This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
My
route to getting published wasn’t the usual one. I didn’t have an agent. I
didn’t submit it to publishers and, in fact, I’d given up on the idea of being
conventionally published altogether. Let me start at the beginning (or more
accurately somewhere near the middle).
After a few novels and lots of rejections, I decided to self-publish my fifth novel, This Thirtysomething Life. It took a while, and lots of self-promotion, but it climbed the charts and eventually sat proudly in the Top Ten Kindle charts. I was over the moon. Even now I still don’t really know how it happened. During its rise to the top, I was contacted by an assistant editor at Hodder and Stoughton. She had read the book and loved it. We had a few meetings over the phone and got on really well. When I was on the outside looking in at the publishing world, it all seemed so daunting and scary, but within a few minutes of talking about me and the book, it all felt so natural.
The hardest part about the publishing experience is the waiting. After a few meetings, my lovely editor told me she wanted to publish my book. Hang on, before you get all excited, this wasn’t my big moment. She had to take my book to an acquisition meeting and sell it to the rest of the company. I wouldn’t hear back for a few weeks whether it was accepted or not. A FEW WEEKS!!!
As any writer will tell you, waiting to hear back whether you have a book deal or not is the most intense, painful and unrelentingly awful wait ever. It was all I could think about. It was there, rolling over and over in my mind as I drifted off to sleep and there again the moment my eyes popped open in the morning. My poor wife did her very best to try and convince me it was going to be good news. “It has to be,” she said. “They contacted you. They want you,” she said again and again, while I melted into a pathetic, lifeless, floppy wreck. I convinced myself it wasn’t going to be good news. Call it self-preservation.
Then it happened. She called me. They wanted to offer me a two book deal. It’s a hard moment to really put into words. I have wanted to be a writer since, well, since as long as I can remember. I always felt like it was my destiny. But I hadn’t made it. And then I had. Surreal is really the only word that comes to mind. It took me a while to really understand what had just happened. I cried. I drank. I hugged my wife and kids. I sat and daydreamed about awards and film deals and Christmas No.1’s. I sank into the usual, “But this isn’t going to end well,” spiral of thought that ended up with me homeless, penniless and alone. Highs and lows seemed to come so quickly I didn’t know whether getting this deal was the best or the worst thing that had ever happened to me.
It’s now March and I signed my book deal back in December and I can tell you, categorically, that it is definitely the best thing that has ever happened to me (with the exception of my wife and two kids, of course). It’s a dream, although if you think that getting a publishing deal is when you can relax, put your feet up and watch the money come rolling in, think again. Getting a publishing deal is when the hard work begins. It’s the best work in the world though and I wouldn’t do anything else…not even if you paid me.
This Thirtysomething Life is out now!