There are about as many different ways to be published as there are authors in the world. That’s one thing I’ve learned through my several years of writing and querying novels. I’ve listened to podcasts, read blogs, watched videos, and scrolled through social media absorbing everyone’s different stories about how they landed their book deals.
Well, now I can finally add my story to the pile. Which is such a weird sentence to be typing. In a lot of ways, it still doesn’t feel real. I’ve talked about it, tweeted, Facebooked, Instagramed, and shared it on my newsletter. Yet here we are, five months later, and I still haven’t written my contract story on the blog or shared it in full detail anywhere. Maybe I’m waiting for the feeling of the reality to hit. I don’t know why, but here we are. I’m going to be a published author, and this is how it happened.
The first thing most people ask me when I tell them that I’m an author and have a book to be published is “how long have you been working on it?” Oddly enough, that’s a more complicated answer than you’d think. My original idea for The Night’s Chosen was back when I was fourteen - 20 years ago! - and all through high school and parts of college I tinkered with a novel based on Snow White. I put it down for awhile when I realized that it wasn’t any good. As are most books that we write when we’re fourteen.
Then a few years ago a new Snow White idea hit me and I went back to work. The Night’s Chosen and that book from high school hardly have anything in common other than a couple character names and that there are two princes who are brothers. Literally everything else is different. If you want to know more about how I came to this book and about my previous book I’d queried, you can read this post.
This exact book I’d worked on for about a year and a half to two years starting from my first draft all the way to the final one I submitted to my editor. A year or two before that I’d queried another book which hadn’t gone anywhere.
During my first round of writing The Night’s Chosen (it was called White Rose at the time) I’d gone back and forth on wanting to finish it. Originally my goal was to have it completed in time for PitchWars 2018 - an online contest where you submit your completed manuscript to be chosen by a mentor to guide you through revisions and then have your book be put into a showcase for agents. I had submitted an urban fantasy book the year before and while I didn’t get picked, I’d gotten some good feedback from a mentor or two.
Slowly I worked on my book in hopes that it would be done. The closer the time came for the submission window to open, the less I thought I would be able to complete my book in time. Yet, I plowed on and I even write a “boost my bio” blog post to put the word out there to the mentors and other participants that yes I was going to submit a book!
After PitchWars announced their list of mentors and I combed through who I thought would be good to submit to. I saw a few who I felt like would actually like my urban fantasy book from the year before. According to the rules, you can submit the same book a second year in a row if you weren’t chosen as long as you submit to different mentors. The timeline was short, but I decided to put away my Snow White book and get to work on doing some edits to my urban fantasy to clean it up a bit. At that point I had about a month until submission opened.
I was almost ready to take down my “boost my bio” post when one of the mentors - Paris Wynters - who’d been on my radar, replied to my tweet about the post. All she tweeted was a GIF of Snow White waving.
Oh. My. God. Someone was interested in my book.
I rushed back to her PitchWars profile and yes, she would be an awesome mentor. What had I been thinking switching books at the last minute? Of course my Snow White retelling was the way to go! The only problem? I was about two, maybe, three weeks until the submission deadline. There were no extensions and my book had to be completed.
And I still had thousands of words to go before it was done.
I sent panic messages to my writing group who were also submitting to PitchWars that year and we’d been planning and commiserating with each other all summer in preparation. We all panicked together but came to the conclusion that there was no other option - I had to finish this book.
So, I did. I stayed up late and got up early every single day. I locked myself in my room for hours at a time for those last two weeks of August 2018 and wrote more words all at once than I ever had before. I even talked to my supervisor at work and he gave me the days of the PitchWars submission window off so I could have even more time to get it finished. He was more than supportive and I am forever grateful. With only three hours to spare, I submitted my book and waited. There were a couple of emails back and forth between Paris and I and a couple other mentors, but overall it was a lot of waiting.
Ultimately, I was not picked to join PitchWars that year, but I was informed a few people had been interested in my manuscript and I was someone’s runner up where if their number 1 wasn’t able to be their mentee I was next in line! Paris kept in touch with me and even asked me to help give feedback on her mentee’s book and added me to a writing group she put together on Facebook.
I was bummed, but overall proud of myself. I’d made a deadline and I was able to reach it and make something that caught people’s attention. The book definitely needed work, but there was a lot of good in it.
Once PitchWars was over, Paris offered to read through my book again and give me feedback on it so I could work on revisions. It was the start of a beautiful and amazing friendship and mentor/mentee relationship. Paris may not have chosen me as her “official” PitchWars mentee, but she became my mentor regardless.
For months and months she and I messaged and talked and poured over my book. (I’ve helped her out with some of her stuff too - so don’t feel like this is completely one sided! Even though I feel like she’s helped me way more than I’ve helped her. Something I want to rectify.) It was torn apart and put back together over and over again until I felt like I was ready to start querying it again.
I was more hesitant in querying this book than I was with my urban fantasy. Like Alexander Hamilton, I didn’t want to throw away any shots. My book was fine and ready to query, so I can’t tell you why I was so hesitant. Maybe because I was afraid of disappointment? Who knows. But every few weeks I’d send a query letter out to a couple of agents here and there to see who would bite. Periodically I would pause my querying and do more revisions, then send another few out. I didn’t get many replies and slowly got discouraged, but I kept plowing through.
Then, Paris sent me a message saying that she met an editor from City Owl Press at the Romance Writers of America Conference and pitched my book to her. (Which I didn’t ask her to!) Miracle of miracles - she said to send it over! Paris passed her email onto me and while we decided my book still needed a bit more tweaking, once that was done I could send it over. So, once I knew it was ready, I did. She then passed it onto another editor (Tee Tate!) and I sat around and I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Publishing is a business of waiting my friends.
It was fall of 2019 at the time, and I’ll be honest, I was a bit down. I’d submitted my book to PitchWars once again, but gotten no bites. Not a single mentor took any interest in my book. Even with my urban fantasy two years before I’d gotten a couple encouraging messages and tweets from mentors! This time, nothing. Eventually, NaNoWriMo (which I’d been participating in for over ten years) had come and gone and I’d hardly written anything for it. I had a couple of new book ideas but nothing really excited me. I worried The Night’s Chosen wasn’t good enough either, and maybe I wouldn’t have any more ideas. (Oh the overdramatic woes of us writers!) I wasn’t really sure what to do next.
Then, December 1st, I woke up and saw I had a new email. It was from City Owl Press, and a contract was attached to the email. They wanted to give me a contract. I hadn’t even gotten out of bed yet!
I had an offer for my book from a publisher.
I ran to my mom’s room where she was also propped against the pillows scrolling through her phone. I told her the news and she had the same reaction I did - “Wait… what?” We were both still waking up and coffee hadn’t been made yet. Our brains were still turning on. But eventually it sank in, I had a book deal.
Naturally, my next move was to message Paris with a lot of squeals and excitement along with questions of what to do next. I asked the publisher to give me the industry standard of two weeks to reach out to other agents and editors I’d submitted to so they could pitch me any offers if they wanted as well, and in the meantime I read over my contract over and over and over again asking various questions about what it all meant.
Ultimately, none of the others I’d submitted to wanted to throw their hat in the ring but all wished me the best with my contract. Which was fine! I had someone who wanted my book! All you need is the one. Once the two weeks was up I sent them my signed contract and asked if it was okay for me to share the good news.
They said of course.
Basically… my social media blew up that day. It was great.
And here we are. Even writing this all out it feels like a bit of a dream. Did this really happen? Is my book really going to be published and out there in the world? But it did. It going to happen! It’s not just a dream anymore. The thing is, it’s not even an ending. This is just the start of my publishing journey.
I’ve been able to join our author group with other writers in the publishing house and it’s been so great to get to know them. My editor is going through and making notes on my book as I type this and I’m mentally preparing myself for the first round of revisions with her. Just this week we’ve started discussions about the cover. I have my plans for upcoming books sitting on the back burner that I’ve gone to work on here and there since I signed.
What’s interesting is that all this time I’ve wanted to be a published author - literally my whole life! - and to have that first book was the goal, but instead of seeing it at the end I’m seeing it as the start.
The book contract isn’t the happily ever after at the end. It’s the first chapter.
So, there you have it. The story of how I got my book contract. It was not a one person success at all. I had Paris who worked and helped me so much, my writing group and beta readers who spent hours reading my book and discussing it with me, my supervisors and co-workers who’ve been gracious to let me have time to write when needed, my family and friends who’ve been over the moon excited and supportive of me… and this wouldn’t have happened without any of them.
Now I can’t wait to see where this will go next.