Is Your Book Agent-Ready? How Agents Actually Decide—and What That Means for You
Sunday, April 26, 1:30-3:00 PT/4:30-6:00 ET (Zoom)
Recording Provided
In this Labyrinth Guest Workshop, Chip will demystify how agents actually make decisions about fiction submissions—what signals readiness, what raises questions, and what makes an agent lean in.
Then we’ll pivot to the practical next step: how to present your work once you are ready, including what belongs in a fiction proposal, what matters in a query letter, and how to approach an in-person pitch with confidence.
You’ll leave with:
- A clear sense of what “agent-ready” means in real-world terms (not theory)
- The most common reasons agents pass—and how to address them
- A checklist of what you need for a fiction proposal (yes, fiction too)
- Key elements of an effective query letter (and what to avoid)
- What to prepare for an in-person pitch (and how to make it human)
Best for: novelists preparing to query within the next 6–18 months, revising toward submission, or wanting an honest readiness check before they leap.
Chip MacGregor is Executive Editor at Whitaker House and founder of MacGregor Literary Agency. A former publisher at Time-Warner and Hachette Book Group, he has more than twenty-five years’ experience as a literary agent and has completed more than a thousand book contracts. Over the past fifteen years, he has executed more book deals than any other literary agent in the United States, had dozens of books hit bestseller lists, had twenty books made into a movie or documentary, and represented a handful that became feature films