There have been a lots of uncertainties and worries in the last few months about writers submitting to agents or going out on sub with the current situation and I wanted to offer some positive news.
I signed with my agent in late March days before the UK went into lockdown. We did two rounds of edits and went out on sub in mid-May. My book is a feminist thriller/dark reading group fiction. I was worried about going on sub during lockdown but my agent was confident. She is a brilliant agent so I trusted completely. Because of the lockdown and publishers juggling working from home and looking after children I didn't expect to hear for a couple of weeks so I asked my agent to just send me a weekly email update even if it's just to say "no news".
We went on sub on a Tuesday and by the following day we has several UK editors interested who were sharing with their teams. Needless to say the weekly email plan went out of the window by that stage. We ended up with main auctions in the UK and the US and so far deals with 7 other territories most of them 2-book deals!
It has been an absolute whirlwind — and a dream come true — but hopefully this will also show that publishers are still looking for and buying books. Plus this whole process as just reinforced for me about important choosing the right agent is.
Give to add some perspective, I've been writing seriously for about 5/6 years now. This is the 2nd novel I queried (1st one went nowhere) and I have also cut my teeth on short stories over the last 3 years to improve my writing, so perseverance paid off!
I signed with my agent in late March days before the UK went into lockdown. We did two rounds of edits and went out on sub in mid-May. My book is a feminist thriller/dark reading group fiction. I was worried about going on sub during lockdown but my agent was confident. She is a brilliant agent so I trusted completely. Because of the lockdown and publishers juggling working from home and looking after children I didn't expect to hear for a couple of weeks so I asked my agent to just send me a weekly email update even if it's just to say "no news".
We went on sub on a Tuesday and by the following day we has several UK editors interested who were sharing with their teams. Needless to say the weekly email plan went out of the window by that stage. We ended up with main auctions in the UK and the US and so far deals with 7 other territories most of them 2-book deals!
It has been an absolute whirlwind — and a dream come true — but hopefully this will also show that publishers are still looking for and buying books. Plus this whole process as just reinforced for me about important choosing the right agent is.
Give to add some perspective, I've been writing seriously for about 5/6 years now. This is the 2nd novel I queried (1st one went nowhere) and I have also cut my teeth on short stories over the last 3 years to improve my writing, so perseverance paid off!