Every traditionally published author* has a story about “The Call.” It’s the moment that their agent or an editor gives them a ring or sends them an email to let them know that they are about to become a published author.**
I got the call when I was at work for a now-defunct news website. I was an evening breaking news editor, and I’d just heard that there might be a fire on 13th Street just below Union Square and near NYU. I’d just sent a reporter downtown to check it out when an email from my agent dinged to my inbox. Do you have a few minutes to talk? :)
Some context, my agent knew that I had a full-time job. She was always incredibly respectful of that and never called during working hours without asking first, so I knew this was a big deal. And she’d put a smiley face. This was clearly serious business.
I was fairly protective of running a breaking news story from end to end, but I emailed her back immediately to say yes call whenever please call, and asked/told my colleague to cover for me. Then I stepped into a conference room.
My agent rang. An imprint of Simon & Schuster wanted to publish the long novella I’d written, The Governess Was Wicked. That wasn’t all. They also wanted to publish the next two books in the same series I’d pitched along with it. They were offering me a three-book deal. I think that’s the point where I nearly expired on the spot. I’d been waiting four years and several books that never got off the ground to finally sell a book and a publisher wanted to take three books at once. And pay me for it.
My agent ran quickly through the rest of the deal and promised to send more information via email so I could get back to breaking news. I was shaking when I called my parents in London. (Mum picked up because Dad was already asleep, but I’m 99% sure she woke him up as soon as I jumped off the phone a few minutes later.) Then I silently screamed, took a deep breath, composed myself, and went straight back to my desk to finish the breaking news story. (The first was “knocked down” quickly, no one was hurt, and there’s as minimal property damage.)
In some ways, it’s particularly fitting that my call came during breaking news. I started writing when I was a graduate student attending journalism school. I balanced the two careers as best as anyone can balance news and writing for years, once even finishing edits on a camp bed pushed under the desk of a cubicle at my TV station because a self-published book I was working was due in the middle of a major snowstorm.
I also like telling this story for a couple reasons:
It proves that one of my mother’s favorite expressions—”an overnight success 10 years in the making”—is very true. On the outside, it looks like I got a three-book deal on my first go when in reality it took many attempts to find the right book for the right editor. I went out to market in 2012. I sold in 2015. And that’s not even a particularly long time to wait in publishing. Those three years of waiting felt very, very long, but in the end, I’m glad I kept my faith because it was the right move for me.
The good things in life don’t always come at the most convenient times. I think, in my imagination, I assume I was going to be lounging on a chaise in an evening dress when my Call came. Instead, I was stress sweating while trying to get information out of the FDNY and hurrying my agent off the phone. One of the most important calls of my writing career was actually really inconvenient, but that’s sometimes what balancing a writing and work life is like. You just have to figure out a way to make it work. (And know that there’s no shame in asking for help.)
If your dream is to be published by a big New York publisher, I hope you keep submitting and talking to agents, but most of all I hope you keep working because you love writing.
Oh, and the fire? There was no damage or injuries, so really it all worked out for everyone in the end.
*Those of us who put out books with a publisher rather than through self-publishing.
**If the author chooses to accept the publisher’s offer, which is another matter entirely.