NESCBWI this year Theresa--hope to see you there!