My Publishing Journey: On Submission
When I joined writing Twitter, I promised myself I’d be as transparent as possible in my writing journey. It was easy enough when I was querying, but it got a bit trickier when I went on submission because a lot of publishing is hush-hush. But now that the ink is dry and the news is public, I’m excited to share my journey from getting an agent to getting a book deal!
To start this story, Naomi was FAST in getting my edits to me. I got my edit letter two days after signing my BookEnds contract. From there, I spent two weeks on edits and once I turned those in, we went on submission.
For me, the start of the submission process was as simple as getting an email from my agent with a list of editors they wanted to send to. At the end of our first day on sub, Naomi sent me a chart of the editors who requested the full based on the pitch and the ones who hadn’t responded yet.
The submission process is a lot like querying for agents. Agents pitch to editors, wait for a request or pass, and then wait for more news. From an author standpoint, this means a whole lotta waiting around while your agent does the heavy lifting.
We went on submission on a Thursday, and my first Monday on sub, Naomi updated the chart with the additional editors who requested the full over the weekend. So far, we’d had all requests, a handful who hadn’t responded, and no passes.
By the following Monday, I expected a repeat of last week: a morning email update from my agent telling me who had requested. Except, morning passed and I didn’t get an email.
Intuitively, I knew this wasn’t a reason to panic. But, of course, I did.
I stared at my phone all day waiting for an email alert.
At 3:31 PM, I got a message from Naomi asking for A CALL.
If you’ve ever queried, you know how exciting it is when an agent asks for a call. And if you’ve ever been on sub, you know it’s no different.
So, at 3:32, I responded with a very frantic “Yes!”
On the call, Naomi delivered news that blew my mind: an editor at Bloomsbury wanted to meet with me.
Friends— I freaked out.
I have this thing where whenever I get super excited about something, I lose the capacity to use words. So, I said, “OH MY GOSH” over and over again while Naomi laughed at me from the other line.
We set up a call with the editor for the next day. On the call with my now-editor Camille, I LOVED her. She totally understood my book, she was passionate about working together, and she had amazing ideas for edits. In short, she seemed like a perfect match.
The first hurdle: get an editor to love your book. Cleared. Now, we had to tackle acquisitions.
The acquisitions meeting was on Thursday. I spent the day stressing about it, sitting through class, and stressing some more. Naomi let me know at 5 that since they hadn’t heard anything yet, we probably wouldn’t know until Friday.
On Friday, I tried to sleep through my nerves. When that didn’t work, I took a Buzzfeed quiz that told me to take a walk so I did. Because, yes, sometimes I make choices based on Buzzfeed quizzes.
A few minutes into my walk, Naomi messaged me letting me know that Camille and Bloomsbury acquisitions were waiting for feedback from one more person and we wouldn’t hear back until next week.
I want to acknowledge that even though I was stressed, I was very, very fortunate with how quickly everything happened.
When Monday rolled around, I told myself that the day ended at 5PM. If there was no word by then, I should assume I wouldn’t hear anything until tomorrow.
Naomi called me at 4:52.
Naomi: “How are you?”
Me: “Good…. [realizes this is news that could either break my heart or make me happier than I’ve ever been] maybe.”
Naomi: “Is now a good time?”
Me [frantically shoving on my shoes and running outside]: YES
Naomi: “Is now a good time for a book deal?”
Me: devolves into shrieking human who only knows three words OH MY GOSH
The rest was a bit of a whirlwind. Naomi nudged other editors with my full and gave a deadline for when we wanted to hear back and we got a few other offers from editors.
Naomi and I set up a call to talk about my best-case scenario. We were in a great situation to decide what I cared about most and who I most wanted to work with. I told them that I love Bloomsbury, Camille is great, and they were my best-case scenario.
That night, Naomi called at 7:29 with an official pre-empt from Bloomsbury in an offer I couldn’t refuse and didn’t want to. In true dramatic fashion, it was raining. I didn’t realize it was raining until I ran outside to take the call and got drenched. I ducked under an awning on the soccer field to take the call and after, I danced around the field in happiness.
In total, we were on submission for two weeks and three days. I couldn’t be happier with how things turned out.
This is just one person’s story on submission. Like querying, the process varies person to person. If you want to read more authors talk about their time in submission hell, Mindy McGinnis has an excellent blog.
If you’ve read to the end, thank you! As always, if you have questions, leave me a message and I’m happy to answer!
