A desert thief who can steal with the slip of her shadow...
Before the deal
The novel I signed a publishing contract for is the second novel I've ever finished writing. Getting to the end of a story is hard. My writing successes before had been short stories, while all my exciting novel ideas had fizzled out after the 20K mark. When I finally finished my First. Ever. Novel (you know the one - that idea you've had for years and that has bestseller stamped all over it, if you could only get around to writing the damn thing), well it turned out that what I'd written was just... good practice. Ouch. It taught me how I personally structure stories (endings are my bane), how wildly my characters veer off from script, and how immersive - or not - my worlds come across to readers. Sending my manuscript out to five beta readers (see my The Good Beta Reader post) was helpful in making my decision not to query my first book. Their feedback gave me insight into what I was doing right, and what I was totally off the mark for.
Every novel you write will teach you something and, gutting as it might feel to 'shelve' a manuscript, you've never wasted those words. I don't know if I'll ever go back to that first novel, but moving on to the next project was the right decision.
Querying
I queried literary agents for the first time in June 2022. I wasn't successful in signing with an agent, but I did learn a lot about the process and since signing my deal in October 2022, I realise some of the things I did wrong.
- I queried before the book was ready. I am incredibly lucky that my publisher sees the potential in my story as editing it with them next year will be tough. I should have enlisted another round of beta readers to iron out some of the problems I know the text has.
- I didn't personalise the queries. While I did receive a full request from a dream agent and some positive passes from others, I should have done more research on the agents I was sending queries to. All I looked for (and it is a important box to tick) was - do they represent the genre/audience my book is aimed for? For me, this was YA Fantasy. Reading their Manuscript Wishlist (MSWL) helps, but honestly you should look at their current clients and see what books they've helped to get published. Use those to personalise your query. If they don't have books on their list that you're interested in, they're unlikely to be interested in your book.
- I didn't batch send. Or rather, I sent it out in two big batches one week apart. I ended up querying 37 agents, all in June. I really recommend subscribing to Query Tracker and setting up a list of agents you're interested in. See how fast they are at responding and send queries out in small batches of around 5 at a time to the fastest responders first. AND THEN WAIT. It could be months before you hear back, or you might never do. Set a realistic deadline (I'd recommend 2-3 months between batches). I still haven't heard back from more than 70% of the agents I queried - it's been maybe five months since I sent the queries, all of them without personalisation and some to agencies rather than individual agents.
- My pitch materials were weak. Writing a one page synopsis, three paragraph summary, and a one-liner elevator pitch is stressful, but it needs to be done. To do it well is a whole other thing. But while I don't think mine were bad, I can see that they lacked conflict. Feedback I've received since has been that the focus was too much on the set-up and not on the stakes. Stakes matter. Stakes sell.
Contests
I got my book deal from entering a pitch contest on Twitter. This contest only required me to write a Tweet-sized pitch. Gone was my cover letter, gone was my blurb. It was a little longer than my elevator pitch, but not by much. This, it turned out, worked for me. The submission process afterwards was very detailed but again, it didn't require a good cover letter and instead asked questions about my book, my knowledge of the market, and my passion for selling it. Being able to pitch your book is really important. Think about what makes your story sellable. Why would readers pick it up? Pitching gives you ideas on marketing, and marketing is what publishers are interested in.
The Tweet:
You can only teach your shadow one trick. Adlai Bringer is a thief who can steal with the slip of her shadow. But when one of her marks turns out to be a killer, she becomes his next target. Granted by a god of death, her shadow is a gift worth killing for.
So it does help to enter competitions. My novel was also runner-up in an opening chapter contest and the first page has been featured in a women's writing magazine. These things are good confidence boosters as well as proving that there is an interest in your story. Of course you don't need to enter competitions in order to land an agent or a book deal, but I would recommend looking around for some way to show your writing is getting noticed.
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