I read the whole query letter! I’d say 1st line of the whole thing does not have to be attention grabby, but I can’t lie: pithy first sentences of blurbs are exciting. BUT it’s not about the 1st line: it’s about the overall pitch. A great line can be brought down, and vice versa

I spent long enough looking to confirm if it was YA that I’m just gonna say it: Daughters of Izdihar by Hadeer Elsbai! Young women in alternate Egypt inspired world fighting for equality with magic.

And I’m psyched for the sequel to Among Thieves by MJ Kuhn

Ah sorry to miss chatting! I’m sure we’ll have more chances.

Hm, for me I look to understand character. If I get a good sense of your protagonist and their stakes, I am sold pretty fast. I’d rather know about them than the world level conflict, unless it’s directly pertinent

My hope is August 1! I’m still working through fulls and I’ll be in the Galapagos for the last week of July, so probably after that!

Great question! For me, I do that for 2 reasons: 1) to help me focus on the info (I struggle with chunky paragraphs) and 2) to prompt writers who may not otherwise include it.

If it’s in your query, you can def copy/paste. No need to reinvent the wheel.

I'm on instagram today posting about mundane "day in the life of a lit agent" sort of stuff but I think there will be some cool things popping into my inbox today and I'm doing an #askagent there so feel free to come hang. instagram.com/agentkellyvans…

I'm going to be honest and say very, very few books fit in both ya or adult. It has to do with filter. Is it a teen telling their story directly or is their story filtered through an adult lens?

Phone number so we can call if we need to. Address maybe so we can put it on the agency agreement, which we like to prepare before the call. It's often optional tho

Some agencies they do, others they don't. Some only more junior agents need approval

No, everything is tough. I don't think ya is harder than adult in any given fiction genre

"Swashbuckler" is a sub sub genre. So go up to subgenre and look for that

People submitting to me? Idk if it would cover a whole class but just a sentence: "read more books in your genre"

Writers in general: I really want to teach avoiding publishing scams more

Upmarket lower/light touch of fantasy is in high demand, but the number of editors taking straight, classic fantasy seems to be really small

Not yet!

A clever, charismatic con artist who is not a cis man

At Tobias, we often share in house via querymanager. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't query other agents after a rejection because we don't always know what the others are looking for.

Sending a TY is polite. I send them to editors who pass but some agents may find them annoying? I think it’s fine to say TY as long as that’s ALL you say. A lot of authors use any form of communication as a shot to keep the convo going and THAT’S what agents don’t have time for.

Yes to all that.

Love novels in verse
For verse I think it’s more about page count in the end vs word count since the standard number of words aren’t on a page if that makes sense
But if you want a WC + 10k-30k give or take

Like every other market it’s very crowded so make sure you highlight was is unique or different about yours and why it will stand out in the crowd
Meaning — have a really strong hook