THE ONE WITH THREE CALLS BUT NO CIGAR
Cat/genre: YA Fantasy
I went into sub expecting a long road. Better to hope for the best but prepare for the worst! What I hadn’t expected was my hopes to get high quite so often and (spoiler alert) eventually result in a less than happy ending.
So here’s the story of my—almost!—deal.
I went out on sub near the end of the summer with the pandemic in full swing. There’d been editor interest from a Twitter post, so an exclusive went out first and the pass for that came within the weeklong deadline we’d given. With that done, it was on to the rest of my sub list.
This was really where the wait began. About a month in we began to receive some movement and even got an R&R offer from Publisher #1. I knew that R&Rs were no guarantee of a sale, but the editor was interested in having a phone call so I was hopeful nonetheless. And that hope only rose when a second editor asked for a phone call as well.
The calls themselves were pretty simple. A lot of getting to know each other and questions on my inspiration for the book/style/and other projects. My agent stayed on the calls to listen in and then we’d talk afterwards to go over what was said. I got to ask questions as well about editorial styles and what vision they had for my book. It was nerve wrecking but honestly really nice, and I didn’t feel like I was having to pass some test, just having a conversation!
I ended up having those first two calls in quick succession, and then shortly after, I got the formal edit letter from Publisher #1. Publisher #2 also ended up offering an R&R after our chat (argh!), and it was around this time that a third publisher asked for call as well. At this point I was feeling pretty excited. Surely so many phone calls meant something, right?
Not so much.
Publisher #3 ended up passing without offering an R&R, but—believe it or not—a fourth publisher came forward to offer me the chance to revise, though we decided to pass on working with them as the edits didn’t fit my vision for the book, whereas the other two did.
By this time, we were about 3 months in and I was getting the last of my passes from uninterested publishers while I worked on a single revision to address my two R&Rs. The edits took me about three weeks, then once we’d sent the revised version back, another two weeks went by before Publisher #1 sadly passed.
That left me with just one interested party: Publisher #2, who ended up taking about 3 months to come back with my final pass (pandemic and holidays slowed their decision making) and just like that, I was done with round one.
Initially, we’d planned to jump immediately into round two. But based on the passes we received and the kind of story my book was, we ultimately decided to shelve it for later and turn to a new project instead. In a way, asking my agent to send the pass emails actually helped me feel better about this as editors had very nice things to say and it was helpful to hear what worked and know it wasn’t about my writing!
In retrospect, my time on submission wasn’t very long. The bulk of the passes came within the first 3 months. What stood out was the editor interest that led to the three separate phone calls. I’d started believe as they came in that surely this meant an offer was around the corner, but learned very quickly that things are never guaranteed. By the end, I was waiting for the final pass for a total of 6 months, which is definitely not the longest amount of time but sure felt endless while going through it!
Although this isn’t a happy ending, I did get responses that were extremely positive about my writing and had several editors express interest in reading whatever I wrote next. Ultimately, my biggest takeaway was that most of publishing is about timing and luck than it is skill or quality. World events/personal and publishing house woes/or any other combination of factors can mean some stories aren’t fit at the moment, but another project might be perfect. It just goes to show that it’s often a long game, but you never know what will happen with the next round or book.
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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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