What to do and NOT to do when querying literary agents with best-selling author Milly Johnson
PLUS Latest news, events and opportunities for writers and journalists
My dear wordsmiths,
I’m very excited about the exclusive chat with author Milly Johnson this week but first - how are you? There’s a lot going on in the world - this is an understatement - so here’s a friendly hug from the autumnal wilds of rural Lancashire, England, just in case you need it. The black Hebridean sheep next door (pictured below) say hello - though the boys and girls have been reunited in the field of love and are somewhat distracted with new and unexpected feelings. Expect happy news in about six months gestation.. Not so happy news for the moles though as I’ve bought ‘scarers’ to erm.. scare them off with a sort of solar-powered vibration to at least the field beyond. I’ll update you if they work - but I’m not sure moles are as meek as they look and the lawn (it’s more of a field) is still spotty as a teenager.
If the word query strikes horror in your heart you are probably an author sending your book baby out into the world and receiving little love back for the adorable manuscript you sacrificed years of your life, sleep and a social life for. If you don’t know what it is (watch what you wish for) you are probably reading this newsletter simply for sheep and pheasant updates (understandable) or yet to finish your final draft and press submit. If the latter applies, it means you are about to face the very real challenges of the query trenches and the associated insecurities, rejection and hopelessness. We love it really - honest. Or maybe you are self-publishing, a process I intend to include some information on very soon (via a guest expert as I know nothing).
There so many of us authors - and we’ve all written brilliant manuscripts - but the reality is there are only so many books an agent can sell. Submissions for each agent vary from 5,000 to 20,000 a year and most only take around six new clients. So as hard as rejection is you can’t take it personally but you can learn - which is easy to say as I know from experience. My first book baby seemed perfect to me but now lives in an abandoned folder after I acknowledged some of its many flaws. I would not recommend this with actual babies.
But you can maximise your opportunities to catch an agent’s attention as today’s special guest Milly Johnson knows. Don’t take my word for it - take hers - she’s sold three million books so she knows exactly what she’s talking about. Milly is from Yorkshire and so pulls no punches so when she says don’t do something, you’d best take heed.
“It’s not interesting to an agent that your granny thinks your story is the best thing since sliced bread”
Milly Johnson
Known as the ‘Queen of feel-good fiction’, Milly Johnson is the Yorkshire-based Times best-selling and multiple award-winning author of 20 best-selling novels with more than three million sales worldwide. In 2020 she was honoured with the Romantic Novelist Association’s Outstanding Achievement Award and in 2021, won the Goldsboro Books Awards for Romantic Contemporary Fiction for My One True North. If this wasn’t enough, she’s the winner of Channel 4’s Come Dine with me (Barnsley edition) and a professional joke writer. Mainly, she’s a lovely lady who champions women and has gallons of experience and wise advice. Thanks for taking the time out of your hectic schedule Milly!
Meet.. Milly Johnson
Tell us about you
I’m a fiction author of over twenty books which all feature life in Yorkshire. I wasn’t published until I was forty, I didn’t think that anyone would be interested in stories about working class women in the north which would have held me back if I hadn’t had such a burning ambition to see myself in print. For many years I was a joke writer in the greetings card industry which kept my finger on the pulse of ‘relevance’. I’ve always tried to write books that people will read and think that I’m peering over their shoulder into their lives because it’s as if I know them and their lives personally.
How did you first develop an interest in writing?
I’ve always had an interest in reading, fuelled by my grandparents who were great readers and bought me loads of books. I was always writing stories as a kid because I was blessed with a massive imagination and a will to better my writing skill. For as long as I can remember I wanted to write stories that people would love, the way I loved the stories my favourite authors wrote.
For many years I tried to get published, aping the big books of the time and I failed dismally (quite rightly). It was only when I was sacked for having a ‘common accent’ that I embraced my northern-ness and decided to write a book set in my home town about people I lived amongst, which earned me my first deal. My story was lifted from my own life about me getting pregnant at the same time as my two pals when we were fast approaching forty. The extraordinary things that can happen within the parameters of ordinary northern life.
What do you consider your biggest achievement so far?
Making my dad actually accept that I had a proper job. I think he was always terrified I was a flash in the pan and I’d get my house repossessed and the kids would starve because I’d picked a career that was unstable (i.e. didn’t have an inbuilt pension, sick pay and holidays). Just before he died in 2019, I know he’d begun to believe I was on solid ground. He just missed me getting a massive achievement award in the industry. On the day I got it, I had to attend my best pal’s funeral in the morning and do a reading and then deliver the speech of my life on the evening. It was emotional.
Who is your writing hero?
I found Catherine Cookson very inspirational. She was well into her forties when she got first published and she bucked the trend and wrote about the north with many strong women as her heroines. She was who I wanted to be. Her books moved me emotionally, made me sob and the ones with the happiest endings filled my heart with joy. She was a master storyteller.
What gives you the most joy?
Receiving the signature advance money! I jest, it’s good but even better than that are events, signings where I can meet my readers. I’ve had them cry on me that my books keep them going, they hug me, give me flowers because I’ve led them out of some darkness. I write to entertain, not preach or dictate, but somehow people lift hope and direction from my stories and isn’t that just lovely, that you can spread so much happiness and positivity from doing something you love. I’m always touched when anyone gets in contact with me to tell me what effect I’ve had on their lives. Sometimes it’s been as dramatic as they’ve left their husbands after reading my books. I hope these men don’t find out where I live!
What would be your dream career high?
To have a huge Hollywood blockbuster film made of one of my favourite books that sticks closely to the storyline and becomes one of those classic films that is rolled out year after year because people never tire of it. Also I get a walk on part on it (and all the others to come) like Alfred Hitchcock. And Liam Neeson stars in it so I get to meet him. And/or Jason Momoa.
Top advice and tips
Querying: make your pitch letter relevant. It’s not interesting to an agent that your granny thinks your story is the best thing since sliced bread. Or that ‘you really want this dream to come true’. Everyone who writes to an agent wants it badly. And make sure that you adhere to what an agent asks for. If they only want a covering letter and a synopsis and you send the whole manuscript, they won’t think you’re innovative, they’ll think you’re a berk who can’t follow a simple instruction. Buy the best equipment you can, take your career seriously. You wouldn’t get a top joiner buying his screwdrivers from the cheap stall on the market.
Make the time to write: If you wait until you find it, you never will. Look up the Pomodoro technique on the internet if you have a problem focussing. Don’t stop reading. You will absorb so much in the way of vocabulary and structure and plot devices just by reading. And read for pleasure, but sometimes read analytically and see how the top writers achieve what they do.
“Sometimes it’s been as dramatic as they’ve left their husbands after reading my books. I hope these men don’t find out where I live!”
Milly Johnson
Learn to say ‘no’: Everyone wants a piece of a writer, they want their advice, their mentoring, their time. Be generous, pay back the goodwill you have received, but your main focus should be on writing the book and you can’t do that if you give all of yourself away. Be choosy about what you say yes to and don’t feel guilty about that - and resist being manipulated.
Grow a backbone of iron: This job is the most unfair, unlevel playing field of all careers. Put the work in to make yourself stand out. Do newsletters, interviews, signings (at the beginning no one may turn up – rites of passage), social media. Don’t read the reviews if you can help it because some people are just vicious for the sake of it. Accept you will never please everyone all of the time.
Work bloody hard.
Milly’s latest book Together, Again is available for purchase HERE and you can also pre-order her new title The Happiest Ever After (out Feb 15, 2024) HERE For everything Milly including her social profiles, she is on Linktree
LATEST : News, events and opportunities
The Regional Press Awards: Now open for early bird entrants, the Regional Press Awards honours excellence in regional journalism throughout the UK. Whether you are an experienced journalist, an emerging talent in the industry, or part of a remarkable team that has achieved outstanding work this year, this is your opportunity to showcase your best work.
Ilkley Literature Festival: Ongoing until October 22, The 50th anniversary edition of the north’s oldest literary festival was launched by poet W. H. Auden in 1973. It welcomes a plethora of poets, novelists, journalists and biographers to the Yorkshire spa town from Dame Jacqueline Wilson to TV presenter Clare Balding to Poet Laureate Simon Armitage - check the website for remaining events.
BBC Maestro: A series of writing courses, many taught by well known names, are on offer via BBC Maestro. As well as learning the craft of writing, the courses offer a glimpse into the processes and methods used by some of the world’s most successful authors. It includes a masterclass in screenwriting by Line of Duty’s Jed Mercurio and a children’s book course with the author of The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson
The Cundill History Prize: The foreign leader writer for the Guardian, Tania Branigan, and Kate Cooper, professor of history at Royal Holloway, University of London, are the finalists for the 2023 Cundill History Prize along with James Morton Turner, professor of environmental studies at Wellesley College, Massachusetts. The three finalists are in the running for the $75,000 prize (£61,610), the biggest for a work of non-fiction in English.
London Press Club awards: Winners of this year’s London Press Club Awards have been announced. Awards ranged from National Daily Newspaper of the Year for The Times to a £1,000 prize to the Young Journalist of the Year the Mail’s Sabrina Mille. BBC’s Steven Rosenberg flew in from Moscow to receive the Broadcaster of the Year Award with the judges describing his reporting as “a masterclass in revelatory, properly considered and fearless journalism”.
The full list of winners for London Press Club Awards 2022-23:
Business Journalist of the Year : Roula Khalaf – Editor, Financial Times
Sports Journalist of the Year: Michael Atherton, The Times
Multimedia Journalist of the Year: Liz Hull and Caroline Cheetham, Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday
Scoop of the Year: Katie Hind, Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday
Young Journalist of the Year In Association with the Journalists’ Charity who have donated £1,000 for the winner: Sabrina Miller, Mail on Sunday
Broadcaster of the Year: Steve Rosenberg, BBC
Journalist of the Year: Stephen Wright, Daily Mail
Political Journalist of the Year: Steven Swinford, The Times
Edgar Wallace Award: Frederick Forsyth, Daily Express
