My Book Deal Moment by Eve Bourton

This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.

I was so used to receiving my SAE, so used to opening it to find a photocopied rejection letter with variations of my name filled in above the standard paragraph about how my book was not really suitable for their list. Sometimes a kind editorial assistant would add a handwritten postscript saying they had really enjoyed it and that they wished me luck placing it elsewhere. Sometimes (after the MS had been away for a few months) the rejection would be personally written by an editor who just didn’t have the budget to take on a young author with no name, despite the fact that personally they liked the book and had spent time and effort trying to persuade their seniors to give it a chance. Those rejections were the hardest. I always felt that if I had done something newsworthy, like writing it while hanging upside down from a lap-dancing pole, my work would have made it straight into print. So the day I received a brown envelope with a typewritten address, within three weeks of sending in the manuscript (which had been in a drawer for a year after rejection number twenty-three) to a small but highly respected publisher, I felt that things might be different. It was beautifully succinct: I thoroughly enjoyed your manuscript and I would like to publish it on our standard terms. Please let me know if you would like me to prepare a contract.

I was simply stunned. Shocked into silence. Of course I expected the 'Well, I told you to try once more, didn't I?' remark from my mother (as usual, she was infuriatingly right). And then it was overwhelming relief that I hadn't wasted my time writing instead of focusing on a 'serious' career (!), and an enormous thrill that finally my work would be seen by the people I had written it for – the public. Needless to say, a drink or three to celebrate was certainly in order!

Eve's book, Love in Vogue, was published on 3 September.