Shooting the Shit About How Much Agents Share
The Shit No One Tells You About Writing
Bianca Marais, Carly Watters and CeCe Lyra
4.8 • 842 Ratings
🗓️ 15 December 2025
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Do agents talk about your queries behind the scenes? 👀
In this episode of Shooting the Shit, Carly and CeCe kick things off with winter sadsies, Brazilian brigadeiros, and an advent-calendar scandal before diving into the real talk writers need. They break down whether agents share queries with each other, if comping an agent’s own clients helps or hurts your chances, and what it really means when your work appears on Books with Hooks. Plus: big publishing investment news, female-led powerhouses, money-episode teasers, and a candid conversation about what makes a “good” question—and why creative decisions are yours alone. Equal parts industry insight, tough love, and chaotic banter.
Note: CeCe Lyra is a literary agent at Wendy Sherman Associates. If you’d like to query CeCe, please refer to the submission guidelines at www.wsherman.com. Carly Watters is a literary agent at P.S. Literary Agency, but her work on this podcast is not affiliated with the agency, and the views expressed by Carly on this podcast are solely that of her as a podcast co-host and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of P.S. Literary Agency.
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi there. We've got a lot. We're really excited to tell you about, but I'm going to make this real |
| 0:04.9 | quick so you can get to the episode. The deep dive is coming up at the end of January. The lineup of |
| 0:10.9 | speakers is incredible and the range of topics is mind-blowing. You do not want to miss out on the last |
| 0:17.3 | deep dive ever. Then the beta reader matchup is open once again |
| 0:21.3 | with the matchups going out early in February. |
| 0:23.9 | Sign up to kick your creative year off with a bang. |
| 0:27.2 | Lastly, there's an amazing writer's workbook available |
| 0:30.0 | which will make the perfect gift for you |
| 0:32.3 | or the writer in your life. |
| 0:34.4 | Head to our website, The Shit About Writing, to find out more. |
| 0:40.0 | Welcome to another episode of Shooting the Shit with literary agents, Carly Waters, and |
| 0:45.4 | Cici Lira, where we dissect publishing gossip, discuss book industry trends, and the overall |
| 0:50.9 | state of the book business. If you've ever wanted to grab a coffee with two literary agents, |
| 0:55.5 | grab your mug and pull up a chair. |
| 1:04.5 | Hello, everybody. |
| 1:06.1 | We are so glad to see you. |
| 1:07.6 | Once again, we hope you're watching us on YouTube so you can see. |
| 1:10.7 | I'm wearing my funky glasses. I also haven't figured out like my winter lighting for my Zoom calls. It's very dark in here and I'm like, I don't know. You guys on YouTube got to let me know what you think about my lighting situation because it's a battle. It gets dark a little early here in the Northern Hemisphere right now and contributes to my winter sadsies. Do you get winter |
| 1:28.0 | sadsies, C, C, C, C. I don't think I get winter sadsies. It's interesting because I grew up in |
| 1:36.9 | the southern hemisphere and that's where some like at the end of the year you have summer, right? |
| 1:42.1 | Yeah. And yet we talk a lot about how the sad zies happen when you're like in the new year situation, |
| 1:49.2 | like a new year beginning anxiety. |
... |
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