Ask Me Anything with Literary Agent Louise Buckley - JULY

Hi Everyone,

On Sunday night I held my monthly ‘Ask Me Anything’ here in my Substack chat, which was exactly what it sounds like – a chance for authors to ask me anything on writing, editing or getting published!

Here is a transcript of all the questions and my answers. There were a couple of questions I missed, so I’m sorry if anyone asked a question and I didn’t answer; Substack was being glitchy and I had to keep refreshing the page for it to show me all the questions.

Please do send on to anyone who you think might benefit from reading the answers. There were some excellent questions!

**Please note –you’re welcome to comment on this post, but I won’t be answering questions on it - you can ask questions in the next AMA on Wednesday 26^th August (note the date change: I am away on the Sunday). I also don’t take questions in advance of the AMA.

I am really struggling with a title for my book. Have any ideas how to make a really catchy one?

Titles are hard so you have my sympathies! I would say look at titles of competitor books for ideas. But also, if aiming for agent representation it’s totally fine to not have your title down - an agent and/or publisher can help you come up with a better one if it’s not quite right.

What is the best advice to someone who is looking for an agent with regard to where they live? Should a Brit look for a UK based agent? Does it matter?

It doesn’t really matter - but if the book is set in the UK then it would make sense to try UK agents first unless your book is a genre that you know US agents love. But honestly, most agents don’t care where an author lives.

If you have two stand alone manuscripts that you want to query, what’s the best way to approach this? Query one in the fall and the other in the spring if no agent responds?

There are different ways, your approach sounds good but equally I’ve seen different authors query both books at the same time but with no two agents at the same agency. It’s entirely up to you and won’t make a difference to the agent. You can also mention in your query letter - for example if you’re submitting a crime novel but have also written a horror you can add a line saying ‘I have also written a horror novel that I’ll be going out with shortly’ or some such.

Hi Louise, What makes you stop reading a submission – and where does that usually happen?

So many things! But mostly loss of tension and conflict in the first half.

Hi Louise I have a second book ready to go and don’t know how to move forward, first one was on Amazon! Yes query letter I think I understand that then what?

Is the second book part of a series? In which case I’m sorry to say it will be hard to secure representation if the first book is self-published unless it sold amazingly well. So you’d need to take it down from Amazon and submit the first book to agents. If second book is in a different genre or a standalone it’s fine to say you’ve self-published a separate book.

We’ve seen the internet debates nonstop over the past few years, but how do actual publishing companies feel about AI? Artistic value vs cost effectiveness be risk to audience... lots of things a consider when you’re a company, not an artist.

Publishing companies now almost all have clauses in their author contacts to say they won’t be using AI with the book. As an agent it’s our duty to make sure this covers certain scenarios, such as AI on the cover and ensuring that books aren’t uploaded to LLMs. But what I think companies *are* doing is using AI to streamline some internal processes. Don’t quote me on that though!

Any suggestions for social media handles? Does it have to have writer in it, for example?

Doesn’t matter at all, whatever you choose!

How long can it take an agent to respond after requesting a full manuscript? I waited 3 months and then contacted them but I’ve had no reply. They were super complimentary when they read the first 50 pages but now I feel like I’m being ghosted!

Oh, ages, sorry 😬. I can only speak for myself but it’s not unheard of for it to take me six months to respond! Full ms reading comes in my spare time and I don’t have a lot of that with two jobs and kids. There’s a lot of talk online about ghosting and I know some agents do that but most of the time it’s because agents really struggle to read the fulls in their spare time. I know it’s not what most authors want to hear!

Does your firm consider inquiries from American authors? More generally, do British agents consider American authors and vice versa?

Absolutely! We don’t care where an author is from, only whether we can sell the ms. Sometimes a ms set in the US will be easier for a US agent to sell (and vice versa with UK agents) but really it depends on who is representing your genre and what you are writing.

When you read a debut, how do you tell the difference between a strong voice and a strong idea? What does voice actually look like on the page for you?

Voice is the quality of the writing and how well the writing conveys character, internal thought, etc. It’s separate from pitch which is the concept 🙂.

Can you talk a bit about what upmarket means as a genre? My understanding is that it is a mix of literary and commercial but for some reason it feels really weird and up myself to call my work upmarket 😂.

You are right - it *is* that mix between literary and commercial and it’s really hard to be able to judge yourself if your writing is upmarket. I would get a second opinion from friends who understand books and genres and can give you an honest opinion. Or from an industry expert. Don’t be embarrassed! You need to sell your work correctly. But just bear in mind that most people are actually writing commercial fiction not upmarket 😁.

What can we do to submit our manuscripts to you?

You submit via a form on the HS-LA.com website. We will be opening again on 1st September for a week (though for anyone here who has submitted to me, I have a huge backlog to work through and will then be closed for the rest of the year!)

I wondered what you thought about competition entries as a strategy? By that I mean would you consider shortlistees of short story comps or first chapter / pages comps more favourably?

I *do* pay slightly more attention if an author has a prize shortlisting but if I’m honest the most important aspects for me are the pitch and the writing, so if you don’t have those, a prize shortlisting won’t matter.

Hi Louise. I’ve just finished a novel based mostly in the Boston area but with Irish expat characters. Is it best to query Irish or English or American agents? Thanks

I would say US agents to start with as this will feel more familiar to them. There aren’t many Irish agents but I’d target them if you don’t have much luck with US agents. Then only pitch to UK agents if you don’t have luck with the first two 😏.

How do I find agent suited to memoir genre! First book set worldwide english spelling 2nd American set in New York lived there 15 years do I just mention that and send both to same agent?

There are various places you can look, places like manuscriptwishlist.com are excellent because agents upload their wishlist and you can search by keyword e.g memoir. Yes.

I’ve sent out a batch of queries to literary agents 6 weeks ago - no full requests as yet. Is this a bad sign, or typical summer slow down? Thank you!

This is totally normal, whatever the time of year. Querying will likely take a long time and many agents have a policy whereby if you don’t hear back it’s a no so you’ll never hear back from them. I’d give it 6 months and then re-evaluate if you want to keep going. Also send out in batches so give it another 6 weeks and then see if there are more agents to submit to.

If you have a genuinely new angle on well covered topic, what would convince you to read more?

If I also felt that it was a genuinely new angle and if the writing is excellent. Also with most non-fiction publishers expect the author to either be an expert in their field or to have a large social media platform.

Do you have to have a different agent for YA / children’s and adult?

Sometimes, it depends if that agents represents both. For example, I only represent adult books but the other agent at my agency, Hannah, represents both adults and kids. So it depends on the agent. But it’s not uncommon to have two agents.

Will you work with writers who have used AI strictly for checking for typos and punctuation errors?

Our company policy is that we don’t work with writers who have used AI. But if there are instances where it’s been used to check for typos (for example if someone is dyslexic) then I think just add that in the query letter and most agents will be understanding.

So how important is building a writers platform for fiction writers? Why do you think we keep hearing the opposite?

Not important at all. In the US some agents are only really looking at follower numbers on places like TikTok but no UK agents are looking for this. It’s definitely misinformation as I haven’t had any publishers say they want their fiction authors to have a social media following.

And that was a wrap for this month!

• Thank you to all my subscribers! I really appreciate you being here. If you found this post helpful, please do like, subscribe and share with anyone else who you think will find this post helpful.

• I am booked up with editorial work until mid-October, but if you are interested in working with me editorially from that point onward, feel free to reach out via my website.

• I have written an ebook on writing a standout query letter, which you can find here.

• I will be running further workshops on query letters and opening pages in the future. Watch this space!