Hellscape 1: Finding the Agents – wait there’s one single list right?

Of course, I started where everyone starts – a list of agents right? So I went to the ‘big two’ platforms.
I thought ‘they’ve been doing this for a while.’ Surely, they are serving writers well. No.

This is what I found:

✅ Clunky database tables that look and perform like it’s 2002.

✅ Worthless filters that barely do anything of value – one tool allowed the list to be sorted by gender (if i paid for premium – which I did) – what kind of 1970’s option is that.

✅ The “premium” paid versions somehow felt like more of a punishment than the free ones.

✅ A steaming (incomplete) pile of agent data – many of whom aren’t even active.

But sure, whatever. As they say, this is ‘just how it is’, you know?

Hellscape 2: Lists, Databases, Spreadsheets, Oh My

Oh wait, there’s countless other sources with lists that are just as or more incomplete than the others? Sweet.

• One has 1,000 – 2,000 agents.
• The other has a different 1,000 – 2,000 agents.
• And guess what? There are even more floating among the dust in hidden corners of the internet which contain, alas, more agents.

So now, I’m crawling through every site on God’s green internet, trying to stitch together a complete monster list.

Do I really need all the agents? I need every living, breathing chance I can get.

And after hours (days? weeks?) of painful copy-pasting, I finally have…

📂 A gigantic, heaping spreadsheet of agents – that will take hours upon days of narrowing down.

And now, I’m ready to query, right?

Haha. No, no baby. Bless your big dumb heart.

Hellscape 3: Oh, Right. The Actual Submission Materials.

📌 Comps (but not too popular, not too obscure, not too old, not too successful, and oh just right).
📌 Synopsis (yes, one-page. Yes, it’s impossible).
📌 Elevator pitch (wait, this is different from a logline?).
📌 A logline (is this the elevator pitch though? Kind of but no.).
📌 A bio (short but impressive, but not braggy, but also engaging, but not boring).
📌 A killer first 10 pages (the easiest part)
📌 A fucking majestic query letter (a business letter – you know like a copywriter or marketing or sales guy or executive person would write, but not salesy, cheesy, or stiff. You’re a writer right? Figure it out)

All you need to do is force feed yourself courses, webinars, newsletters, articles, books, workbooks, and checklists for weeks on end – all of which cost time, money, and attention – you’re a writer, you haven’t plenty of those right?

And now, finally, I can send queries, right?

Haha. No. No you cannot. Don’t you dare. Pay a professional agent or editor to rip into your submission materials, cram that feedback down your throat, then go ahead and regurgitate that into neat little personalized golden ticket that’s gonna slam dunk your manuscript into the warm embrace of your needle-in-a-haystack agent who (whom?) you’ve plucked from deep in your Dr. Frankenstein’d agent list. 

Then and only then do you get the privilege of being inducted into… the next Hellscape.

Hellscape 4: Social Fucking Media

Here you might think, ‘I just wanted to find a literary agent, and now I’m trying to survive Query Hell.’

Just swallow the ‘this is just how it is’ pill and… enjoy the hashtaggy fun.

We live in the future times now.

There are buzzing hives of agents and insiders letting us know their #MSWL and providing valuable #Pubtips across the web.

While managing all the other stuff, we are gonna need you to go ahead and identify and monitor the right accounts and discussions going on across social media platforms.
There’s a dozen or so hashtags you’ll wanna track.Oh, and also, don’t forget many accounts are straight sketchy spam. You’ll wanna ignore those. Oh, sorry, one more thing, the one, yeah, the one platform that used to be THE One, is no longer useful due to the (rightful) mass exodus of most worthy industry professionals. They’re all on the other platforms now so go find them there.Make sure you track these daily because some agents will spontaneously announce events or request pitches.Also, there’s gonna be some crucial pitch events like #PitMad or #RevPit. Don’t miss those. They are huge opportunities.So, get prepared to pitch real-time on a social media platform, as long as you catch it in time.

✝️ Holy Mother of God. 

Just when you think you’re free, you’re not. It only gets worse.

Hellscape 5: The ‘Should I Just Self Publish This?’ Rodeo 

Sshhhh,
Just,
ride this one out.
Don’t look it in the eye.
Just keep riding.
Don’t stop.
Hellscape 6 is waiting.

Hellscape 6:  Grieving at the Altar of Rejection

🚀 One platform has a built-in (unpleasant) tracker – yay!
😬 But it only tracks agents on THAT platform.
📊 So I use my handy spreadsheet and track my other queries.

Then, I send, ohhh… Dozens. Probably hundreds. Of submissions. And then……

Wait for it…..

Wait….

And…

❄️🏔️💀

Rejection Avalanche on Mount Slushmore.

And now, queue up the 5 stages of grief.

Exhaustion sets in. I breathe. And accept that at least it’s now out of our control.

It is here, at this barrel’s bottom, that we cross our fingers, wait and hope for the arrival of the familiar emotional subgenre… rage-persistence, while crying out through wine stained teeth against the abyss, “WHHYYYYYYY???!!!???!!!”

The Final Boss

You may think, “Okay, but if I do all this, and they say yes. I’ve survived Query Hell. It’s over, right?”

No.

This golden ticket you’ve just sculpted from blood, sweat, and tears into the perfect query projectile amounts to…

🎭 A glorified fucking resume.

After all this work, after spending weeks, months, possibly thousands of dollars, what do you get?

🔹 Usually, nothing.
🔹 Maybe, brief acknowledgment of your existence.
🔹 If you’re lucky, a request to actually send your manuscript.

That’s right, folks.

After fulfilling your soul’s destiny, completing your life’s mission, and surviving Query Hell, the Grand Prize?

👉 The publishing industry equivalent of a job interview.

And just like a real job interview, there’s a very good chance that even after you finally get in the room, or an agent actually reads your pages –

💀 Still rejected. 💀

Haha. Pretty cool, huh?

The Prime Meridian

I almost forgot…

the joys of virtual and in person pitching.

Dance monkey! Muahaha.

You’ve auditioned before right? You’re a writer.

💀 Do not pass Go. Go straight to Mount Slushmore. 💀

Sound Familiar?

If you are still here, you’ve lived this nightmare or you just want to escape Query Hell and find a literary agent. I refused to accept the common wisdom I’ve heard from so many seasoned professionals and already published authors (all who I love and respect):

‘Sigh, this is just how it is, sigh.’

Around the end of Hellscape 4 is when I began to think,
“It is the year of our Lord, Two Thousand Twenty-Four. Why on Earth isn’t there a tool that just… fixes this for me?”

Oh that’s right, because Artists and Craftspeople have historically been overlooked, undervalued, and underserved, and many times exploited, by technology, services and companies.

We are also tragically underestimated and misunderstood.

I am a writer moonlighting as a software engineer.

When I saw and felt the problem – outdated, painful tools or a complete lack thereof –  I was frustrated, and as I got deeper into the query process, I just got more pissed off. So, I built some tools to help me because there’s just not really much help from any major players.

This is just the beginning. Share your story. Let me know how I can help! Feel free to comment, email, or DM.

The Toolkit To Survive and Escape Query Hell