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Writing Tips Oasis

Writing Tips Oasis - A website dedicated to helping writers to write and publish books.

My Book Deal Moment by Nuala Casey

By Novelicious

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

Nuala CaseyOne rainy April afternoon last year, I was sitting at the kitchen table reading Novelicious. It featured an interview with a literary agent called Madeleine Milburn. It was a fascinating interview and unlike many agents who talk about piles of unsolicited submissions with annoyance, Madeleine was keen to find new writing and cited Maggie O’Farrell, a big influence of mine, as the kind of style she was looking for. So I decided to take a chance and emailed a cover letter, the first three chapters and a synopsis of my novel Soho, 4am to Madeleine that afternoon. Then I walked away from the computer and reminded myself that the odds of my getting an agent were about the same as winning the lottery or flying to the moon: very small indeed. But then the most incredible thing happened: an hour later Madeleine got back to me requesting the rest of the novel. My stomach churned as I pressed ‘send’ and saw my manuscript head out into the ether – it felt like I had just sent my child off to school for the first day.

I spent the rest of the night trying not to get my hopes up; telling myself that Madeleine would probably send a polite ‘thanks but no thanks’ and that would be that. So when I got a reply the next morning, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Madeleine said she had spent the whole evening reading it and it had made her cry. Would I like to be represented by her? Well, after I had peeled myself off the ceiling I emailed her straight back and accepted!

After that I worked with Madeleine to get the manuscript into tip-top shape for her to send out to publishers and two months later I signed a two-book deal with the brilliant Jo Dickinson at Quercus. The email came through when I was visiting my parents and I was sitting in my father’s study, the place I used to sit for hours as a child reading. And there, surrounded by those same books, I sat and took in those words: ‘A two-book publishing deal’ for my own novels.

It really has been a dream come true and some days I still have to pinch myself that this has become a reality. It is strange but you only feel you can truly call yourself a writer once you have been published, although that shouldn’t be the case. I do remember, however, the withering looks some people would give me when I told them I was writing a novel – it was almost as though I had told them I planned to man a solo flight to Mars but I also remember looking longingly at books, those strange objects that I have treasured since being a little girl and wishing that one day I could hold one with my name on the front and my story inside.

And now that dream has come true.

Nuala Casey’s first novel Soho, 4am is out now!

Filed Under: Authors, My Book Deal Moment

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