THE ONE WHERE THE MARKET CHANGED
Cat/genre: Adult SFF
I'm a writer of adult Scifi and Fantasy (SFF), and I've written 3 books in 4 years, with a range of experiences with them. MS1 (manuscript #1) collected triple-digit agent rejections and no requests. I decided to try again. The next book I wrote, MS2, had a good request rate but only one agent offer. Although the agent in question was newish, they were part of a big, established agency, and had a solid reputation, so I felt comfortable signing with them.
MS2--an urban fantasy--went out on submission in September 2018, after six weeks of revision. My agent tends to do large rounds, which is a strategy that makes sense if you aren't planning to revise the novel between submission rounds. We pitched 11 editors at first go, which is quite a lot for adult SFF, and included Big 5 editors along with a few larger mid-size presses.
Adult SFF only has 8-10 acquisition editors among the Big 5, making it one of the smallest editor pools compared to other genres and age categories. My agent recommended approaching some of the larger midsize presses, and I was happy to do that.
Editors were fast to request the manuscript. However, rejections started coming in a few weeks later, with an overall trend of "we don't touch urban fantasy" (a dead genre at the time) or else criticisms surrounding the muddled worldbuilding. A couple of rejections came with some very bizarre advice, like the suggestion to rewrite the first person POV into omniscient. I didn't resonate with that suggestion.
Interest quickly dwindled. Rejections still came trickling in over months, but only after multiple nudges. Some presses never responded at all, either to the initial pitch, or to the requested manuscript. One smaller press took the manuscript to acquisitions, then ghosted us; the editor simply stopped replying to my agent's emails. I never found out what went wrong.
In total, I spent 18 months on submission with MS2, collecting about 15 publisher rejections (including non-responders).
After we came off submission, I talked with my agent about marketability and future projects. They recommended trying epic fantasy, as it's a lucrative and stable market. But I just could not pull the book together, and in the end, I decided to write another contemporary fantasy manuscript, as that was where my interests pulled me. They agreed to support me in this, despite the difficult odds, and gave me space to write.
It took me about 2 years to write the next book. I was demoralised by the first one dying on sub, and my personal life was in upheaval. Eventually, I finished the draft and sent it to my agent in the spring of 2020. They read it, did a few light edits, and we went on submission for the second time in July 2020.
During these two years, a lot of factors had changed in my favor. The 'dead' genre of urban/contemporary fantasy was currently in revival, albeit under the label of speculative fiction. Also, in the intervening time, my agent had grabbed a lot more sales and solidified their contacts. Agents usually hold off pitching during summer, but in the summer of 2020, nobody was taking vacations. Many editors were working from home anyway, so we decided to go on sub straight away.
All of this added up to an extremely fast book deal, with no time to even accrue rejections.
We went on submission on a Monday, to 19 publishing houses in one big round, because my agent was trying to trigger an auction. We were either going to do well, or bomb out with style.
We didn't bomb out. One of the Big 4 senior editors read the manuscript overnight. The next day, they got their colleagues and boss to do second reads. On the fourth day, they took it to acquisitions and had it signed off.
By Friday morning my agent was pinging frantically because we'd had a pre-empt offer for a 3-book deal. A pre-empt is when a publisher tries to "buy out" a book so that it doesn't go to auction. We had the rest of the day to decide whether or not to accept this pre-empt.
My agent felt we should accept, because if the book went to auction this publisher would likely win anyway, given their ability to outspend other presses, and we might actually end up with less money if nobody else bid. If we negotiated the pre-empt, though, we'd be in a strong bargaining position.
After some discussion and a lot of haggling, my agent submitted counter-offers back and forth with the editor, raising the advance and haggling over various rights. We closed a deal by the end of the day for North American rights only, and then my poor agent worked through the weekend of what was supposed to be their summer vacation to get contracts going, and also to begin the process of selling the UK rights.
Submission is an emotional roller coaster at the best of times, and this was definitely no exception. The sheer amazement and relief of having something sell, and of seeing firsthand that it can and does happen, was absolutely immense!
I was expecting my second attempt at submission to be like my first round, a slow process that would take months and months and have little to show for it. I suppose that's a really good lesson in the concept that no submission experience is ever the same--it really is different for every author, and for every book, too.
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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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