welcome
Hello friends, family, and fellow book lovers—
Welcome to the very first edition of my author newsletter! All of you get extra friendship points for being here from the beginning. What are we doing here, you might be wondering. This newsletter will let me keep all of you updated on my fledgling writing career. If you’re at all curious how one attempts to make a living as a novelist, we will—hopefully, gulp—figure out the answer to that question together.
Once a month, I’ll send you an email with updates on things like: my path to publication, new novels in progress, intriguing links/videos/podcasts I’ve come across during research, excellent books I’ve read, and whatever other useful or entertaining tidbits I come up with.
Let’s get started.
As some of you already know, in November 2018 I completed my debut novel, Mother May I (title pending name change!), which falls into the suspense or psychological thriller genre. Think Gillian Flynn, Megan Abbott and Paula Hawkins. Not that I’d compare myself to these legends—yet—but they’re in a league I aspire to.
Here’s the pitch I sent to agents, the “back jacket copy” if you will:
Rose Gold Watts believed she was sick for eighteen years. She thought she needed the feeding tube, the surgeries, the wheelchair.
Turns out her mom, Patty, is a really good liar.
After five years in prison, Patty gets out. Mother and daughter agree to move in together and let go of old grievances. Patty says all she wants is to reconcile with Rose Gold and care for her infant grandson.
But Rose Gold knows her mother. She won’t rest until she has Rose Gold back under her thumb. Which is a smidge inconvenient, because Rose Gold wants to be free of Patty forever.
Only one Watts can get her way.
I mentioned that I sent this pitch to literary agents. A little background: If you want to be traditionally published with one of the Big 5 publishers (Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, Macmillan)—which I do—then you need a literary agent. Most big publishers don’t accept unsolicited manuscripts, meaning agents are the gatekeepers between authors and publishers.
So how does one go about getting an agent? Roughly, the stages are:
1- Query
2- Partial/full manuscript request
3- Offer of representation
Starting in mid-November, I sent my query letter (a 200-word email pitch about my novel) to around 30 agents. Some didn’t respond, some sent form rejections, some personalized their rejection emails. Others were interested, and when all was said and done, I’d received 9 full manuscript requests and 5 offers of representation. I’m really happy with these stats, and even happier to share that just before Christmas, I accepted an offer from the brilliant and uber-talented Madeleine Milburn. (I still can’t quite believe my luck!)
Since then, Maddy sent me a revision letter with notes on how we can improve my manuscript before it goes out on submission. I’ve been working to implement those changes, as well as fleshing out the idea for and first chapter of Novel #2. Maddy says a lot of publishers will ask about book #2 before committing to book #1, so being able to give them a blurb or chapter can help make the sale. No pressure!
That’s all for this time. Next time we’ll talk about the submission process to publishing houses, and hopefully I’ll have more good news. If you have any questions or topics you'd like covered in future editions, just reply to this email—I'd love to hear from you. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey.
Cheers to a productive and happy 2019,
Stephanie