# OMG I GOT AN AGENT or 'EMMA MAREE URQUHART JOINS JJLA'



## E.Maree (Oct 17, 2017)

AHHH CHRONNERS I'M SO EXCITED

TOO EXCITED FOR SENSIBLE WORDS REALLY SO HERE'S A PRESS RELEASE (OMG MY FIRST PRESS RELEASE)

_EMMA MAREE URQUHART JOINS JJLA_

Emma Maree Urquhart has joined the John Jarrold Literary Agency. Her new novel ALL THE BROKEN THINGS reads like _Pacific Rim_ with a Scottish mythology kick. It might also be viewed as a twisted SF version of TWILIGHT. Disabled engineer Anna is metal from the waist-down, badass from the toes up, and Scottish through and through. She patches up glossy military war machines built to fight supernatural monsters. When a monster she saves becomes dangerously obsessed with her, Anna sets out to turn the tables on the increasingly violent Enli. But there are monsters on all sides, and her fight uncovers secrets about the machines that threaten everything she’s been fighting for.

Her debut children’s fantasy novel DRAGON TAMERS was self-published in the UK when Emma was 13, with sales of over 35,000 copies and has been traditionally published in Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Swedish, Greek, and Portuguese. Emma is now in her late 20s and is a software tester, spending her days finding creative ways to break websites and apps and her nights finding creative ways to break fictional characters. She lives in the north of Scotland and on the weekends can be found learning roller derby, binge drinking tea and taking long brainstorming walks in the woods.

“The immediacy of Emma’s writing grabbed me straight away, from the first page,” said John Jarrold. “There were times I wanted to scream at Anna, others that I wanted to hug her. And the world and creatures that Emma has imagined are totally believable, while the story unwinds in ways that are entirely unexpected and heart stopping. Brilliant!”

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Okay, so you lot all know John Jarrold from the Traditional Publishing section of the board, right? He's answered loads of questions over the years and is amazing. Yeah, THAT guy. That's my new agent.

I CAN'T EVEN

I DON'T

I JUST

...I worked so damn hard to get here. So many manuscripts, so many revisions, so many rejections.

I can't believe it. I hope to see many more of you Chrons badasses with similarly awesome announcements soon—I can't wait for a publishing future where we can all share our worlds.

*I'm gonna use the posts below this to share some info that might help others out, in an attempt to be pay it forward. Stay tuned for querying stats and my actual query!*


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## E.Maree (Oct 17, 2017)

*QUERY STATS*

I actually sent my first every e-mail query around 2002, but I was 10 so we'll not count that one.

Agents queried (2012): 79
Full requests: 4
Partial Requests: 3
Personalised Rs: 6
Offers of rep: 1
Did I jump straight for the first agent that offered? Yes
Was this a good idea? No. No agent truly IS better than a bad agent.

_One wasted year later, back in the trenches..._

Agents queried (2013): 33
Full requests: 1
Partial: 1
Personalised Rs: 6
Offers of rep: 0

_Burnt out from a bad agent, I gave up on that manuscript and made a new one._

Agents queried (2016): 48
Full requests: 9
Kind personalised Rs: 7
Offers of rep: 0

_And then I took a break from querying to revise and doubt myself a LOT, circling through revision after revision, before writer buddies convinced me to stop revising and GET BACK IN THE TRENCHES._

Agents queried (2017): 20
Full requests: 6
Offers of rep: 2

...So that's 180 queries sent, four years in the trenches, one schmagent nightmare, and two books: one rewritten from the ground up five times, the second one rewritten from the ground up nine times.

Keep at it. No matter what.


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## E.Maree (Oct 17, 2017)

*QUERIEEEEESSSS

UK FORMAT QUERY THAT GOT ME REP:*
(This agent had very specific requests: single paragraph, two recent comp titles.)

Dear agent,

Disabled engineer Anna is metal from the waist-down, badass from the toes up, and Scottish through and through. She patches up glossy military warmachines built to fight supernatural monsters. When a monster she saves becomes dangerously obsessed with her, Anna sets out to turn the tables on the increasingly violent Enli. But there are monsters on all sides, and her fight uncovers secrets about the machines that threaten everything she’s been fighting for.

ALL THE BROKEN THINGS is an 75,000-word science fantasy novel that reads like Pacific Rim with a Scottish mythology kick. Similar titles recently released include United States of Japan by Peter Tieryas and Hunger Makes the Wolf by Alex Wells.

My debut children’s fantasy novel DRAGON TAMERS was self-published in the UK with sales of over 35,000 copies and has been traditionally published in Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Swedish, Greek, and Portuguese. I'm querying you because [personalisation].

As per your guidelines, I've attached [x].Thank you for your time and consideration.

[and lol yes, that is a typo on the wordcount ('an 75'), I didn't even spot that until right now]

*US FORMAT QUERY THAT GOT A 2ND OFFER OF REP AND 6 FULL REQUESTS:*

Dear agent,


Disabled engineer Anna is metal from the waist-down, badass from the toes up, and Scottish through and through. She patches up glossy military warmachines built to fight supernatural monsters called Kith. Not a bad life, until a Kith she spares latches onto her. Literally. She rejects him after an unwanted kiss, but he becomes obsessed with her.

Her stalker, Enli, is a sly and secretive Kith with no fondness for humans or their military. He thinks Anna would be happier fighting alongside monsters than against them. In his creepy wee head the kiss was just a way to infect her with his power, which will kill her unless she becomes a monster like him. It’s for her own good—he just wants to protect her, too.

Aye, right. Anna’s not going down without a fight. With a fleet of armoured killing machines at her command, Anna sets out to turn the tables on the increasingly violent Enli. But there are monsters on all sides, and her fight uncovers secrets about the machines that threaten everything and everyone she’s been fighting for.

ALL THE BROKEN THINGS is an 80,000-word science fantasy novel that reads like Pacific Rim with a Scottish mythology kick. My debut children’s fantasy novel DRAGON TAMERS was self-published in the UK with sales of over 35,000 copies and has been traditionally published in Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Swedish, Greek, and Portuguese. ["I'm querying you because..." went here, but I rarely personalised. Over the years, I didn't find the time spent personalising a good use of effort.]

I've included the first [whatever] below as per your guidelines. Thank you for your time and consideration.


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## E.Maree (Oct 17, 2017)

Okay I'm done now, we can party on.  I've got the kettle boiling, some nice local Caorunn gin, and a bottle of Writer's Tears whiskey from Marks & Spencers. And pancakes, because omg, pancakes.

*LET'S PARTYYYYY.*


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## Jo Zebedee (Oct 17, 2017)

Huge, huge, huge congrats and well deserved


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## Brian G Turner (Oct 17, 2017)

Excellent news, and very well done, Emma - I know how long and hard you've been working toward something like this. 

Interestingly enough, Google already has you listed as an author: e maree urquhart - Google Search


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## Biskit (Oct 17, 2017)

Excellent!  And congratulations!


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## E.Maree (Oct 17, 2017)

Brian G Turner said:


> Excellent news, and very well done, Emma - I know how long and hard you've been working toward something like this.
> 
> Interestingly enough, Google already has you listed as an author: e maree urquhart - Google Search



Oh wow, thanks for catching that Brian! I have no idea how to update that, off on an adventure now to try and find out.


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## EJDeBrun (Oct 17, 2017)

Congratulations! And thank you for posting your journey!


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## Abernovo (Oct 17, 2017)

Congratulations! Thoroughly deserved, and excellent news.


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## Mouse (Oct 17, 2017)

Congrats! People named Emma are naturally awesome.


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## Gary Compton (Oct 17, 2017)

Very well done. You are in good hands!


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## DelActivisto (Oct 17, 2017)

Congrats! How did you publish something when you were 13?

Your avatar seems familiar. Are you on AW?


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## Cathbad (Oct 17, 2017)

Congratulations!


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## Teresa Edgerton (Oct 17, 2017)

Congratulations!


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## Danny McG (Oct 17, 2017)

Well done.
That sounds very nice.
And you sound very nice.
And your story sounds very nice.







(Puts kettle on and sits whistling while wondering if his sycophantic flattery will see a free eBook whizzing his way)


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## Cli-Fi (Oct 18, 2017)

E.Maree said:


> Agents queried (2016): 48
> Full requests: 9
> Kind personalised Rs: 7
> Offers of rep: 0
> ...



These are interesting. You must of done something in between 2016 & 2017 to get noticed. Or you just messaged the right agent at the right time. Notice almost 50 queries in 2016 but not offers. Only 20 in 2017 and 2 offers! 6 Requests... So cool.


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## Parson (Oct 18, 2017)

Hey, large scale congrats!


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## Serendipity (Oct 18, 2017)

Congratulations - massive amount of perseverance with very deserved reward.

Thanks for sharing the info - it'll act as inspiration to loads of people.

C.A.T. here - you must be having a super-purr - hope you have many many more such earthquake-inducing purrzzzzz.


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## Droflet (Oct 18, 2017)

Huge congratulations, Emma. See, hard work pays off.


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## E.Maree (Oct 18, 2017)

DelActivisto said:


> Congrats! How did you publish something when you were 13?
> 
> Your avatar seems familiar. Are you on AW?



I signed up with a local publisher, and my parents acted as the guardians for legal things. Things got messy afterwards when I earned out and royalties were supposed to appear, but that's a long and unpleasant story, and the jist of it is: in this industry there's a lot of people who will prey on vulnerable creatives, and when actual children are involved they are especially stealthy and especially cruel.

I don't recommend anyone get deep into the industry until they're legally of-age, and in full control of their fate.

I am indeed on AW! I hang out there a lot, made some wonderful friends there.



dannymcg said:


> (Puts kettle on and sits whistling while wondering if his sycophantic flattery will see a free eBook whizzing his way)



Heh, it's a long way from 'actually a real book' stage yet, I'm afraid, so I've got no ebooks to send!



Cli-Fi said:


> These are interesting. You must of done something in between 2016 & 2017 to get noticed. Or you just messaged the right agent at the right time. Notice almost 50 queries in 2016 but not offers. Only 20 in 2017 and 2 offers! 6 Requests... So cool.



In between 2016 and 2017, I listened to lots of feedback from both beta readers and agents and REVISED REVISED REVIIIISEEED. I do big tear-it-up-and-start-again revisions, so it was quite the overhaul.

But yeah, a lot of it is timing, and for the 2017 round having an offer really changed things: agents got a lot faster at responding, and the more competitive ones (sometimes newer agents, sometimes hungrier pros) took an increased interest while the busy ones with strong client lists were turned off by the rush.

Getting an offer has quite the polarising affect on your subs, it was a weird week.


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## The Bluestocking (Oct 18, 2017)

Congratulations!


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## Gonk the Insane (Oct 18, 2017)

E.Maree said:


> EMMA MAREE URQUHART JOINS JJLA


Huge congrats, Emma, that's awesome news. And John's a total legend, one of the best around.


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## Juliana (Oct 23, 2017)

Congratulations! That's fantastic news. And thanks for sharing your query info.


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## ctg (Oct 23, 2017)

Congratulations. I'm jealous. Well done.


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## millymollymo (Oct 23, 2017)

I caught your agent's tweet, and your WHOOPING...  in response. Didn't see this till now. Congrats! (again)


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## Dan Jones (Oct 23, 2017)

Absolutely. Bloody. Fantastic.

Whiskies all round! 

If you have time between whiskies, how helpful do you think it was having had a separate, previous book under your belt with some pretty good sales figures?


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## Boneman (Oct 24, 2017)

Congratulations! Here's raising a glass to JJ announcements down the years of many book deals. Now get back to writing!


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## crystal haven (Oct 27, 2017)

Congratulations! Well done!


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