Christine Kelly Reads and Writes

I understand the frustration of waiting to hear back from agents, not only with queries but especially with fulls. I was there once. And as an agent, I’m there with waiting to hear back from editors. The tick to constantly check your email is hard to stop!

I can’t provide you any insight to a editor week-in-the-life, but I can assume their days look similar to mine, with the addition to pitch meetings and second reads. So keep that in mind as I share what my week looks like as a new agent.

Monday: 10:30am CST I started my day. It’s MLK today, so my kids don’t have school (and they’ve only had one day back at school since December 21st…). My husband is with the kids while I try to get some things done.

What I had done while sipping coffee and supervising kids: Emailed a client their weekly update.

10:30a- 11:20: Scheduled emails to editors to put my client on sub

3(ish) hours in the afternoon I read manuscripts, took notes and sent passes.

7p-9p read more manuscripts and took notes.

Tuesday: It was another snow day so my time was spent with the children rather than with them in school, but I managed two hours of updating my clients sub communication for who replied once emails were sent, checking Publisher’s Lunch, and newsletters. I had some correspondence to take care of as well. All that ate into my 2 hours.

A few hours of the afternoon I was able to read through manuscripts.

8p-9p read manuscripts

Wednesday: Yay for school and childcare! I spent 10:30a-2p reading manuscripts. This was my focus for today! The outside hours were spent carting kids to and from school and hanging with my youngest who didn’t have school. Unfortunately, this is not my full time gig yet, so I can’t put my youngest in daycare and my oldest isn’t in full time school.

Thursday: 9a-10a- emails, newsletters, and other correspondence. 10a call with a client for 30minutes before needing to pick up my kid from school. 12n-2p, updated information on TPA database. From 3p5p and 7p9p I read craft books for a project I’m working on for current/future authors.

Friday: 9a-10a- emails, newsletters, and correspondence. 10a call with other agents and 11a podcast (Author-ish with Amy Nielsen!). from 12-3, nudges, emails, and updating tracking information along with reading manuscripts as much as I could. My goal is to set up the evening to be free for reading time which was a success. I read submission for two hours.

Saturday and Sunday: each day I read one full submission each. Additionally, I outlined more information for my new author sheet I’m hoping to finalize soon (though it keeps getting longer) and read a bit more of the craft book contributing to it.

As you can tell, this isn’t exactly a straightforward job. I do it when I can. Some weeks look better than others. Some weeks I have more calls with editors. Others, I have more childcare so I can devote more time to the task of reading (which I like to do in longer chunks).

I plan to do more of these so you all can see how my time is spent. But a few things to know: I am new. My day will look different than a more established agent. I am not making money from agenting yet. Thus, I cannot afford regular childcare and take it when I get it. Thus, my main job as caretaker for my children will come first. Additionally, I still work for my family’s vineyard, which is a source of income for me. Because it is how I earn money and a new business, a lot of my time this past week that isn’t noted was spent towards doing that (hello yearly wrap up tax season!).

I want to be sure to caveat how my day is spent, because I think it’s so easy to think that agents just work when they want to and take this lightly. But we don’t. And we also usually need supplemental income until we can live off our earnings from agenting (average 5 years). So while we strive to be quick with our responses, thorough with our passes and feedback, we are only human, with a limited bandwidth. Thank you for your understanding and patience!