I queried a middle-grade novel for a year

July 16, 2025

Maybe it’s time to talk about this, as I’ve just ordered a proof copy for said middle-grade novel and I’m about to un-fridge it to see if it needs any more work before I self-publish it 🤭

“Once Upon A Sky” is a project I’ve been working on, on and off, since 2015. The original first chapter had been written as part of my application package at Brunel University London when I was looking to enter their Master's degree in Creative Writing. I then published that chapter as a short story under the title “Finding Maxwell” (maybe you’ve read it?) before pulling it out of Amazon when I decided I’d write nonfiction under my name.

Between 2015 and 2022, I wrote the story… It was painful because I didn’t know what age range the novel would be aimed at. So the main character went from being 8 to 16, to finally settling at 12 years old. The story wasn’t the same with each iteration, but I felt more confident writing my character as a 12-year-old.

That being said, in 2022, I asked beta readers to give it a go. They all loved the story, and I was pretty happy about it. I was ready to self-publish it, just like I had done with previous books, when my husband asked:

“Why wouldn’t you try the traditional route?”

Uh!

I pondered the decision for a few months. I “slept on it”, as we say in French.

Well, the title of this blog entry is quite explicit, isn’t it? I ended up entering the famous query trenches: I wrote a query letter, refined my author bio, prepared a PDF with my first three chapters and voilà. Ready to send my package to literary agents.

I’m so grateful for querytracker.net. It has all the literary agents listed, what they’re looking for, etc. So it was super easy to make a list of agents who were interested in what I wrote, theoretically. I started sending my query package to 5 agents, then 5 more a week or so later. And I did that now and then for almost a year, until I sent my little package to all the agents on my list (52 in total).

And while I was querying more and more agents, well, I started receiving answers. Rejection letters to be exact. And they were kind of all the same.

Hi Estelle,

Thank you again for submitting to me!

I enjoyed spending time with ONCE UPON A SKY, and I'm grateful that you gave me the opportunity to do so. However, I do not feel I'm the right agent for it, and I'm sorry to say that I am respectfully passing on your query.

All best,

XXX

There was only one who took the time to send me constructive feedback. They said:

“Your story sounds exciting, and we love how you plan to blend Max's relatable, real-life struggles with the fantasy plot. However, we found ourselves craving more indications of Max's state of mind -- his thoughts, emotions, and motivations -- to enable us to get inside his head in the way we would need to in order to champion this project. For that reason, we're sorry to say that we won't be requesting to see more of the work at this time.”

I ended up receiving 52 rejection letters over the 52 queries I’ve sent. And that’s kind of awesome to think that every single agent I queried took the time to at least let me know they were passing on it. That’s a 100% answer rate! They don’t even bother to answer you when you’re applying for a job. Maybe companies’ HR people should learn from those agents…

Anyway, even if I’ve got that many rejections, I didn’t feel discouraged one bit. Maybe it was just not the right time for this book in particular.

But, a year after all these queries, I’m ready to give it a hard look before I decide or not to self-publish it. And that, my friends, is a story for another day.