Submission Update on my New Novel
(And how it alarms me about the current editorial market)
I’ve been in the writing-novels-and-getting-them-published-business over 20 years, but it’s remarkable the new and creative ways in which the business side of things still manages to mess with my sense of self, and of self-confidence.
But: I’m working on also being impressed by my self’s ability to keep going in the face of all that, which is really all I can do— well, that, and keep writing.
Both/and.
The latest news from my agents, after two months of my New Book (NB from here on out) is an invitation to apply this same strategy.
A quick sum-up of my career up until now:
2003: sold my first novel (!) in a mid-six figure (!!) two-book deal (!!!) to an editor at a big five publisher (!!!!), pitched as “the next Lovely Bones” (!!!!!) only to have that editor leave six months before the book was published, and, with the loss of that captain steering the ship, lose the in-house momentum which might have led to “massive sales” and what had been pitched to me as the “inevitable” rise of my career
2007: the second novel in my two-book deal, under the auspices of an editor who had inherited me (at the same big five publisher), sold less than 2500 copies, which was (to say the least) considerably fewer copies than the people who’d paid $200,000 for it had hoped it would sell
2008-2011: because of my “abysmal sales record” (yes, these were words an editor once said to me), I couldn’t sell the novel I pitched to that publisher as their option book, nor the book I had written before the book that ended up being my first published novel, nor the book I wrote after my second novel published in a last ditch attempt to “save” my career. In the midst of all this, I had lunch with the editor who had acquired my first book. His advice? “Write a bestseller.”
2013: Bittersweet debuted as a New York Times bestseller at a different big five publisher, and my career was “relaunched.” Not seen in that headline? The career despair, financial panic, and my audacity to think that someone telling me to “write a bestseller” was actually achievable! The fact that it was still blows my mind, and/but I know that so much of why had so little to do with me or the book that I wrote: luck, the book market, and the savvy and tenacity of my team had as much, if not more, to do with that book’s success than I did.
2015: The fate of June, which I sold to my beloved editor during Bittersweet’s pub week, was not quite as terrible as that of my second novel, but there were certainly echoes in the trajectory of its “disappointing sales,” and I couldn’t help a sinking sense of deja vu. Similarly, the editor who had published Bittersweet had also gone elsewhere by then, and I knew, when they assigned me a junior publicist (instead of the head of publicity who had helmed Bittersweet) that June was not a lead title, even though no one in-house would say as much.
2021: my fifth novel, Fierce Little Thing acquired at yet another big five publisher (by the editor who had acquired Bittersweet), published during the second summer of that fun little pandemic we all had, didn’t do great. It didn’t do terribly either, and my agents have assured me that there’s an asterisk next to the books that anyone published during this time, especially the second summer, when everyone was just kind of done with being online so much, so a lot of the initial push to support pandemic-era books had disappeared, but it’s still super frustrating.
2021: that same summer, reading the writing on the wall with Fierce Little Thing, I started thinking about what I could write next that would reposition me towards readers in creative and exciting ways. I know I’m going to keep writing novels for the rest of my life, and once I’m working on something new, the disappointment of what could have been often fades a little into the background, and this was the case here too. I was reinvigorated by this new idea, and excited to get to work.
2023: with new agents who were thrilled about the draft of NB— but a clear sense that it needed some work, I began to revise in earnest. NB is decidedly less thrillery than both Fierce Little Thing and Bittersweet, but definitely has some suspense elements, and is (I hope) as much of a page turner as my readers have come to rely on my books to be. I know, without a doubt, that it’s the best thing I’ve ever written (in no small part because I revised it for two years). It’s Upmarket literary— the kind of book one hopes will get picked for one of the high profile book clubs (although word on the street is those aren’t necessarily moving books anymore)— about two women and how they help and hurt each other, and set in “the real world.”
2025: we sent NB wide in May, after getting a pass from my on-and-off editor back in September, and revising based on her generous and incredibly helpful feedback.
And that’s basically where we were until two weeks ago, when I heard from my agents after two months of radio silence.
In the past, I’ve mostly kept what’s happening in real time, in my career, to myself. But I’m going to talk, below, about what’s going on in my mind, today, so you can see for yourself how nimble I (and you, if you’re in this game with me) have to be to keep publishing— while still keeping what I need to private. Because of that, I’m keeping what comes next behind the paywall. I hope you’ll consider becoming a paid subscriber so you can be part of the behind-the-scenes as I move forward in my career. (And if you can’t afford $35 a year, please let me know, and I’ll give you a three month subscription free of charge).