My First Book Deal – Part 1

When my book was about to go out on submission to Editors, I spent a loooot of time Googling book deal stories. I wanted to read about those overnight pre-empts, the five way auctions, the clamouring of Italian publishers. But I also wanted to read about the slow-burners: the ones who waited months for the offer to come in, the ones who had a less tornado experience.

I wanted to understand them all so I could imagine every single possible scenario in the gaping chasm of time that seemed to yawn open the moment Lucy pressed SEND.

SO WHAT HAPPENED?

I had braced for whirlwind, and I’d braced for slow-burn. In many ways, mine ended up more like the former, but let me tell you: however you get your first book deal, IT IS YOUR FIRST BOOK DEAL. Do not let anyone else’s experience taint your own. You will be unlikely to get a pre-empt overnight, but you can hope for it. You’ll be unlikely to have rights snapped up in a ten way auction. But you can certainly spend some time imagining that you might. So enjoy every second of that hope and that anticipation because YOU HAVE MADE IT THIS FAR. Think of everyone who ‘has a book in them’. You don’t. You have a book OUT THERE WITH EDITORS. And if your Agent is worth their salt, your book will sell.

Buy deodorant in bulk. Take up knitting or baking. Fill your time, but allow yourself to have a bit of a dream: however that deal lands, you will never have this time again. You will never have a FIRST BOOK DEAL again. And, unlike the time everyone scolds you to ‘enjoy’ those endless days and night with a newborn, it really will be over in a flash.

And so. What happened to me?

PRE SUBMISSION

You’ll know from my previous post hat we put in a ton of work to get Mrs Wood ready. During this time, Lucy had been busy warming up editors so she knew exactly who she was going to send her out to.

The day before she was planning to send the manuscript, though, she sent a heads up email letting them know to clear the decks, Mrs Wood was on her way (ha!). Apparently, the response was so enthusiastic that she decided to send it out then and there. Which was heartening. 

So that was WEDNESDAY 8 JUNE 2022.

While I was either sending questions to Lucy, or refreshing my email every two seconds, I was hearing from Twitter and published friends that Editors were taking ages to read; that they were burnt out and the whole industry was in some kind of awful reading funk. Yay. 

I have to say, for an inordinately enthusiastic and positive person, Lucy is also incredibly pragmatic. She said nothing to mislead, get my hopes up or flannel, which meant that when she said that she felt good about the submission, she meant it. She did, however tell me that there was no way to know how quickly we’d hear back, and that she’d just been told of an author who’d received an offer six months in – this, she said, was evidence that no news was very good news. Obviously, I disagreed but, you know, at this point she was in charge.

Following a few positive emails from editors saying how much they were enjoying reading Mrs Wood, Lucy decided to chivvy things along by setting a deadline for expressions of interest by the following TUESDAY 14 JUNE.

What happened next? Find out in My First Book Deal – Part 2!