How I got my book deal (after seven years)

Getting a book deal is not easy, and I want to tell you the story of how I got mine. If you find stories where authors take a long time to find success encouraging, this is the post for you. When I was trying to get a book deal, I loved longer stories like these, because so often, the stories we hear are the ones where an author signs with an agent and gets a book deal in a few weeks. Mine is a complicated seven-year journey!

I’m going to skip over all the childhood writing I did, because you don’t need to know about that in detail. All you need to know is that I’ve been writing stories since childhood, and I always wanted to be an author. I did a lot of “practice” writing before sending out my work.

This is going to be a long post. I recommend reading it all for the full picture. But you can use these links to skip around:

1. Querying – finding a literary agent
2. Submitting to publishers… four times!
3. Self-publishing to rediscover the joy of writing
4. Landing the book deal (finally!)

Querying – finding a literary agent

Querying agents round #1

When I was studying for a degree in English and Creative Writing (I was 23 when I started, a little later than most people), I felt like my writing was getting “good” enough to send out to agents.

Around this time, I had my heart set on becoming a YA author. I wrote a YA fantasy, and got serious about getting published. I had critique partners, joined online writing groups, delved into querying resources, spent hours on forums, swapped query critiques with others.

I started sending the YA fantasy out to agents in 2016, in the summer. The rejections flooded in.

There were a couple of close calls – I got requests for the full manuscript, and I received a revise and resubmit request, or an R&R. This means an agent was interested enough to read the full manuscript, provide feedback, and offer to read my revisions later.

These revisions took me months. I poured everything into them, so excited that an agent had taken the time to give me critique. I was sure it was a good sign that she wanted to see the new draft.

After three months of work, I sent the revisions back and… the agent didn’t reply. I nudged her after three months, then after a few more. The agent never responded, so I ended up withdrawing the manuscript. I was crushed.

I tried sending the book out to more agents, but I was disheartened. Eventually, I shelved it.

Querying agents round #2 – finding representation

By now, I’d graduated university and started work on a YA contemporary. It was quite different to the first book I’d queried – exploring things like mental health – and it had a cast of nerdy characters. The protagonist was a cosplayer and this was a big part of the story.

So far, most of the rejections on my work had said that it wasn’t “unique” enough. I thought cosplay was unique and fun, and that it stood a really good chance of getting picked up. I started querying it in summer 2017.

I received a lot of requests for this manuscript. I even got shortlisted in a querying competition with my pitch!

One agent was emailing me with updates about her progress as she was reading. She loved it, said I should come to London to meet her. She arranged a phone call with me, too, and I was ecstatic. I started updating other agents to let them know I’d been invited to a meeting and had serious interest.

When she called me, though, she didn’t think she was a good fit anymore. She said she no longer thought the mental health angle would be appealing to readers. (I’ve since learned that it was pretty bad etiquette on her part to request a meeting only to change her mind.)

Just before this phone call, I’d had a rejection from another lovely agent, who sent me a very long, kind, personalised email. The book struck a chord with her and she loved it, but there were things she would change. She knew I’d had a lot of interest from others (including the invitation to meet the other agent in London), so she turned me down nicely.

I couldn’t stop thinking about that email because we’d really clicked. We had so much in common, and she understood what I was trying to do.

I decided to take a risk. I reached out to her again, told her the other agent had cancelled our meeting in London. Would she be open to reading the book again, if I implemented her suggestions, because they really resonated with me? She said yes.

After several months of revisions, she offered me representation! At this point, I’d been querying for a few years (it was now 2018) and I was over the moon. I went to London to meet my new agent, and I had the best time!

Submitting to publishers… four times!

Getting an agent was just the start of another rejection cycle. At the time, I was so excited – I didn’t know I was about to spend five years struggling to get a book deal, too.

Manuscript #1

After a few more revisions, we sent the cosplay book to editors. This time, a lot of them thought my work was “too niche”. I’d gone from not being unique enough, to being too unique.

My agent didn’t tell me until afterwards, but an editor who loved my manuscript took it to an acquisitions meeting (a big meeting where publishers decide if they want to buy a book). She couldn’t convince sales and marketing that it was worth buying. They thought it was too niche, while at the same time the publisher acknowledged the book could be “big” at Comic Con. I was disheartened and confused by all the conflicting feedback.

Rejection after rejection rolled in from other publishers, and we decided to shelve the book.

Manuscript #2

My agent suggested trying a new age category, so I wrote a middle grade. I had fun writing something whimsical I would have loved as a child, in the vein of Studio Ghibli. I was hopeful, because I’d been building up a career as a freelance editor – I started about a year before I landed an agent, and my business was going well. I’d learned so much about writing craft.

We sent the book out in early 2020. It got a slow trickle of rejections across the board and lots of non-responses. It was too similar to everything else, and the market was too tough.

Lockdown also happened not long after we sent the book out, which probably didn’t help!

Manuscript #3

I was so worn down by this point, I was considering giving up. But the world had gone into lockdown, and I had plenty of time to dedicate to a new book, this time for adults. Lockdown saw me revisiting some of my favourite classics: gothic books, horror, Victorian literature. The types of books I loved studying at university.

I was aiming for something unique, but hopefully more commercial, a blend of historical, horror, and a touch of fantasy/steampunk. My agent adored the concept, too. It was one of the toughest books I’d ever written, and I did a lot of research and world-building. We did seven drafts and it took a long time to finish. I was so proud of it.

We sent the book out to a mixture of commercial publishers and fantasy/sci-fi publishers. Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be, and hardly anyone responded. We were ghosted by a lot of editors.

My dream felt further away than ever.

Self-publishing to rediscover the joy of writing

Writing was starting to make me unhappy. I wanted it to be a joyful process again, not something that brought me pain. I was always overthinking my ideas – is it unique, but not too unique? Will the publishers like it? Is it commercial enough? I was discarding so many ideas that excited me because I was sure no one would want to publish them.

I was very close to quitting writing completely, because I couldn’t seem to break in, even with books I’d worked incredibly hard on.

My editing business was doing very well and I’d learned a lot about self-publishing while working with authors – surely if I could run one business, I could do this, too? I wanted an outlet for my work, and to finally reach some readers, but more than that, I wanted to love writing again.

I took one of the ideas that excited me, and I wrote it purely for fun. Then I took another – one I’d pitched to my agent but she didn’t think she could sell – and wrote that for fun, too.

I couldn’t believe how refreshing it was, how much fun I had, writing without all that pressure.

With my agent’s blessing, I self-published two romantic fairytales: The Darkest Curse in 2022 and The Wicked Prince in 2023. I also published the classics-inspired book I’d written during lockdown. Later, when I secured my book deal, I removed this one from sale to be shared only amongst my family. Even though I was proud of it, I’d realised what genres I wanted to focus on as a writer – and it no longer fit my vision.

Self-publishing was so rewarding and fun, and brought so much joy back to the process of writing for me. I learned a lot and can’t wait to do it again in the future. That being said, it’s a lot of work, which is tricky when you’re already running one business! I knew I still wanted to work with a publisher.

Landing the book deal (finally!)

I’d learned from self-publishing that actually, I loved writing romances between characters. Almost all of my books had prominent romances in them! My agent had suggested I try a more commercial genre, so it seemed like a natural route.

I was reluctant at first, afraid of more rejection. I thought, Okay, but this is REALLY the last time I do this. I’d felt like this before – but I actually told my agent I was done if this book didn’t sell. I couldn’t keep doing it. This was my last try.

Now, I just needed one more idea.

In January of 2023, my beloved cat passed away after a few months of illness. It was such a difficult time, heart-breaking for me. An idea began to form afterwards, about a cat café and the characters who worked there, about a man healing from loss and a woman struggling to achieve her goals. Snowed in at the Cat Café was born.

It was the quickest, easiest book I’d ever written! Everything fell into place like magic. Because it was wintery, my agent was hoping we could send it out before Christmas, so I worked extra hard to get it finished, and we managed to send it out in November 2023.

Within days, she said there were already excitable responses to the pitch coming in. I shrugged this off, so used to rejection that I wasn’t allowing myself to get my hopes up.

She also asked me to write up a synopsis for a second book, because she wanted to try to get me a two-book deal. I’d had an idea for another cat café book, so I did this pretty quickly.

I got a WhatsApp message from my agent on December 7, 2023. I still remember the date – weirdly, 2023 was also seven years from when I began querying. (Technically it was seven and a half years, since it was the end of the year, but it felt serendipitous.)

I was at my desk, working. The message came only three weeks after we sent out the book! My agent asked if I was free to talk as she had good news.

I responded instantly. (I was so quick, she probably thought I was spending my days staring at my phone.)

She called to tell me we had an offer from a publisher. I lost all sense of professionalism and probably burst her eardrum because I was screaming with joy. My husband was dog-sitting for a friend that week, but I went straight there to tell him the good news in person. After so long, it wasn’t the kind of news I wanted to share on the phone!

My agent had to inform the other publishers considering the book that we had an offer, to see if they wanted to offer, too.

We ended up with multiple offers, which meant we were in an auction situation! Every day, I kept pinching myself.

The publishers put forward their offers. I had calls with both editors. It was a really tough decision as both of them were so lovely and excited about the book. But one of them did an amazing presentation outlining their plans. The editor wrote me a gorgeous letter about my characters and how much she loved the story. They wanted to break me out as a Christmas digital bestseller and they had so many incredible ideas for the ebook, audiobook and a paperback.

I chose Hodder & Stoughton. As we were talking on the phone about next steps, my agent said she had more good news: we had a pre-empt offer from a publishing house in Italy. A pre-empt means a publisher puts forward more money to secure the book before anyone else in that country can. I was going to be published abroad, too!

Things wrapped up for Christmas. I went to a Christmas party with my family and did a lot of celebrating with them (while swearing them all to secrecy). And as we went into 2024, more foreign deal offers came in. I was getting one or two foreign rights deals per month!

As of writing this post, we have sold rights in seven territories internationally, including in France, where the book also went to auction. The editor I ended up choosing in France wrote me a letter that almost made me cry. She said it was a special novel, and she was enchanted by it. Like the UK and Italy, they offered me a two-book deal.

The hardest part was keeping my book deal and all these incredible offers around the world a secret! I had to keep quiet for seven months (even more sevens!) before I could announce everything publicly! My publisher wanted to wait until we had a cover and preorder links ready.

All of this has been wild for me – after so much rejection, I never thought any of this would happen to me. Just landing a book deal in my own country was exciting enough, but in seven other countries around the world? It hadn’t even occurred to me as a possibility.

It still feels surreal, that I finally got here after so much work, and a lot of struggling. I’ve had such a twisty path to getting a book deal! But then, I’ve never been someone who does things conventionally, either!

In a weird way, it feels even sweeter because it was so challenging.

Final thoughts…

If you’re also struggling with your writing, please know that I see you. A writer’s journey is a difficult one and we tend to be sensitive, emotional people, which makes it even harder. I hope this post encouraged you – even if you’re mired in rejection, feeling stuck or lost, you will find your way. It might mean pivoting, trying new genres, or doing things in a way you didn’t expect. But if you love writing, nurture that, and don’t let it go. The only thing that kept me going was my love for telling stories. And telling stories is the only thing you can control during this rollercoaster process.

Above all, look after yourself when times get tough. I’m rooting for you!

If you enjoyed this post, and want to support Snowed In at the Cat Café, I will shower you with a million kittens!