How do I choose sample pages for an agent submission?
- Sample pages almost always start at chapter one, page one.
- You do not get to pick your "best" scene; agents want the real opening.
- Send the exact amount requested — first 5, 10, 50 pages, or three chapters.
- Paste pages in the email body unless guidelines ask for an attachment.
- A prologue counts as page one if your book has one you stand behind.
You do not choose — you start at page one. Agents ask for sample pages so they can see how your manuscript actually opens, so send the beginning, not a favorite scene from the middle. Follow each agent's amount exactly: first five pages, first ten, first three chapters, first fifty. Paste them into the email body unless the guidelines request an attachment. The "choice" is really a polish job on the opening you already have.
Chapter i·Why it matters
Writers who substitute a stronger later scene for a weak opening are answering the wrong question: the agent is evaluating whether readers will keep turning pages from the start, and a great chapter ten cannot fix a flat chapter one. Sending the true opening — and making sure it earns the read — is the entire point. Trying to game which pages go in only signals that the real opening is not ready.
Chapter ii·What to include
- The manuscript's actual opening, starting at page one.
- Exactly the amount each agent's guidelines specify.
- Pages pasted in the email body unless an attachment is requested.
- A prologue only if it is genuinely part of your opening.
- Clean formatting that survives pasting (no fancy styling).
- An opening polished hard, since these are the pages that decide.
Chapter iii·Example
An agent asks for the first ten pages in the body of the email. The writer is tempted to send her gripping chapter-six interrogation instead, but she sends pages one through ten as written — after spending a week tightening them. Another agent wants the first three chapters as an attachment; she sends exactly that. She never swaps in a later scene, because the opening is what the agent is actually testing.
WriteLoom's Edit studio helps you tighten the opening pages agents actually read, so your page-one sample earns the request.
Sharpen your opening