Lily Quan: Finding an Agent during COVID

Lily Quan

This January, I finally received an offer from a literary agent who wanted to champion my manuscript. “This book will change lives!” she said emphatically.

It was the highlight of my writing career and a goal I had worked towards for years. I spoke at length with one of her authors, who gave her a thumbs-up. I was good to go. But once I signed, I told hardly anyone. I just wanted to crawl into bed and forget about writing and publishing. I was burned out. It’s always been hard to find an agent; finding one in a pandemic had been brutal.

My manuscript is a Middle Grade novel about a Chinese-Canadian adolescent whose mother gets cancer. The manuscript has already attracted attention. It won a national children’s writing competition, and last year I was awarded a mentorship with a New York Times bestselling author. Moreover “diversity” is currently hot, and agents high and low claim that they’re looking for #ownvoices novels.

When I had finished revising in early fall, I started querying. With high hopes, I contacted agents who had been interested in the novel, and I waited to hear back. And kept on waiting. For weeks. I began to think something was wrong with my email account. Finally I got some responses. One agent who had been interested before now backed away. The narrator’s voice (the novel’s strong suit) was no longer compelling enough for her. When asked if she liked the latest version, she admitted she hadn’t read it: she had sixty-five manuscripts from potential authors to review as well as four from existing clients.

On it went. Agents who had been keen before now politely declined. Freshly queried ones turned it down too. It didn’t take much. One agent didn’t like that the novel began with a first-person prologue. Another didn’t like the 1980s setting. My mentor and I were shocked. We thought the manuscript was in great shape and someone would take it sooner rather than later. One agent did finally want to represent me. A few weeks later, she rescinded her offer. She was swamped.

The reason for the about-face is the pandemic, of course. The publishing industry has been hit hard. Book launches have been cancelled, schedules upended. Many publishers in Canada predicted a drop in revenue of about 40 percent. In lean times, publishers become risk-adverse. They only take on books that are sure to sell. Agents follow suit.

A querying writer vented on Twitter. She pretended to be a newbie agent and posted a tweet along these lines: “Hi writers! Query me! I want books that are exactly like the ones that sold last year. Gay-but-nottoo-gay and 30 percent diverse without addressing systemic issues.” Some folks criticized it. I thought it rang true.

The rejections kept coming. More agents turned me down. The thought that my novel wouldn’t see the light of day made me anxious. I had trouble sleeping. Then in late November, I got two rejections on the full manuscript on the same day.

I felt sucker punched. That week, I put a stop to it: I emailed agents and withdrew my query, I told my mentor I needed space.

Maybe I’d try again later, I thought, or maybe I’d try for a small press or self-publish eventually. Whatever. I needed to look out for my mental health first.

In the end, I did find an agent. Jennifer was one of ones who had received the revised draft in the fall. Over the holidays, she read it and fell in love with it. But I signed with a fair amount of trepidation. I just didn’t trust the industry. I still don’t. Maybe I’ll be able to when the pandemic is over and COVID has faded into memory.