HOW I GOT MY BOOK DEAL

hi friends it's lindsey and welcome back to my channel today we're doing a little chill chatty discussion video and i'm gonna be sharing with you guys the full story of how i got my book deal if you missed my announcement video i will link that down below that's basically just where i share the news that i got a book deal i am going to be a scholastic author published in fall of 2022 with my debut middle grade novel the glass witch which is pitched as dumplin meets hocus pocus about a little chubby girl who has to join a pageant in order to break a curse and you know eradicate evil by midnight on halloween before the spell becomes permanent the beginning of my journey starts how all writers journeys do and that is i wrote books i wrote quite a few books and i had one fail in the query trenches and then i thought the glass which was failing because i had queried her over a year and i was getting ready to retire her and uh just put her on the shelf and chalk her up to a good book but just couldn't get an agent you know i decided to send out you know one final round and my agent samantha fabian literary happened to fall in love with it so there's a story there never give up kids i did document my entire query journey in two different vlogs i kind of made it like a little documentary series and i will link those below as well uh but let me know if you're interested in having like a sit-down chatty discussion about how i got my agent the same way i'm kind of doing this video right now i officially became samantha's client on january 26th of 2021 this year and we knew we were gonna do a small round of edits um mainly that we're going to be line edits and clarification edits before we made our own submission and we did those or i did those in about a week and i sent them back to samantha and she was really happy with them and she's like okay i'm gonna get with my team figure out a sub list and we're gonna go on sub next week and it was all very surreal because it still hadn't clicked that i got an agent let alone that i was going on submission so soon so i feel like i was just kind of unmoored and completely reeling at this point i was just like okay whatever's happening is happening but like really i was living in a state of like constant code red if you aren't aware what submission is it's basically when you have an agent and you're trying to be traditionally published uh and your agent pitches your book to different publishing houses they they send the pitch or they sometimes get on a phone call with an editor at a specific house and it's kind of like your query letter and they just pitch the book and if the editor is interested then they will ask to read the full book and then the hope is that they would buy it one of the coolest things ended up being that when i got to announce that i got my agent right i announced on twitter and instagram uh and samantha retweeted my announcement you know saying like hey i'm with literary now i'm super excited well samantha retweeted that and of course she's in the industry so she has a lot of people in the industry following her and seeing that and she actually had three three different editors at different publishing houses reach out to her dm her and be like hey this sounds amazing i need to be in your first round of submissions i remember she told me that and i was kind of like absolutely reeling because when she told me what houses they were from i was just like jesus take the wheel those are like the publishers of some of my favorite books ever also spoiler alert uh one of those editors that jumped in her dms wanting the book actually ended up being the editor we ended up going with so super cool it all came full circle so four days before going on submission uh samantha sent me the pitch letter that she was going to be sending editors and a list of all of the editors we were going to have in her first round i'll actually pop up the pitch letter because i'm sure um some of you may have never seen what it looks like when an agent essentially queries uh publishing houses i was actually really cool because samantha pretty much used my exact query letter to her uh she just changed like i think one sentence or something was removed so for our first round we were originally going to go out with 18 publishers and then on further reflection uh the day of samantha decided to push one of those to a second round if we needed a second round so we ended up actually like finally going out with 17 publishers 14 of those were big five publishers some examples of big five i wrote them down simon schuster harpercollins penguin and macmillan and the rest were what you would consider major publishers i feel like i'm obnoxiously plugging all of my old videos in this in this video but honestly like i talk about this so much more in my um like i'm officially on submission vlog i will also link down below it's just like if you want more information about this i go into greater detail in those videos now all agents are gonna be different and all like writers on submission are gonna be different um depending on like how you feel like you want to handle news and uh a lot of times you can tell your agent if you just want to hear good news if you don't want to be told about rejections at all or how often you want to be told about rejections and stuff me and samantha decided on that she would update me once a week she would also be nudging all editors once a week to see like in response to her pitch like if she hasn't heard from you yet she's gonna nudge you once a week just to be like hey have you read the book yet how's it going if we were to have any editors request the full manuscript then she would be nudging them once a month to see like where their progress was and obviously if we got any good news like an offer she would be letting me know immediately so we ended up going on submission on february 23rd 2021 and i was feeling pretty good i was feeling uh confident and maybe a little nervous in some ways but at the same time like it still hadn't even clicked in that i had an agent let alone that i was on submission so i wasn't i don't feel like i like went into full like anxiety panic mode about it just because nothing was real like it just felt like a derealization episode you know i was i was honestly doing quite okay i was working on my second middle grade at the time and just just felt good overall three days went by and i hadn't heard anything and then on february 26 samantha emailed me and she was like hey just a quick little update every one but two of the 17 editors have requested the full manuscript and they're reading it right now and i was like it was it was just a little wild and at that point we had had no reject rejections everyone who had responded had responded with wanting to read the full book and i was just like i'm just over here living my life in ignorance while my fate is in the hands of these 15 people i just got so excited i'm like spilling my coffee everywhere i honestly didn't know uh how quickly like i didn't know that editors would be responding that quickly even though i kind of hoped they would i just figured that being on submission was the same as querying where you had to wait like six to 12 weeks to wait on an agent to even respond to you um i didn't know that editors typically not always but editors typically respond a little bit faster so the fact that i had 15 reading my book at once it like hit me really really hard uh when i got that email and i remember that was the first time to me that it felt real to me um i was just going down the list of all of the imprints that were reading my book and just thinking about like all of the books that i loved and adored that made me who i am that were published by these editors like at these publishing houses and it just it really hit me hard and i remember i started crying in front of my husband and he was like what what's wrong and i was like there are editors reading my book and he's like i know and i was like no you don't understand like it's real and he's like yeah because it's been real to him since day one it didn't get real to me until like i saw that these specific houses were reading my book and then i was like holy crap like i did it like i freaking did it that's when it hit after that it was kind of quiet for a while until march 8th and that's when i got an email from samantha that said we had a publisher that was interested in chatting with me on the phone the editor basically said that she loved the book and that she had given it to other people in the publishing house to read it and they were loving it and that they wanted to take the book to acquisitions if you weren't aware acquisitions is this meeting that publishing houses usually hold once a week where all of the editors come you know together in front of the board all of the heads of the different departments of the publishing house and are like hey i love this book here's a pitch this is what i think you know maybe we can do marketing wise this is how much i think we're gonna make from it this is how much i think we should pay them and basically are pitching your book to this table of people saying i love this please buy it and the people at the table have to decide if it is monetarily worth buying the book like if they think that they can make money from it and like how much they're willing to give you and so forth there are a lot of people a lot of friends of mine whose book have made it that far and then it just dies acquisitions it's actually quite a common thing which is really really sad so i was super pumped to like to learn that my book was going to acquisitions but i was trying to be you know realistic and like tame it back that a lot of people have books die at acquisitions and so i didn't want to get too excited yet but of course i was like ridiculously excited before i was gonna go to acquisitions publishing house number one wanted to chat with me about you know just like getting to know me uh they actually wanted to do a face call face to face which made me really nervous but like i was down for it so i was like okay sure let's do it and uh we talked like just kind of chatted in general and then we talked about this editor's vision for the book they kind of gushed to me and she told me like what she liked about it um you know and which where she could kind of see it in the market um let me know like what time they would be thinking about publishing it you know just just all like the nitty gritty stuff and it was basically kind of like a meet and greet to like feel each other out and see um how we would work together and things like that i remember being on the call with the editor i had a list of questions and i was asking and then the very last one i was like oh i know like you you might not know but like if you wouldn't mind telling me um when do you think you guys will be taking this book to acquisitions and i remember the editor looked at me and she was like oh acquisitions is happening like right after i get off this call and i was like oh okay no big deal inside i get i was like oh red code red so then we hung up and samantha immediately called me because she wanted to like know how i was feeling about the call and you know just discuss things between the two of us and i was just like samantha what do i what do i do like my book is in acquisitions as we speak my fate is being decided and she's like just breathe well the very next night march 9th it was around i it was kind of getting dark so i feel like it was around like five or six in the evening i got an email from samantha and she was saying acquisitions loved it and that the first publishing house wants to make an offer i honestly like can't even share with you how i felt in that moment because again it was just so like my body was so like like i don't even know it was almost like you know when you have like a panic attack and you have like that derealization thing where nothing feels real and you feel like you're watching yourself in third person that's exactly how this felt and i don't know why my body like went into panic attack mode but it was just because it was a good thing like it was like the best news of my life so far but my body was like it couldn't handle the good news so much it was just like third person separate but i luckily thought to grab my camera and film telling all of my loved ones um i was so excited and it was amazing so what all of this caused samantha to do was that now that we had an offer on the table we needed to nudge all of the other editors and let them know we had an offer so that if they wanted to offer as well they needed to get you know get snapping so when samantha nudged them that caused four editors to step aside either because they just didn't have time to get to it in their queue or they read it and they were like i don't think this is for us four said that they were still interested but they were reading it currently and like they weren't ready to like make an offer yet because they were still in the middle of reading and then three actually said that they were interested and they were taking it to second reads and acquisitions samantha told them all that we were planning on uh closing meaning like we were gonna make our decision on that thursday so that they needed to at least tell us you know that it was in acquisitions uh by thursday and then on march 12th samantha emailed me and she was like hey we have a second offer and this house would love to get on a phone call with you at this point my code red had switched on into like code white because i was so like out of it at this point i couldn't even see colors because this means we were officially in an auction so when you have more than one publishing house wanting to buy your book you go into something that is called an auction and i plan to have a video entirely on the auction process like kind of breaking it down and then also like how i felt about it you know my personal experience so that video will be coming a bit later but uh yeah just know i was like cloud9 couldn't believe that this was happening to me like that i was actually like being a unicorn for the first time in my life things like that don't normally happen to me so it was just very very exciting so i talked to that editor it went wonderful we really clicked i loved uh i loved everything that this house could offer me and the thing is when you get in auctions it's so difficult because every house has something different that they can offer right i mean there were really no bad publishing houses like i couldn't make a bad decision it was just what was the best decision so uh yeah it was just it was really exciting and then a couple days later we got news a third house a third house was interested and wanted a phone call and uh wanted to make an offer as well so i had a phone chat with that editor as well and at this point it was kind of very very hard like complete transparency i never knew at the very beginning which house i was gonna go with like i didn't know i was gonna choose scholastic you know at the time um and i don't think that there's anything wrong with that i think that i'm like i'm a very like analytical person so i really wanted to break it down and do the pros and cons and see what happened on auction day and i didn't want to just be like oh i love this editor so i'm going to go with them 100 like i really even though my heart was like yes yes this is the answer um i wanted to be like you know kind of like objectively look at it and make the best business decision you know for the rest of my career because this is where i'm debuting this is a huge thing in in publishing is where you debut and how you debut and it was basically a decision that would impact the rest of my career and life so i really really weighed the pros and cons a lot on march 18th we had the auction at this point the fourth publishing house that had gone to acquisitions we had told them that we were doing the auction on the 18th and they just never got back to us so i don't know if that means that i did not pass acquisitions or maybe they just didn't have time to uh schedule an acquisitions meeting before the 18th i don't really know what happened on march 18th at 12 p.m i officially went into auction with three publishing houses two of which were big five and one a major publisher obviously the one who won scholastic it was a very difficult and stressful day uh i did flip-flop quite often i think three or four times i was flip-flopping between uh two houses there there was out of the three there was two that i was just like it's gonna be one of these two i did chat with samantha quite often on the phone throughout the day and i'm just so so grateful that i had such a smart savvy uh businessy agent sometimes there are better deals than money when it comes to you know trying to make publishing your career there are better better offers than a higher advance and sometimes a high advance can actually be detrimental to you having a very long and healthy publishing career so she knew that going into it and that's where the negotiations came in and the chats and it was just she's god sent after a very long day of flip-flopping and phone calls with samantha and chatting with friends and family i kind of knew that i had a decision by the end of the night but i told samantha that i would feel more comfortable sleeping on it and then giving a decision by 12 p.m the following day and she was like that's totally fine so she let all the houses know in the morning at 11 o'clock an hour before my deadline samantha called me and she's like hey what are you thinking and i told her i'm gonna be a scholastic mother and again it was just like i felt in my bones when i went to bed that night that scholastic was the correct house for me i read them in my announcement video but they sent me blurbs from all of the heads of department in scholastic like just how much they loved the book and it really felt like the entire team was there for me that they were really really excited about it and it just made me feel incredibly wanted a few other things that you know just really solidified that scholastic was the house for me was that i just really vibed with the editor she was wonderful she was funny she loved puns so we just like really talked and joked and our conversation just had like an easy light feel to it which was really really nice um to know that she was like very professional and could get stuff done but also like she was there to joke and listen to me if i had you know any issues or feelings or whatever um that was just kind of the relationship that i was looking for she also had very few edits and the edits she did mention i really vibed with um scholastic was going to be the ones to publish the book much sooner than the other two houses and being published in fall 2022. the other houses were gonna have me in spring 2023 and scholastic specifically mentioned they wanted it in the fall because it is a halloween book and that was like very important to them and i just felt like yes i agree they also of course have the book fair which is a huge thing like that can be a huge game changer i will pop up a little portion of her email that was like hey we want to buy this book where she talks about how much the fairs can do for for authors they also really worked with us uh with negotiations during the auction which i found really really helpful there were some houses that were unable to or unwilling to negotiate certain terms and scholastic was totally like we will work with you the best we can which made me feel really happy they're also making me a lead title for fall 2022 which is mind-blowing um let's hope it sticks but um that is just excruciating exciting to me of course like when we're gonna lie their uh monetary offer was the shiniest out of all of them so i mean that didn't hurt at all so then it was official um by march 22nd my editor tiffany reached out to me and said hey i would love to hop on the phone with you just kind of as a meet and greet to get to know you better and chat more about the book and my editing ideas and things like that so me samantha and tiffany all got together and chatted then and then finally june 30th like four months later um i got my contract um i did not know and this is my own personal ignorance i did not know that it takes so long for publishing contracts to get to you and so i was thinking you know i'd get my contract in like a week or two no that's not how that works and i guess if you think about it it makes sense like each house can only hire so many contracting people and every single book that passes through their doors has to get its own contract and think of how many books scholastic publishes especially like little tiny chapter books or picture books every single one of those has to get a contract so i guess it makes sense that it took so long to get it but i'm very very happy i did i'm very happy with my contract i'm very happy with samantha and how she negotiated and tiffany for being in my corner and it's official it's signed i'm gonna be a scholastic author i'm gonna be a scholastic author the glass switch is gonna be a real book like you guys will be able to buy it one day and read it like what and it's a two book deal tobe hopefully my odd book my second middle grade baby like hopefully that's the one they're gonna buy um i did send a pitch of it to tiffany my editor and she really liked it she was super intrigued by it i think uh she said she wanted like the first few chapters a synopsis and a pitch of the book and then i think she takes that to acquisitions and is like hey we have a two book deal with this author this is her second book i just need to go ahead that this is the one we're signing and then she'll tell me and then i'll know for sure you guys i'll have to keep the secret from you for another like six months or something but um it's just really exciting that like two books two books you'll get to read the glass witch and maybe tobe so that's it that's how i got my book deal it's been a whirlwind um i've gotten to be a unicorn for the first time in my life at anything and it's happening guys like it's happening can't wait to take you guys along with me the rest of this journey you guys are like my support system it's so nice to have you guys along with me as i like stress and freak out about everything like i know you guys will be there in the comments like being nice to me so it's really great anyways thank you guys so much for watching don't forget to like and subscribe and i will see you the next one bye [Music] you

Channel: Lindsay Puckett

Views: 2,183

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: how I got my book deal, I sold a book, how I got my agent, traditional publishing

Id: najIgY-utDk

Length: 21min 38sec (1298 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 20 2021