Debut Author Sasha Laurens on the Uncertainty of Being on Submission

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.

Pre Order A Wicked Magic and get some awesome swag from Sasha!

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!

Dana Alison Levy On Balancing Good Rejections With Painful Ones

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 Dana Alison Levy, author of several acclaimed books for younger readers. Above All Else is her YA debut. She lives in Massachusetts, at sea level, and really likes air with lots of oxygen in it. Dana loves traveling to Nepal and has stood in the shadow of Mount Everest, but she will never ever climb it.

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

I was lucky in that I worked for a literary agent in my twenties, and also have family members who are authors, so I went into the process with open eyes. My path to publication was pretty straightforward and typical: I queried one book that went nowhere, queried a second book and got an agent, she sold that book in a decent but not major one-book sale, and then I kept writing and selling middle grade books. But then I got to my YA… 

Did anything about the process surprise you?

After writing a selling a few MG novels, I felt moderately confident that I knew how to write, and how publishing worked. But then this book damn near killed me. My 2020 book, Above All Else, is my debut YA, and it took over five years of revising and shredding and sewing it back together, sometimes with my agent’s help, often with my (incredibly patient) critique partners’ help.

When we went out on submission I got a lot of really wonderful rejections, most with a very optimistic frame (“I’m sure another editor will snap this up and I can’t wait to see it on shelves.”). But no takers. I kept revising, and kept feeling unsure that I had reached “the end” of the revision, and the rejections I got didn’t help me articulate what I wanted.

(It’s worth noting that sometimes rejections can be really helpful. If you get five rejections from editors who all say some variation of “I liked it except for XX” then you have some good feedback and something to work with!). In this case, however, there was no clear line. So I kept going back to the drawing board, fussing and revising and trying to figure out what the heck I was missing. I wrote and sold a few other books, but couldn’t quit this one. 

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

Usually when my agent and I talked editors, I would ask what they’d published recently, or check Publisher’s Weekly to see recent sales. There were a few times I asked my agent about a certain editor, because I knew another writer who worked with them, but mostly I trust her to find a good match and try to stay out of the way. I definitely think authors can and should do a little research, but the specifics probably depend a lot on your relationship with your agent and how much you trust their judgement.

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

Hah! Too long for a neurotic writer to wait! Honestly I think wait times have been increasing, and it’s more common for editors to semi-ghost, where they don’t reject something but don’t pursue it. Then if another editor bites they can still engage. Editors really vary; some respond within weeks and others let things hang out for months. 

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

I try really hard to forget all about a project that’s on sub. The truth is that while some books sell in fast and furious auctions, the vast majority take a long time to sell, and there’s no point in staring at the phone, hoping your agent will call with news. A long wait doesn’t mean it won’t sell. It’s a cliche, but I do try to immerse myself in something brand new, something that’s hopefully in an early stage so it can be weird and messy and ugly and I don’t even have to think about anyone reading and judging it. Basically I try to stay away from publishing (reading about book deals, marketing campaigns, sales, etc.), and instead focus on writing. 

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

Rejections always suck, but I’m also always super-curious, so typically I’ll ask my agent to forward them along as she gets them. That way I can see where we are and what kind of feedback we’re getting. But there are times I’ll ask her to hold off, because I know it will derail me. It feels better to practice a little intentional avoidance.

With both submission rejections and query rejections, I think it helps to remember that this is a business, and that not everyone needs to fall in love with my book. Someone needs to fall in love with it, but not everyone! In some ways it’s easier once you have an agent, because you’ve received that first major validation, but on the other hand…yeah. Rejection is always going to suck a little bit.

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?

As I said above, editorial feedback on a rejection can be really useful, or, in some cases, can help you feel better. For instance when you get a rejection that says “we already have a similar book but we love this and definitely want to see the next thing!” — that’s a good rejection.

When there’s editorial feedback it can be great, and writers should definitely pay attention, but they should also trust themselves. Unlike algebra, with writing there are a lot of right answers, and while an editor might prefer a certain vision of the story, that doesn’t mean an author has to listen. If the suggestion or critique resonates, that’s great, but it might be that the editor had a different story in mind. (The exception: when you get multiple editors giving similar feedback. Then you should probably pay attention!) 

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

I could not let go of this book. I signed with my agent in October 2012, and I wrote her an email that month (I found it in a file recently) where I mentioned that I was working on a new project, a young adult novel, set on Mount Everest. In June 2018 she called me to tell me we had an offer on the book! And it comes out in October 2020…eight years after I wrote her that email. It was surreal…I was clear-eyed about publishing, and about this project, and knew that not all books get published. But I just couldn’t let go of it, and I am so damn happy it will be in the world.

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

It’s always hard to wait, but I’m oddly superstitious and I was happy to hold off until everything was signed and sealed!

Spencer Hyde On The Sting of Rejection

f 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 Spencer Hyde, author of Waiting for Fitz and What The Other Three Don’t Know. Spencer Hyde spent three years of his high school experience visiting Johns Hopkins for severe OCD. He feels particularly suited to write this novel because he’s lived through his protagonists’ obsessions. Spencer worked at a therapeutic boarding school before earning his MFA and his PhD specializing in fiction. He wrote Waiting for Fitz while working as a Teaching Fellow in Denton, Texas. He is currently an assistant professor of English at Brigham Young University.

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

I knew a bit about the process because I’d spent years sending short stories to literary journals. So, really, I knew a lot about waiting. Forever. Like, an entire lifetime. 3-6 months is an average wait, and it tends to be more like 9-12 months for any kind of response in the short story world. Perhaps I was pleasantly surprised to be getting responses from editors within 6 months on the regular. That was nice. That was comforting, even though it was often a negative response. I like to think that the relationship building that occurs through the sub process is more important than we think—imagine getting a personal rejection (I got a few), and knowing you have an “in” with that editor for some future manuscript? That’s big! 

Did anything about the process surprise you?

It probably should not have come as a surprise, and ultimately it was tempered by my sage agent, but I was a bit thrown by the range of subjectivity in judging any specific genre. What some editors preferred, others disliked. It helped me understand that you don’t just need the right ingredients, but you need to find the editor who likes the cookies cooked four minutes longer than normal to the point they’re crispy (my favorite kind of cookie). Some editors want the same ingredients, but they like a soft cookie. I was surprised, I guess, at how many variations you can have on the hardness of a cookie. Crispy for the win, I say. 

However, I will say that editors are wonderfully honest. My agent told me, “You’ll need to find an editor who loves the voice the way I love it,” not, “The voice isn’t working.” One editor responded with, “I love the premise, but the voice isn’t to my taste.” That’s fine! Keep looking for the editor who likes all the ingredients and the exact way you cooked up that ms. Then you’ll get the response you’ve been hoping for: “I adore this voice.” And then you can eat your emotions in sweets, like I do, happy or sad. Or not. But if you don’t eat them, mind sending them my way?

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

Don’t do it! Unless, of course, you want to find short, vague biographies online and then get sweaty palms and imagine an entirely new life up for that editor and what they might be doing at 5 in the morning other than reading your ms, and unless you want to stay up into the wee hours of the morning picturing that editor and how they might be feeding their dog and perhaps thinking about that one line in your ms that they just can’t shake and being like, “Wow, I guess I need to give that one more read before sending a response,” and imagining that’s the only reason you haven’t heard back from them and then, yes, of course they’ll ask you for an entire series based on that one character you love so much because who wouldn’t love that character? And before long you’re imagining yourself at some Oscar after-after party saying, “No, it really was my editor—I mean, had she not seen the potential in that character, none of this would have been possible. What’s that? Yes, you can have the global rights to book 742 for $1 billion, but let me check with my agent just to be sure. I think books 1-741 are already contracted and Netflix wants in on the deal ASAP so I can’t be too sure anymore. In fact, maybe you should up that price.” 

Don’t do it. Stick to your WIP. Focus 100% of your energies on that WIP, and if you can’t do that, work on promoting other writers. Focus on helping others succeed, and you will find that karma come back your way. Also, if you help others, you will know who will return the favor when you land that Netflix special.

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

I’d say it came in around 3 months or thereabouts on average. Some were a few weeks with the ms, and some still haven’t responded and it’s been 7 months. 

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

I recommend a squirrel suit and a trip to the Swiss Alps. That way, you’ll be more worried about making the wrong movement when flying at 100 mph than you will about the editors reading fifty pages into your book before getting word that their newly adopted cat, named Peaches, is in fact a feral cat who used to go by Venom, and they don’t have time for a new project from a new author because they have bigger worries, like cat scratch fever and, well, death. 

But also you should really be spending time reading and writing. Until you can’t anymore. Read everything you can get your hands on, and focus on that WIP!

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

People often say things like, “I took it in stride,” but really I heard bad news and it stung. Let it sting. Let it hurt for a bit, and then get back to work. Perhaps I’m not emotionally stable enough to answer this question properly, but I will say that I saw one of my favorite athletes (Lamar Jackson—Go Ravens!) the other day wearing a shirt that said Nobody Cares, Work Harder and I thought that jived really well with my thoughts on rejection. Will anybody but you care you got rejected? Sure, those close to you who love you and want you to succeed. But at the end of the day, will it change the editor’s mind? Not a chance. Work harder, and I promise you’ll change their mind with the next ms.

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? 

I consult with my agent, and ask her what she thinks. That’s the best thing to do: get a second opinion from someone who knows the business. Then, I get back to work on that WIP.

An editor’s feedback is much more meaningful to me because they are the gatekeepers in the publishing world, and know exactly what it takes to get that ms through the door. If they think you need more external pressure on the pacing or that you need more restrained dialogue, listen! They know what they’re talking about. Beta readers are wonderful, and necessary, but don’t put that feedback above an editor seeking out a book in the genre you write. Take that editor feedback to the beta readers and ask them to read again with that specific feedback in mind. That will work wonders. 

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

It was wonderful! But more important than the great feeling that came with a success of that magnitude was the way it motivated me to work harder on the next novel.

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

I didn’t have to wait long, but things certainly changed from the submitted ms to the final product which surprised some beta readers. Just remember that the process takes a lot of time, and you can really use all that time for the WIP. Have I mentioned WIPs yet? I should. I should just keep saying it. Spend time on your WIP. Always be invested in a new project. I find that keeps me awake at night not wondering about Venom or Oscar parties or a squirrel suit, but focused on a new character and a new story that I know will change the world.