 Vicky Weber has always loved literature, even from a young age. In 2015, she began her career as an elementary school teacher and earned her Masters in Teaching & Learning with a concentration in ESL. Her first children’s book was published in late 2019, and she’s never looked back! In April 2021, she gave birth to her daughter and left the classroom several months later to pursue writing full-time. She founded At Home Author, a coaching company to help other aspiring picture book authors learn the industry. Vicky joined The Purcell Agency as an associate literary agent in 2022 and was promoted to literary agent in January 2023. In April 2023, her family grew once more with the arrival of her son and in May 2024, she joined the team at CMA. As a Latinx agent and author, she strongly prefers to work with traditionally underrepresented voices whenever possible. She firmly believes that growing her author list is like growing her little family and she does so with intention.
What’s your favorite moment so far of being an agent? Oh, that's a tough one! There's nothing quite like working through edits with an author. You go back and forth revising until something suddenly clicks and the puzzle pieces all fall into place. Sometimes it takes weeks or months or years. Sometimes it's before we go on submission, and sometimes it happens in between rounds of subs with a nugget of feedback from an editor who passed. Its a lightbulb moment and I love it! But I also love the moment I get to call an author with a publishing offer in hand. There's nothing quite like that joy and the conversations that come from it. What do you love most about agenting? That I get to be part of stories I couldn't have written myself. I started on the author side, but I love that agenting allows me to help bring other manuscripts to life. The editorial work, the business strategy, the relationships—it all blends together in a way that just makes sense for who I am. What do you wish querying writers knew? That a pass really isn't personal. When an agent says something isn't the right fit, they usually mean exactly that. The puzzle piece doesn't fit the list right now, or they're not the right salesperson for it. What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever heard? Write more than one book. So many writers pour everything into one manuscript and then treat every rejection like it's the end of the road. But the writers who break through are almost never the ones who wrote one manuscript and waited. They're the ones who kept writing, kept learning, kept building their craft across projects.
Describe your dream client. Someone who genuinely wants to grow. I can give feedback, I can brainstorm, I can write edit letters, but I can't make an author take feedback seriously, communicate openly, or think about their career long-term rather than just the book in front of them. I want someone who has a strong vision for what they want, but who is still open to conversations and to the possibilities. What project would you love to see come across your desk? I’d love to see anything high-concept, hook-driven fiction across YA, NA, and adult fiction where the premise can be pitched in a single compelling line and immediately sparks curiosity. I’m especially drawn to stories with contained or high-pressure setups, escalating tension, and layered reveals, anchored by a strong psychological core—messy relationships, identity under strain, and dynamics that turn sharp or dangerous. I love genre blends and projects that blur categories, particularly those with elements of mystery, suspense, or an undercurrent of unease. I’m looking for stories that feel bingeable and propulsive while still delivering atmosphere and depth, with slightly lyrical, immersive prose in the vein of Rachel Gillig or Kate Alice Marshall. My children's list is already quite full, but I'm eager to find more author-illustrators of chapter books and middle grade with wacky, commercial concepts, and I'm always down for a fantastic commercial picture book. What interests or hobbies do you have that you’d love to see in a book? Honestly, I'm less drawn to specific hobbies and more drawn to unexpected angles on anything. Like, I worked at a haunted house in college — there's a whole world of weird, strange, darkly funny human experience in that job that I've never really seen explored in fiction. I used to rock climb, and there's something about that specific kind of focus and fear that I think could be really compelling on the page. It's less about the activity itself and more about what it unlocks in a character. That's what I'm always looking for: the fresh angle, the specific detail, the thing that makes me think "I've never seen it framed quite like that before." What book or author made you fall in love with reading? All of them. I've been a bookworm since birth! Anything I could get my hands on, I'd read.
What author would you love to have dinner with? Ooh, that's a tough one—can I have a dinner party instead? Sabaa Tahir, because her emotional stakes are brutal and precise in a way I find genuinely masterful and I have approximately one million craft questions for her. Brandon Sanderson, because I need to understand how his brain works when it comes to building magic systems. And Darcy Coates, because she's proven you can write atmospheric horror that actually sells and I think that conversation would be endlessly useful and fun. I'd probably do all the talking and none of the eating. What book world would you like to live in? Hm. I don't know that I would. I read to feel better about my own problems, so I think I'll stick to the familiar dystopia I'm living in! What’s the number one thing you would change in the publishing industry, if you could? That is a blog post in itself. The short version? Performative representation. Lack of transparency. Weird power dynamics. I could go on, but I'll save that for another day. What’s your favorite cringe-worthy book that you love? Oh, this is dangerous territory. I was absolutely obsessed with both Twilight and the House of Night series growing up. But I was a kid and didn't have the context to recognize the cultural appropriation baked into both. Now I do, and I can't unknow it. So I guess the honest answer is I don't actually love them anymore. They're just cringe-worthy books I used to love before I knew better.
What’s your favorite element of magic or worldbuilding in a fantasy or sci-fi manuscript? Weird magic systems with "oh sh*t" consequences. If your magic can do anything without consequence, the stakes are meaningless and I check out fast. But when a character has to make an impossible choice because of the limitations of the system? When using the magic might save them but also destroy them? That's where I lean forward. Brandon Sanderson permanently ruined me for anything vague and hand-wavy, and I'm not mad about it. What do you believe is your strength as an agent? I think it's that I've been on every side of this. I was a teacher, then an author, and now an agent, so when I'm working with a client, I genuinely understand what it feels like to navigate the industry. And because I built my own author career from scratch, I also think practically about what happens after the sale, not just getting there. What’s the very first thing you look for in a query letter (and what makes you stop reading immediately)? The hook. If I can't find clear, specific stakes and something unique about the project, I start losing the thread. What separates a “good” query from a “great” one that makes you request the full manuscript? Voice. A good query tells me what happens. A great one sounds like the book itself. It has rhythm and specificity and personality, and I can already hear the writer on the page.  Buy Vicky's book here: https://amzn.to/3QW8YRS Take your picture book from idea to written! This interactive workbook is designed to guide you through the process, from brainstorming ideas, planning your characters, and breaking down your story arc. Created by teachers turned bestselling children's book authors, the At Home Author team takes pride in creating resources that make your author aspirations easy to achieve. How important are comp titles in a query, and what kind of comps actually catch your attention? More than you'd think. It's not usually the reason I pass, but in picture book queries, everything is comped to Dr. Suess, Mo Willems, the HOW TO CATCH series, and other huge hits. To me, that signals that you might not read widely enough in your space if you only know the household names. The same goes for adult fiction. Everything is being comped to MEXICAN GOTHIC or HARRY POTTER or THE HUNGER GAMES or Brandon Sanderson, so if I see that in your query, doubt starts to niggle at me. Word count: Is being over or under the “ideal” range a deal-breaker, or are there exceptions? I'm not rigid about hitting a specific number, but big outliers always make me pause. It usually just means the author is earlier on in their writing journey than they need to be. That the writing itself needs a lot more work than I'm able to take on. Yes, there are super long epic fantasies with insane word counts...but it's rare to see a publish take on projects like that from debut authors. How many queries do you read in a typical week, and what percentage actually get a full request? I'm closed now, but when I was open, I was spending 20 hours per week on queries. It averaged to about 30 new queries every day, so I needed to reply to 20-30 per day to keep pace. I think my full request rate is about 3%? What genres or themes are you actively seeking for your list right now (and what are you not getting enough of)? YA and Adult thriller, suspense, horror.  Learn secrets and proven paths to finding an agent with the book GET A LITERARY AGENT. The guide explains query letter writing, submission dos and don'ts, how to craft engaging opening pages, synopsis FAQs, nonfiction proposal tips, literary agent pet peeves, and much more. What makes a debut author stand out to you in today’s market? A voice I couldn't mistake for anyone else. It doesn't have to be a flawless manuscript, because truly polished debuts are rarer than people assume. But a writer who knows who they are on the page, who has taken the work seriously enough to understand the market they're entering, who shows up with both passion and self-awareness—that combination stands out every time. How much editorial work do you usually do with a new client before going on submission? It really depends on where the manuscript is when we sign. Some clients come in close to ready and we do one solid pass together. Others need a more involved process. I'll sit with the author, ask questions that push them deeper into the story, they go off and revise with critique partners, come back, and we go back and forth until it's genuinely the best version of itself. I won't send something on submission before it's there. Editors are busy, and first impressions are important. What’s the hardest part of being a literary agent that writers never guess? The public scrutiny and how frequent it actually is. Agents talk about it, but I don't think writers fully realize how constant it can be. Every pass you send, every opinion you share, every post you put out is fair game. The angry emails, the threatening DMs, the people who feel genuinely entitled to your time. I've had moments at in-person conferences where I didn't feel safe. I've had people include personal information about me in a query. It can be scary sometimes. How do you decide which editors/publishers to submit a project to, and how many rounds of submissions are normal? Fit always comes before prestige. A passionate editor at a mid-sized imprint will do more for a book than a big-name publisher who's lukewarm on it. I also lean on my CMA colleagues for perspective, because I think of it the same way I think about authors needing critique partners. Outside eyes make the strategy better. As for how many rounds, there's no fixed answer that applies across the board. Some books find a home quickly, some take longer, and the goal throughout is always to be intentional rather than just casting wide and hoping. The submission strategy matters as much as the manuscript itself. HOW TO QUERY VICKY Vicky is currently only accepting queries at conferences, pitch events, or via professional referrals. Vicky's events: https://cmalit.com/resources-and-news/ You can read Vicky's MSWL here: https://manuscriptwishlist.com/mswl-post/vicky-weber/  This post was complied by Brandy Vallance, a literary agent with Barbara Bova Literary Agency, an award-winning author, and a Story Consultant for Writing Day Workshops. Brandy is the winner of two national writing awards, one of which included a $20,000 prize. Her novel, THE COVERED DEEP, has been featured in USA Today & Writer’s Digest. WITHIN THE VEIL has been called “passionate and riveting” and Publisher’s Weekly encourages those who like sweeping Scottish sagas to dive in because “the journey is wonderful.” Brandy loves helping writers break the chains of fear and self-doubt. You can find out more at brandyvallance.com.  Attend a Writers Conference in 2026:
Check Out Other Great WDW Articles & Resources:
Comments are closed.
|
