If there's one thing that many aspiring writers have few clues about, it's the submission process. There are good reasons for that; authors aren't exactly encouraged to talk in detail about our own submission experiences, and - just like agent hunting - everyone's story is different. I managed to cobble together a few non-specific questions that some debut authors have agreed to answer (bless them). And so I bring you the submission interview series - Submission Hell - It's True. Yes, it's the SHIT.

Today’s guest for the SHIT is J.C. Moore. author of the Maggie White Mysteries, debuting September 2020 with Murder in the Piazza from Level Best Books. Her short fiction has appeared in Mystery Weekly, and she is the editor of the Mystery Writers of America Midwest newsletter. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America, as well an established marketer and entrepreneur. A transplanted New Englander, she lives in Chicago with her husband and two boys. 

How much did you know about the submission process before you were out on subs yourself?

Not a lot! I’d spent all my research energy on the agent hunt, and I went into the submission side of it pretty blind. I think I thought it was all out of my hands at that point, and that my agent would handle everything. 

Did anything about the process surprise you?

I had two surprises: 

Most of all, I was delighted how interested editors were in my story! I went through a long, long querying process until I landed the wonderful Dawn Dowdle as my agent. I’ll be honest, she wasn’t at the top of my agent list when I first started submitting. I had my eye on big time New York agents who worked with many high profile authors. I was delighted when many of those agents expressed interest in my MS and said some very kind things about my writing. But they ultimately passed, saying they just didn’t think they could sell it. 

So when I signed with Dawn, I was concerned about the marketplace. If the other agents don’t think they can sell my book, can Dawn really deliver? I didn’t have anything to lose with her putting it on submission, but I was prepared to hear that editors were passing, since that’s what the agents who’d rejected my story said they thought would happen. So the fact I got an offer was a wonderful surprise. 

The other thing that surprised me, though, was the submission package that Dawn put together. I’d written my book as the first in a series, but I didn’t think much about what the other books in the series would be about since I wasn’t going to write them until someone bought the book. After all, what if my editor had major changes? It’d be crazy to plot out the rest of the series, right? 

But Dawn sent me a note along the lines of, “Oh, and please send me the descriptions of the next two books that we can include in the submission and we’ll get it out the door.” Whoops. I could have spent the past few months while going through querying hell working on that! But instead I took about 15 minutes to write titles and two-sentence descriptions of four stories, and I told Dawn to choose the ones she thought were best and send them along.

Well, she liked them all, so she include them all in the packet, and when I got an offer, it was for all five titles. I signed a contract for three (I didn’t want to sign away the next five years of my life) and now I have to figure out where to take those stories. And I’m delighted about it, because otherwise I’d be facing a completely blank page for the next books. Now, at least, I have something a prompt. It’s not thought out and it may make me crazy, but I think constraints help the creative process. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself!

Did you research the editors you knew had your ms? Do you recommend doing that?

It didn’t even occur to me to do that! Dawn told me every editor who had it, and I just sort of forgot about it until I got her update email each month telling me who’d passed and why, who still had it, who else had requested it, etc. 

What was the average amount of time it took to hear back from editors? 

Gosh, it varied all over the place. I just checked my tracker, and the first submission went out in June and the offer came in October. Some rejections came within the first month, others took longer. Once we had an offer, though, it got the remaining two publishers to read pretty fast. 

What do you think is the best way for an author out on submission to deal with the anxiety? 

I like to be prepared for the worst-case scenario, so I told myself—and I think I really believed it—that it was OK if the book didn’t find a home. I’d gotten enough positive feedback to know that the story was good and that my writing was great. That was enough for me to be determined to write another series, smarter this time. After all, the chances of hitting it the first time out were pretty slim. And I had the confidence that I could always self-publish my first series if I wanted to. 

That said, in my heart of hearts, I wanted that validation that comes from a publisher on my first book out, and so I was beyond pleased when the offer came through.

All this is a long-winded way of saying that I think the best thing to do while on submission is work on something else. Your success isn’t tied to this single book. If you plan to be a pro, you’ll have other books in you.

Just getting to the submission stage is a huge milestone, and whether a publisher thinks the market is right for your story isn’t the point. The point is that people who know the industry say you have what it takes, otherwise you wouldn’t be where you are. So go out and write another book. You’ve done all you can on the one that’s waiting to be read by an editor. 

If you had any rejections, how did you deal with that emotionally? How did this kind of rejection compare to query rejections?

I had many rejections! And as I’ve written ad nauseam above, I was prepared for them. I was more delighted when big publishers read it and said they loved the book. It was disappointing when they said they didn’t think they could make it the breakout they needed, but I understand the economics of publishing well enough to realize their needs are not the same as mine, or those of readers. Not being the top of their charts doesn’t mean I can’t have a long and successful career in this industry. 

If you got feedback on a rejection, how did you process it? How do you compare processing an editor’s feedback as compared to a beta reader’s?

Editor’s feedback was based on the marketplace, and whether they thought my title would be big enough for their lists. That’s economics, which is different from art. And while I was disappointed, I didn’t take it as a rejection of my work. I didn’t set out to write the next big thing. It would be great, of course, but I really wanted to delight readers looking for a fun, traditional mystery in a fabulous location, and the feedback I received told me I’d accomplished that.

When you got your YES! how did that feel? How did you find out – email, telephone, smoke signal?

I received a phone call from my agent. She’d told me in advance that she emailed with bad news and called with good, so when I saw her name pop up, I knew it was something great.

Did you have to wait a period of time before sharing your big news, because of details being ironed out? Was that difficult?

I did wait because I’m a cautiously optimistic person. Even though Dawn had told me the publisher was making an offer, I didn’t tell anyone except my husband until the contract was signed. Because until it’s signed, who knows what could happen?

It was hard, but no one was asking me about it. My writing friends all knew what a loooong process it was, and my non-writing friends had lost interest long ago. Well, not really lost interest. But writing and publishing is such a slow process, they weren’t tracking every piece of the puzzle. They really just want to know when they can buy the book!