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 Sasha Laurens, author of A Wicked Magic. After studying creative writing and literature at Columbia University, she lived in New York for years and, at various times, in Russia. She currently resides in Michigan, where she is pursuing a PhD in political science.
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Although A WICKED MAGIC is my debut, I’ve been on submission twice. My first book didn’t sell, but by the time we went out with it, I was already writing A WICKED MAGIC. After a few months, I realized A WICKED MAGIC was a much stronger project, and I wouldn’t want to stop working on it to revise Book 1 if it sold. Book 1 was also very different, and the books didn’t feel like the same author’s “brand”. I decided, with my agent, to pull Book 1 from submission and go out with A WICKED MAGIC. A WICKED MAGIC got immediate interest and the rest is history!
How much did you know about the submission process before you were out on subs yourself?
I can’t exactly recall at this point, because it’s been a few years since I first experienced it.
Did anything about the process surprise you?
When my future editor, Ruta Rimas, first expressed interest in A WICKED MAGIC, she asked to set up a call. Calls are usually a good thing, but good things cannot be trusted, so I assumed this was an interview where I needed to impress Ruta. When she spent the first fifteen minutes talking about her imprint and other great projects she’d worked on, I was genuinely confused and worried that I wouldn’t have a chance to make my pitch (which no, I had not prepared). We were halfway through the call when I realized she already wanted the book.
Did you research the editors you knew had your ms? Do you recommend doing that?
I didn’t do a deep dive. I trusted that my agent, Jennifer Udden, knew the industry well enough to have put together a good list for me. This is what I pay her for!
When you’re on sub, the uncertainty you’re living with is mostly non-negotiable and not subject to your control. I don’t know what editors want. I don’t know what their imprint has bought recently or what trends are breaking soon. I don’t know what an editor means when they say on their website that they want “atmospheric YA with heart” or whatever. I don’t know when their MSWL was last updated. I do know that trying to read these meager tea leaves will drive me to insanity, while doing absolutely nothing to enhance the chances that the editor will like my work.
What was the average amount of time it took to hear back from editors?
With Book 1, it was weeks or months. Some editors never responded until we pulled the project. With A WICKED MAGIC, it was around two or three weeks for initial interest, then my agent then informed everyone who had the MS that they needed to get moving.
What do you think is the best way for an author out on submission to deal with the anxiety?
First, take some time to get a bit of distance from the project you’re subbing. Sub is the end of the road for many great novels, so it’s a good time to start processing the end of that project. Take a minute to be proud of what you’ve achieved. I knew I’d written the best book I could have and I was really happy with it. If it didn’t get published, I’d always have that.
Second, protect yourself from email obsession. You don’t actually need to check your email every thirty-five seconds. Limit it to a certain number of times a day, or specific times. I recommend chatting with your agent about how you’d like to receive responses. I wanted to hear everything the minute my agent did, but we also discussed receiving a weekly update instead.
Third, distract yourself. Work on your craft, explore new ideas, write some stuff for fun! It doesn’t have to be something potentially sellable. You can also take a break from writing (plz don’t revoke my author card). Letting yourself miss writing can be a great way to reconnect with what you love about it!
If you had any rejections, how did you deal with that emotionally? How did this kind of rejection compare to query rejections?
Who doesn’t have rejections?! I had queried and found my agent on Book 1, so that lil’ guy had already been rejected more than 45 times when I got to sub. The rejection muscle was already developed, so it was easier to take a few hours or a day to feel sad and then move on.
With A WICKED MAGIC, we had interest before we the first rejection. That set weird expectations: surely EVERYONE WOULD LOVE IT, right? Everyone did not love it, of course, but the rejections are worded more like to polite congratulations (“This isn’t for me but so happy it’s found a home!”). These were surprisingly distressing to me, for two reasons. First, I was guilty of moving the goal posts on myself. Second, the rejection muscle for A WICKED MAGIC was weak. This book is much closer to my heart than Book 1 was, and it had been read by very few people. I had no experience of people dismissing it, so those rejections hurt.
Feelings! Always surprising you by being bad!
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?
In my experience the feedback on a rejection isn’t detailed enough to compare to an edit letter or a critique. It’s a few sentences. The feedback I’ve gotten from editors has always been very contradictory: one editor likes the voice, another doesn’t connect; this editor thinks the world is great, that editor doesn’t get it at all. Yes, if you are wondering, this did make flames come out of my ears, and it can’t be the basis of a revision.
When you got your YES! how did that feel? How did you find out – email, telephone, smoke signal?
A WICKED MAGIC went to acquisitions during publishing’s dreaded Holiday Dead Zone, so it took a while to get the offer. During this time, I fell victim to magical thinking, and came to believe that two bad things had happened (record of these events has since been lost to the sands of time) and the offer falling through would be the third. When my agent called to say she had news, I was one thousand percent sure it was bad. When it wasn’t, I was speechless.
I had the tremendous good luck that the day the deal was finalized (after the offer, we had to let other agents pass or offer, and then my agent negotiated the offer into the deal, which took about a week), my agent was at a convention near where I live. After she woke me up from an afternoon stress-nap with a call about the final deal, we got to celebrate together.
Did you have to wait a period of time before sharing your big news, because of details being ironed out? Was that difficult?
I had to wait almost a year before the deal was announced. First, my editor moved to a new imprint and took this project with her, which meant the contract had to be renegotiated. Then we had months of back and forth about the title, and my agent moved to a new agency. The deal was (purportedly) final in January and it wasn’t announced until October.
When I got the deal, I didn’t have a ton of writing or publishing friends to keep it secret from—and in fact, I didn’t really keep it a secret. I told lots of people about it, just no one who “matters” in publishing. The difficult thing about waiting was I felt like I also had to wait to connect with the publishing world. For example, I couldn’t join the 2020 debut group until the announcement. However there is some miniscule, teeny-tiny chance that this is just an excuse, because the prospect of connecting with the publishing world makes me want to hide in a cave forever!