THE ONE WHERE IT TOOK TWO TO SELL
Cat/genre: Adult Romance
I’m sure anyone who has ever experienced the unique torture that is being on submission would agree on one thing: it’s a rollercoaster of emotions. Honestly, some of the highest highs and lowest lows I’ve ever traversed! My sub story is a tale of bad timing and perseverance and dreams come true. It feels a little bit like an overnight success story—just minus the overnight part!
I signed with my agent in February of 2020 and after making a few small edits to my manuscript, she suggested we go on sub right away since spring is usually a good time for sales. Part of me was still in a state of shock after finally signing with an agent (I queried for about three years), so I don’t even think there was time for nerves, it was all just excitement and anticipation. She was confident the book would sell, and so I was too. And so with my high hopes, I went on submission for the first time ever on March 4, 2020. Yeah, if you’re doing that math in your head, you’re absolutely right—I went on submission a week before the entire country shut down due to the COVID19 pandemic.
I guess the upside to that timing is I was too worried about everything else in the state of the world to be super hung up on what was happening with my book. I mean, I still had major anxiety about it, but it was tempered by my major anxiety about dying and/or not being able to pay my mortgage, so you know, different levels of anxiety. Sorry, that got dark.
Originally, my agent had prepped me for what she thought was going to be a fast sale. I remember asking her what her projected timeline was and she told me probably a few weeks. Obviously she made the standard disclaimer that nothing is guaranteed, but the feeling I got from her was that this book would sell. Of course, all of these conversations happened pre-lockdown, and clearly, that’s not how things went down in real life.
Eventually, rejections for that first book started to trickle in. We received a couple about a month after going out, but then we had months and months of silence. I know my agent, like all agents at the time, was worried about nudging too early or too often since everyone was still adjusting to working from home. We were in uncharted territory and it added a whole other layer of anxiety to the standard on sub anxiety.
It was probably about four months after the original sub package went out that my agent sent out another round of submissions to a new crop of editors. This time the responses came a little quicker, but we still didn’t have any takers. I’m not sure what the numbers actually ended up being, but I think I received rejections from two-thirds of the editors and the other third never responded, even after nudges. Around early fall, we had heard back from enough that my agent and I were able to have a discussion about setting my first book aside.
In the midst of all the rejection and the heartbreak of shelving a book I really loved, I found the inspiration for my next book. I started writing and the words just flowed. The book was done and ready for submission by mid-fall, but my agent was hesitant to send it out amidst the election turmoil. We’d already been thwarted by a worldwide pandemic; we didn’t need to risk it. So she advised we hold off until January of 2021, and we did. It was hard to know the book was ready and just sitting in my Microsoft Word folder, but it ended up being the right decision.
Almost a year after my first book went on sub, we finally sent my second book out into the world, on January 29, 2021. I knew that my first submission experience was not normal, so I didn’t really know what to expect this time around, but I tried to put it out of my mind and focus on other things. This time my agent didn’t give me any sort of timeline, so I prepared myself for a long wait.
A long wait was not in the cards for me this time.
On February 3, 2021 my agent sent me the first request for a phone call from an editor who was interested in my book. When I read her email, I was sitting in the parking lot of my local Starbucks, disinfecting my cups and lathering up with hand sanitizer. My kid was in the backseat and I full on cried for a good five minutes. (Fun fact, about a year earlier I was in the drive-thru of that same Starbucks when I got my first agent offer email. That Starbucks is magic.)
Phone calls were set up and other editors were nudged. I ended up speaking with multiple editors before accepting a two book pre-empt with the very first editor I spoke with. Since then, life has been a whirlwind of deadlines and edits and freaking out about book two. The first time I was on submission felt a little like being in a black hole, but round two was so fast I barely had time to stress about it. Of course, having multiple offers and editor interest is also stressful in a much different way—though it’s stress you know is going to have a good turnout in the end. I basically had two completely opposite submission stories! Being on submission during the pandemic was ridiculously hard, but honestly, I’m so happy with how things worked out. Timing is everything!
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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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