H-O-T-T-O-N-O

Sometimes you gotta say NO in publishing. Here's why:

First thing’s first, how do you like my new name? Noelle Monét… It’s got a nice ring to it. It’s maybe even something I wouldn’t mind debuting with one day…

Anywho! WELCOME BACK!

It’s been a while. 509 days to be exact, since I dropped my HOW I GOT MY AGENT(S) PART TWO post and then disappeared. Left you all on a cliffhanger, haha oops.

Part of the reason it’s taken me so long to write this post is that if I’m honest, things only got worse before they got better. And by the time I sat down to write about it, I didn’t know where to start, and frankly, I really didn’t want to post an eight-part HIGMA series 💀. 

So here it is, the final part of the saga. This is the last time I will dedicate this newsletter to this story because, truthfully, I’ve got way more interesting things to talk about. But there are some important lessons to be learned here, so I’m going to tell the story as succinctly as I can, as fact-based as I can. 

Let’s start with a timeline and work from there:

December 2021 - finished the first draft of BMA (old title)

February 2022 - began querying BMA

July 2022 - first offer of representation (1 of 4), accepted offer on July 29th

October 2022 - separated from Agent #1, and signed with Agent #2

March 2023 - went on sub with revised version of BMA 

May 2023 - separated from Agent #2 and immediately started querying

June 2023 - signed with my current Agent

June 2024 - 1 year anniversary with my incredible agent! 

At the end of my last post, I hinted that perhaps I didn’t make the right decision when choosing my first agent. With nearly two years to reflect on what exactly went wrong, I’ve realized something that I hesitate to say publicly. 

NONE of the original four offers were right for me. If I’d trusted my gut, I would have turned them all down. But that’s ridiculous! Only a person with God-like self-control and trust in the universe could make such a decision. If I’d done it though, I could have saved myself from significant publishing stress and trauma and from the intense, near-debilitating anxiety I experienced during that two-week nudging period. I didn’t understand why one of the happiest moments of my life felt so much like torture. But it was because I was trying to make an impossible decision. 

Agent #1 and I didn’t see eye to eye on revisions, Agent #2 and I didn’t have a natural rapport/I wasn’t totally comfortable on the call, Agent #3’s client list didn’t reflect their claims about advocating for diversity in publishing, and agent #4 was newer, with a schedule that wasn’t the best fit and no sales in my genre and age category.

Obviously, each agent had pros as well, Agent #1 and I had a great rapport and with a different book I think we would work well together, Agent #2 was very passionate about the story, Agent #3 was well established and we also had a great rapport, Agent #4 was at a high-profile agency known for their splashy sales. 

So Agent #1 was out because we wouldn’t mesh on edits. Agent #2 was out for reasons I couldn’t quite pin down. I just didn’t feel pulled to them. Agent #3 was out because I wasn’t sure they’d be the best advocate for the rep in my stories. That left Agent #4. I agonized over my decision, practically hyperventilating at times. Ultimately, I chose them because they were known for being a thorough editor and they were at an agency I believed would give them strong mentorship and editor connections. 

The strange thing about getting an agent is that you often go from months (or years) of rejection and silence, to a chaotic two-to-three week period of full requests and rejections and sometimes multiple offers, to silence again. And that post-offer acceptance silence can be is brutal.

I didn’t handle it well. And when my emails to my agent went days, sometimes weeks without an answer. I didn’t handle that well either. When my edits had no discernable delivery time, I didn’t handle that well. When I finally got an ETA that came and went with no update. I didn’t—well, you get it. 

I’m neurodivergent and I’ve struggled with mental illness my entire life. Publishing has brought out levels of anxiety that I haven’t experienced since high school. It was truly debilitating, the unknown of this new relationship. The immediate communication inconsistencies, the delay in progress due to the kind of amorphous state of the non-existent edit letter. I could not, for the life of me, shake this feeling of dread. This gigantic pit in my stomach telling me that I’d made a horrible mistake. 

In hindsight, there was nothing inherently wrong with this agent. No, I would come to learn that there’s a huge difference between an agent that isn’t right for you and an agent that isn’t right, period. This agent simply wasn’t the right fit for me. Now granted, there were inconsistencies between our call and the reality of working with them. 

For example, they said they typically had a 24-hour turnaround for emails. That didn’t turn out to be true. They said they’d have the edits to me in two-three months. Not true. And there were other things, little things that built up over time, that made me feel insecure and nervous, dismissed. How much of that was projection on my part? I don’t know, honestly. I recently went back and reread a lot of our emails after being unable to search their name for over a year due to my lingering anxiety, and you know what? They weren’t as bad as I remember. 

But at the end of the day, upon signing with them, it became almost immediately evident that we were not professionally compatible. If I’d listened to my gut, I would have known this from the call. At the same time, I was terrified to re-enter the query trenches. I had finally achieved this incredible dream and I was going to just throw it away? I agonized for weeks. I bombarded my group chats with my fears, begging for advice. In the end it was decided that I would ask for accommodations. The silence and missed deadlines were killing me.

At this time I was also pregnant with my third child and due to give birth in January. This is something I discussed with every agent that offered because I didn’t want to be working right after the baby was born. It was important to me that we took this into consideration when developing a plan for when to put the book on sub. It didn’t seem to matter, though. 

So for two weeks I built up the courage to email my agent. I was frank. I explained that I was dealing with some mental health issues and that I needed consistent updates that I could anticipate so that I wasn’t obsessing over them in the interim. I suggested bi-weekly or monthly updates. Just a simple message that said “no edits yet, still working on them,” or “edits next week.” Just something to manage my expectations while I adjusted to this new step in my publishing career. 

They said no. Truthfully, they said it would be a waste of their time. A waste of both of our time. They said it kindly and explained why. But all I could see and hear and feel was that my mental illness, my disability, was a waste of their time. I know now that this isn’t true, and that this isn’t what they meant. This was merely a symptom of our incompatibility. Some agents just don’t work that way. That’s not necessarily a them problem, but it is something to consider when deciding whether to sign with them. 

However, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hurt. I was sobbing and terrified because it was now crystal clear that I needed to leave. But, what if I was making the biggest mistake of my life? What if I’d already made the biggest mistake of my life?

I reviewed my contract and decided it would be smarter to leave before we started edits and went on sub. Turns out all you need to do to leave an agent is send an email. I don’t know why but I expected more fanfare, or maybe a discussion or phone call or something. Again, hindsight being what it is, I think there was a lot of miscommunication on both of our parts, but in the end, they agreed that we weren’t a good fit. They even waived the 30-day no querying clause.

It was done. I’d had an agent, and now I didn’t.

One positive in this giant shitstorm sandwich was that I’d had multiple offers, and unfortunately this scenario isn’t all that uncommon. Usually, when an agent offers on your book, it isn’t “I love your book and want to represent it unless you accept someone else’s offer because then I’ll hate you forever,” it’s “I love your book and want to represent it.”

So I considered my options. At this point, I’d queried my book for around six months. I’d had 65+ rejections, 30-something of those being full and partial requests. I had a real, palpable fear that if I went back into the query trenches with my book as-is, I might not find anyone else to represent me. But I had three who had wanted to. Maybe they still would. 

I knew that I couldn’t ask Agent #1 because our differences in edits were insurmountable. I didn’t want to ask Agent #3 because despite my desperation, having no agent would be better than having an agent that potentially saw me as a token. That left Agent #2. The one who had no apparent red flags, nothing that made me feel like they’d be harmful, and who, by all accounts, had a good reputation among my author friends and who seemed genuinely dedicated to advocating for marginalized voices. Still, I couldn’t put my finger on why I hadn’t felt connected to them on our call, but I brushed it all aside. I needed an agent, and this one seemed better than nothing.

I contacted them the day I left my old agent and gave them a heavily redacted rundown of what happened. We hopped on a call within the next day or two. I cried. I hadn’t quite realized the extent to which this first agenting relationship had affected me. But this time I was clear about what I needed. 

I need consistent expectations and reliable communication above all else. I don’t care if edits are late, just tell me they’re going to be late so that I’m not just sitting around wondering if you forgot that I exist. I don’t care if our plans are changing, just tell me so that I can know what to expect. 

Neurodivergence and mental illness are invisible, but they are disabilities, and I struggle with them, but that doesn’t mean I am any less worthy of someone’s time and I need my agent to prioritize these needs if I’m going to survive this process. 

Agent #2 was super understanding. They were kind, considerate, they assured me that my mental health was their number one priority. They said all the things that I’d been begging my last agent to say. I felt such an intense relief. I’d done something terrifying. I left my agent before we could even start on edits, but I was okay. Everything was going to be okay. 

I signed with Agent #2 only two days later and it was almost as if nothing had happened, I’d merely transferred agents (which was confusing to everyone witnessing it, I’m sure). 

Okay, I’m going to have to omit SO much of what happened next, but let’s see. I signed with this new agent with all of their lovely promises and their client group chat and their fancy agency water bottle, and I was living on cloud nine. In a way, I felt vindicated. My last agent wasn’t the right fit, and because of that, I’d felt like a failure. But look! I got a new agent within days! That must mean something, right?

On the call they said it would take them about two weeks to get edits to me. Great! That’s already exponentially faster than the last agent. Two weeks rolled around and while they didn’t have the edits ready, they gave me an update as promised. They said they’d have it within the next two weeks but probably sooner. That’s fine! Thanks for letting me know. 

But the next time the edit delivery date came around, it passed with no update. Once again, I found myself scared to nudge my brand-new agent. But this was my book, my livelihood, my career. I waited a week and asked if there was an update. Sunday, they said. Ok, dope. One time missing a deadline is no big deal. 

Sunday came and so did the edits! Wonderful news! Back on track! Things were generally fine for a while. I was happy to be working on my edits, I finally felt like I had some forward movement. 

I finished my edits just before the holidays. I knew at this point it would probably be impossible to go out on sub before my baby was born. Not ideal, but not the worst thing to ever happen. I got an update on Jan 9th, they just loaded the book onto their kindle and were diving in to read. Amazing!

Wait—just kidding! A few weeks and a whole human baby later, I found out via unrelated conversation with them that they were actually starting the read on the 23rd, they’ll have the new edit letter to me by the end of the week, Opps! Actually it’ll land in my inbox on February 8th. Nope! February 28th! 

Let me reiterate, it’s not the delays that bothered me. It was the lack of communication. It was having to chase the agent down just to get a clear understanding of what was going on and what I could expect. These constant missed self-imposed deadlines only served to add on to the hits my mental health had taken, but I couldn’t leave another agent, right? Because that would be crazy! Wouldn’t everyone start to think that I was the problem?

Something I think a lot of agents fail to understand is that they have multiple clients. They’re constantly juggling things, and reprioritizing things and putting out fires. They can never let one book or one client dominate their mind. But authors usually have ONE agent. ONE agent and ONE book that feels like our entire world. It is the thing we hang all of our hopes and dreams on. It is the thing that, if you’re like me, you hope will change your life. Your kids’ lives. Forever. 

No pressure. 

But whatever, we got through it. Barely. In my heavily pregnant/newly postpartum haze we finished the book and put it on sub in early March 2023. Fine. Everything was fine. We had an airtable so that I could stay up-to-date on the submissions without having to nudge. And I knew submissions were going to be slow, so I was expecting that. Even though the silence was killing me in a painful, stabby, someone trying to decapitate me with a plastic knife, sorta way. 

But then… the agent sib group chat kind of exploded. And this is where I need to heavily omit details, because it’s not my story to tell. But over the next month and a half, well over half of this agent’s client list left them. Reasons included but aren’t limited to:

• Repeated missed SELF-IMPOSED deadlines

  • Sometimes delaying edits for new works for well over a YEAR

• Lack of communication (for weeks or months at a time, people having to nudge over and over again to get a response)

• Repeatedly going on weeks-long vacations without telling any of their clients, not even the ones they’re currently working on things with

• Lying about sub lists

  • Not sending books on sub and saying they did

  • Not following up on editor interest

  • Not handling the contracts within a reasonable time

  • Fabricating editor responses

The crazy thing was, despite ALL of this, we still agreed that this agent was really nice. And maybe that’s why this behavior was allowed to go on for so long. No one wanted to hurt them. No one wanted to be the villain. But people were leaving because they had no other choice. 

It was fucking scary! At the time, my situation paled in comparison to some of the things I was hearing. Was this what I had to look forward to? My trust in this person had already been damaged. That feeling was starting to come back. That heaviness in my belly I had with the last one. Maybe I needed to leave. Maybe I shouldn’t have signed with them in the first place. 

At this point, there was too much evidence stacked against them. I knew I couldn’t trust this agent. And moreover, now I was hearing from other authors that they were having trouble getting acknowledgements of their termination emails. They were having to escalate it to the CEO. The ones who were pulling their books off sub weren’t getting any confirmation that the editors had been notified. Some were being belittled, disrespected, told they were thieves stealing this agent's potential commission. 

Here’s the thing, even at this point, I knew I’d kinda fucked up with my last agent. At the very least, I shouldn’t have been so hasty in terminating our relationship. It was still the right move to make, but I should have hopped on a call with them first. It was unprofessional of me to terminate without warning. I know that now. This time I would do it differently. I would give this agent a chance to talk with me, a chance to make things right. 

Funnily enough, despite the fact that some of my other attempts at communication had gone well over a week without acknowledgement, the moment I said I was considering termination, we were able to set up a call ASAP. 

The call was fine. They weren’t apologetic and instead stated that everyone was behind. When I asked if they’d reached out to their senior people at the agency to ask for help since they were clearly struggling, they said no. This is just how things are. But they promised to try to do better. Okay, I said, despite my whole body rejecting my words. I’ll stay. 

But it ate at me. I knew there was something off. I knew I was missing some key piece of information. I watched as more and more people left. FUCK! I’d finally been with an agent long enough to put my book on sub and I was seriously considering pulling it from editors? I felt like I was going crazy. I was too scared to trust myself. Clearly there was something wrong with me that I couldn’t keep an agent. 

Something about our phone conversation continued to nag at me. I was starting to suspect they hadn’t actually nudged the editors when they said they did. But that was impossible, right? Somehow news of the unrest among their clients leaked online and as is writingtwt, people were coming for them. I was confused and hurt. I advocated for them. I made excuses for them despite everything I knew because I still wanted to believe that they were a good person. They weren’t evil. They were just behind, or they were struggling, or they were in a crisis, or— 

But here’s the thing, yes agents are people, and yes agents go through things, and yes agents make mistakes, and miss deadlines, because of course they do! They’re busy and overworked and underpaid and they do this because they love books but they’re only one person! THAT DOESN’T MEAN YOU HAVE TO RISK YOUR CAREER FOR THEM.

Despite all of the things I wanted to believe, it really boiled down to this: I didn’t trust them. This partnership was going to fuck me over if I let it. So I left. Again. 

This time I had the comfort of knowing we’d talked about it first. I knew that I’d given them as many chances as I could mentally handle. They didn’t respond to my termination email. But that’s okay because I CC’d the CEO. The CEO said they couldn’t pull my book off sub. 

I knew that was a lie. 

I’m not going to get into this part of the story because that’s enough for a whole other post, so let me know if you want an in-depth look at pulling a book off sub, and what to do if the agency gives you shit about it. 

But let’s just say, I had to put my foot down. Firmly. 

Okay, the CEO said, they’d tell the agent to pull the book. 

Great. So here I was. Again. Back in the query trenches. Again. I had limited knowledge of my sub process but in the end it didn’t matter. I only queried for two weeks. 

After leaving this agent I learned three very important things that cleared me of all regret I might have had over the decision: 1. The agent never sent the nudges. My gut was right. I had this confirmed by multiple sources. 2. Despite the agent listening to me despair over the fact that we hadn’t received any responses yet to my subs or to the nudges, and despite them comforting me and telling me that was normal, I’d actually received two rejections within the first WEEK of being on sub that I was never told about, and 3. The agent never pulled the subs like they said they would. 

There wasn’t a shred of honesty coming from that agent and in the end, I absolutely made the right choice in leaving. 

But that brings me back to the hard truth: I never should have signed with ANY of the four offering agents because NONE of them were right for me. And I knew that in my gut, but I ignored it because I was scared to turn down any opportunity that would move me forward in this process. 

Thanks to some amazing friends and industry connections I’d made, I had a targeted list of agents to query. But in the end, my offer came from a referral given by an agent who had previously (very kindly) rejected my full manuscript. 

This time when I got on the call, I knew. 

I don’t want to say that I had a “The One” feeling, because that’s nonsense and misleading. But I did feel very strongly that this agent was the right fit for me and here’s why: this agent was prompt and kind. We got straight down to business. They weren’t trying to love bomb me, they weren’t giving me some inflated sales pitch that included unrealistic expectations about what the book would do, they were passionate about my story and characters, their editorial thoughts perfectly aligned with my own, they focused on telling me about themselves and their passions and experience instead of relying on their agencies reputation, and we had a natural rapport that made me feel comfortable and safe.

In addition to all of this, they understood the path I’d taken to get there. This time around, I was even more clear about what I needed from this partnership. I was honest about my baggage and that it might take me a while to trust them. I explained my neurodivergence. They were great. Completely understanding and willing to accommodate me and come up with a plan for success. 

I left the call and immediately told my family that I’d finally done it. I’d found MY agent! We would work really well together. 

I did the normal thing, gave agents with my full time to read. And ultimately no one else offered. And honestly, I was so grateful. I didn’t want to even consider people besides this agent, because I already knew what I was going to do. 

After signing with my current agent, things have been incredible. They have upheld every promise they made to me. They are consistent and considerate, communicative and honest. Their edit letter was great, they’re willing to collaborate and consider my thoughts on who to sub. I feel like an equal partner instead of like a neglected child. 

Publishing still isn’t easy for me. Sub is BRUTAL. Absolutely, mind-fuckingly brutal, and I’m sure at times my neurotic worrying drives my agent up the wall, but they’ve been there every step of the way to reassure me and commiserate. And I know that when we reach success, it will be well-earned and exhilarating. I will know that they fought for me tooth and nail, and that every decision they make is with my input and in my best interest. 

A few months after I left Agent #2, they were let go from their agency. The CEO went back through their emails and confirmed my suspicions about the agent’s dishonesty. I still regret the way I ended things with my first agent, but I don’t regret ending things. 

A year out from signing with my current agent and I am in a completely different headspace. I still feel safe. I feel heard. I am incredibly grateful that these series of disastrously unfortunate events led me here. But I can’t help but wonder where I’d be if I’d said no to all of those agents the first time around. I’ve since learned that my current agent had been aware of my book because of social media. And they were actually sad that I hadn’t queried them. What if I’d said no to the first four and queried them instead? 

Would they have offered on an earlier version of my book? Could I have avoided all of that turmoil? Could I be debuting this year instead of whenever I’ll debut when I eventually get a deal for this book, hopefully?

I’ll never know. And honestly, I’m okay with that. Because if this situation has taught me anything, it’s that sometimes you need to say no. Even when you feel like the world might end if you do, even when you know you have no control over the ensuing outcome, sometimes saying no can be the thing that makes your career. 

I said no to Agent #4 not accommodating my communication needs, I said no to Agent #2 lying about, well, everything. I said no even though I was fucking terrified it might ruin everything. And these two fateful no’s have turned into sooo many yeses. 

So that’s it. That’s the end of this story. That’s HOW I GOT MY AGENT(S). 

I’m really excited to plan out some posts for the coming months. I can’t promise consistency, but I’m going to try. I’d love to talk more about my writing process and inspirations, my life and what I’m reading and enjoying. 

If you’ve read to the end, I hope it feels worth it to you lmfaoo. I’m happy to finally close this chapter and move on, free from this lingering over me. 

Happy end of summer/beginning of spooky season (shhhh just let it happen, I’m manifesting Ariana Grande sweater hands and Halloweentown marathons as we speak)!

Wishing you all the best in publishing and otherwise xoxo,

---

Noelle Monét is a YA and Adult SFF and horror author, often mixing the two with a heavy dose of romance. She’s currently drafting a sapphic New Adult psychological horror and listening to a lot of Chappell Roan.