It’s actually one of my favorite questions to ask in my author spotlight series on WritersDigest.com. Over the years, I’ve noticed some trends—like that debuts tend to take longer from idea to publication than later books in a series, and that one author’s concept of “taking a really long time to complete a project” is actually warp speed for another author. 

“I started working on this book in the summer of 2018,” says Nancy Reddy, author of The Good Mother Myth: Unlearning Our Bad Ideas About How to Be a Good Mom (St. Martin’s Press). “My older son, who’d just finished kindergarten as I began, will be well into his first year of middle school by publication. So, the research and writing and thinking in this book really spanned my kids’ entire elementary school years.” 

For some authors, like Marianne Cronin, author of Eddie Winston is Looking for Love (Harper Perennial), the process speeds up with practice: “Eddie Winston is my second novel, so the process was a lot quicker than with my first novel, The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot, which took seven years from initial idea to publication! Once I’d had the inspiration for Eddie, things happened quite quickly. I started writing in November 2021 and by March 2022, I had 50,000 words to share with my agent and editor.” 

However, other authors find that their process just takes time regardless: “I hope this isn’t disheartening, but every book takes me about 10 years from first thought to last word,” says Erika Swyler, author of We Lived on the Horizon (Atria). “I’m actively writing one novel while another is floating around in the back of my mind.”  

Still, other authors just aren’t even sure: “It’s gotten harder over the years to pinpoint exactly how long any one project takes since my best ideas usually hit right in the middle of deadlines where I’m already working on something else,” says Kayla Olsen, author of The Lodge (Atria). “This one I think took around two years?” 

Self-Publishing at the Speed of Light 

One thing becomes obvious early on: Self-published authors can move from idea to publication on a faster timeline than authors—even the speedy ones—on the traditional publishing track. Plus, many of the successful self-published authors still get traditionally published in roughly the same timeframe as an author going through the regular submission process. 

“The Bones Beneath My Skin was originally written in 2017, and then self-published in 2018,” says TJ Klune. “From there, it was picked up by Macmillan/Tor to be republished in 2025.” 

Meanwhile, Jillian Meadows says, “It took me about nine months to write Give Me Butterflies (Avon), and I originally self-published it. Now, it has gone through a few more rounds to get to this traditionally published version. So overall, it has been a little over two years since the idea began.” 

“I began writing the series toward the end of 2021, and I self-published the first book in June of 2023,” explains Penn Cole, author of Glow of the Everflame (Atria). “About a year later, I partnered with Atria Books on the print edition of the series, which is rolling out over the next few months. Altogether, it has been about three years from deciding to write the books to seeing them on bookstore shelves.” 

Agents Can Help Ideate 

While not every literary agent is game for helping authors brainstorm ideas, some agents definitely thrive on facilitating the creative process. 

“My agent and I brainstormed the initial premise in July of 2022, but it took three drafts for me to become confident in who the killer was and figure out how all of the characters were connected,” says Ande Pliego, author of You Are Fatally Invited (Bantam). “Total, it took around two and a half years.” 

Edward Underhill, author of The In-Between Bookstore (Avon), also found brainstorming with his agent was helpful: “I started discussing the concept of the book with my agent in late 2022, and then once I’d written the first few chapters and a full synopsis, we sent that as a proposal to my publisher in early 2023. Then I had to write the rest of that book, which I actually did in about a month and a half! It was insanely fast, and I’m honestly not sure I recommend drafting at that pace; but one good thing was that I had no time to overthink anything. There simply wasn’t time.” 

Of course, most projects aren’t going to be written that fast. Some are sure to take time and might even be hidden from an agent until they poke and prod their authors enough. Such was the case for Sarah Perry, author of the essay collection Sweet Nothings: Confessions of a Candy Lover (Mariner): “At first, ‘the candies’ (as I came to call them) were a project of private creative rehabilitation. I just wanted to enjoy making sentences again. So, I resolved to write each morning, for 100 mornings, about a different kind of candy. I’d get up, still sleepy, and say, ‘Today is about Reese’s Pieces.’ And I’d let it rip, just kind of following my morning brain wherever it wanted to go before my editor-brain woke up. One day, my agent Jin Auh called me and asked what I’d been working on. I actually felt like I didn’t have much to say for myself, but I eventually ‘confessed’ that I had a ‘secret project’ that had somehow grown to 65,000 words. She insisted I send her the manuscript later that day, and she loved it. We sequenced it by color and submitted it to my publisher for first look, and we got an offer pretty much right away.” 

Keep Your Ideas Alive 

Nearly instant success is nice but do your best to stay balanced and in this thing called writing for the long haul, because some success stories take longer than others. The most important factor for writing success often is patience. 

“In some ways, I’ve been working on this book since 2008,” says Megan Collins, author of Cross My Heart (Atria). “At some point, maybe two books ago, as I continued to let it simmer on the back burner, I thought of a really cool … thing—that’s all I’m willing to say—that could happen in it, but I was unsure if I had what it took to execute it. Finally, in late December 2022, I needed to present a new idea to my publisher, so I committed to plotting it out … by April 2024, it was off to production!” 

And remember that everything is relative. “I feel like it took eons,” says Virginia Feito, author of Victorian Psycho (Liveright). “It took five years.” 

The post How Long Does It Take to Go From Idea to Publishing a Book? appeared first on Writer's Digest.

It’s not your imagination—building a writing career is getting tougher. Recent statistics estimate that two million new books a year are offered on Amazon. Competition grows stronger, the market grows more crowded, advances are decreasing, and more and more authors are competing for eyeballs—including against an onslaught of AI-generated books. 

Increasingly, publishing houses focus on debut authors, the tradition of nurturing and building an author’s career over years and multiple books seemingly a relic. If a single title’s sales don’t measure up to expectations, you may not get a shot at a second one—and yet much marketing and publicity is, more than ever, up to most authors to shoulder. 

Regardless of their publishing path, authors assume ever more costs associated with publishing, as well as ever more of the risks. They do the bulk of the labor of creating the product on which our entire industry is based, yet often benefit least from the commerce of it. 

In a time when it can feel daunting or even pointless to try to pursue a writing career, how can you find a calm and confident center from which to free yourself to produce your best work and create a fulfilling, long-term, sustainable writing career no matter what current madness is swirling around you in the industry?

Take Control

One reason we can feel as if we don’t have control over our own careers is that our goals are based on factors over which we have very little of it. Making order from chaos starts with reframing the way we think about our careers and what constitutes success for us. 

That coin has two sides: the business and the art of your career. 

Relative to the business side, despite how much may be beyond your ability to influence, there is much that you do have a say over. You get to decide what publishing path you want to pursue—if any. (There is no shame or value judgment if your writing career means you write for your own enjoyment, or for a small group of readers like family or special-interest groups.) You get to determine when you send your work out, and to whom—and there are more avenues than ever to be published. 

Writers have unprecedented access to hire top-notch professionals once available mostly only through big publishing houses; more ability to find and reach readers directly; and more ways to market and even distribute their own stories. You have control over all those choices relative to the business of writing. 

What you don’t have control over is the outcome. You can’t influence whether agents or editors will accept your work, whether readers will buy it or how they will review it. No matter how brilliant your writing may be, art is the most subjective and mercurial of businesses, and often what makes one book a smash bestseller and another lost on the slush pile is no more than chance or timing or luck or the right contacts. 

But you can control your own efforts and output, shifting away from defining your success or worth based on outside attainments—the process, not the product. You have complete control over what you write, how you write it, when, how often—all creative decisions about your work itself that you get to make. 

But, like characters in our unedited stories bumbling around in circles and into dead ends, because they don’t have clearly delineated goals and motivations, authors may flounder in their careers because they fail to concretely define what they want or look at their true reasons for wanting it. Identifying your own motivations and goals hinges on three core elements:

Know Why You Write

Established authors I work with often tell me that the freest they ever felt as writers, the most they ever enjoyed it, was before they published or when they were between publishing contracts. That’s when they didn’t worry about deadlines or expectations or their platform or marketability; they just worked from the pure creative impulse that made them want to become writers in the first place. 

But amid the chaos of the publishing world, it’s easy to lose sight of that initial spark, our passion for the art and craft of writing: creating stories and worlds we dream of, exploring our fullest imaginations, learning and honing our skills, expressing our inner selves on the page. 

Those satisfactions come from within you, rather than hinging on outside forces or opinions, and are attainable through your efforts. Staying connected to that core “why” lays the foundation for agency and autonomy as an author, so you never feel like a beggar at the table hoping for scraps to be tossed your way, but rather a working artist at the helm of your own creative career.

Know What You Want

But most of us didn’t get into this field because we wanted to sit in our attic retreats and write for the sheer love of it, for no one’s eyes but our own. It’s human nature to want to share our creative work and find an appreciative audience. It’s human nature—and practicality—to want to be paid for it. 

Finding comfort within the chaos starts with defining what that specifically means for you. For instance: 

• Do you want to write full-time and make a living from your writing?
• Do you want to augment your finances with writing income?
• Do you want to be traditionally published?
• Do you want to have more control over your books and career and indie-publish?

Whatever your goals, what does that mean or practically look like? For instance, how much money do you need to make from your writing to do it full-time? What are the current traditional publishing advances like, on average? How likely is it you will sell through and make additional royalties? Or how much can you reasonably expect to make on a small-, hybrid-, or indie-publishing track, where advances may be even smaller or nonexistent? How many books will you need to publish each year given those estimates to make what you need to make to sustain a full-time writing career? 

What does that look like? How much time is required for writing each book? How much for editing and revision? How about marketing? What does that look like in practice—a 40-hour workweek, broken up into writing one manuscript while editing another, and also marketing and publicity and platform building? Fifty hours? Sixty? And are you factoring these expenses, where you must carry them yourself, into your net yield? 

When books become your main product that provides your income, your business model requires churning them out regularly, without fail. And market fluctuations are out of your control: Does your business model allow for “dry spells” if one book doesn’t sell well, or advances drop, or you lose a publishing contract, or you fall behind in production of your stories? 

When you consider what your goals actually mean and entail, do they still sound enjoyable to you? Is this what you had in mind when you dreamed of making your living writing? 

Maybe it is. But maybe it isn’t, and you realize that actually, when you say you want to write full-time, what you really mean is you do want to be Emily Brontë writing in her attic aerie, untroubled by the chaotic realities of the business or the world, simply living as a pure artist. Or that it’s enough to write part-time, buying yourself creative freedom with your “day job”—the way so many authors do, even bestsellers. 

And maybe that’s already within your reach. 

This is why it’s crucial to pinpoint goals and motivations concretely and fully—for ourselves just as with our characters. Your stories will never come together if you don’t … and neither will a rewarding writing career.

Know What You Value

Even though it may feel like it, art is not life. 

Besides the joy of pursuing your writing, and the potential of making money from it if that’s among your goals, what else do you value for a full and meaningful life? What—and most important, who—matters most to you? Your partner? Children? Pets? Your family of origin? Your family of friends? Your community—writing and otherwise? 

What does that look like to you in your ideal life? Do you want time every day to devote to those people, to nourish yourself and these relationships? What does that mean—specifically: Twenty minutes of meaningful conversation? Shared activity and enjoyment? More? 

What about your other passions and interests, where do they fit in? Is regular exercise important to you, or being in nature, or hobbies like gardening or cooking or rock-climbing or glass blowing? 

Based on all your values, what does success mean to you? What would feel like enough: time well spent; life thoroughly enjoyed? 

Once you define these parameters, what do you do with them? They become the basis for how you build your writing career. They allow you to make decisions and create a life that fulfills you.

Treat Your Writing Career as a Business

You know the setting—the realities of our industry. You know your motivations—your why. You know your goals—your “enough.” You know the stakes—what you value. 

Now you have to create the plot—the actions you will take to reach the goals you desire, within your control. That means treating your writing as a business and as a career—and honoring your right to pursue it whether or not it’s “profitable”:

Have a Plan

Now that you’ve defined what you hope to achieve in your writing career, determine what you need to do to attain those concrete goals. 

Create a mission statement and business plan—an actual written one that you keep. Make a flowchart, a bullet list, a spreadsheet—whatever works for you to delineate the steps on the path that are necessary to achieve your particular defined goals. 

That likely starts with creating a writing routine and treating it like any other firm commitment—like a job. Writers write; they don’t just talk about writing. Schedule your writing time and honor that. Keep learning your craft to hone your skills, as you would in any other field you want to master and succeed in. 

If your goals involve your stories reaching readers, pinpoint the avenue(s) you want to pursue and learn the steps involved—and then put them into action, creating a step-by-step, concrete plan for that too. 

You wouldn’t dream of trying to launch any other business without a researched market plan and budget—treat your writing career the same way and have a budget for your time as well as your finances. What are the markets for selling your work? What do you have to do to be competitive in those markets? What do they pay—is it enough to live on, or how much of it will you have to do to make your desired income? Is that feasible/sustainable? How, exactly? If not, how will you supplement that income, if you need to? Make a specific, concrete plan for soliciting and attaining paid work—and follow it.

Adjust When Needed

Periodically revisit your mission statement and business plan, and tweak as your situation, the market, or its requirements change. Regularly revisit your goals: You are not stuck in the rut of the things you may have wanted in the past—people evolve and grow, and their goals must evolve with them. 

Even with exacting planning and diligent execution, there are no guarantees in any creative business. Publishing is a subjective industry and a mercurial one. Do everything you can to set yourself up for success, but always coming back to your goals, your motivations, the realities, and your values—your definition of success, on your terms—is your safe harbor in any storm. 

That doesn’t mean you don’t dream. Our dreams can sustain us and help motivate us, but it does mean shifting away from defining the attainment of those dreams as success. From valuing our success or worth based on outside attainments rather than internal satisfactions. 

Define your success not as what will make you happy, but as what you can be happy with. It’s a subtle shift in thinking that keeps you from waiting for the holy grail before you can actually enjoy your life or your career.

Stay in the Game

It’s such oft-repeated advice for writers that it’s a cliché, but the secret of creating a successful writing career is persistence. And the main tool to be able to persist in this chaotic, challenging business is resilience. 

And the way to create resilience is to remember that we are not our writing. We are not our writing careers. Our worth is not dependent on the performance or popularity or perfection of our creative output. 

It can be hard to hold on to that in those literary dark nights of the soul, when we may be beset by self-doubt, discouragement, even despair. But our creative output has inherent value because we instill it. We don’t exist for our writing—our writing exists because of us. As long as you pursue it—on whatever level is meaningful to you—you are a writer.

Be Your Own Advocate

In any creative industry, where the person who often benefits the least financially is the creator, it’s up to every artist to be their own advocate and champion, even if you’re lucky enough to have a support team behind you. 

That means taking yourself seriously as a writer; valuing and respecting your creative work, no matter where you are in your growth as an artist; and knowing when to say no—and saying it. Even in an industry rife with rejection, where too often the remunerative elements aren’t remotely commensurate with the effort and energy the work requires, and artists are sometimes treated as disposable, interchangeable manufacturers of “product,” you get to decide your work’s worth. 

Don’t be afraid to ask to be paid for your writing. Don’t be afraid to negotiate for more money or to retain more rights. Don’t be afraid to walk away if someone else doesn’t value your work the way you realistically believe it should be valued. If one of your goals for your writing career is to make money—which is fully legitimate and valid—then you have to approach selling your work like the business it is. 

Advocating for yourself and your career also means consciously creating the career you want; protecting yourself and your intellectual property; and speaking up for yourself to make sure you have a seat at the table. You don’t have to follow others’ lead or wishes for your career: If you don’t want to use a pen name, you don’t have to. If you don’t want to switch genres, don’t. If you feel your agent or publisher isn’t a good fit for you anymore, don’t be afraid to end the relationship. 

Our reluctance to advocate for ourselves is often rooted in fear: fear that our work really isn’t good enough, or that no one else will want it. Fear that we’re being greedy or arrogant for asking for more compensation or better terms, or that if we have the temerity to do so, whoever is offering for our work will change their minds or offer to someone else instead. 

But if we don’t value our work and champion our writing, who will? And why would anyone else value it? If we don’t take the wheel of our own careers, then we’re putting someone else in the driver’s seat, a passive passenger in our own lives.

Conclusion

Here’s a little mental check-in to begin to reclaim your own career on your terms: If somebody told you that you will never hit the heights you dream of, would you continue writing? 

If you can answer yes—right now, wherever you are in your career—then you already have all the ingredients for forging the writing life you want, no matter how chaotic the industry.  

With all the challenges of a creative life, it’s still one of the noblest of human pursuits. Writing sheds light where there is darkness. It brings people a greater understanding of themselves and each other and the world. It connects them and brings them together. It makes our world warmer and brighter and more hopeful. 

And that’s the true comfort amid the chaos.

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The post Finding Comfort Amid Chaos appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(4 Ways to Write Hooks for Books.)

The fact is, few writers have the time or inclination to manage a story into whatever perfection might look like—and works that fail to find publishers can quickly end up relegated as “trunk” novels or stories. Once upon a time that meant stashing printed manuscripts into the bottom of a desk drawer, file cabinet, or trunk, often only to be unearthed posthumously.

And every writer has a trunk something. Not only that, virtually every writer has a trunk something that they believe in their secret heart could be made into something worth publishing. Then again, there are authors like eight-time Bram Stoker nominee Scott Edelman, who announced recently on social media that he’d shredded 4,000 pages of unpublished prose and poetry with no digital backups.

What happens, though, if you’re not as confident as Edelman that your own trunk/drawer/cabinet works are better off as he put it, “confetti”? There are those of us who recoil at discarding anything—because the truth is, in publishing it can be as much about timing as it is about the prose. Two of my oldest novels (begun originally in the 20^th Century), may have been cooling their jets for years—but they’re both getting published in 2025: The Only Song Worth Singing and Leave No Trace.

So how does anyone know whether their “trunk” should be opened? And what do you do when you commit to tackling a story just one more time? Here are six things I learned when waking up my stories from hibernation.

1. Reading an old story is like revisiting your middle-school photos.

Let’s be honest: Opening up a book or story you wrote five, 10—or longer—years ago is an exercise in humility. Whoever you were back then, you’re a better writer now. Flip through your old photo albums to the awkward adolescent stage (oversized glasses, metal braces, unfortunate trendy haircuts) and the feeling’s the same. I went out in public like that? feels a lot like I showed this story to the world?

It’s gonna be tough. Take a deep breath. Understand that you might have originally written this at a time when, for example, you thought your characters didn’t need surnames—how bourgeois, surnames aren’t necessary, let’s just get to the story. I know someone who once thought that, and that someone was me.

2. Like the 3-D cubes we doodle on paper, that same story can suddenly flip around.

One miracle about a trunk novel is that after you get past the initial recoil reaction, you start to remember what it was about this story that moved you enough to devote hours upon hours putting it on paper (or into the computer). That motivating spark is almost certainly resting in there, and will still be there even if you “Ship of Theseus” the story by replacing every word with a brand new one.

Once you find that spark—and if you’re very, very fortunate, there will be a lot more than a spark in the story to scaffold revisions around—you know you’re ready to get started. After all, the awkward kid in the pictures was also worthy of love.

3. Getting started will be a matter of process, but finish the book or story first.

Read your story or book through at least once. Re-absorb it. If you have the ability, re-imagine how it all looked in your head when you first put it down. Make notes about what works, what can be reworked, and what can be trashed. Think of it it as adding kindling to that spark. Breathe on it until it becomes a fire, then a conflagration in your head. But get to the “the end” before starting a new beginning. The end might be your beginning.

Click to continue.

4. Revealing your own evolution as a writer will give you confidence.

As I mentioned earlier, you’ve evolved as a writer since you put your story or your novel into a dark place. You need those surnames on your character because they do tell us things about who they are. Re-reading the book that would become The Only Song Worth Singing (which I originally wrote in college), I discovered just how much I tended toward overwriting. I had sentences like “she waved with her hand.” What else would you wave with?!

In an unexpected way, seeing the mistake I made—and now knowing how to fix it—was confidence-building. I could use the skills I’d acquired over the ensuing years to turn this story from something merely okay into something worth publishing. The Only Song ended up winning me an agent.

5. Find your inner vulture.

Everything is fodder for writers. If, having re-read your story, what you discover is that it really is beyond revival—that does not mean it has to go back into the dark places (or the shredder). Ideas, concepts, characters, and even whole scenes have value elsewhere. Take what works and find it a new home, or build a new home around it.

For many years Leave No Trace and The Only Song Worth Singing seemed destined for that hidden folder on my computer. But once I saw them as pieces in a much larger story, I started writing short pieces featuring peripheral characters in them—and those stories have since been published. There’s no shame in finding a tasty snack in your story’s carcass!

6. Ultimately, everything you write is also telling the story of you.

Even if you haven’t been writing regularly since you trunked your story, you have done some growing up. You have a greater understanding of the gray areas in which human beings exist; you have a concept of depth that your story may really be hungry for. If nothing else, you know more now.

The Only Song Worth Singing has an interesting history that intertwines the folk tales W.B. Yeats collected from around Ireland at the turn of the 20^th Century with modern day musicians. But over the decades since I started writing it, Yeats’ methodology and possible fictionalization of those folk tales has come into question—discussions I found ways to weave into the back story of my fae character.

What might have seemed like a story-killer was in fact a way to add more layers and go deeper. The writer I was at 20 was there for the story itself; the writer I am many years later is also there for the resonance—and the discussion. There is no “end,” after all—not, at least, until I close the book on my own life. Stories, after all, want nothing more than to be told.

So tell them!

Check out Randee Dawn’s The Only Song Worth Singing here:

Bookshop | Amazon

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The post 6 Things I Learned From Un-Trunking My Novels and Getting Them Published appeared first on Writer's Digest.

Of course, there are sometimes bad surprises, but publishing can surprise in a good way as well. “I think the biggest surprise during the whole publishing process is how enthusiastic the entire team is for my book,” says Dana Elmendorf of her experience with publisher Mira Books on her novel In the Hour of Crows. “On our first marketing call, there were about eight people and each one of them gushed about my book. And I sat there thinking, Holy cow, they’re talking about your book, Dana! It was truly an emotional moment for me.” 

While it’s true many new writers can be intimidated by the process of submitting to agents and publishers, these same gatekeepers are often the most engaged advocates for their authors. From the editors to the publicists, it’s common for everyone on the publishing team to be locked on for their authors, but it doesn’t stop there. 

“The biggest shock was getting blurbs from well-established authors,” says Marcus Kliewer, debut novelist of We Used to Live Here. “It’s still surreal to have anyone reading my work, let alone writers I’ve looked up to for years. When the first quotes came in from Alma Katsu and Nick Cutter, I literally had to sit down.” 

Even seasoned pros can find new situations that spark joy, as Claudia Mills, author of more than 60 books, including The Last Apple Tree, explains, “Usually everything in publishing takes forever. This time, though, my editor replied within four hours of receiving the manuscript from my agent to say she meant to take a peek, but couldn’t stop reading and loved it, and would take it to an editorial meeting. Less than a week later, we had an offer—a record for me in my four decades in the business!” 

Validation and praise from others can be a huge part of the wonder of publishing, but there’s also that creative spark that comes from unexpected sources. “The part of the process that is always a surprise—in a good way—is how the team works with the artist to create the cover,” says Samira Ahmed, author of This Book Won’t Burn. “I love seeing how the themes and story are given life via design and illustration. It’s a unique sort of translation and I learn something new with each new cover design process.” 

“The best advice I can give to any writer, aspiring or otherwise, is to keep writing. Don’t wait for an agent, a publisher, a contract, just keep writing and editing, every single day. Treat your writing like the job that it is,” advises Kimberly Belle, bestselling author of The Paris Widow. “Some days you’ll end with a lot of words, other days you’ll stare at your screen and pull out your hair. In the end, it all evens out and before you know it, you’ll have a whole book.” 

After all, the wonder of publishing doesn’t just happen. It takes hours of time spent reading, writing, thinking, and communicating—both with yourself and the world. Experiencing the splendor of publishing success is the result of dedicated creative work. 

“The business of writing is a tough one, and it doesn’t always make sense,” explains Greg Iles, bestselling author of Southern Man. “A lot of bad books get published, and even sell, while some decent or even good ones never do. In general, though, if you have the goods as a writer, your work will get noticed and sell, at least to a publisher, if not to millions of readers.” 

Or as Katee Robert, author of Blood on the Tide, says, “I would advise authors to chase their joy and just get that book out on paper, whatever their process might look like. They can worry about marketability and all the business details once the book is finished. The true magic happens in the joy, and that’s the one thing that’s consistent, whether you’re writing your first book or your hundredth.”

As someone who’s written hundreds of print articles and thousands of digital posts and published dozens of books, I whole-heartedly echo Robert’s sentiment that the true magic happens in the creative process, whether that’s writing the first draft, working through revisions, or considering feedback from agents and editors. 

“I’ve been writing professionally for decades, but I’d never really understood the value of pushing yourself through an ongoing revision process,” says Jennifer Romolini, author of Ambition Monster. “Over the course of 18 months, I revised and revised and revised this book. My first draft was clean and ‘good,’ but the book we’re publishing is the best work I’ve ever done.” 

The team concept may be one of the more underrated wonders of publishing. Whether it’s the revision process mentioned by Romolini, the cover design touched on by Ahmed, or the enthusiasm espoused by Elmendorf, publishing involves more than one person. Publishing is a collaborative act that requires multiple people working together to produce something of great value to even more people. For it to work, the players must have each other’s backs. 

“I didn’t realize just how necessary it is to have an editor who really understands not only your work, but you, too,” says Chimene Suleyman, author of The Chain. “There are points in the process where life gets in the way, and you need a team around you who can bring the best out of you as a person, not only the work.” 

Maybe that’s what makes publishing such a wonderful business. In so many industries, there are incentives for the individual to succeed against other individuals. As an editor who has worked with hundreds of writers over the years, I consider their success my success. Talking to hundreds of other agents, editors, publicists, marketers, book buyers, publishers, and other publishing professionals, I can say that is a common goal for most of us (there’s always room for a few people who haven’t figured it out yet). In many respects, the wonder of publishing is that it’s a business of perpetual positivity—even when people on the outside try to prognosticate its eventual demise. The wonder of publishing is that it continues to dare to succeed. 

“Stop talking yourself out of your book dream,” says Christina Myers, award-winning author of Halfway Home: Thoughts From a Midwife. “Stop asking ‘what if’ and filling in the answer with the worst-case scenarios, like ‘What if I can’t finish this?’ and ‘What if no one wants to publish it?’ Instead, start asking ‘what if’ and filling in the answer with the best possibilities: What if I finish writing this book and it’s great? What if it gets published and readers love it? What if I get the chance to write more books? The former will slow you down and make you doubt yourself; the latter will convince you to keep going.” 

As someone who still finds joy in the publishing process, I couldn’t agree more.

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(How I Was Saved By a Book.)

It became immediately obvious while writing Baby Teeth that I couldn’t insert snippets of an existing, published children’s book into my chapters because of copyright issues. So I dug out that quirky story I’d once written for young readers, called My UnderSlumberBumbleBeast.

There are moments when writing is a magical process, when one tendril of an idea snakes outward and opens pathways toward more ideas. And that’s what happened when I incorporated my short story into my novel. It became my child protagonist’s favorite book, and led to scenes where Hanna tried to create her own version of an UnderSlumberBumbleBeast—using a potato!—and the repercussions that followed. 

Then came a family activity where her parents helped her craft a beanbag toy inspired by Lollipop Hand (the leader of the UnderSlumberBumbleBeasts) that Hanna named Skog. Skog remained a cherished little friend right into adulthood with Dear Hanna, the continuation of Hanna’s story. And My UnderSlumberBumbleBeast left an indelible impression on Hanna and her creativity.

Do you remember the horror film The Babadook? In the film, the child receives a strange book which becomes crucial to the story—and after the film was released, they created a real-life special edition of that strange book. With The Babadook in mind, I thought it would be awesome if my book-within-a-book could exist in the real world, too. But finding support for that vision has taken over seven years.

Various people in publishing were intrigued by My UnderSlumberBumbleBeast, and I wrote numerous drafts, but ultimately it was considered too odd to shop to traditional publishers. The problem wasn’t the content per se, but the fact that the book didn’t fit neatly into the prescribed categories and formats of children’s literature. 

It was always intended to be an illustrated book, but was too long to be a standard Picture Book. With 12 short chapters, it might be considered a Chapter Book, but those are rarely highly illustrated. Books for Early Readers might have more pictures, but don’t include the kind of vocabulary that requires a glossary (Pru, the main human character, loves and collects big words). A key marketing consideration for traditionally published books—for all ages—is always “Where will it be shelved?” And by those metrics, My UnderSlumberBumbleBeast was an oddball.

When Doug Murano started his independent press, Bad Hand Books, he reached out to me to submit a short story for his first venture, an anthology—which became a Shirley Jackson Award winner—called The Hideous Book of Hidden Horrors. As it happened, that was my first published short story, and the beginning of my collaboration with Doug and Bad Hand Books. As the editor and publisher of an independent press, Doug is free to break whatever conventions he likes, and ascribe his own set of criteria to the work he chooses. And publishing the homeless, wayward work of established authors has become something of a touchstone for Bad Hand Books.

Doug immediately recognized that finding the right illustrator was vital. Originally we were thinking of perhaps one drawing per chapter—both of us sensitive to the possible expense of creating an illustrated book. We talked about style, and whether or not we should stick to black and white pictures. Finding someone for such a unique project wasn’t the easiest thing, and for a time it looked like it wasn’t going to get off the ground. And then Doug secured the talents of J.E. Larson. And he was all in.

For a few months the three of us talked over Zoom, discussing the best ways to bring such peculiar characters to life, and how we wanted the book to feel timeless. We reminisced about favorite childhood toys, and oohed and aahed over J.E.’s original sketches—in which he insisted on a consistent, though imaginary, creation process for how the BumbleBeasts would construct themselves. Then he retreated to his artist’s cave to create not the 12 drawings that we’d first considered, but 48! (The brilliant color scheme was all his too.)

As I write this, the book’s publication is visible on the horizon. A publicist is on board, and I recently saw pics of the first printed copies of the book—and it looks incredible! While I created the story—and its pivotal connections to Baby Teeth and Dear Hanna—My UnderSlumberBumbleBeast truly excels because of J.E. Larson’s illustrative vision. He captured everything Doug Murano and I were hoping for (and more) when we imagined a book that would appeal to both children and adults. 

With its nine-year-old protagonist, it’s fundamentally a book for seven- to 10-year-olds (or to be read aloud at bedtime). But with illustrations that blur the line between adorable and ghoulish, adults who’d prefer to celebrate Halloween for 12 months a year will probably be equally as enchanted.

My social media posts about My UnderSlumberBumbleBeast have gone from “I hope someday it’s a real book” to “It’s going to be a real book!” to “It’s finally here!” Sometimes things take a more circuitous path than we expect, but in this case that seems fitting for a collaborative project that celebrates eccentricity and ingenuity.

Check out Zoje Stage’s My UnderSlumberBumbleBeast here:

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(The One Thing Every Author Needs to Market Their Book.)

It was my YouTube channel which led to an unexpected conversation with my now-editor, Lucy Brem at Pan Macmillan. She was on the hunt for New York vlogs before a trip of her own, and stumbled across videos that I had shared of a recent trip. After watching a little further back, she picked up on subtle mentions of a ‘writing project’ which had been taking up a lot of my free time. That writing project was actually the cozy, comforting, witchy story that I’d spent the last three years on, solely for the purpose of seeing if I could finally cross off my bucket list goal—to write a book, to see a story through to the end.

It’s no exaggeration to say my life has always revolved around books, reading and writing. Looking back, I think all of my career decisions were chosen with the assumption that, no matter where or what, I would end up writing in some capacity. Having been an avid bookworm since I was young, I went on to study English Literature at university. From there, it was freelance journalism for titles like Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, and MTV UK for many years, before my social media and often book-based content eventually took over. Even then, written work has constantly ticked along in the background.

A very early spark of a story idea popped into my head in 2020 while I was on one of the classic, local area walks that were keeping us all vaguely sane during the pandemic. It was the image of a witch, just turning 30, and having to prove to a jury of her coven peers that she was worthy of keeping the magic she had been neglecting. It was very reflective of how I was feeling at the time, having developed a real fear of allowing myself to shine for fear of failing. I kept the whole experience of writing completely private, knowing that any outside pressure or interest would make me overthink it and inevitably stop.

That first email that landed in my inbox from Lucy, asking if she could hear more about what I’d been working on, was the first of many moments that have felt like real-life magic (and a lot of luck) was afoot. The universe was on my side—she had been looking for a cozy, witchy book to take on, and that was exactly what I’d spent years privately writing, with no real intention to actually pursue publishing. We clicked on first meeting, and it was clear to me that she absolutely ‘got’ the heart of the book, which came from such a personal and vulnerable place. Trusting my gut instinct, I signed a two-book deal unagented, confident that I should seize the dream for myself. We have worked closely together throughout the entire editing process. The rights team at Pan Macmillan then took the reins on securing international deals for Rewitched, finding its perfect US home with wonderful editor Anne Sowards at Berkley.

It wasn’t until Pan Macmillan went public with my publishing announcement that I had a separate conversation with my now-agent, Maddy Belton at Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency. Maddy reached out to me after spotting the news of my two-book deal online to see if I was interested in further guidance and support. It was another fortuitous connection. MMA had been the agency that I had quietly thought to myself would be on the ‘dream list,’ if I ever found the courage to query Rewitched one day. Signing with them has proved invaluable. Maddy has helped me to understand the workings of a notoriously unique and secretive industry, and to plan much more effectively for the future of my writing. Maddy will also now be an additionally helpful pair of eyes in the editing process for my second book, which is something that I didn’t have the first time around.

Once the publishing deal was in place, having an audience certainly helped with the tricky prospect of marketing a debut novel. My followers and I often share the same interests, taste, insecurities, and sense of humor, so it makes sense that a book I had written largely for myself, a story that I had needed to hear, would resonate with them too. As an autumn-obsessed, nostalgic, and self-reflective gang, many of them were excited about the story specifically, rather than just the fact that I had written a book. But the flip side of a so-called ‘ready-made’ audience is that it’s only going to work if the endeavor is a genuine one. An audience that is so familiar with you can easily spot a disingenuous project—and they will let you know about it if they do. It carries an overwhelming risk of public failure, which is often more than enough to discourage a dream.

A platform on social media can only provide a temporary boost to an author, maybe a springboard for pre-orders for example. But the book itself must still do the heavy lifting if the aim is to reach out any further into the book world than a limited following number. If achieving any kind of longevity or reputation as a ‘real’ author is the goal, the book and the writing must ultimately be good enough to stand by itself. Luck has certainly been on my side during the publishing process for Rewitched, but spending more than 12 years building a following doesn’t feel like much of an effective, magical ‘shortcut’ to anything.

Social media is a powerful tool, one that is scary to a lot of (usually introverted) writers. But my own experience is hopefully a positive and optimistic reminder that you never do know who’s watching, and my favorite mindset to try and return to—what’s the best that could happen?

Check out Lucy Jane Wood’s Rewitched here:

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(From Ghosting to Vampires: A Writer’s Journey.)

The truth of the matter is that my novels have been out there for years, my words devoured by thousands of voracious readers. Like a proud parent standing in the wings, I’ve watched in silence (and overwhelming pride, of course) as a handful of my stories have climbed the bestseller lists—and no one will ever know that I was the one who breathed them to life.

I stumbled into the mysterious world of ghostwriting sometime after college. I’d been working a 9-to-5 (the safe and sensible thing to do, I’d been told), but I craved to create. Ever since I was a child, writing had been my creative outlet of choice. I’d always dreamt of becoming an author. I loved nothing more than to click-click-clack on my laptop, lost in a world constructed entirely of my own imagination.

While I toiled away in my office cubical counting down the seconds until I could clock-out, I yearned to write something—anything—just so I could put words down on a page. That’s how, with the help of my trusty old friend Google, I happened across an ad on a freelance job board: Copywriter Wanted for Mommy Blog.

The starting rate was $0.005 per word, which meant an article a thousand words in length would score me a whopping five bucks! I, in my starry-eyed 23-year-old optimism, thought, “They want me to write about the top ten at-home spa day ideas for busy moms? And they’re willing to pay me for it? Dude, that’s so cool!”

The only hitch was that the client wanted to see a portfolio of previous work, of which I had exactly none. Thankfully, I had a can-do attitude and a hunger to try something new, so I spent that evening writing up a handful of articles that I believed would appeal specifically to their readership’s demographic. (And before anyone tries to give me flack, have you seen the state of the economy? Fake it until you make it, as the kids say.)

A week later, there was an email in my inbox. They offered me the contract. I was over the moon.

Was I able to make a living writing articles? No. Not even close, actually. I still had to work my 9-to-5, but at least now I had the opportunity to do something I loved and have a little extra pocket money to show for it. As my portfolio (of actual work) expanded, I reached out to more and more potential clients. The snowball was growing, gaining momentum. 

Before long, I had a healthy rotation of clients requesting new articles on a regular basis. I’d bang out an SEO-optimized listicle before breakfast, head off to my day job, then come home and write more articles after dinner. It wasn’t until six months in that one of my clients messaged me: Hey Kat, are you by any chance interested in writing fiction?

Absolutely, I replied within five seconds of reading the text.

Writing articles was fine and all, but as I said, I’d always dreamed of being an author. Publishing stories, having people read them, and getting paid upfront for my work was a dream come true. After a referral and a couple of emails back and forth, I officially had my first contract as a romance ghostwriter. Little did I know that this was an entirely different ballgame.

I say this with the utmost respect and sincerity: The world of ghostwriting is a fascinating beast. The amount of organization and coordination that goes into producing books at the speeds that they do is mind-boggling. The clients that I’ve worked for often had multiple pen names that they managed, as well as several ghostwriters writing under the same name at the same time to ensure rapid-fire production. I’m talking about release schedules where they had a new book every month to maintain readership retention.

Some of my clients had dedicated outliners, who’d then give their outlines to the ghostwriting team to put everything together. Other clients of mine wanted me to outline and start from scratch, often providing me with a list of tropes and character archetypes that they knew (from statistical data they’d collected) would appeal most to their readers. I don’t mean to sound dramatic, but I swear they had it down to a science.

Deadlines were tight, but the pay was higher (and that’s always nice, isn’t it?). They needed an 80,000-word book from me every month to a month and a half. I had a client who required a writing speed of 20k words a week, or they would release me from the next project. There were several times throughout my ghostwriting career where I was juggling three different books at one time. To say that it was mentally taxing was an understatement, but I loved my work.

Near the end of 2018, I quit my 9-to-5 to pivot to ghostwriting full-time. When people asked, I could tell them (with the utmost glee) that I was a writer for a living. I thrived under the pressure, grateful for the chance to dive into my imagination every single day. Sometimes it felt impossible to meet writing minimums, but I did it. Over and over again, because when you’re doing something you love, it doesn’t feel like work at all.

For six years, I wrote romance novels in a variety of different genres. Contemporary, erotica, and queer romances. Paranormal, rom-coms, and dark romantic thrillers. I wrote standalone novels and series about brooding firefighters/ex-marines/mobsters. If I had a nickel for every ‘bad boy billionaire alpha male’ I wrote at my client’s behest, I’d … Well, I’d have a lot of nickels. (Don’t worry, they always had hearts of gold.)

Yet there came a point when I started to crave again. I spent six years of writing stories for others. Six years of seeing someone else’s name on the front cover—someone who didn’t even exist in the first place. I had my own stories to tell, tales I wanted to explore, and that’s how, little by little, I began to write my own novel in my spare time—what would later become my debut adult fantasy, The Last Dragon of the East.

Thus began my adventure into the querying trenches, all while I continued to ghostwrite. I’d been working professionally on my craft for a little over half a decade, yet the thought of taking credit for my work for the very first time left me nervously excited. At least with ghostwriting, I could hide behind my anonymity. To put my name on a manuscript felt like a stamp of approval. For the very first time, I’d be stepping out from the wings and out under the spotlight.

The Last Dragon of the East was my way of reconnecting with the myths and legends my parents and grandparents would have heard growing up. There are parts of my book where I bare my soul, entire sections I used as my confessional. I wasn’t sure if anyone was going to want to read it. 

Imagine my surprise when I got my first full-request, and then several offers of representation, and then I signed with my amazing agent! Within two months of debut adult fantasy being on sub, we had a couple of offers. Now I’m pleased to say that The Last Dragon of the East will be coming October 8, 2024 from Saga Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

They say there’s no standard path to becoming an author, and I couldn’t agree more. That snowball I’d been building up—it kept on rolling, even after I forgot about it. I’m incredibly grateful for everyone who’s supported me on this journey. It took me years of writing novels for other people before I finally had the chance to write stories under my own name, and now that I’m here, I sincerely hope I get to keep writing for the rest of my days.

Check out Katrina Kwan’s The Last Dragon of the East here:

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(Releasing a Debut Novel Later in Life.)

Even as I got older, that dream changed little, although the publishing industry had. What was once a common pastime of perusing bookstores or library shelves for new things to read quickly disappeared with the onset of the Amazon brand. By the time I finished college—I couldn’t think of another time I could find a bookstore to look at the latest reading releases.

On December 2, 2023, after a worldwide pandemic and a new world adjusting to life, my debut novel, The Girl, debuted for sale in North America, Europe, and Australia. It culminated over 10 years of ideas, false starts, rework, sub-par contracts, and edits. The day of the book’s release, I turned my phone off, went to a spa day, and stuffed my face full of churros with chocolate sauce. 

The process of writing the book and getting it to publication was nothing like I had expected it to be. So many writing conferences, classes, and online webinars only speak about how to write the book, edit it, and even pitch it. But I have never encountered anyone discussing what it’s like once you get to the contract and beyond. 

Since I cannot believe that I am now at the stage of publishing my second novel, I wanted to reflect on things I wish I had known or learned when my first novel was published.

1. Your first publishing contract offer often differs from the offer you end up with. In my dreams, getting a book deal contract in writing cemented that you had made it, a goal achieved. However, I went through three or four offers for my first book to get published before finding a publisher whose contract I felt comfortable working with. I highly encourage any aspiring writer or author to use any writing guild memberships or invest in a legal service for contract reviews, especially if you decide to pitch your work without an agent. Legal reviews can take time, and it’s important to know that contract negotiation can get dicey.
2. Knowing what you’re unwilling to compromise on in your contract is essential. Is there a certain royalty percentage you are looking for? When you pitch your art, you must understand that agents and publishers can categorize the format in which the art is created as a distinct right for sale. Suddenly, it isn’t just a hardback or paperback copy of the novel you must decide if you will let go of. Do you wish the audiobook rights would also be on the block for discussion? What about movies? Television? Graphic novel? While at the beginning of all these discussions, I thought saying yes to everything was the way to go, my peers and fellow Authors Guild members quickly talked me down from saying yes to anything I didn’t fully understand. When an author bargains the rights away, there needs to be an understanding that they may lose more than they gain.
3. That being said, there’s something to be said about the ability to know the difference between the things you can and cannot control and the things that are your strengths and weaknesses. Once my publisher for The Girl accepted the novel, the process felt like being on a movie set, a cycle of hurrying up and then waiting. You are not the only book on the docket, and depending on your release timing, you can find yourself waiting a while for the process to start.
4. A big part of publishing is being able to condense and expand on what your project is about at any time—whether it’s the one-sentence logline or the back of the book description. You will never be in a place where you don’t need to summarize your story. Coming up with ways to condense your art into various word counts is painful and a proper exercise in creativity, but when you get it, you GET it.
5. Some details that you suddenly get hung up on will surprise you. It’s so funny how, at the start of the process, I would have said once I wrote the novel, I wanted to use as many other skilled artists as possible to present my book with its best foot forward. I was lucky to work with a publisher that allowed me to participate in several marketing areas, including the book cover design. While I did not have the final say on the cover, I was surprised at the little details I suddenly obsessed over—the tones of the colors I picked, the mood the font was giving, and even the angle of the character’s face. You only get so many rounds of revisions (if any) for artwork reviews, and there’s the ever-ticking time clock counting down to release. Each step in approvals gatekeepers another portion of the production. Don’t get so caught up in the details that may not matter as much—the point is to get the book to the release date.

Just as Dorothy pulls back the curtain behind the Wizard of Oz, getting through the publishing process for your first novel can feel like a roller coaster of a million emotions. While it sounds trite, for any new author experiencing the journey for the first time, try every second to enjoy the good, bad, and ugly parts of the process. You publish your debut novel once, but with any luck, this is the first of many times through the book launch process. 

Check out Victory Witherkeigh’s The Demon here:

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(Why I Choose to Self-Publish My Writing.)

The apartment itself was fairly conveniently located—several blocks away from the Carnegie Museum of Art and my favorite middle eastern restaurant. I tried to sell myself on these features—its central location on a bus route—but the truth was, the tour of the building was a depressing experience that made my future seem bleaker than ever. First, there were the apartment’s cinderblock walls. Then there was the fact that the residents lived out the remainder of their lives within those walls. It was almost impossible for me to imagine that this building would likely be the last address I’d ever have. Still, it was the best option I had, so I was put on the waiting list, which I expected to be on for upwards of a year.

The people in my tiny circle tried to celebrate this milestone of finding affordable housing and being able to move “home.” But it weighed on me; in many ways it felt like an end rather than a beginning.

At that time I was working a few hours a week at a library, and a few years prior I’d abandoned my decades-long filmmaking dreams and converted my creative energy into writing novels. I wrote six novels over four years, and sent out endless query letters to agents. At the risk of sounding ridiculous, I’d hoped that my writing—something I could work on at home—could become a source of modest income. My research, hard though it was to confirm, led me to believe that advances for traditionally-published novels averaged between $5,000 and $20,000. And that sounded like an incredible influx of cash to have every few years. $5,000 would allow me to catch up on buying all the things food stamps didn’t cover, like bras and shoes, household necessities and toiletries.

Then my life abruptly changed in a way beyond my imagination.

Two months after looking at the cinderblock-walled apartment, I signed with my first agent. And four weeks after that, Baby Teeth sold in a preempt for $125,000—an amount I’d never envisioned or considered possible. That was the most surreal day of my life: I felt spacey with brain fog, and Rochester had had a blizzard the night before and the world outside my windows was silent and dense with snow. The shock of selling the book for six figures was almost too much to process. I knew my life would change, but it’s taken the years since then to fully grasp the magnitude of those changes.

Check out Zoje Stage’s Dear Hanna here:

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Needless to say, I was no longer eligible for affordable housing, but a few months later I moved into a nice apartment in my favorite Pittsburgh neighborhood. Technically, that was the second thing Baby Teeth “bought” me, the first being a root canal and crown that I’d put off due to lack of money. Then Baby Teeth bought me my first sofa. That was how I thought of everything then: Baby Teeth bought me every element of my new life.

Shortly after moving back to Pennsylvania I was kicked off of federal disability. I’d been working with organizations in NY, and then PA, that helped people on disability return to the work force, and was promised I’d be able to keep my Medicare for a five-year safety net. But Pennsylvania declared me “cured” of my incurable disease and immediately cut off all my benefits. I had a choice to make: Did I want to fight them, or take the risk that I could continue to support myself as an author?

In certain ways it was good that I was so naïve, as I didn’t know most authors couldn’t support themselves with their writing. But I took the gamble, and became fully self-sufficient for the first time in my life. Learning about the ups and downs of the publishing business has been harrowing at times—it’s a precarious way to make a living. But, through being chronically ill and poor, I’d already learned to take life one day at a time, and now I’m more than six years into a career as a professional author.

I’m writing this from my office—a bedroom in the house I purchased shortly before the pandemic. Right now the school across the street is letting out and squealing kids are piling into their big yellow buses. I’m never unaware that I’m here because of a miracle: My writing bought me a house—a home that enabled me to adopt two cats—and changed everything about how I live. And maybe it isn’t surprising, but I’ve been much healthier since having more money in the bank. Being poor is incredibly stressful, and a lot of life’s little problems can be managed with a bit of cash.

Publishing a first novel is a noteworthy milestone for many people, but rarely is it something that changes the entirety of their lives. For me, Baby Teeth is the demarcation point between a life of real limitations, and hope for endless possibilities.

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(40 Best Elevator Pitches for Books in 2023.)

I’m back with a new announcement.

My book died on sub.

Serves me about right.

(Translation: ‘Dying on sub’ means my agent sent the book out to editors and no one wanted to publish it.)

I was told by many, many people not to talk about this, that sharing this would brand me as a ‘failed’ writer.

But we NEED more people talking openly about their disappointing publishing experiences.

Because people only ever talk about their successes—our Twitter and Instagram feeds are all flooded with agent announcements and huge book deals. And I was no different—my pinned tweet was celebrating my EIGHT AGENT OFFERS. (Didja hear??? Someone slap me already, please.)

We forget that before every one of these shiny successes, ALL writers suffer through dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, of failures and rejections. We forget this is the norm, because social media only shines light on the very, very rare moments of success.

Today, I’m going to make public my first huge failure as a writer.

It’s time to get real about what dying on sub was actually like.

Here’s how sub started. A month after signing with my agent, she sent my book to a group of Big Five editors. My agent (who I love to death) had a good feeling that the book would sell quickly. Ideally at auction (meaning that more than one publishing house would put in an offer).

Most agents who had made me offers had told me they had similar expectations for my book.

Six days later, my agent was calling with great news—an editor wanted to speak on the phone. My agent warned me not to get too excited. This was a good sign but not a guarantee the book would sell.

But because one editor wanted to speak, this meant things were in motion. Now, we got to go back to all of the other editors who had my manuscript to let them know there was already interest. They had two weeks to review my book and make competing offers.

Less than 24 hours later and we had another editor who wanted a call.

Things were happening.

My book was going to sell. Quickly. At auction.

Two days before the first call, I woke up to a text from my agent—the first editor had canceled her call. Higher-ups at her publishing house had passed.

I lay in bed for hours, just staring at my phone.

I can’t explain how bad it felt to get that text. I put my phone on selfie mode and started filming. In the video, I am just staring at my phone, crying, talking in dead voice. My cat walks up behind me and nuzzles into my face, doing her best to comfort me.

I thought that would be the worst of it. That—horror of horrors—my book would sell, but not at auction.

Then, the night before call number two, my agent texted me again.

The second editor had canceled our call.

In a few days, I had gone from having a potential auction to having a book that might never sell.

Weeks went by. Long, long pandemic 2020 weeks during which I kept my phone out and checked multiple times an hour, waiting for That Text from my agent, telling me we had That Call.

I even left my phone on for calls during tutoring sessions, which I have never done in over a decade of tutoring. Just in case.

I was listening to a podcast where someone described a bowel obstruction, during which their intestine was wrapped tightly around itself, causing utter agony. I found that an apt metaphor for my emotional journey. It’s really, really hard working on a book for years and then releasing the most vulnerable part of yourself to be judged. Going into sub thinking this is going to be Your Moment and instead getting to watch your book baby get rejected over and over, told that it’s not cute enough for the world to see.

Dealing with this rollercoaster through a pandemic summer was … not great, to put it lightly. There was nowhere to go. No friends to see. No way to distract myself from my brain. The one that kept reminding me that my book was not good enough. That I was not good enough.

But then–weeks later–the second editor who had canceled our call reached out to reschedule.

Things were moving again.

We had the call. It went great. The editor even mentioned a very specific detail from my book–one that was near and dear to my heart–and told me how much she loved it.

Then the editor took the book to acquisitions. That’s the Big Meeting with all of the higher-ups. The one where the book usually sells.

The night after the meeting, the editor posted a tweet with a very specific detail from my book—the detail we had discussed together on our call—alongside a happy tears emoji.

My agent texted.

“This HAS to be good news!”

My agent wasn’t one to jump the gun.

I felt my heart rate speed up.

The next day, the editor tweeted that they had VERY EXCITING NEWS.

I floated through the next two days. This was it. This was finally it.

While I was in a tutoring session with a student, I saw my phone finally light up with The Call from my agent. I excused myself for a moment, apologizing and explaining to the student that I would never take a call during a session, but—I had just gotten a book deal!

I hit pause on Zoom and opened up Facetime on my phone.

“I have bad news,” my agent started.

The editor had passed.

I felt every ounce of positivity that had somehow survived through that hellish summer fly out of my body.

Sub was now officially over.

My book baby was dead.

But by that night, I somehow felt … better than I had all summer?

The anxiety and waiting were finally over.

My baby was no longer being held up and inspected and judged. My verdict had been decreed. It wasn’t the one I had wanted.

But it wasn’t the end of the world.

The next morning, my agent sent me the passes she had accumulated from editors over that summer.

I read through the passes. They were kind. They liked my voice. One even liked my Twitter feed (thanks to that editor!! So nice!). But they were all worried that books centered around social media wouldn’t sell.

It’s normal for books to go on two or three rounds of sub, and my agent said it was up to me—that she still loved the book and thought I could revise it and get a deal.

But I knew right away that that wasn’t what I wanted to do. Maybe I will return to this book, one day. But I didn’t want to have to go through that emotional rollercoaster all over again.

It absolutely sucked to accept that after all of that time and hard work, my book was being shelved. I thought I’d finally get to see a book out in the world. That I’d be a ‘real’ author.

There is a huge amount of shame in finally getting agented, openly discussing it (boasting about it, even, like I did!), and not getting published. Worse in many ways when it comes to non-writer friends and family, who don’t understand how this industry works. (You got an agent; when can I buy your book?)

But I don’t see all of the time and energy I poured into this first book as a failure or a waste of time.

I see it as the book that allowed me to find my writing community, that taught me about story structure and pacing, that got my fingers and brain in shape, that allowed the next book I wrote to flow right out.

We so often give up because we think our experiences aren’t normal, our failures are signs we’re not good enough, that if we were going to succeed we would have already. That if we’re not all Becky Albertallis who meet their agent at a conference and then 30 seconds later have a 14-book auction and then a bestseller and then a movie, we might as well throw in the towel.

Which is why I think it’s important to be open with our failures. We need to remember that failure is the NORM, not the exception.

If you are getting rejected or failing, you are a real writer. NOT the other way around.

So—here it is. I wrote a book, got an agent, and failed to get a book deal.

Note: I wrote this post in 2020 but am just getting the courage to share it now. Since then, I wrote a second book, which I was lucky enough to get a book deal for. That book, We Ship It, came out last June with HarperTeen.

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