My Agent Calls Me "Brat"

Aka: how I almost DIDN’T get signed

Disclaimer before we get started here: I am actually a perfect gem, and my agents ADORES me. We’re both sarcastic, and sassy. It’s fine.

Me, and my agent, Cathie Hedrick-Armstrong

I’ve shared my story to representation a lot in various discord groups and private messages–usually as a way to encourage another discouraged writer. It’d go something like “Hey! Don’t worry! My agent told me I sucked, made me do two edit tests before she even offered to me, and then told me she couldn’t read past twelve pages of my book. You’re doing great, sweetie!” I’ve never done it “publicly” though (but Cathie has. She told a whole room of 200 people I was a brat). Not because I’m ashamed, but because I didn’t want to give editors a bad taste in their mouth about my writing ability or attitude (which I don’t have, by the way–and Cathie promises me she’ll attest to). 

However, I think the time has come to write it all down, not only for encouragement for everyone else struggle-bussing through querying, but also to understand how far I’ve come as a writer. So, this isn’t going to be your typical “How I Got my Agent” post. It’s not filled with sunshine and rainbows and compliments spilled over a grainy zoom call. No, this story has grit and perseverance in it. 

You’ve been warned.

A photo of a TV news production booth, and my rundown on the computer screen

A little background about me: before I became a stay-at-home momma to two children, I climbed my way up the TV news ranks. I worked in newsrooms all across the state of Tennessee, and at my peak, I produced the number one morning show in the nation for CBS affiliates. It’s my claim to fame, my proudest achievement to date. 

So, like, I thought I knew some shit. I could obviously, totally write. I was going to SMASH the query game with my contemporary romcom (titled MUST LOVE GOATS) loosely based on my own story (my professor had an obsession with me in college, named me as the reason for his divorce, and his wife, an Executive Producer at a major news station told everyone in the whole town and industry I was a homewrecker and I didn’t know about ANY of it until my career was already ruined before it started. It’s a long story for another time).
TLDR; I did well in the query trenches. Total, I sent about 85 queries and had a good request rate (15-20%). 

Enter my “vague” period, which was really like a vague two months. It started when I sent a query to Alexandra Brown at Rising Action (love her by the way. She’s fabulous and savvy. You should query her). She read three chapters as part of my query package, and sent me a glowing email about how much she loved it, with a caveat:

Alex’s email to me

You can imagine how much that stroked my ego.

But, unknown to her, Cathie already HAD my package. She’d commented on my MoodPitch post on Twitter back in April (Alex sent me the email above in September).

Cathie’s Tweet asking to see my book off a pitch event

So, obviously, I was thrilled. This all seemed so promising. This looked so good. Alex loved my book off three chapters, she sent it to a bigger agent, and EVEN dropped some Big 5 publishers. 

I knew I was a genius. 

Enter Catherine (that’s what I call Cathie when she’s mean to me). She replied to my query just a few days after Alex’s nudge to her, and it was not what I expected:

Cathie’s first email, giving me an R&R

To be perfectly honest, I was ticked. I’d just had a glowing recommendation. I still had tons of full requests out, and all the rejections I’d had before, no one had mentioned grammar issues or “telling.”
I was the former number one producer, after all. I knew what I was doing!

I actually sat on this rejection for a day. I had a very sour taste in my mouth and was ready to go back to Alex and be like “well, she said no.” But, I decided I owed it to myself to hear Cathie out and get more explanation. I told her I wanted to talk on the phone and we scheduled a little chat.

We spent almost two hours on the phone. She walked me through all the issues she saw in my manuscript (mostly telling instead of showing, my great nemesis), but at the root of it she LOVED my story and premise. It was exactly what she’s been looking for.

So, I saw my in. And I bartered my freakin’ tail off.

I went into news producer mode, and started pitching myself: I produced the number one show in the nation at twenty-two-years-old. I was working professionally a year before I even graduated college. And, hey, Ryan’s story in my book? It’s actually my story of redemption and redeeming my name and character after someone turned a whole industry against me. You don’t get those accomplishments without being willing to do the work, and I was very willing to do the WORK.

I begged Cathie to give me a chance to prove myself, and I would meet her expectations. So, we compromised: I would fix 3-4 chapters of MUST LOVE GOATS, and send them to her. She would read them, and we’d go from there.

So, friends, I worked my tail off. I spent four days on these four chapters, fixing every little flaw I could find and transforming them into the image Cathie dreamed it could be. And, much to my displeasure, it was better. Maybe I didn’t know everything, but I was still amazing (my ego was checked here, don’t worry).

With swelling pride, I sent her my revised chapters, convinced she was going to SWOON and throw herself at my feet with a contract. There was no way in my mind I hadn’t smashed that test.

Except:

Cathie’s second email

What do you mean, “do more?” Hadn’t I proved myself? Hadn’t I done what she asked, and more? Isn’t this what an agent does—help you improve your book together? This didn’t feel very “team player.” It felt like “Kelsey (legal name), you suck.”

And here you can see the “brat” starting to creep into my replies:

my reply to Cathie

A little background: remember how I worked in newsrooms across the state? Yeah, some of them were very toxic with some of the worst, most manipulative and belittling managers I’ve ever encountered. I was determined when I started querying to never be stuck in a contracted relationship like that again.

It was at this point of Cathie’s back and forth with me, that I worried she might be one of those managers—the ones who never liked me, who I could never meet their standards, and they liked my work but didn’t love it and loved to shred me to bits in the office. I still have a crystal clear memory of my first manager telling me, verbatim “You’ll never make it in a real station” aka, I would never amount to anything. She loved to remind me of my mistakes always (shout out to her if she’s reading. Your comments ignited my spiteful side. I went on to prove you wrong over and over and over).

So, back to Cathie: at this point, I was ready to walk away from the table. She wasn’t willing to give me an offer without another round of edit tests. I didn’t appreciate her lack of enthusiasm or trust. We’d actually had another phone call after the above email, and I was a brat. A respectful brat, though. I didn’t want to end up in a bad agent relationship, and I had concerns. This was when I said the famous line she quotes all the time: “I’m not sure if I’ll do the edits yet, but if I do, they won’t be done with rainbows, sunshine and sparkly unicorns in my heart.”

And she said, “That’s okay. As long as you do them.”

Again, I thought about my options for about twenty-four hours. I still had other fulls out. I had the email from Alex inviting me to talk with her about my options if Cathie said no. I had other choices, but this moment also felt like the closest I had come in six months of querying. Again, I decided I owed myself the opportunity to try to get Cathie’s offer, and in full transparency, I had no intention of accepting it. I was going to leverage the crap out of it, and go somewhere else (Sorry, Cathie. I love you now!). 

So, once again, I got to work, and rage edited another two chapters to get to chapter five, and not a word more. I do a lot of things out of spite. It’s a beige flag of mine. 

Keep in mind, at this point, Cathie had not read my book in entirety. She’d not read past chapter five (also another concern of mine. What if I did all this work, and she hated the ending which I wasn’t willing to change. Then, what?).

So, my very spiteful, angry, not sunshines-and-rainbows heart, sent out the newest round of edits. And met her expectations: 

My offer email from Cathie

(remember that line where she says it read like an already published book and there were only tiny things. That will be part two to this blog series: The time I almost voided my contract with my agent a few weeks in)

Weeks later, I finally had an offer in hand. I would say I was excited, and I was to a point, but remember at this moment, I still had a lot of reservations about Cathie and couldn’t comfortably accept that offer. I worried she doubted me too much, and I didn’t want to be with someone who couldn’t believe in me. However, you have to know Cathie is a mom through and through, and being on the phone with her will change your attitude real fast. Despite my reservations about her supporting me as an author, I knew she supported me as a person. She cheerleaded me to seek out the rest of my interested agents, and figure out who I felt would champion me best.

So, I did. I bargained for three weeks time to decide (I wanted every extra second to find another offer) and nudged everyone with my full or active query. I had a lot of agents request to read, and a lot of really kind passes, and then, the moment I was waiting for—another offer.

About two weeks in, I received another offer from a lovely agent who I still admire and respect and she was EVERYTHING I dreamed about when I thought about getting that illustrious offer. She was kind, enthusiastic and had actually read the whole book. She raved about my story and how much she loved it. She name dropped some major editors at Big 5 houses she intended to send it to, then she told me I reminded her of Emily Henry, and my manuscript was the cleanest she’s ever seen.

The cleanest she’s ever seen. 

Uh-oh. But Cathie had torn it to shreds. Cathie said I had a passive voice issue, a telling issue, and major dialogue grammar problems. What about all those things? Because unfortunately, in my weeks of edits, my eyes had been opened to them, too.  

I asked the second agent if she saw any of the above issues, and she earnestly told me no. But my mind had already been ruined.

I saw them. (Thanks Catherine). And I knew Cathie was right that my writing could be better.

Unfortunately, for me, I knew Cathie could make me a better writer as much as I hated to say it (and trust me, saying it felt like swallowing razors). 

Again, it came down to the same decision: I owed myself the chance.

I know the statistics of books dying on submission. I know how many authors toil and toil out there.

I owed myself the chance to give my book the best opportunity to thrive, and that meant signing with Cathie and her “unmanageable editorial standards” (this is a joke between her and her clients). 

I had a come to Jesus moment with myself. I had two offers, with two wildly different agents. 

Who did I trust?

Cathie.
Who made me better?

Cathie.
Who had the sales to Big 5 houses I dreamed of being at?

Cathie.

Freakin’ Cathie. Haha.

So, I signed with Cathie, knowing it was going to be a lot of work (literally, rewriting my book work) and I was going to have a lot of frustrated, heavy moments. She loved my story, despite only reading five chapters. I was a fabulous storyteller, but my line-level craft needed work. 

So, yes, my agent signed me off five chapters alone, which is not the brag you think it is. It actually caused me crushing anxiety. She didn’t read my book to the end until a month after signing me (when I threatened to void our contract if she didn’t read it). 

And that will be part two: How I almost voided my contract with my agent after a few weeks.

-Kelly