Monday, December 21, 2009

Ho, ho, ho and a book deal for you!!!

I must have been EXTRA good this year, cuz Santa made a special trip today and gave me what I really wanted.

It was nearly impossible for me to bite my tongue during (Unofficial) Official Agent Appreciation Day because I wanted to shout from the rooftop exactly how amazing my agent, Suzie Townsend, was. But, alas, it wasn’t official yet, so I couldn’t. I’ve always known she’s a rock star, and now I have proof.

*drum roll*
I’m beyond thrilled to announce that Suzie has sold my young adult debut novel, Personal Demons, at auction to Tor/Macmillan in a three book deal.

My shiny new editor, Melissa, still loves me because she’s only known me for one day. Also—she’s never met Suzie in person, which has worked out for the best cuz, if she had, she undoubtedly would have noticed Suzie’s bald spots, which would have prompted the question “What happened?” to which Suzie would have had to cross her fingers and reply “Alopecia. Runs in my family,” or risk losing our book deal. (Suzie is lovely, really, and her hair will grow back, I think, once I become a less frustrating client.) ;)

But I digress.

So, I’m blessed that my book (actually my three books!) has found a home with an awesome editor. I’m so looking forward to the next months/years getting to know Melissa and working with her to make my books the best they can be. I can never properly express my gratitude for her belief in me and my work.

All right. For those inquiring minds that want to know, here’s my story. If you really don’t care, stop reading now because, though the timeline is relatively short, I’m a writer which means, by definition, the story is going to be long.

First, let me say, I’ve read a LOT of author blogs about their road to publication. Many of them talk about their lifelong aspiration to write—how they knew they were destined to be a writer at age 5 when they started scribbling captions in their coloring books or writing plays for their friends and family.

That was SOOOO not me.

Not only did I never even consider writing a book—I hated to read them. I devoured Tolkien’s The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings in 7th grade and read a hand full of Stephen King books in high school, but other than that I was able to fake my way through four years of high school English without ever reading a single book. I was well out of college with a Masters and a Doctorate (for which I rarely cracked a textbook) before I took any interest in reading at all.

So, along comes my daughter, who’s an avid reader. I was thrilled that she took an interest in reading. And, being the diligent parent I am, I felt it was my responsibility to know what she was reading. I started browsing her books and found that I really enjoyed a lot of the YA novels she was accumulating. Then, in some unexplainable stroke of insanity, (maybe some kind of aneurysm?) I decided last July (2008) to do something special for her 14th birthday. I sat down and wrote her a 120K word YA thriller that I finished in October, in time for her birthday. I thought I was done—but my Muse had other ideas. I’d caught the bug.

Orlando is my Muse, in case anyone cares. Here's him looking particularly Musey...



I started my second novel (a realistic contemporary YA) in October and queried in January. I’d done a lot of blog reading and got that the road to getting published was nearly impossible. My true belief was that I didn’t have a prayer. So I was shocked out of my socks when five agents requested manuscripts. I got a lot of positive feedback, but no offers. Still, I was one step closer, and realized I must know how to write a query if I was getting requests. So all I needed was a really great book.

On February 2nd, 2009 I was listening to Saving Abel (one of my favorite new bands) and reading a bio where they said they got their name from a biblical quote: “there was no saving Abel.” That got me thinking about Cain and Abel, and I was mulling over ideas for a book when a name popped into my head. I thought to myself, Lucifer Cain, what a fun name for a demon. That was the beginning of Luc and Personal Demons. Even though his name was inspired by Saving Abel, his theme—the song that totally shaped his character and the story from his perspective—is Savin’ Me by Nickelback. Frannie, whose story this really is, was inspired in the same way by the song You Found Me by The Fray.

I don’t have any logical way of explaining how I felt as I was working on Personal Demons except to say I knew this was going to be “the one.” I typed away like a crazy person, trying desperately to keep up with my Muse, and I just felt like I was “in the zone.” (The “typing like a crazy person” was a challenge, as I worked full time and my husband didn’t know I was writing until I signed with my agent in September.)

A few weeks later I went to the San Francisco Writers Conference, where I met some great people and heard about the Big Sur Writers Workshop. That workshop was in March. I had to send a writing sample to be critiqued right away, and all I had completed (that I was willing to show anyone) was the realistic contemporary YA manuscript that was out with agents, but I figured that ship had already sailed. So even though I was only eight thousand words into my first draft of Personal Demons, I decided to take a risk and send it.

The critique groups and agents there were awesome and I got some VERY encouraging feedback as well as a request for the full manuscript when it was finished, so I got serious and finished it. I sent 18 queries in June and July and got a lot of manuscript requests really quickly. (I'd share my query letter, but there are spoilers—things I thought necessary to capture agents' interest and show them my book was different than the multitude of YA paranormal books already out there.) But then everything seemed to stall. I tweaked the manuscript while I waited on agents, but didn’t want to mess with it too much.

In August I was on a business trip to Sydney and was surfing the web when I found a blog interview with a new agent at FinePrint Lit—Suzie Townsend. (Thanks Realm Lovejoy.) I sent my e-query to this new agent and one other agent at 10am on 8/29/09. That was a Saturday. I figured if she was fast, I might expect to hear from her sometime the following week. So I nearly fell off my chair when an email came at 11:30am THAT SAME DAY requesting my manuscript. Less than two hours after my query, my full manuscript was in her hands.

I already had eleven other manuscripts out, some since the middle of June, so I figured I was in for a wait. But another email came just over two weeks later in which she told me she was having some second readers take a look. Coincidentally, I had received a call from another agent that same day offering representation, so I emailed Suzie back to tell her and she sped up the process on her end, calling to offer representation two days later. I received two other offers and sat down with my options.

I ended up choosing Suzie for a multitude of reasons, the biggest of which was her sheer enthusiasm for my novel for no other reason than she loved it. All the agents said they loved it, but they all had personal stories of how the themes of the novel related to their lives. That was nice, and it made me feel really good that my story touched someone, but in truth, I wanted the person representing my novel to just flat out love the writing and the story—no heartstrings attached. That was Suzie.

Suzie had some excellent revision requests, which I worked on for about two weeks, and four weeks after signing with her, we went on submission. Seven weeks after submissions went out Melissa phoned with an offer. Mad scramble—auction—and then my new and totally amazing editor. Whew…

Two months after the original submission, deal done and my novel has an awesome new home. Ten months from concept to sale. I’m truly blessed.

Now for revisions...

32 comments:

  1. *Happy Dancing* CONGRATS!! I love Personal Demons and I am so thrilled for this incredible news :) Tor/MacMillan are lucky to have you!! Hope you have a big celebration ahead. What a great Christmas present!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Congrats! What a whirlwind of a story!

    ReplyDelete
  3. SO excited for you!!! Can't wait to read Personal Demons. Go you, and go Suzie! You're both fabulous!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great story Lisa! A big congrats from me. Can't wait to read your book(s)!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Congratulations, congratulations, congratulations! This is a remarkable story. :) Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wow, Lisa, no wonder you were taking a break from writing last week. You deserved it! So exciting, and so much for the whole bit about nothing ever happening in publishing between Thanksgiving and Christmas!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Everyone--Thanks for all your well wishes. It was the best Christmas present I could have gotten, and it's all because of my fabulous agent, Suzie!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Holy cow! What a great story and I'm so excited for you!!!

    Yay for good news!!! Can't wait to read all three.

    sf

    ReplyDelete
  9. CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

    And I am *not* going bald thank you :)

    (and thanks to Realm for that interview! I'm so glad you found me :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Woohoo! Congrats, Lisa! I can NOT wait to have this book in my greedy little hands ;)

    Go Suzie!

    ReplyDelete
  11. WOW!! so exciting and inspirational!! Glad I happened upon this post. Congratulations and good luck--I look forward to seeing it in print!!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Congratulations on a three book deal! Merry Christmas to you!

    ReplyDelete
  13. CONGRATULATIONS!!!! That's pretty much the best Christmas present EVER!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Everyone--I’m so overwhelmed by all the support and well wishes here and on Twitter! Thank you guys sooooo much!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Congrats! I'm sososo excited for you! I can't wait to get my hands on your novel(s). :)

    ReplyDelete
  16. Kristin--
    Thanks, but still no e-mail...

    ReplyDelete
  17. Wow! That is a wonderful story--congratulations!

    ReplyDelete
  18. wow, awesome journey, thanks for sharing! It gives me a little hope. :0)

    CONGRATULATIONS!! I can't wait to hear more about it. :0)

    ReplyDelete
  19. Oh my. This is awesome! I am so excited for you and can't wait to read Personal Demons-- what a great premise for a series. Congratulations--you will surely have yourself a merry little Christmas!

    ReplyDelete
  20. Thanks so much! You guys are awesome! It's been a whirlwind!

    ReplyDelete
  21. This is super exciting! I agree, it is the best Christmas present evah.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Congratulations! Talk about a Merry Christmas- funny, I thought Santa was supposed to be a guy in a red suit, white beard and a stomach like a bowl full of jelly- who knew she was really young,had a $6,000 wedding dress and worked at Fine Print!

    Very excited for you.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Thanks sooooo much for all you're kind words!

    ReplyDelete
  24. Congrats! And I love hearing stories of people who weren't "born to write" cuz I'm right there with ya!

    Can't wait to read it!

    ReplyDelete
  25. Lisa -- what a great story! I'm so happy for you and Suzie, too. I can't wait to get my hands on your books. Way to go!

    ReplyDelete
  26. Congratulations! A three-book deal! That's fantastic!

    ReplyDelete
  27. Hooray!!!!!!!!! I'm so happy for you!

    ReplyDelete
  28. The best news!! What a merry Christmas indeed. And a three-book deal!! Wow!

    ReplyDelete
  29. Thanks Daisy! Can't wait to read yours!

    ReplyDelete