THE ONE THAT STARTED IN THE WRONG COUNTRY
Cat/genre: Thriller
My submission journey really begins with querying.
Which did not go how I thought it would.
I had a completed manuscript (which was in no way ready to query), and I started to think about possible agents for the book. It felt like the super exciting part, and I was immediately tempted to seek representation in the US—despite living in the UK (and the novel being set in the UK). I think the reason I jumped headfirst down this misguided rabbit hole was because I read a lot of US contemporary fiction, so I darted around looking at all the books I loved and their agents. My book felt perfect for them! Surely, they’d love it as much as I loved their other books?
There was no stopping me. I started researching US agents like an author possessed.
I had recently completed a course that had a strong emphasis on how to pitch your novel, so my query had been through a few rounds of edits. I felt ready-ish. And so I jumped straight into the trenches.
It was a stressful process but also quite enjoyable to start. I used multiple sites to track my queries—like QueryTracker—set up Trello boards and stalked agents on Twitter. And I did it the ‘right’ way, too! I sent out my materials in carefully considered batches, just like *the internet* was telling me to. Surely it was just a matter of time?
Nothing.
No partial requests, no full requests, and, in many cases, no acknowledgement of my query at all. I felt really disheartened, and at this point I really should have gone back to basics with my query and my pages to really dig into why people weren’t biting, but stupidly I didn’t; I kept sending and sending into the ether—the joys of the US market meant there were so many agents to try!
But I heard very little back apart from a single full request very early on.
It came to the point where I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to get an agent. I’d sent out over fifty queries, and I’d barely even received any rejections, it was mostly just . . .nothing. About seven months passed, by which point, I had done more work on my manuscript, but I had also done more research into the UK and US query systems, and realised how different they were. That beautifully edited query letter? Turns out it was far more suited to the UK side of things and hadn’t been crafted with the US system in mind. (And if this is the first time you’re hearing of this divide between the markets—welcome to the problem! We don’t always even call them query letters here, they’re often called cover letters!)
Armed with this new knowledge, I started querying UK agents, instead—again, using a batch-like system.
But I wasn’t getting much traction there, either—although I did get more replies. And since the UK is a much smaller market, I had less agents to try.
Then finally, after months of waiting, I got a revise and resubmit from a UK agent (I understand revise and resubmits aren’t so common in the UK, although they seem to happen quite a lot in the US). Her ideas really resonated with me, so I decided to implement them and resubmit. I worked on the manuscript for a few months and submitted it to her. She said she’d get back to me in the next week or so.
But then . . . nothing. For weeks.
I decided there was nothing left to lose. I was going to query the rest of the UK agents that felt like a good fit. I noticed one agent (let’s call her Agent A) who seemed to have a wish list that matched my book. She was super responsive, read the whole manuscript quickly and just had good vibes in general. We got on well, and she ended up making an offer—which led to another offer from a UK agent.
I decided to go with Agent A, and the agent who’d asked for the revise and resubmit stepped aside. And so, eleven months after I started querying my novel, I finally had rep. And I was delighted! Even though I felt like there was a lot more work to go.
Since I received quite a lukewarm reception from agents, I assumed the book would need a lot of editorial work before sub, but in the end, the changes only took a few weeks to implement, then off on submission we went.
My agent had a small initial list of UK editors who she’d already hyped my book up to, plus, she had a clear strategy that if this first round didn’t work, we’d have further editors to try. I felt very comforted by her approach and it all felt logical.
I was fully expecting a long, long wait. Everyone said being on submission was the most excruciating thing—and it absolutely was—but I won’t complain because within five days, we had a great pre-empt for world rights. I was blown away by how quickly it all happened, and weeks later, the book sold to a US publisher as well. This was big for me, as I had had so little interest from US agents, I had assumed there would be no market for the book there.
My biggest takeaway from all this is that sometimes, a book is an easier sell in a certain market—even if it’s not necessarily the market you originally had your eye on. My UK based novel was more instantly attractive to UK agents selling into the UK market—and once it sold here, it became an easier sell to the US side.
If I hadn’t been so fixated with the US market maybe it would have all happened a little quicker, but hey, I got there in the end.
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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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