How I failed to get a book deal
a lesson in managing emotions
If you read my story about how I got my agent, you’ll know that I got quite lucky through the process. Querying itself only took two months, and I’m very happy with where I ended up. That was not to be my experience with submission. What is submission? It’s when, after you get an agent, your agent begins sending your book out to editors at publishing imprints.
In this post, I’ll talk about the experience being on sub for books 1 and 2, the things that made me spiral and the things that helped me cope.
The wait begins… We went out on sub with my YA novel in October 2021, two months after I’d signed with my agent and done some revising. My agent shared the sub list with me, which had editor names along with their imprints. I felt a little starstruck, seeing some of the imprints on the list and how they’d published books I’d read and loved. My agent asked how I wanted to receive passes (forwarded the moment they were received? once every week or month? only when I requested info?). I requested that they forward me editor passes every Friday. This was a mistake.
Lots of rejection. By the end of 2021, I had already received passes from half of our submission list. Rejections ranged from the book not being a fit for the imprint, to the editor already working on a similar book, to them simply not feeling the “must-have” feeling. By far, the most common feedback was that they weren’t sure that a book about gaming would sell. By February of 2022, the rate of responses had slowed down considerably, but we did hear back from almost everyone on our Round 1 submission list. Also, these editors were so lovely; some of them sent long emails explaining what they loved about the book. Despite the rejections, I tried to take time and appreciate that these were industry professionals reading my book (many times in its entirety), and actually liking parts of it.
There is hope. In April, around 6 months into being on sub, my agent let me know an editor was bringing the book to acquisitions, but that it would take a month for this to happen. My life was in a state of upheaval during this time, so I mostly succeeded at keeping my mind off of it… until the week that I went to Norway.
I knew that this editor was bringing the book to acquisitions, but I didn’t know what day the meeting was happening. This resulted in me bolting up every morning for a week straight and checking my email for news. I began having dreams every night of opening my email to either good news or a rejection. Sometimes I would dream about both results in the same night. Safe to say, things were really getting to my head. On Friday, we checked into an Airbnb with no wifi. I was desperate enough that on Saturday morning, I went walking down a dirt road surrounded by goats to look for a wifi network. Unfortunately, there were none in the vicinity without a password. So I waited until my friend woke up and we could drive to the five-star hotel down the road so I could bum off their network.
Lo and behold, there was an email waiting in my inbox. But it wasn’t the good news I’d been looking for.
Hope fizzles out. By September, we still hadn’t gotten an offer. At this point, I was finalizing my second book, and I’d basically forgotten about my first one. After all, it had almost been a year. This second book, what would become known as WOMEN OF GOOD FORTUNE, challenged me in ways that I hadn’t anticipated. I had to engineer a freaking heist! And somehow write three distinct POVs! I knew that it was a better representation of the stories I wanted to tell. So when my agent asked me if I was okay with withdrawing book 1 in favor of going on submission with book 2, I said yes. This wasn’t a light decision to make. After all, there was still a chance of an offer with book 1. And there was a chance that book 2 would fail too, making me an author who had failed on submission twice. I was terrified.
A happy ending. We went on submission with WOMEN OF GOOD FORTUNE in October (a full year after my first book went on submission) and received a pre-empt offer within the week. Everything happened so quickly. I went from hearing from my agent once a month-ish to hearing from them multiple times a day, and within a few weeks, it was on Publishers Marketplace.
It’s still hard to admit that I failed the first time, and this post would not exist if I had failed a second time. I probably would’ve deleted all my socials and retreated into a cave. In fact, I contemplated this often. What I’ve heard from agented authors who are courageous enough to talk about it, is that this is more normal than you think. Plenty of people don’t sell on the first book, the second, maybe even the third. But it’s so much harder to admit to a failure than to celebrate a success.
When I sank into my well of despair, I would wonder if this was as far as I would get on my journey, and that I was not good enough of a writer to deserve more.
After going through this, I developed some coping mechanisms. Even though this post is specific to submission, I think some of these tips can help any writer maintain focus and motivation.
Choose the manner in which you’ll receive your updates wisely. The first time, I asked my agent for the editors’ names, imprints, and for regular updates, including passes. It kind of ruined Fridays for me. The second time, I asked to only see the imprints, and for my agent to only give me updates if I asked for them. This prevented me from obsessing over specific editors’ Twitters and feeling beaten down whenever I read through a pass.
Stay off Twitter. Twitter was the bane of my existence. When I thought I was doing okay, I would log on and immediately feel bad, especially because my entire Twitter is just Writing Twitter, so on any given day I get inundated with deal announcements or book releases. It was hard seeing others’ books being acquired by editors who’d rejected mine. I was happy for people’s successes, but at the same time, I began to feel like I was falling behind again. I’d compare myself to other people all the time. I started only going on Twitter once a day, spending five minutes to scroll and reply, and that was it.
Your story can never be anyone else’s. This was crucial for me, especially when I began comparing myself to others. I knew that we were not publishing the same story, even if there might be similarities in the setting or type of characters featured. If having someone else’s success meant giving up your story for theirs, would you still do it?
Everyone’s struggling, but it’s much easier to talk about the successes. You only need to visit places like Submission Hell or Sub Stories to know that easy, quick book deals are not the norm. But it’s scary to be public about encountering a bumpy road when that might change the way people see you.
Remind yourself: you’ve come so far already. In 2021, all I wanted was an agent. That already felt beyond my wildest dreams. Well, greed is infinite, and the goalposts are constantly moving. But there’s no happiness to be had if you don’t spend time reveling in what you’ve already achieved. Finishing a book. Revising it. Getting an agent. Sending that book out to real editors. Having real editors actually read your book and like parts of it. That is hours of working in pursuit of a goal, learning, and improving. That is growth.
Write for yourself. Sometimes everything felt so pointless. What was the point of writing if nobody would read it? But before lusting after the traditional definition of being a “successful author,” there was the story that you wanted to write. The one that you believed you could tell better than anyone else. Remember the joy that came with putting those words on paper, of seeing characters come alive because you breathed life into them. Write for yourself first, or you lose the magic.
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Something I wrote today:
“You’re not going to come with me?” I asked him softly.
He glanced back at the room, then back at me.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered.
“Coward,” I said, loud enough for everyone to hear.