So I officially have a literary agent. I signed with Janna Morishima of Janna Co. in February which I’m pretty thrilled with.

Book publishing has changed dramatically in the past few years with Amazon, self publishing, and ebooks. But traditional publishing is still a big deal. Particularly with getting in to brick and mortar bookstores and libraries. While those outlets aren’t impossible to get in on your own, it is a major uphill battle. Not an additional job I want to tackle. I’d rather focus as much as possible on writing and drawing.

But… most major book publishers won’t look at your work without an agent. So I spent most of 2020 researching and querying agents I thought I would align with me and my work. It’s a long process . Lots of form rejections of “not the right fit.” Occasionally something a bit more personal though still not interested. The little bit of feedback I was hearing was “Love the art but not sure about the story.” It was nice to hear back but the info was always too vague to know what seemed to be the disconnect.

The year was winding down and I planned on doing one more round of queries. If I didn’t get interest, I was ready to put Woodland Hills away and move on to developing another story I had been formulating. I was on Twitter one day and a hashtag pitch was going on. I didn’t put too much stock in it but figured it couldn’t hurt to join in. I ended up getting several inquiries by agents one of whom was Janna.

I sent her my full pitch and later we set up a time to chat. It went well though she too wasn’t certain about the story. She wanted to reread and spend more time with it. Later she sent me her thoughts on what she felt worked and what might be missing. It was super helpful. I set about rewriting.

You pull on one thread and everything starts to unravel. The rewrite was a bigger task than I had anticipated but eventually I ended up with a story that I was really happy with and had that elusive spark that seemed to have been missing.

After reading the new version, Janna offered representation which I was thrilled to except. While researching agents, I read a lot of articles about picking an agent that is a good fit for you. But so much of it you don’t have control over. Maybe it’s a bit like a rookie being drafted in the NFL. You’re hoping the team that’s interested in you is who you want to play for. But mostly you just want to play and hope to get picked.

I’m currently working on sample pages from the story which Janna will use when she pitches the book to editors. I feel lucky to have connected with a team I’m excited to play with.