After Wattpad
Before I get into the nitty-gritty of what it’s like to pursue traditional publishing after writing exclusively online, I’d like to acknowledge every author who was pushed to leave their platform behind, to pursue their passion for storytelling elsewhere, to say goodbye to the readers they’d gotten to know over years of hard work. Your decision wasn’t easy, but nevertheless, I commend you on the courage you embodied when taking this step. I have no doubt that I will see all of your stories on the shelves very soon, with or without the support of Wattpad.
The path to publishing, even if we only focus on the traditional route, isn’t linear. I’m about halfway through the process myself, so feel free to take my advice with a grain of salt. However, I do have good knowledge of what it’s like to make the switch from Wattpad to “the real world” and I do think I can offer some insight on that unique journey.
Disclaimers aside, let’s focus on what exactly happens after Wattpad. There are four main stages to power through: LEARNING, RESEARCHING, PREPARING, and QUERYING. That’s a lot, I know, but I’ll break it down for you.
LEARNING
It’s difficult to remove and readjust yourself from the instant gratification of Wattpad, where a reader could comment, vote, or view your new chapter within seconds of posting it. During this time, imposter syndrome can creep into your mind and it’s not unheard of to suddenly believe that your story isn’t worth the time of an agent, that it’ll never make it, that Wattpad was your peak. I’ve felt all of these feelings before (and I still feel some of them to this very day), but I’m here to tell you that your imposter syndrome lies. Your talent is limitless, your expertise boundless, and I truly do believe that you have the potential to succeed in the industry, no matter how impossible it may seem.
So, simply put, this learning stage is the longest and the hardest and it sets the tone for the rest of your journey. You’re mourning the loss of a platform that promised to lift you higher and higher, so it’s understandable to take the time to grieve, but I’d recommend writing through the confusion anyway. See if you can rekindle the first spark you had with the art, if you can still find it in the silence of a Word document, with no deadlines or cheering readers egging you on. I couldn’t find mine for one year after I left Wattpad and it was so frustrating in the moment, but looking back on it, the learning stage helped prepare me for a career of (mostly) independent writing.
Think you’re ready to move on? Here’s stage two.
RESEARCHING
This is where things get a bit more complicated. You essentially have three main avenues ahead of you—traditional publishing, self-publishing, and publishing through another social media platform like Radish, Inkitt, or Tapas. These paths are all incredible and valid in their own way, but I can only speak to the traditional publishing process as a result of my personal experiences.
Traditional publishing is often times confusing with the sheer number of information you need to know at a given point in time. Here’s where research and organization come into play.
It is important to understand your novel—the genre, the conventions, the word count, the target demographic. These factors determine which literary agents you’ll submit to when you’re ready to query. All literary agents are not created equal in that they represent varying authors and stories and you want to query those who you believe you’d fit in with. You can check the #MSWL feed on Twitter for updated agent preferences, Manuscript Wish List (the website) for a comprehensive list of what a certain agent may be looking for, the Agency Website to read more about what type of story an agent represents, Publishers Marketplace for what books an agent has sold in the past, and Query Tracker to identify an agent’s response time and general query habits shown through the public comment section. I personally used #MSWL, Manuscript Wish List, Agency Websites, and Query Tracker for my researching primarily because I am a broke college student who can’t pay for a subscription to Publishers Marketplace.
During this agent vetting process, I would recommend keeping a list of agents who you’ve liked (either because of their Manuscript Wish List, past sales history, online presence, response time, or overall personality, etc.) in a spreadsheet. Mine had multiple headers: the agent name, the agency they’re employed with, 1-3 elements explaining why I’ve chosen them, their submission guidelines (found on the agency website), their typical response time, the date I queried them, the date I heard back, and what their final response to my query was. I know this organization is a lot of work, but it’s so helpful in making sure that you’re querying the right people in the right way. You want to make every query count.
Now that you know who to query, it’s time to dig into the how.
Relevant Resources
On Researching Agents: https://www.ericsmithrocks.com/blog/2020/6/23/a-beginners-guide-to-researching-agents
PREPARING
A strong submission to an agent includes an intriguing query, a cohesive 1-2 page (TNR single-spaced) synopsis, and a sparkling first 10-25 pages of your manuscript.
Of course, you also need a very polished full manuscript for when you get your first of many full requests, but this isn’t something I can personally help you with. If you’re struggling with your novel beyond the first 25 pages, this may be a sign that you’ll need to employ a few critique partners or beta readers to go through your story and offer you feedback for more revisions. This step cannot be skipped—your novel has to be ready to query (to the extent of your ability) before you actually query it and that means drafting and revising in an endless cycle until you’re proud of it. Take your time with this as you do want to query your very strongest material, so it’s best not to rush.
Back to the elements of an agent submission.
The query is essentially your novel’s first impression and it’s relatively formulaic. In about one page (TNR single-spaced), you need to describe the characters, plot, and stakes of your novel in an interesting, sales-pitch kind of way. This is HARD and it comes with practice, so try your best with it. My advice is to follow this format, which is what I used when I queried my novel. I will also screenshot my query below so that you can use it as an example if necessary.
The bulk of your query should begin with a one, at most two, sentence hook, something that draws us into your world and your characters. Then, you want to explore your novel for about 1-2 paragraphs following your hook. You’ll round out this section by adding 1-2 sentences on your stakes—why should we care about your story? What do your characters stand to lose or gain? Overall, this part of the query should resemble the tone and style of the back cover of a novel. It should be intriguing enough for an agent to read on without spoiling or overexplaining your story. I’d recommend sending your query to someone who has read the novel and someone who hasn’t for their feedback. This is done to make sure that you’re 1) hitting all of the important beats of your story and 2) it’s easy to understand for anyone who picks it up.
Following this blurb, you’ll need a description of your novel: the word count, genre, title, and comparison titles. Comparison titles are not always necessary, but I recommend having them for your query to stand out and to show agents that you, as a writer, know the market. The formula for a comparison title can be done as “YOUR NOVEL combines the [insert element here] of [insert other novel, published in the past five years, here] and the [insert another element here] of [insert another novel, published in the past five years, here]”. Again, you can check out my query for more details on this.
Finally, you’ll add your author biography. I would add a line or two about your experience on Wattpad here because you’re querying with a tangible audience under your belt already and that is huge. You’d also want to add a few facts about yourself. Don’t overthink this step, just be yourself!
Here’s my query letter with the novel’s blurb, story details, and my own author biography.
Moving onto the synopsis, this is a description of the entirety of your novel, spoilers and plot twists included. It can seem really daunting to fit your story into 1-2 pages, but a technique that has really helped me is to write a one sentence description for each of my chapters, and then tying them all together into a cohesive synopsis after. Same with the first 10-25 pages, this part of the agent submission varies from author to author and what they deem important to include. Try your best and as always, run your materials by a trusted critique partner or beta reader before moving on.
Ready for the final stage? You are now ready to query
Relevant Resources
On Crafting a Query: https://www.janefriedman.com/query-letters/
On Crafting a Synopsis: https://www.caroclarke.com/synopsis.html
On Critique Partners: https://medium.com/1-one-infinity/critique-partners-what-you-need-to-know-ba765484b8af
QUERYING
The most important element here is patience. When you start to query, it’s easy to stare at your inbox for hours, wondering when you’ll get a response to something you’d sent a day, a week, even a month ago. The thing is, publishing moves slow. Sure, there are a few unicorn cases of a writer who sends their first query and gets their agent all in the same month, but that isn’t the norm. The majority of us need to wait and this wait feels easier if you’re querying strategically.
A strategic query is done in bunches of 5-10 at a time, is open to being updated and revised given enough evidential feedback, and does not burn one too many bridges unknowingly.
For one, it is important to complete a test round—this requires you to send 5 queries to agents with relatively fast response times, people who will offer you feedback (hopefully) quickly enough for you to know if 1) your query or synopsis or first few pages needs changes or 2) if they have subjective notes and you can confidently power through. Keep in mind that even in test rounds, you want to query agents who you can see yourself working with. What if you’re that unicorn writer and your offer comes from an agent you’ve barely vetted beyond their response time? That’s a tricky situation that is much better to avoid overall.
Let’s say that your test round is a success and agents have either asked to read more (a full or a partial request) or they have rejected but with subjective feedback that you believe you can ignore. Now, we begin querying in bunches. 5-10 queries are out at any given time and if you get one rejection, you can mourn the loss and send out another, depending on your confidence. We maintain this 5-10 query bunch so that if you do get an offer you can nudge the other agents who have your query, partial, or full with the offer.
Speaking of nudging, this is what you do when you have an offer from a literary agent. You want to notify anyone who has your materials of the offer and the deadline they need to give you a response by (2 weeks from the offer date is the industry standard). These agents will then get to work to reading your materials or soliciting more information or even making another offer! This scenario requires more waiting, but it is worth it.
And finally, finally, finally, you are out of the query trenches and you have signed with an agent! This is where you can scream and celebrate and give yourself a well-deserved high five—you’ve made it from Wattpad to a represented writer and that is huge!
Relevant Resources
On Strategic Querying: https://tauricox.com/2017/08/30/now-what-query-strategies-etiquette-and-next-steps/
On Offers of Representation: https://bookendsliterary.com/2019/08/27/offer-of-representation/
On “The Agent Offer Call”: http://onlybylaura.com/2018/01/25/how-to-get-a-literary-agent-part-4-the-call/
Well, that was quite the blog post. I think I might be a bit out of breath now that we’re at the end of it! Before we wrap up, I just want to reiterate that it can be so overwhelming to navigate the path to traditional publishing, but having a blueprint would’ve helped me a lot when I was starting out, so I hope this might help you too. Good luck to all of my fellow writers! Whether you are drafting, revising, querying, on submission, or publishing online or through an indie press, I believe in you.
Until next time,
Ananya Devarajan
