We’re super excited that for the month of May Pippa Wright is here at Novelicious as our author in residence. Each Friday she will be answering a question about her life as a writer.
This week a Novelicious reader asks:
How did you get a book deal?
Pippa says: Okay this one’s tough, because I think the question is
really, ‘How can I get a book deal?’. So I’m going to tell you how I did it
with extra pointers as to how you might do it.
I wrote about a third of Lizzy Harrison Loses Control and
put it in a drawer for ages because I lost faith in it (I now understand that I
always feel like this around 30k words, but this was all new to me then). I
unearthed it months later and decided to send it to some agents for feedback. I
wasn’t really expecting to get an agent at this stage, but I hoped that maybe
one of the agents would say something encouraging like, ‘This has potential,
why don’t you send me the full manuscript when it’s finished.’ If they’d all
told me it was terrible I’d probably have given up.
I was very lucky that all the agents I sent it to were
interested in representing me. This is not because I am some kind of genius
but, I think, because I knew how to write a decent submission letter (it was
part of my job in book publishing to pitch books to other publishers, so I’d
had a lot of practice). My letter was short, professional and targeted at four
specific agents that I knew were interested in women’s fiction. I made sure the
sample pages ended on a bit of a cliffhanger so they might be interested in
knowing what happened next. I also sent it anonymously, because I was worried
I’d see these agents through work (some of them knew me, some of them didn’t)
and it would be mortifying for all of us if they’d told me my writing was
terrible.
So my tips are:
Send part of the manuscript, not the whole thing, even if
you’ve written it all. 100 pages is about right.
Make sure you’re really happy with the first 30 pages or so
– many agents aren’t going to read beyond this point if they’re not already
hooked.
Keep your submission letter to one page only: your
writing should speak for you in the sample pages, so a single paragraph of plot
summary is plenty. If you think your writing needs several detailed paragraphs
of explanatory comment a) it doesn’t b) it might be a sign that you need to do
a bit more work on the manuscript.
Show an understanding of the market by positioning your
submission – it’s women’s fiction, it’s literary fiction – but be wary of
comparing yourself to other authors as it can come across as either showing-off
or, worse, utter delusion. Allow the agent to make comparisons of their own,
don’t invite them to say, ‘But this crazy crime caper is nothing like Jane
Austen.’
Be professional – this is a business, and the agent is
reading your submission wondering if he/she can work with you on a long-term
basis. Wacky stunts and gags are the submission equivalent of the ‘You don’t
have to be mad to work here, but it helps!’ sign at the desk of a new
colleague: one walks rapidly in the opposite direction.
That’s how I got an agent. He made me finish the book
before he submitted it to publishers. We had an argument about whether or not the
love interest was ‘wet’. I found myself on a train shouting into my phone, ‘He
is not wet, he is a GOOD MAN’ and got stared at by fellow travellers. Listen to
your agent, they have your best interests at heart. I made the love interest
less wet.
What happened next is that my book got rejected by a number
of publishers. For me this was quite difficult because I knew some of these
publishers personally – so I couldn’t say ‘well, I expect that editor is just
an idiot’ when I knew that wasn’t the case. But again, from working in
publishing, I understood that what publishers are after is the right book for
the market as they see it at that moment, and it must fit into the list of
titles they already have lined up. Publishing is a team effort and you really
need to be with a team that not only believes in your book but has the time and
space to dedicate to publishing it well. I found that with Pan Macmillan who
have been brilliant to worth with; they’ve exceeded all my expectations and I
feel very fortunate to have landed there.
Don’t get disheartened by rejection – it’s not
personal, and it doesn’t necessarily mean your book is terrible. It just might
not be a good fit with that particular editor or publisher. Remember all the
famous authors who got rejected time and time again. Remember the books that
got turned down by every publisher but one and went on to sell hundreds of
thousands of copies. Remember success as an author is often down to sheer luck,
but the luck only comes to people who’ve worked for it first. Keep writing.