THE ONE WHERE THEY PLAYED HARDBALL
Cat/genre: YA Contemporary
My sub journey started off like everyone else’s—full of hope, trepidation, and way too much stress eating.
When my agent asked if I had any specific editors in mind, my first thought was: wow, she thinks way too highly of my publishing knowledge! Because the truth is, I had no idea which editors to sub to. I was literally ready to sell my manuscript to Joe Schmo at Schmenguin Schmandomhouse, you know?
That said, there was one editor I wanted to submit to—but that had nothing to do with my industry knowledge and everything to do with a personal encounter we had at a writing conference back when I was a baby writer. She was so lovely, and she acquires books in my genre, so I thought why not? It would be amazing to see my journey come full circle.
I ended up subbing to 22 editors total, a mix of big houses along with some smaller ones, and one week in, we got our first response. It was a pass—but the nicest pass an author could get. The editor mentioned, in detail, all the things she liked about the manuscript but said she had to pass due to a similar project on her list. Of course it still stung (no rejection feels good) but it was a heartening sign that she read and responded during the first week.
The following day, we got another pass. With much the same response.
Now, without going into great detail about my manuscript, I will say that when I was drafting it, so many people told me what a unique story it was. So to have two back-to-back editors say they already had something similar was confusing to say the least. I was beginning to worry that I was late to the party and everyone would respond with the same type of pass.
But two weeks in, we got a vague email from an editor who loved the manuscript but was passing since a colleague at different imprint in the same house was even more enthusiastic (and they didn’t want to compete). It definitely felt like an offer was imminent, but there was no mention of said offer in the email, so my agent had no idea what to expect. But before she could reach out to the other editor, the offer letter came in.
I couldn’t believe it. Less than three weeks into the submission process and I had my first offer!
There were about 18 editors who still had the manuscript, so my agent let them know we had an offer and several quickly responded to say they were taking to second reads. With such high interest, my agent was confident we would be taking this to auction.
FAMOUS LAST WORDS.
After the weekend, editors began dropping off, stating one reason or another. There were still some who were considering, but rather than waiting for them, my agent and I agreed to move things along with the offer we had in hand, while we still had some leverage. We decided to ask the offering editor to sweeten the deal and call it a pre-empt. If we could make it a two-book deal, for a little more money, and North American rights only, then we would take it off the table.
For those of you wondering, this is a completely run-of-the-mill thing to do. Negotiations are part of the process—even in pre-empts. We were fully expecting them to only agree to one or two of our three requests.
They did not.
In fact, not only did they stick to their original offer, they put a deadline ON US! On top of not wanting to negotiate at all, they also wanted a decision by the end of the week. Which was in two days!!! RIP inner linings of my stomach.
My agent said this had never happened to her before, so she asked her colleagues for advice, but it had never happened to them, either! So we decided to just ask for a two-book deal to be done with it. It would leave a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, but I’d get over it once I started working with the editor—who was both super enthusiastic about working with me and a true champion for my book.
Except!!!
Her team rejected the two-book deal! They were adamantly sticking to their original offer.
I think this was the worst moment of the entire process for me. I had been dreaming of a book deal—from anyone, let alone a major publishing house!—for so long that to feel bad about the way it was happening felt…shitty.
BUT. Do you remember that editor I requested we submit to? Well, we were still waiting on her, and though she had her out of office on at the time, the day before our looming deadline, she came back with a simple one-line email saying she got the OK to make an offer.
I just about died.
I had a phone call set up to talk to her on Friday, 11AM/EST. My deadline was 12PM/EST. To say this was down to the last minute is not an exaggeration. I knew our chat might go over an hour, so the plan was to email my agent during the call if I knew one way or another.
Then two minutes before the call, my agent told me editor 2 not only offered us a two-book deal, she also sweetened it by upping the money per book.
DEAD.
Needless to say, we said yes please! and accepted her offer.
So even though on the outside my whirlwind experience on sub seems typical and fast, it didn’t feel typical at all! And if anything, the deadline imposed on us made it unnecessarily stressful!
Who knew there could be such a thing as “too fast” in publishing??
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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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