So you may have seen my new YA sci-fi announcement. I sort of wrote up a little story behind the sale for that book, because it's had a Journey.
This story is different. I thought it would be fun to showcase both stories, simply because they are different, and every journey toward publication is unique, even for a single person.
So here's the deal:
Yes, it's a romance deal. Yes, it's adult. My debut, in fact, into the full-length adult romance genre (I have a novella in an anthology right now, and 3 more coming next year).
The book is called UNTIL SUMMER ENDS, and it begins the Redwood Bay series, which will have at least 3 books.
These past two book deals -- this one and my YA sci-fi one -- are big firsts for me, because they're multiple book deals, something I've never gotten before. It's both exciting and terrifying. I've never had to write a book under contract, and that pressure is intense.
Anyway, I wrote Until Summer Ends only a year ago. That's right. I started it in November 2014, and I finished it at the beginning of December. It was the second romance novel I'd attempted (the first was horrific!).
Over the next couple of months, I wrote a few more romance novels, but Until Summer Ends was the one I was preparing to shop. I sent the first few chapters to critique group, and then I had a professional editor work on the whole thing.
With their feedback -- which was mostly positive -- I felt encouraged to start querying. So I did, to both literary agents and publishers that accepted unagented submissions. On April 1, no less. No April Fool's Day here!
I got quite a few requests, mostly because I did my homework. I researched the agents and publishers, looked at the things they'd sold or published, and tailored my queries to them. I went wide, don't get me wrong, but I still did my homework. And in romance, there are quite a few publishers you can submit directly to.
I went to a local conference and pitched my book to an editor at St. Martin's Press. She requested it. Things were looking up!
Especially when I got an offer on the book the second week of May, from one of the publisher's I'd submitted to. That spurred me to let other pubs and all the agents considering the full know about the offer.
A couple of weeks later, I got another offer, from another publisher. The day after that, I got an offer from a literary agent. She was one of the top ten dealmakers in romance on Publisher's Marketplace. Even if she couldn't sell the book (hey, I'm realistic -- I've had several books on submission through an agent in New York that didn't sell), I figured I had the two publisher offers to choose from.
So we submitted, and we actually ended up getting several offers. I was sort of shocked. Ha! We ended up going with Cleis Press, because the editor there, Karen Thomas, was incredibly enthusiastic about the project, and after speaking with her on the phone, I knew it was the right place to be.
So that's how I went from the drafting of a novel in November 2014, to querying only 5 months later, to an offer just a month after that. It was fast. MUCH faster than any of my other book deals, that's for sure!
But it just shows that the journey is different for each book, and each person! And UNTIL SUMMER ENDS will be out in July 2016! Which is also fast! Meanwhile, I have two more novels to write, so... I better get doing that!
Okay, so you may have seen my Facebook post last week about a new book deal. It went something like this: So I sold two YA novels to Jolly Fish Press! RIFT will be out in the fall next year, and MEND in the Spring of 2017. #booknews #JFP #timetravel #RiftWalkersseries
You can read the entire press release here.
Yes, I'm super-excited about it. I can't wait to see the awesome cover JFP will make, and hold the book in my hands. That's all awesome.
But really, you want to know which emotion was the most prevalent when I signed the contract? Relief. I think I probably wept.
See, this book has A Story, as most do. And this Story was HARD. And I wanted to quit about a million times, and no one ever gets to read That Story. I'll make it brief.
So I started writing this YA time travel novel at the end of 2011. I must've been certifiably insane. Because who writes a time travel novel? Oh, yes, someone who enjoys torture. Apparently, that's me.
I had an agent, and she liked the premise. So we revised. And revised. And revised. We gave the shiny new manuscript to my editor at Simon & Schuster.
And they said no.
I broke up with that agent, and decided a few months later to query using RIFT. Success! I got another agent with the manuscript. She wanted revisions. Times two.
Once those were done, we went out on submission. Lots of bites. Lots of rejections. Some close calls.
No offers.
I didn't quite know what "it" was in the book that didn't work for people. There had to be something, though, you know?
I broke up with Agent #2, and sat on RIFT. I thought it was a good book. Both of my agents thought so too. So I decided to submit to smaller houses myself. And I got an offer. I wasn't super-satisfied with the house, so I kept it in my back pocket while I continued to explore.
At this time, I was unagented and writing in another genre. I'd self-published some of my work -- I still do. But a time travel novel? No way I was self-pubbing that. I really wanted to have a clever, savvy editor for it, because again, I felt like it was missing something.
I had my finger on the pulse of all the query contests, the Pitch Wars, etc. I had created a dedicated column in my Tweetdeck just for #MSWL.
And that's when I saw this tweet:
And I thought, I have a time travel novel. Could be a good fit. So I went to Jolly Fish Press's website, and I liked what I saw. I should! They're right here in Utah, and I've sat on panels with the owner, Christopher! I don't know why I didn't think to submit to them.
But based on that #MSWL tweet and my research, I did. A few days later, they requested the full manuscript.
And just a few days after that, I got this tweet:
It took about another month to get the official offer, and bit more time to get things going from there. By the time I signed the contract, I just wanted the heck off this RIFT Rollercoaster. So many ups and downs and yeah. The tears. They were of relief that I didn't have to keep riding.
And now you'll get to read RIFT next fall! And now I have to write ANOTHER FREAKING TIME TRAVEL NOVEL. What was I thinking? Ha! Thankfully, I started on MEND during NaNo in 2013, so I have about 55,000 words. They might all need to be deleted and rewritten, but whatever.
And that's The Story. I know I'm not the only one on this crazy writing, querying, submitting, publishing roller coaster. How's your journey going?
