Agent in Your Pocket: The Worst Thing You Can Do While On Submission
Literary Agent Jessica Berg offers advice about what writers should and should not be doing while their agent has their book on submission.
Your book is on submission. You are not.
When your book is on submission, that means your literary agent has curated a list of editors who are looking for projects just like yours. She’s done the research, read their editor wish list, had advance calls, and has ushered your project out into the world.
This is such a difficult time in the traditional publishing pipeline because the waits are interminable. When responses do start to come in, they can feel vague and nebulous, making many authors feel like they’re right back to the querying trenches.
It’s also during this time that many querying authors begin to think that they need to be, well, more.
Maybe in the lull while you’re waiting for news from your agent you start a Bookstagram. You decide now is finally the moment you’re going to figure out your author branding. Or you tackle your website and make significant upgrades because if you look like a professional author, maybe that’ll help encourage the editors to say yes.
Or maybe, like most authors, you refresh your email 17 times a day, write texts you don’t send to your agent, and wonder if the silence means something.
It doesn’t. At least not in the way you think it means.
The one aspect of this part of the process that’s incredibly difficult to remember is when you’re on submission, your manuscript is the thing being evaluated. Your pages are out with editors. Not you, even though that’s nearly impossible to believe when it’s happening in real time.
The thing is, the pressure to optimize yourself while on submission makes sense emotionally because doing something feels better than doing nothing. But orchestrating frantic platform-building or starting to compare yourself to other authors will exhaust you.
So what does “you are not on submission” actually look like in practice?
It looks like rest. Like refilling your cup in all the ways that are perfect for you. Consuming art and reading for pleasure and taking walks. It looks like connecting with friends whose input you value. It looks like taking the weekend off without guilt or worry or fear. It looks like not performing “being an author” online to feel like you’re doing something.
It looks like remembering the version of you who was so consumed by the idea that she actually wrote the book is still here and is still enough.
Being on sub can feel lonelier than querying in some ways, because there are fewer resources, less community, and the stakes feel higher. But the answer isn’t to put yourself on submission alongside your manuscript.
Your job right now is to keep being a writer. Not a brand. Not a platform. A writer.
The editors will do what they do. Your book will find its place in the world or it’ll boomerang itself back to you and you’ll strategize your next steps with your agent. Either way, you owe it to yourself to be as whole, as rested, and as fulfilled as you can be.
