How to know when you're ready to query ✨
Today's guest is senior literary agent Heather Cashman.
Most publishing journeys aren’t easy.
From securing one of a few offers an agent makes each year out of thousands of queries to competing against strong backlist tiles, publishing often feels like an uphill battle.
And you’ll likely get hit with rejections at every stage. So what can you do?
Reframe rejection: it’s normal, not personal.
While rejection is always disheartening, understand that every player in the publishing business faces constraints — editors need to stay loyal to their imprint’s brand; sales teams need to make sure their margins are favorable.
So if you’ve put in the work — if you’ve sharpened your hook, deepened your understanding of the market, ensured every word in your manuscript has a place before sending out your queries — all that’s left is patience. You’ve already climbed so far.
In today’s interview, Senior Literary Agent Heather Cashman explains the challenge of making your book stand out in today’s market, why you need to make a publishing action plan, and the importance of cultivating patience.
OUR SPECIAL GUEST TODAY IS…
Heather Cashman
Senior Literary Agent at Storm Literary Agency
Check out her podcast, Way-Word Writers, found on YouTube and your favorite podcast platform.
What's the biggest challenge facing debut authors today, and how do you help your clients overcome it?
The biggest challenge in my opinion is making your book stand out in a very saturated market. The ideas need to be new, fresh, and able to fight against a very strong backlist that exists and persists longer than ever before due to digital media and other factors resulting from COVID, as well as a stronger and stronger (and cheaper) alternative provided by self published authors.
We overcome it by brainstorming how we can add hooks to their manuscripts, such as current social climate/issues, interesting people with interesting jobs or lives, unique situations, and themes that resonate universally. Take two or even three ideas and combine them into one.
What traits or qualities do you look for in a potential client?
Kindness. A knowledge of the industry. Flexibility. Resilience. And a stellar manuscript that fills holes in the market.
What is one piece of advice you would give to a writer who aspires to be published?
Cultivate your patience, and learn to reframe rejection into something normal rather than personal. Everyone has constraints put on them. Editors might love your book but it's not their imprint's brand. It's not personal. Sales people might love your book but the profit and loss statement doesn't work out to benefit the publisher. It's business.
And have an action plan based on what you want most. If that's traditional publishing, then just move on to another project if one doesn't sell. If you want to become a hybrid author, then go through the traditional route, and if it doesn't work, look at alternatives.
Ready to take your story to the next level?
“If you're ready to REALLY hear the things that aren't working in your manuscript, and put your ego aside, work with Alyssa. She'll tell it like it is, good and bad.”
—Mario Alaniz, thriller author
Approximately how many queries do you receive per year, and how many of those result in an offer of representation?
Around 11-13,000 queries, and around 6-8 offers.
What advice would you give authors who are trying to determine if their manuscript is agent-ready?
If you know why every word and punctuation mark are in your manuscript, then it's as ready as you can get it.
⭐️ Alyssa’s tips: How to know when your manuscript is ready to query
When I worked at a top literary agency evaluating queries, I saw the same issue time and time again: most manuscripts simply weren’t ready to query.
Literary agents receive hundreds of manuscripts per week and are looking for polished manuscripts with high potential to sell to a publishing house.
Think of it this way: is it easier to sell a move-in-ready home or a fixer-upper?
So I created a checklist of five questions to ask yourself to determine if your manuscript is really ready to put in front of agents. If you answer yes to all of these questions, go ahead and query with confidence:
Is my hook compelling?
Have I worked on my craft?
Is the story emotionally moving?
Have I taken editorial feedback to heart?
Do I feel confident in my story?
And here’s something important to remember…
The goal isn’t to make your manuscript 100% perfect (no book is, after all) — it’s to take it as far as you can on your own so that it’s that much closer to the finish line when agents receive it.
If you’re able to do that, I promise you’ll be far ahead of the majority of authors who query before their manuscript is truly ready.
Learning that less than one in a thousand queries leads to an offer of representation makes it feel less depressing to be unpublished, I am evidently in huge company.