April was a busy, tense, and creative month! To not bury the lede: I’m now an agented author! For my friends outside the writing world, signing with a literary agent isn’t like finding a good tax attorney. You send out a letter of interest and have, statistically, about a 3-4% change the agent will ask to read your book and then, after that, about a 5% chance they’ll offer representation off that. So the odds were not in my favor!
I started querying my witchy romcom paranormal romance (Congratulations, Your Fake Boyfriend is Evil) in February and, all said and done, had eleven full requests, three partial requests, and an editor from a Big 5 publishing house who read the manuscript who said, “I absolutely loved this book” and requested we submit to her once I have an agent.
After three months of querying and some painful rejections, I ended up with three offers of representation. Two weeks later, I signed with Brent Taylor of Triada US Literary Agency. Brent has a ton of experience in the industry, having sold hundreds of books including Assistant to the Villain, Violet Thistlewaite is Not a Villain Anymore, and the Hell Bent series by Aurora Ascher (My Funny Demon Valentine). Put simply: he’s sold books just like mine a ton of times. He has a strong editorial vision for my story and the business savvy to help me establish a career with longevity.
So what’s next? Next week, I’ll get an editorial letter and work on edits for a few weeks. Assuming the edits pass muster, we’ll go “on submission”—sending the manuscript out to editors at publishing imprints in batches of 10-15. In the best case, we go to auction in a few months and editors bid on my book. More likely, we take 6-12 months to find someone interested or the book “dies on sub” (which happens to about half of debut authors). The secret weapon in our arsenal is that I already have editorial interest and a connection with the editor.
And while we wait for editor responses, I write and write and write. I finished the first draft of a speculative bookclub story tentatively called The Gossips, which is with a few critique partners right now. I’ve outlined Book #2 of the Congratulations, Your Fake Boyfriend is Evil series and a standalone paranormal romance tentatively called Comfortable Creatures—which follows a burned-out sorceress as she fails to retire to a suburban neighborhood in the non-magical realm.
My tulips are blooming, the sun comes out occasionally here in Seattle, and the future is looking bright. The bedrock of all of it, of course, is my community. Thank you to my mom for copyediting every book I’ve written, to my sister for her Victorian home expertise, to my husband for tolerating the desk treadmill I added to his office. And to every critique partner, beta reader, coworker, friend, and mentor who encouraged me to keep going—we may just get this book published yet!
-Christine
Congratulations!
I’m so so happy for you!!! Can’t wait to hold your book in my hands 🥹🥹🥹