destination: publication

You must love books to pursue a career in writing. duh.

i think of the various versions of a draft that i shoot into my agent’s stratosphere, and how my stars are all wonky and— oh. this isn’t where stars go, you see. (part of) my agent’s job is pointing these things out. so i file off my celestial wonders, shoot again, until they reach the right place.

then we wait.

because we both love books, my agent and i don’t mind repeating the process. over, and over, and over. this is when it becomes apparent why people who want to write a book but don’t love books choose to use AI. i find it quite sad. they’ll never hear another human say “this thing right here. this is genius!”, while they smile and nod, pretending it was totally on purpose, and not just a lucky coincidence. they won’t get to marvel at the happy accidents they’ll make along the way. they’ll never be bob ross—and so, no one will watch a video on their process and be inspired, and touched, and why is the nice man with a brush making me so emotional? it’s out of a sense of connection. machines don’t connect. they spit. but hey, no kink shaming here. swallow if you’re so inclined.

before we reach the final stage—we, as in, trad writers—go through a curriculum in voyeurism. we are not the voyeurs, unfortunately. we must let people see, not just our agent, sometimes an assistant or two (not to mention beta readers, critique partners. but this is a post about sub. submission, the industry-thing, not the kink-thing; i should clarify, since we’re getting a bit freaky with our comparisons today).

once the work is presentable, there comes everyone’s favorite thing: the package. make it shiny! readers judge the book by its cover, and editors judge the book by its sub package. though i can provide the bones (this is why i like writing queries before starting my projects, but having a general pitch also helps. you’re going to have to share your idea with your agent anyway), they arrange the flesh. by the way, i lied. this is when i get to be the voyeur. i have access to the document and watch our little monster come to life. i’m even encouraged to give my own opinions!

i have access to the editors list; might suggest a name if i have a pitch event like, or a preference. i trust my agent to get my work under the right eyes, and she trusts me not to stalk said editors. some agents don’t. i would personally like not to be out of the loop, so that type of agent and i would not work well together. this is something you can and should ask during The Call.

off it goes!

earth calling: can you confirm you’ve received the materials? some editors will straight-up ghost you, or so i’ve heard (i can’t tell you that for sure, yet. i hope i never find out). some will take months to let you know your work has landed. some respond right away! they tell you how excited they are about x element of your premise! you’re such a good girl.

unless you’re Laika. then, you are the best of girls and, still, it isn’t enough. your little body of work will explode into star dust, sprinkled into infinity. don’t cry. your project is dead on sub. but you saw it, and you loved it, and, for a moment, it touched the cosmos. in that way, it is eternal.

i’m getting ahead of myself here.

other things that will happen on sub: rejections. some will be short and sweet, others will give you a reason. you’ll get explanations much more often than when you were querying, at least in my experience.

and also: second reads! acquisitions! they think it can sell, they send it to the rest of the team, the team decides if your work is tempting enough to make people open their purses.

it’s not as exciting as being an astronaut, but it’s better than if they picked you off the streets and tricked you into going to space, never to return.

while you wait, you work on the next thing. you might want to have an option book at the ready, or an outline, or just something to do with your hands. you check your sheet, or wait for your weekly update, or a deal. whatever you’ve established with your agent.

that’s pretty much it. for most of the process, you’re in the dark, aware of the eyes taking turns to spy through the keyhole. while they decide, you wait.