Interview with Carleen Geisler, literary agent at PS Literary.

Carleen Geisler is an associate literary agent at PSLA. She began her publishing career as an intern and later as an associate agent at ArtHouse Literary Agency. Prior to her time there, she worked in digital marketing for several years. Carleen lives on a small-scale regenerative farm and, as such, has a soft spot for stories centering the earth, agriculture, and holistic ways of living. She represents adult fiction across contemporary genres and non-fiction.

Hi Carleen, what made you want to be a literary agent, and for how long have you been one?

I started as an agent in May 2023, after 7 months as an intern at a literary agency. Prior to that, I was actually a querying writer myself, which is where my interest in the career started. As a querying writer, I found that I loved the process of submitting queries, helping friends build query lists, and beta reading. One day, it dawned on me that those things I really enjoyed were very similar to what an agent does, so I sought out an internship.

As a fiction author represented by a literary agent, what is your advice to authors seeking representation?

My biggest piece of advice is not give up. I know that sounds kind of doom and gloom, but it’s the truth—there’s a lot of luck and timing involved in this process, and patience is really important. Funnel all those negative feelings into the next book to keep you distracted, and always keep going! Don’t forget that a previously shelved book could always make its way into the world one day as an option book or future submission, even if it never made it out of the query trenches.

As a literary agent, what makes you accept queries, and what makes you reject them?

There’s a lot of nuance here, but there are kind of three stages that I follow when working through my query inbox. First, does it match the basic metadata on my list (is it an age category and genre I rep? You’d be surprised how many I get that aren’t...)? From there, I am looking for an intriguing hook that gets me excited to read the pages. Then I do a quick check to make sure the sample pages look in decent shape. I reject a lot of queries for reasons that make it seem like the book isn’t ready and/or the author hasn’t done much research, such as inappropriate word counts for the genre (130k thrillers are simply never going to make it past the query stage, I’m sorry to say!).

How do you approach publishers for a book deal?

I am regularly meeting with editors who work in the genres I represent! Every week, I am meeting with people I haven’t met yet, or reaching out to people I have met to catch up/find out what is new for them. Networking is huge in this job.

What, according to you, makes a book a bestseller?

I don’t think this can truly be quantified. I think having a high-concept, intriguing hook is really helpful, especially when paired with accessible writing (note: I said accessible—not necessarily beautiful or even good!!). Luck and timing, unfortunately, also do play a big role. I truly believe that when an author writes what is true to their heart, their book will connect best with an audience.

For any query, submit to Carleen Geisler at: https://www.psliterary.com/submissions/