My debut novel is pink. I wrote story about a girl who’s obsessed with forensic science and Dexter–who has an super villain alter ego based on a type of poison–who just happens to want boobs. And it’s pink. Why? Because I didn’t self-publish. My book ended up in the hands of a romance imprint and my darkly sarcastic narrative ended up in pink. I absolutely adore it, mind you, but it isn’t what I imagined for E.

Despite all my prideful individuality and need for nonconformity, I need validation. I knew when I started writing that I’d never let this book see the light of day if I couldn’t land an agent and a publisher. Every author I’ve met around here published their own book and our experiences are vastly different. I’m always getting asked about my cover design, sales numbers, and if I’ll have any books on hand to distribute. I have no idea. I did get to weigh in on the mock-up of the cover art, but that’s the extent of my involvement in the process. I opened an email on my phone while sitting in a waiting room and got my first glimpse of a flesh-and-blood E, and I cried. I burst into tears in front of strangers and openly wept at how perfect she is. But I don’t know how many copies have been sold and I sure as hell won’t be buying a bunch of copies for resale. That’s all out of my hands.

Rewind a little more. Another day, another email, sitting in my car this time. I read an email from the editor with notes about changes I needed to make to my book. It didn’t seem so bad in the beginning. A few little things about time changes and the romantic subplot. No big deal. Then I opened One Drive and saw literally hundreds of notes waiting for me in the margin. I rewrote the entire timeline, completely changed relationships between characters, even altered E’s character arc. Months later, I had a much better novel. I’m glad none of you will ever read that mess and think less of me for it. I’m a little bitter about some scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor, but the editor was ultimately right about them and I learned a lot about writing in the process.

Okay, fast forward back to today. My next project is on submission right now, and I’m trying not to get too excited about the enthusiastic response we’ve seen so far. My agent pitched the book to six different editors from major publishing houses. Five of them answered the next day. All five answers were manuscript requests. Not a single rejection. I have to stay level-headed about this. The reality is that an unholy amount of stories are pitched every day and a stunningly high level of interest is no guarantee that it’ll get purchased and end up in print. And I need that validation. I still won’t decide my work is worthy of publication unless someone else makes it official.

A major factor in my hesitation is that pink cover on The Saline Solution. E’s story is a quick-moving narrative about a girl who quips her way to earning a buttload of cash for a boob job. She’s confident and funny and knows what she wants. She’s all the things I wish I’d been when I was in high school. The rest of the cast consists of her functional family, her healthy friendships, her long-term boyfriend, and her secret love interest. Dead Girl is completely different. Clair is an only child with a single parent. She pushed everyone away to protect them from her depression, and the only static relationship in her life is her friend, Brian. Her story bounces back and forth between her desperate last days before dying and the emptiness that came after. Where E tells you the story of how she got the twins, Clair agonizes inwardly over the pain of being forced to live through death. E is all the things I wanted to be, and Clair is everything I was. I took an enormous risk and wrote something deeply personal. Now we wait and see what happens.

And somewhere halfway between E and Clair, there’s a girl named Maggie. She was the first character I fleshed out on paper and I’m working on bringing her back to life for my third book. Man, I really hope you get to meet her too.

Originally posted September 2013

I’ve learned a lot in the last year. I learned how to drill a stripped screw out of an iPhone. I learned how to do the flick with liquid eyeliner. I learned that breast implants explode in crematorium ovens. And I learned that the WRONG literary agent is a real thing. So this one night, I’m checking my email with one hand and stirring spaghetti sauce with the other when I was caught off guard by a very serious question. Is it time for me to find a new agent? There’s a lot more to this question but trust me, you’re not missing anything by skipping ahead.

Suddenly, I was sitting in my car in the dark (playing Candy Crush Saga at the back of a parking lot outside a coffee shop because it’s the only place far enough away from the kids to have a quiet phone conversation) talking to the RIGHT agent about the right things and realizing I should’ve thought about those things a year ago. I was also realizing I probably looked like a meth dealer or a psycho to any police who drove by, but it was the night of the homecoming bonfire and the cops had more important things to do than harass minivan moms who are just looking for some alone time.

There’s a very important distinction here: the WRONG agent isn’t necessarily a BAD agent. It’s easy to get crazy excited, query every agent on the planet, and sign with the first one who offers representation. I know. I’ve been there. I get that. But you wouldn’t walk into a dealership and buy the first car you see in your price range. You’d want to take the time to make sure you’re making a wise investment. Do you want a manual transmission or an automatic? Something that gets you there super fast or something that you’ll still be driving twenty years from now? What’s right for one person isn’t always right for someone else.

Okay, there’s a really sucky part I need to mention before I get too far into this. Remember when I said “the first car you see in your price range?” Sometimes there are no cars in your price range and you need to work harder so you can get something better. When you find yourself hunting for obscure agents because you’ve been rejected by everyone else, you might want to consider going back to work on your manuscript so you can get someone reliable instead of a clunker. Don’t settle. Seriously.

Let’s say you’re on the lot, cash in hand, and you’re trying to decide which car to buy. Have you figured out what features matter most to you? This is where I went wrong. I had offers from several agents but I didn’t know how to make my decision. It just happened all at once and I wasn’t prepared. I made an emotional decision without doing any research. I ended up with an amazing agent who just happened to be the wrong agent for me. I was like a mother of four who buys a two-seater convertible, or a guy with a long commute who buys a gas-guzzling SUV.

Because I care, and because I love making lists, here are some suggestions to help you start your own list of questions for that all-important phone call. As usual, these are in no particular order–just like my thought process.

1.    Ask about your manuscript. Find out if it’s going to need an overhaul or if there are just minor changes to make before it can go out to editors. This usually isn’t a deal breaker question, but it’s nice to know what you’d be up against if you sign with that agent.

2.    Discuss communication. This is a really important one for me. You should know up front how often you two will be checking in with each other and how to get in touch when needed. Some people like to be left alone, others want lots of hand holding. Some agents prefer email, others would rather talk on the phone. Is it better to send a quick text or is she quick to respond to letters? Loners don’t want to be smothered and hand-holders don’t want to feel like they’ve been left in the dark.

3.    Research recent book deals. Check to make sure the agent is actually selling manuscripts before you hand yours over. Find out who they’re selling them to. If all their sales are to tiny publishers who only do eBooks, it’s likely that’ll be your future as well. You might also want to look at the genre of those sales. Has that agent been selling books in your genre? If they are, they might have a better idea of where to pitch your manuscript.

4.    Look at their client list. Compare the number of published clients (with sales brokered by that particular agent) versus clients who are still working on it. If their client list is mostly newly signed, unpublished authors, your manuscript could be sharing office time with all the others. If their client list is full of unpublished authors who have been with that agent for a while, it’s not a good sign. Either the agent’s dropping the ball or they’re choosing clients with unpublishable manuscripts.

5.    Talk about your other projects. If the agent isn’t excited about the other stuff you’re working on, you might be agent-hunting again before long.

6.    Find out how involved you’ll be in the pitching process. Some agents will come up with a pitch and a submission list without running it past you, while others might want your input. You might want to see all the feedback from editors. You might want to hear only the good news. Whatever your preferences are, make sure the agent is cool with it.

7.    Be open-minded. Maybe there are a bunch of unpublished authors on their client list. They could be working their butts off and have a bunch of stuff in the works that you don’t know about. A huge list of recent sales isn’t a guarantee that you’ll be on that list anytime soon. They may have been on a roll, but rolls end eventually.

8.    Take your time. When you’ve asked all your questions and done all your research, give things a little time to settle before you make your choice. No, you don’t want to leave them hanging forever, but you don’t want to rush into a decision and make the wrong one. If they really want you, they’ll still be there if you need a few days to think about it.

9.    Trust your instincts. If something just doesn’t feel right, don’t ignore it. Little things that make you uncomfortable in the beginning might not get better with time. Does it but you that your boyfriend thinks farting’s funny? Picture him seventeen years later, ripping ’em in the kitchen and teaching your kids to blame their own on you. Trust me. It happens.

10. Be objective. Just because an agent has big name clients and works at a well known agency, it doesn’t mean you’re going to get a seven figure deal for your debut novel. Likewise, signing with a twenty-something agent with a super short resume doesn’t mean you’re not going to end up with a killer publisher and win a Newberry. Respect the young. Listen to them. Don’t be scared of their youth. They’ve got more energy and their spirits haven’t been broken yet.

Don’t just stop with my list. Ask, ask, ask. Talk to references, snoop around online, stalk them on Twitter. Be informed. I’d love to hear other ideas from you guys in the comments. Post away!

One final thought; I use the words RIGHT and WRONG very loosely. It’s really not that black and white. You could sign with the RIGHT agent and still not get published. There are tons of factors that come into play in this industry. I signed with the RIGHT agent last year and I’m signing with the RIGHT agent this year. Comparing them side by side, I think this new one is the RIGHTER agent for my manuscript–just like the old one is the RIGHTER agent for someone else’s manuscript. Both my agents are AWESOME.

Good luck!

Originally posted September 2019

Ten years ago, I did a thing. I wrote a book. I decided to get it published and live happily ever after. If you’re shaking your head or laughing at me by now, you probably already know what I’m about to say. I wish I could tell you I emailed my story to an agent who immediately offered to represent me and landed a million dollar deal with a big name publisher within a week and the movie will be in theaters next year. Heck, I wish I could tell you I got an agent, a publishing deal, and my book is available nationwide right this moment. That’s not what happened. Not even close.

The truth is, it took three years to get an agent for that book and nothing happened. A year later, I signed on with a different agent and still nothing happened. I wrote a second manuscript and we started over with submissions to editors. Life threw me a couple of vicious curve balls and I had to shift my focus away from writing for a few years. Things crumbled down around me and I hit a low point that I never want to see again. Ever. I had a mental and physical breakdown that almost ended everything. But I lived. Somehow, I crawled out of the rubble and dusted myself off. I polished up my manuscript pitch and got it ready to email to my agent. My confidence was shaken and I panicked when it was time to hit send. I didn’t know if I still had an agent after all that time, or if our contract dissolved after a few years of being in the void. Even worse, I didn’t know if I deserved an agent at all. The story that I queried to get representation in the beginning was on indefinite hold and I was working with a totally new project. It hadn’t really been field tested and I was still a nobody. I tried reaching out to an agent friend to see if the new piece was worth bothering with at all. I finally just wrote a painful email that said something like “I know it’s been forever and I’m totally okay if you’re not my agent anymore…” and sent it. Miraculously, she was still on board. We’d had our eye on a certain publisher before my giant writing hiatus and officially submitted the pitch for The Saline Solution in November of 2018. January, 2019, we got an offer. A decade after my first query, I signed a publishing contract.

Ten years. My kids were 11, 9, 6, 4, and 2 when I set out to get published. They’ll be 21, 20, 16, 15, and 13 when The Saline Solution is released. I had kids in elementary school, preschool, and my youngest was being potty trained. Now I have two adult kids in college, two teenagers in high school, and a middle schooler. I went from 31 to 41. It’s been a long time.

What I’m learning is that most of us have very different experiences on the road to publication. So many famous authors were rejected hundreds of times before they got a break. So many. Sure, you’ll find plenty of success stories from authors who were picked up fast and sold their first books to major publishing houses. You’ll also hear about authors who gave up on querying or skipped it altogether and went straight to self-publishing. The factor that I see more than any other—the common element in most of these stories—is perseverance. With few exceptions, most of us have read rejection letter after rejection letter. We’ve been turned down more times than we can count. It takes querying the right agent at the right time, and having that agent pitch to the right editor when the market is right. It takes the stars aligning. The time might not have been right for my book when I wrote it, but it is now. I drafted The Saline Solution before the #metoo movement. It’s more relevant now that it was when I wrote it. The right agent, the right editor, the right time. If I’d given up after letting go of my first agent, or after shelving my first project, or even after my world collapsed, I would’ve missed that window.

When you finish your manuscript, polish it. Polish it again. Get it as clean as you can before you query it. Have other writers read it and really listen to their feedback. Polish your query. If you’re not getting submission requests from your query, figure out why. Go back to the drawing board again and again until it works. Don’t stop writing. Write while you’re waiting. You might find yourself at a dead end like I did and a second manuscript could save your career. Write often. Read often. And, for heaven’s sake, don’t listen to people who tell you no one can teach you how to write. There’s always more to learn. Take classes, read books, find your voice. There are patterns and formulas to all of this. There are rules. What I’ve learned in the last six months of research between rounds of editing has helped me see where my first manuscript went off the rails. I know how to fix it.

When it comes down to it, a great manuscript and a well-written query are more important than a thousand Twitter followers and a professional website. Those can come later. All the flash and glitter in the world won’t make up for a crappy manuscript.

You got this.

Recommended resources in no particular order;

Self Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King: Save yourself a lot of time and heartache with this book. Agents and editors will thank you.

Actually, the Comma Goes Here by Lucy Cripps: If it’s been a while since you were in school, this book is a fun refresher with a handy style guide reference chart.

Verbalize by Damon Suede: A unique approach to crafting characters and scenes that really drive your story through creative use of verbs. Activate is a thesaurus of verbs that’ll help you really get the most out of Suede’s advice.

Damn Fine Story by Chuck Wendig: This one’s fun to read even if you’re not a writer. Wendig practices what he’s preaching.

On Writing by Stephen King: Always inspiring, King should be on every writer’s shelf. This is one of my favorites.

MasterClass.com: A subscription gives you access to amazing courses from big names in the industry like Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, James Patterson, and Judy Blume. Well worth it.