News!
My debut novel Greenwich is now available wherever books are sold! People Magazine named it a Best New Book, and it’s a Vanity Fair selection, a BookBub pick for Best New Fiction, and an Amazon Editor’s Pick for Best New Literature and Fiction. Read more and grab your copy here!
Sara Maurer interviewed me in the Chicago Review of Books: “Because What in Life is Ever Clear-Cut: An Interview with Kate Broad about Greenwich.” Lacey Dunham interviewed me about Greenwich on her Substack, “Marginalia.”
I wrote an article for Electric Literature: “8 Novels about Class and Racial Tensions in the Suburbs.” I wrote an article for LitHub: “A Refuge From Censorship: Why Independent Bookstores Will Save Us” Part I and my follow up on Substack: “A Refuge From Censorship: Part II.”
“Lipstick” is out in The Baltimore Review. “Word of Mouth” is out in The Brooklyn Review. [Link is now live!]. “Care and Feeding” is out in The Rumpus. “Good Dead Girls” is out in No Tokens.
Upcoming Events:
Brooklyn Book Festival: “The New Kids: 2025 Debut Authors Talk Process, Publishing, and Community.” Monday September 22, 7pm at Heart of Gold in Astoria, Queens.
Bellevue Literary Review: Tuesday Oct 23, 7pm ET online reading to celebrate the release of BLR’s Issue 49: a theme issue on “Animalia.” Link forthcoming.
Barnes and Noble meet and greet and book signings:
Sat. Sept 27, 1pm: Mt. Kisco, NY
Sat. Oct 18, 1pm: Whitehall, PA
Sat. Nov 22, 2pm: Providence, RI
Sun., Nov 23, 2pm: Warwick, RI
Recently at the launch for The Baltimore Review’s Summer 2025 issue, I was talking with some writers who are finishing books and wondering what comes next. We discussed how confusing it is to get started—there’s so much information out there, it’s hard to know what to sift through or where to begin.
I have lots info and resources in the archives: go to the On Querying section for queries, and On Publishing for broader publishing discussions. But I don’t have a primer on where to begin. So here it is!
Step 1: Querying Agents
If you dream of seeing your book on bookshelves, you don’t send your book directly to publishers. Literary agents act as a go-between, connecting editors and authors. You have to get an agent first, and they’re the ones who’ll submit your work to the editor.
To get an agent, you have to query them. This is the term used for sending a cover letter, called the query, and a few sample pages out to agents. If an agent wants to read more, they’ll write back and let you know.
I can’t sugar-coat this: querying sucks. It’s hard to know which is worse: getting form rejections, getting so-close-but-not-quite rejections, or getting total silence and ghosting. All of it is bad!!! But it’s the reality of traditional publishing with a medium to large publisher. Everyone gets rejected. The sooner you can depersonalize that and move on, the better positioned you’ll be to persevere and finally get the yes you need.
What an Agent Actually Does (and Doesn’t Do)
Agents are gatekeepers, yes, because you can’t get to a (bigger) (traditional) publisher without them (more on other publishing paths below). But they’re also your business partner and your #1 advocate. Their main job is to sell your book to publishers and negotiate the best deal possible. They’ll often provide editorial feedback, help shape your career path, and be your first line of defense when it comes to contracts and rights. An agent will go to bat for you and will answer all the questions you’re worried are too silly or embarrassing to ask.
Agents take a 15% commission of your advance and royalties; usually the publisher pays the agency and then the agency takes their cut and pays you the rest. A good agent does SO much work for the author and deserves every penny and more.
What they don’t do: fix an unfinished or unpolished manuscript, guarantee you a book deal, or act as your therapist or your best friend. They aren’t fairy godparents waving publishing wands, and they don’t have a crystal ball. They’re professionals looking for books they believe they can sell, but they can’t make any promises.
The Query Letter: Short, Professional, About the Book
In order to get an agent to represent your work – and then send it to a publisher – you start by querying them. Lots more about query letters in the archives:
Each agent has different requirements, so read their submission guidelines carefully to make sure you’re sending what they want. If they want to read more, they’ll ask for a partial (some number of pages that they’ll specify in their request) or a full (the full manuscript).
Getting a request is great. It’s not, however, an offer of representation. It’s like getting an interview. You’re one step closer—but you still don’t have the job. If an agent reads your full and wants to work with you, you’ll hop on the phone or a video call in order to chat and see if you’re a good fit. If not, they’ll let you know that they’ve passed on your query, it’s possible you won’t hear back at all. Ghosting is less likely on a full, but it does happen and, as with all of this, it’s best to be prepared.
There are lots of resources here and online about the query letter. Think one page, three parts:
Metadata. A sentence or two that gives the title, genre, wordcount, comparison titles, and can include a short hook that gets at the core of your story.
The Pitch. A concise 1-2 paragraphs describing the protagonist, the conflict, and what’s at stake.
The Bio. Anything relevant to your writing (publications, experience, platform).
No gimmicks. No apologizing. No “this will be the next Big Thing.” Agents are inundated with queries, and clarity and professionalism stand out more than cleverness. The biggest problems I see in queries are too much info—getting bogged down in unimportant minutia—or too little info, where the story feels vague and confusing. Give yourself plenty of time to work on this, and be patient as you revise.
Surviving the Query Trenches
Do your homework. Use Manuscript Wishlist, Publishers Marketplace, agency websites, and Query Tracker to figure out which agents represent your genre. Tailoring your queries (“I’m querying you because you represent X”) is always a useful addition.
And then, get ready to wait. Most books rack up dozens, even hundreds of passes. The only guarantee is that if you quit, your book won’t get picked up at all.
You have to be honest with yourself and take a hard look at your work through the eyes of an industry professional. Does anything in your query, opening pages, or the manuscript need more work? Are you sure your book is ready for an agent? This doesn’t mean beat yourself up and scream to yourself in the most negative voice that you have. I just mean to stay clear-eyed about where you are in your journey. Many people query too soon, and many first books don’t get picked up. At the same time, you have to believe in yourself and give yourself a fair chance to succeed.
I recommend using a spreadsheet to keep track of everyone you’ve queried, what you’ve sent, and their response, with dates. I also recommend that while you’re querying, you start writing something else. It will keep you engaged and give you something new to fall in love with.
Other Genres
I’ve focused here on querying agents in order to get a novel published, but the journey is a bit different for nonfiction. Nonfiction often sells based on a proposal, an outline, and a few sample chapters, instead of a finished manuscript. You’re going through the same steps, but at a different stage in the writing process.
Memoir is somewhere in between, depending on what type of story you’re telling. Memoir that’s more novelistic tends to sell the way a novel does, where an agent wants to see the full manuscript before signing on.
Other Paths
You need an agent if you’re going to try for bigger publishers. These are the “Big 5” publishers—Penguin Random House, Macmillan, Simon and Schuster, Hachette, HarperCollins—and all of their imprints, or subdivisions. This is also the case for bigger independent presses, like Scholastic, Grove, Sourcebooks, etc. They aren’t owned by the Big 5, but they usually don’t take unagented submissions.
But these aren’t the only publishers that exist. There are also smaller independent presses, many of which take unagented submissions, meaning authors can submit their manuscript directly. University presses also publish great work and don’t require an agent.
Self-publishing is another path that doesn’t require any querying or submissions at all. You become your own publisher, meaning you take on/find professionals to hire for all the rounds of editing, copyediting, and proofreading, and you handle the cover design, production, marketing, publicity, distribution, and audience building. You’re responsible for all the upfront costs, but you have full creative control and don’t have to share the profits with the publisher or an agency.
There’s no path that’s “right” or “wrong” or better or worse than another. It all comes down to your book and your goals.
No matter what stage you at or what path you’re considering, let me know if you have any questions, and keep writing!
Kate