This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
I’ve thought a lot recently about my first book deal moment because I’ve been revising and updating that novel – The Island Hideaway – for publication later this year and all the emotions of the time have been stirred up in the most lovely, nostalgic way.
It was 2002 and times were more innocent – not in terms of world events, admittedly, but in the publishing industry, where the digital revolution hadn’t yet struck and the word kindle was still a verb. It was traditional for editors to fax book offers and all agents had their trusty fax machines for just such golden moments.
But there had been no faxes for me yet. My agent, Claire, had submitted my manuscript to several publishers and several had rejected it. As a person easily tipped into pessimism I was already rehearsing the act of putting the book in the bottom drawer, never to speak of it again (there were no excellent self-publishing tools, then). I decided I would write a second, since I had an idea I was excited about, and then, if that was rejected too, I’d go and do something else. Or stay doing what I was already doing.
When Claire phoned with the news that Random House wanted to offer I could tell by the excitement in her breathing that this was a different sort of call. I was at my desk at work and had to respond in the most inappropriately underwhelmed tones (I’d shared my situation with only one or two colleagues, being the sort to fear the risks of tempting fate and jumping guns). She phoned again when she’d received the fax and this time I did squeal, because it was real. I then slipped from the office and stood in the litter-infested alleyway outside the building to phone my boyfriend. ‘I’ve had an offer!’ I shouted the moment he picked up. He knew at once what sort of offer I meant, but startled passers-by wouldn’t have had a clue: an offer on a flat, perhaps? A job offer? A date?
Of all the book deal moments since, that was the most exciting, because at the beginning you think success will tumble effortlessly on and on until such a time as, say, eighteen months later, when you are justly crowned the Jane Austen of the 21st-century. In fact, the editor who bought my book left her job soon after and there were several years of disappointment and uncertainty before my writing reached a wider audience.
Being a novelist is a capricious business. If I’ve learned anything in the course of writing nine novels, it is that when the big moments arrive you must exult in them with your heart and soul. You must bask like there’ll never be sun again.
The Disappearance of Emily Marr is out on August 1st; The Island Hideaway is published in December.