THE ONE THAT CAME FROM THE HEART
Cat/genre: YA Speculative
For as long as I can remember, my bucket list only had one item: write a novel. I had no plans to get it traditionally published; that seemed like a pipe dream, something only brilliant geniuses did, not something a person like me could actually touch. But I could write a novel, maybe. If I had time. So in my final year of college, I started writing vignettes that I hoped would slowly build towards a full draft.
I spent the next six years trying to complete it. It was so hard to write after commuting over an hour to my first full-time job—while also trying to make friends, date, and wrangle my mental illness. I was frustrated by how long it was taking me and worried I'd stop writing altogether, so I bent my life around it. I got a new job at a university where I could take writing classes for $40. For my master's thesis, I committed to a full manuscript.
I revised for six months before hitting the query trenches, and after two years, 80 rejections, a handful of complete rewrites, and some near misses, I still didn't have an agent. I was crushed; not even because I wanted to be published that badly, but because I had grown to love my book and believe in its value. I had put so much of myself into it; years and tears and attention. But it was an odd book; too dark for YA, the voice too young for adult (which I resented; I could write a whole essay on how women's voices are seen as younger than they are and how queer content is viewed as older than it is, but that's for another day).
I was very close to self-publishing the book and moving on with my life—my bucket list was complete, after all—but I decided to take one last shot at getting traditionally published. I applied to the same mentorship program through which my best friend had found their agent. I was chosen. My mentors were phenomenal. They helped me age the book down to YA. I rewrote it three times in as many months. But at the end of it all, I had four agents offer me representation.
And I say me because three of them told me they didn't think they could sell the book. They liked my writing, though, and wanted to back my career. They could probably sell other books of mine, they said, but they seemed to agree that this one would be a tough sell.
The problem was, I wasn't sure I wanted to write more books. The process of the first one was so long and gruelling and my mental health really suffered. I didn't know if I could do it again.
Luckily, the fourth agent said she knew exactly how to edit the book to sell it, and so I signed with her in March of 2020. But I was still exhausted from the rapid rounds of mentorship rewrites, so doing four more drafts with her over the course of the next year—during the height of the pandemic—was rough.
It was strange to see people announce books they’d written during quarantine. It was hard to watch my friends go on sub while I was still chiselling away at line edits. At times, it felt like I was pushing the book so far away from what it had originally been, from what I wanted, that I felt like I'd failed myself. And I didn't understand why we were editing it so meticulously when an editor might have an entirely different vision.
But of course, my agent’s time and attention was a tremendous gift. She's smart and careful and great at her job. She begged me to be patient with the process, and I felt like I was trying, I really was, but I was so deeply unhappy. I just wanted it all to be over.
We went on submission in March of 2021—a first round of about 17 imprints. Within two days, an editor said she loved it and was taking it to her team.
They didn't feel the same way, so they passed.
Over the next few months, rejections poured in, and god, the feedback was such a mixed bag. Some editors hated the structure, some loved it. Some didn't like the entire concept of the book—which wasn't something I could change.
About three months in, a second editor loved it enough to take it to her team, but she couldn't get everyone on board, either.
Maybe, I thought, this just wasn't the kind of book that could please an entire room.
Maybe it's not marketable enough (read: straight enough—more on this later).
Though the feedback from round one was kind of all over the place, I spent two months editing one final time for pacing and other common themes. We went out with our second round of editors (8 total) in September.
In October, one editor registered interest but every other editor passed upon being nudged, so if this editor’s team decided not to buy it, I was all out of luck. We didn’t really have a third round of options that seemed like a good fit.
While we waited for that final answer, I started doing a lot of research about self-publishing, and felt so guilty about all the work my agent had done that might not amount to any money for her.
But as it turns out, her faith in me—and the book—wasn’t misplaced at all.
In late November—almost a full decade after I first started writing the book—it sold.
That final editor came through.
In a way, my timing sucked. After everything, I ended up on submission during one of the worst years for publishing, during a global pandemic where everyone was overworked and under-resourced.
But in other ways, my timing was perfect. Two years before my editor acquired my book, I’d sent her MSWL to my mentors. “I feel like this person would really get me,” I wrote. Then right as I signed with my agent, she left her publishing house, and I thought, well fuck, there goes that.
That very editor actually started working at my publisher the same month I first went out on sub, so I’m assuming my agent gave her time to settle in before submitting to her. And while it’s tempting to think it could have been over so much faster if we’d just sent it to her in the first place, maybe she wouldn’t have felt as comfortable advocating for it with a new team. Maybe she wouldn’t have liked it as much without the two months of edits I did in between. Maybe, maybe, maybe. It ended how it did. I am thrilled.
Two other things happened during the time it took me to write this book: I realized I was queer, and so the book became queer too. It’s the heart of it. I can’t imagine it without that storyline and theme. I really had to become someone new to write the book it was meant to be. COVID also happened, and while I used to be sad the book was aged down and lightened, I sincerely believe it’s the book that’s needed for this new world, for a YA audience. It now feels so right.
I am the farthest thing from wise, and I still think publishing success takes a tremendous amount of luck and serendipity. But my advice for authors about to go on sub is this:
If you are marginalized, make sure your agent is subbing to at least some people who share part of your identity, if possible. It’s not lost on me that the person who ended up pounding the table for me has shared a lot of my experiences.
Find reasons to write that have nothing to do with publishing. Write the book you just have to write, not the one you think will be easiest to sell (unless you’re depending on that $$ and then by all means, go on with your bad self).
Get a life. This was (and is) so hard during quarantine but having purpose, love, and entertainment outside of writing is crucial.
I’m proud that I sold my book, but no matter what other success I may find in publishing, I will be proudest of the years I spent writing with no guarantees, no promises. That took a lot of guts. It was fucking hard and scary and exhausting. I met the best people in my life. I became someone who could tell this story. And above all, I developed empathy for other writers. It’s made me a kinder reviewer, a more generous reader, and a better author.
It’s made me someone who’s ready to tell a new and different story.
After everything, all of it, I wouldn’t change a damn thing.
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The stories on this blog are posted anonymously so that authors can speak candidly about their experience. If you have a sub story you’d like to share, drop me an email at: katedylanbooks@gmail.com
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