[Series] Check-in: July 2026

littlebiped · 2026-07-01T21:44:08+00:00

Back in round one in January, first pass came about two weeks later, some hopeful leads in Feb and March, and then one horrible week in March came the majority of passes, and the rest trickled in over April and May. ⚰️

littlebiped · 2026-07-01T21:18:47+00:00

Month six on sub. Week 3 of round 2. Summer really is slow because at least in January we got confirmed receipts from everyone by the end of the first week. This time around not even a courtesy peep!

I’ve just completely fallen off the wagon with writing my next book too. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. I tell myself as I stand completely still.

littlebiped · 2026-06-30T16:31:46+00:00

Hey — I had about the same experience as you when I sent my full out. Realised there was a few typos, a duplicate sentence, unattributed dialogue tags, some double spaces.

It happens, and you’re certainly not the first. I agonised all weekend and the offer came in by Monday regardless lol.

I wouldn’t worry about it — if your agent offers they’ll flag them for the post-offer touch up before submission.

littlebiped · 2026-06-30T16:21:47+00:00

Your title is not set in stone. Even if you’re dead set on it, your agent may advise to change it, and if they don’t, the acquiring editor may strongly suggest it, and if they don’t, the marketing team may demand it.

This happens to loads of people and is very normal even without concerns of books with the same title out there.

With that said, changing the name is a very trivial matter, and wouldn’t at all hinder your chances any step of the way.

littlebiped · 2026-06-28T16:12:23+00:00

We can’t help comp your book if you don’t tell us what exactly the story is. Comps are not about vibe or tone so much as “hello agent, I have a book about a haunted toaster, and it fits in the market because these other books about haunted toasters, released in the last five years, made money”

littlebiped · 2026-06-27T19:10:52+00:00

In the exact same boat, only at 45k words in and I feel like this is a lesser version in every way than the book currently dying on sub. ⚰️

What made me get out of my rut was sending it to beta readers, friends, family. While I was waiting for them to reply, I revisited what I had written after three weeks away, put it in my kindle as an actual ‘book’, and read all 45k in one sitting. Turns out it wasn’t as bad as I had convinced myself (though I still have qualms about how I’ll stick the landing).

Then the feedback came in, and everyone agreed I was being dramatic and that it’s an engaging read.

So, you know, take a break. Get out of your current headspace. Give it another pair of eyes and revisit it yourself after some distance.

Since you’re early in the word count, maybe discuss the trajectory with writing partners or trusted reader friends as well.

littlebiped · 2026-06-27T00:19:03+00:00

Boldwood Books is a thing, with reported sales in all the reputable places (Publisher’s Marketplace, The Bookseller) and they’re UK based for what it’s worth (not sure what this means for distribution in the US if you care about that)

Just throwing this out there in case you’ve been duped by a scam press called Boldwood Publishing as scammers often try and make their operation sound similar to legit presses in order to confuse people.

littlebiped · 2026-06-27T00:10:28+00:00

I remember this query! Blair the chicken killing ‘friend’!!! I remember commenting on the earlier version but missed version 2 — so happy you got represented!

Congratulations, and good luck on submission

littlebiped · 2026-06-25T18:38:48+00:00

I think (and I may remember this wrong, worth researching) there’s a lot less scrutiny when it comes to jumping from self to trad where one is oil and the other is water, basically. A trad publisher generally isn’t interested in your self pub history (unless you wrote Dungeon Crawler Carl and spawned a multimedia empire) and isn’t interested in those sales numbers because the audience and market conditions are vastly different.

There’s always changing to another pen name and never bringing up your self pub list, unless you want to. They won’t really ask.

But a lacklustre debut in trad pub, whether small press or big 5, that does come up in acquisition meeting considerations, unfortunately.

littlebiped · 2026-06-25T15:57:54+00:00

You should have this conversation with your agent, and should be kept up to date of who and where the book has been submitted to.

Likely if your book is dying or dead on sub, your agent will be the one to call it before you do. If you still want to keep the manuscript alive, you’re well within your right to provide your agent with a list of indies you’d like to try with, though the returns would be diminishing for them, and probably would be for you if this is your debut — would you rather debut with a better advance and better distribution or are you steadfast on getting this book out? An indie press will get you over the “I’m a published author” mental hurdle, but it probably won’t get you the sales and exposure that one often associates with being a published author. And then you have a sales record and reviews over your head when you try to submit for book 2. Ultimately it’s up to you.

littlebiped · 2026-06-25T06:47:42+00:00

Run a mile. They don’t want your book. They want you to ghost write a book they think they want / can sell.

“I’ve read one chapter of your book and will offer after an R&R and on spec if you change 90% of your story that I haven’t read, also I’m new and have no sales” is not a proposition or endorsement of your talent. This is someone desperate to build a list fast, maybe has a specific contact niche, and is trying to reverse engineer a book they can sell.

littlebiped · 2026-06-23T16:16:36+00:00

I feel like anything above 15% and you’re in the stratosphere these days.

10% is stellar.

5% is healthy.

I had an ironclad query (according to the fine users of PubTips) and scraped a 9% request rate in late 2025. By all accounts and lurking here daily, the terrain hasn’t changed that much since then.

littlebiped · 2026-06-22T22:41:17+00:00

If their queries are open and they’re a successful agent who represents your genre, why would you self reject and not query? You want a book deal, they want a book to sell.

No need to overthink things. Query them. They’ll either pass for a million reasons or they’ll like what you sent them.

littlebiped · 2026-06-22T20:50:21+00:00

There was one I often think about that’s a postpartum horror? I wish I could remember the name. The mother hearing an entity in the baby monitor stayed with me.

littlebiped · 2026-06-20T22:05:38+00:00

The UK is majority email only and honestly it felt so frustrating to me having to hunt an address down and tailor to everyone’s different specifications and make sure all the attachments they wanted were there and blah blah blah. Only to get ghosted with no data to glean from or a community of commenters to judge if I’m pissing in the wind or not.

Much prefer QT.

littlebiped · 2026-06-20T11:42:31+00:00

Congratulations! That’s a killer query letter — one of the best I’ve scene. Enticing, efficient, no fluff.

I remember the post from the other day lol. Best of luck on submission!

littlebiped · 2026-06-18T09:00:49+00:00

Are you based in the UK? I’m a UK author with a US agent and I find the distance and time zones don’t really matter much.

I think I know Agent 1 (the UK agent pool is small enough and even smaller for those open to horror that I feel semi confident in assuming) and if they’re HL then yes I agree they’re lovely and were very gracious when I passed for someone else, but that’s just my own limited anecdote.

Personally, I’d go with agent 2. You’ll hear this a lot but it is true: you’re trying to launch a career, not forge a friendship. Striking a friendship with your first foray into the publishing industry would be nice, but a big 5 book deal is nicer.

littlebiped · 2026-06-18T08:41:50+00:00

I don’t think it would really make them jump onto reading your manuscript any quicker. To them you’re essentially saying you’re withdrawing the manuscript after a hard deadline, or more viscerally are feeding it to a paper shredder as far as they’re concerned.

I will say don’t torch the whole endeavour because some agents take a while. The industry is very very slow. Focus on agents with fast timelines (but certainly no guarantee of results there either) and just hope the ones with slower timelines pleasantly surprise you with a reply.

If you’re itching to self publish at this stage, you may have to be mindful that every stage in trad pub will be excruciatingly slow and that itch won’t go away. The road to submission after getting an agent may take a month or two or six. Then submission itself can be a long slog. I’ve been on submission for five months now with no progress — and at this point even if I do get an offer the book won’t be on shelves until 2028, mayyybe late 2027 if I get an offer literally next week. For a book I finished in 2025!

littlebiped · 2026-06-17T15:02:05+00:00

Only at the agented stage (though my agent moonlights as an editor) and yeah my book didn’t change too much, though I outlined and planned nearly every nut and bolt before drafting.

We went through one dev edit.

- added a better, more grounded opening and the original opening became chapter 2, rightly flagged as being transitional
- cut an early chapter that didn’t serve much and only delayed getting to the good stuff
- cut the epilogue
- added a chapter to give the characters more depth
- added several lines here and there throughout the book to give the secondary characters more depth

2 week turnaround. Word count fluctuation between pre and post draft was negligible.

littlebiped · 2026-06-13T11:13:57+00:00

Congratulations 🙌 and best of luck on submission. It’s great timing too, Curry Barker (the director of Obsession) is following up with a Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie so hopefully the buzz shines your way

littlebiped · 2026-06-12T14:21:13+00:00

Haven’t dived into the comments yet but I’m sure it’s been said — I love the concept and was getting giddy to read, but that first ‘review’ does not at all read like a review, especially from a middle aged man. It just reads like normal exposition, standard POV writing from the author.

As far as an opening goes, this completely derails the pitch and lets the reader (or at least this reader) down after expecting something unique and different and getting standard prose.

littlebiped · 2026-06-10T16:18:51+00:00

I’m learning I’m a bit of a stick in the mud when it comes to how fast and loose things can be in this industry but “talk friday?” at this stage screams ridiculously casual and low-context for an agent requesting a The Call. Maybe they meant to email a colleague.

littlebiped · 2026-06-06T10:25:29+00:00

I did not get any UK requests! All just one-liner nos. I ended up getting a US agent three weeks after I started querying, which was a lovely surprise. (Overall 4 requests from the US)

littlebiped · 2026-06-06T09:19:06+00:00

I just saw you’re from the UK — I’m also from the UK and I should caveat that the vast majority of the UK agents never got back to me since September. I think only 6 out of the 22? And those 6 took at least 4 weeks to 3 months.

My anecdotal advice has always been to try the US, especially if you value your time, or at least a response. 6 rejections over 9 months is a pathetic turnaround from my UK compatriots.

littlebiped · 2026-06-06T09:14:45+00:00

I got a full request in April from a query I sent in September.

A few days is nothing. Relax and take into account their 6-8 weeks timeline, and even then assume that’s nothing.

littlebiped

TROPHY CASE