Do you dream of seeing your book on shelves in major bookstores, published the traditional way?

Breaking into traditional publishing feels like trying to open a locked door. Most writers don't know how to find a book agent, what agents actually want, or how to write a submission package that gets noticed. This course changes that.

Sarah Revivis Smith, a literary reader with nearly ten years of experience, has read thousands of submissions from writers just like you. She's worked with literary magazines, top literary agents, and authors published by Big 5 publishers, and she's discovered writers in the submissions pile who've gone on to win the Costa Short Story Prize, the Betty Trask Prize and be nominated for the Women's Prize for Fiction. She has a good idea of what agents reject, and why.

In this comprehensive course, you will:

Understand what a book agent does and how the publishing industry really works

Learn what agents are looking for in: genre, hook, "comp titles," and more

Build a personalised shortlist of agents best suited to your novel

Use Sarah's proven templates to write a compelling cover letter and synopsis

Populate an Agent Approach Spreadsheet to manage your submission process

Reframe rejection as a learning tool and build long-term resilience as a writer

The course is designed around short, dense, action-focused lectures made to be watched in one sitting so you can immediately apply what you've learned. Every activity is hands-on, guiding you to actually build your submission package rather than just theorising about it.

This course is for you if:

You have a completed novel (or nearly completed) and are ready to query agents

You've been querying without success and want to know what's going wrong

You're serious about traditional publishing and want expert insider guidance

Stop guessing. Start submitting with confidence.