The Query That Didn't Get Me an Agent (But Did Get Me a Book Deal)

We love an #AmQuerying journey. Query letter and stats!

I love a “How I Got My Agent” post, but this isn’t one of those. More than 100 agents rejected me, and to date I do not have a literary agent.

I’m a lone wolf, currently repping myself in the desolate landscape that is publishing.

Hello? Anyone out there? So desolate. So alone. [Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash]

Only, it turns out, it doesn’t have to be so desolate at all when you go your own way (cue Fleetwood Mac).

Let’s start at the end of this journey: I signed a contract on April 25, 2025 to publish my debut novel, THE KEEPERS, with Quills and Cosmos Press. So this story has a happy ending (or will, come summer 2026 when THE KEEPERS hits the shelves), and it’s not the one I first thought would happen.

Back to the start.

I did my research. I wrote and rewrote my query so many times (most vitally after I rewrote/restructured the entire book, which is its own ~journey post~). I read dozens or hundreds of samples, swapped queries for critique with beautiful writer friends I met online, attended webinars, even won a query review from The Manuscript Academy—and had a full request within two hours of sending out that revamped version. I had lists and lists of agents, and a subscription at QueryTracker to dive into the data. Those green happy and red sad faces still haunt me when I blink.

And then… I was rejected.

The first time, I poured the bubbly. Rejection, after all, is a rite of passage for authors, and I was In The Game.

I did not toast to every no, because they started piling up and I have some respect for my liver.

Stephen King reminds us that when the rejections are too thick to nail to the wall, to get a spike. Had I printed my nos out, I’d have needed a helluva spike, but I kept it digital so a simple swapping of inbox tags did the spike trick.

Some I kept in mind, because they were outstanding as either heartening (“Good letter! I hope you find success,” wrote one Really Well Known Agent who was not taking on new fantasy clients) or otherwise noteworthy (“I started mixing up all the A names which kept me out of the story,” a full MS rejection read, as though names could never be edited).

Every single agent query I sent was unsuccessful.

But. All of this was necessary, and none of it was wasted time or effort; anyone embarking on this path has a long road ahead, and there’s so much to learn. Thankfully, the writing community can be so unbelievably generous in sharing experience and expertise, hence those sample queries I read along the way.

Remember where this story leads? I got a yes.

Here’s the letter with which I haunted inboxes over the last many months:

The Query

Dear [Agent/Editor],

In your search to represent [MSWL items], I would love to introduce you to the Cardinal Lands: a women-led world filled with unique settings, diverse characters, found families, and an expansive web of magic and politics.

THE KEEPERS, complete at 101,000 words, is a literary fantasy. This standalone book with saga potential follows witches as well as the queens who have no magic and instead fear it. Inspired by the beauty of words found among Ursula K. Le Guin, Leigh Bardugo, Peter S. Beagle, and Paulo Coelho, THE KEEPERS would appear happily on a shelf alongside such titles as Emilia Hart’s Weyward and Sarah A. Parker’s When the Moon Hatched.

Witches bow to no queen, they hold loyalty to no crown. Witches cannot be trusted even when they offer healing, for they never do so without a price. Raised in a world adhering to careful truths, Aleris learns to hide her magic from a young age. Her adoptive parents train her to be normal as she takes her place as the second daughter of the ambitious Orcharder family.

When death and disaster rip apart the Orcharders, Aleris finally gives in to her witchery. She answers the Call to join the secretive, powerful Coven of the Keepers. Magic, she learns quickly, is more than medicine: It keeps the world turning. The sacrifices that requires, though, eventually grate against Aleris’ conscience. She saves a life sentenced to death by fate itself, setting off a chain of events that will ignite a war.

New truths and old assumptions twist together as Queen Daphne of Sanverra, whose death was fated, lives. Not unscathed, though; Daphne realizes that witches were involved in her near loss of life and vows her revenge on witchkind. This, the queen declares, means war—and her allies agree. Aleris and her own unlikely allies find themselves facing a fight they never wanted for their right to simply live as they were born.

I have been a writer/editor by professional trade for the last 17+ years, including freelance editing for two eBook publishing houses and running an editorial services company for 3D printing since 2018. With my most recent publishing credentials in technology ranging from Forbes to advanced manufacturing trade press, I am a dedicated wordsmith and DEI/community advocate. A short dystopian horror story will appear in a 2025 anthology from Smoking Pen Press.

Thanks very much for your time and any consideration; I have full text ready upon your request should we (very hopefully!) find intersecting interests.

My best,
Sarah Goehrke

The Stats

THE KEEPERS query stats as seen on QueryTracker.

I sent out more than the 145 queries tracked above, as not all agents/imprints use QueryTracker. Keeping track of everything is so important.

Instead of Excel/Pages, for some reason I tracked everything in a table in Google Docs; I’ve heard good things about spreadsheets, but this worked for me this time. I had categories with the agent’s name, agency name, their link/s, date I sent the query, and response. I added sections for requests, rejections, and closed no response (CNR), all with their own dates and quick notes (e.g., kind personalized rejection; form rejection; enthusiastic full request) so I could keep everything straight in my head and my records.

There was a lot to keep straight, after all.

This…is more queries than most authors send out.

Did I lose my marbles or was I simply persistent?

Best expressed, perhaps, from the cinematic classic The Road to El Dorado.

In the end, of 185 total queries/submissions sent, THE KEEPERS had:

• 1 small press R&R turned offer turned signing

• 10 full/partial manuscript requests (leading to 10 rejections)

• 107 query rejections

• 17 withdrawals from no-response queries once I signed

• 50 CNRs

One Right Yes

My favorite phrase in the Query Trenches is “one right yes.” Because it only takes one yes to move a career forward—but it has to be the right yes.

After all, you can only sign one contract. One agent or one book deal. Even those authors who get zillions of offers can only sign on one dotted (or virtual) line in the end. If there’s “only” one offer, it still has to be the right one. As the Query Trenches wisdom goes, “the wrong agent is worse than having no agent”; the same is very true for unagented routes. Horror stories abound, so ensuring the rightness of that yes is vital.

After the offer email and call, I did my due diligence on the yes I received, and we’ll open that weirdly enjoyable administrative can of worms next time. Today, focus is on getting to that yes.

Unlike pretty much every other “How I Got My Agent”—or publisher!—post I’ve read, I had exactly zero further requests or offers once I nudged outstanding outreaches.

One agent, who’d had my full manuscript since August 2024 (a stunning eight months), replied within 20 minutes of my nudge to “regretfully step aside.” I love the timelines of this industry, they’re so fun.

I signed my contract on April 25, two weeks after the offer call.

The announcement as released from Quills and Cosmos.

I’m thrilled for THE KEEPERS to have found its champion, and to have gained a publishing partner in Quills and Cosmos.

Popped proper champagne following signing my book deal! Cheers.

So there it is.

I’m a signed author!

I’ll be back in the Query Trenches probably later this year, as I work on a wholly unrelated WIP that’s far more commercial. My shadow people (spoilers!) will have a different journey from my witches, and I love that for both of them.

I’d love to hear about your querying journey, if you’ve ever been on one. What was it like for you?

-Sarah