When I started querying in 2010, one of the agents I approached requested a paper manuscript. I printed my manuscript and sent it in a padded envelope. I received a reply by mail a few months later; a brief, kind rejection signed personally by the agent.
It felt a little quaint—a holdover from a gentler pre-internet industry. Publishing has changed a lot in the last decade, and I’ve had a front-row view. Alongside pursuing my publication dreams, I’ve built a career in editorial, starting as an assistant at Pan Macmillan and ending as senior editor at Chicken House, a