What happened when my proposal went on submission to publishers
A thrilling ride (that also makes you want to vom)
May 14th marks a year from the day I accepted an offer from my publisher One Signal, an imprint of Atria and Simon & Schuster. A dream came true. The hard work paid off (begetting more hard work, but we’re time traveling here, so let’s relish the moment).
The days beforehand were some of the most nerve-wracking in my life. I’d rank them thus on the nerve-wracking event scale:*
4. First(ish) real job interview of my life, at The New York Times. I was running late because Amtrak is shit and my train from DC to NY broke down in the middle of nowhere.
3. Going out on submission.
2. Waiting to hear on college decisions.
1. Driving test in Poland. I promise you it’s not the same as in the US, which I’ve done as well. Think: stick shift; scary older Polish man next to you; knowledge that almost everyone fails multiple times.**
*excluding sad situations because we’re having fun here. ** I failed twice.
My shoulders actually tensed up remembering how my young leg shook as I tried to back into – on a turn!!! – the parking cones they’d set up so neatly, so cruelly. In the 17 years of regular driving I’ve done since I’ve never had to make a maneuver like that. ANYWAY. Back to number 3 on that list.
After I finally signed with an agent following a stupidly long process, absolutely foolishly conducted by — forgive the passive voice — me, we worked on revising my proposal for another eight months. Eight months! From my friends’ experiences I now know this was not that unusual. Most of the work was around sharpening my argument, and on a new sample chapter. When we were done, Sarah, my agent, also suggested I zhuzh up the graphic design of my proposal, something that did not cross my mind at all, the project being my lofty intellectual baby, my art, my soul. Do not forget: the proposal is a cold, hard, mercenary sales document. Sarah thought a “nice sans serif font” would work well for the topic. Because I will never give up the opportunity to a) get expert input b) romanticize my life, I went to a graphic designer friend and the moment he mentioned the font Lato, which was created by a Polish type designer and means “summer,” I was sold. I added a bunch of images of vintage and contemporary ads for dating services throughout the chapter summaries. For section breaks, I drew a little illustration by hand and used my best Preview skills to add them in.
We included an endorsement from a well-known author I’d been working with, and Sarah made a PDF out of the whole thing, with the agency’s information and logo on the first page. After years of living in various Google Docs, this was it. So beautiful, so official.
This is a good time for a caveat. The process of going out on submission can go very differently for different people and different books! I was particularly lucky, blessed with a fantastic agent and an editor who immediately got the book (it definitely didn’t hurt that my topic has a pretty universal, pop-y appeal). I’m not trying to diminish my work, I know my proposal was good, but I want to acknowledge that publishing can be a total crapshoot.
The proposal, along with a pitch letter from my agent, went out to 27 specifically-chosen editors. Twenty-four of them were at Big 5 publishers, and three from indies. We started getting responses very quickly, basically within a day or so. Like I said, this was a lucky break – this process can take weeks. There’s a reason you hear “You only need one [publisher offer]” when you’re out on submission. Over the following days we had multiple Zoom calls with editors, which was very exciting, but not without its own anxieties. (I hear that in the pre-Covid days these meetings were often held in person, which would’ve been more fun, but probably also even more stressful given outfit decisions and the vagaries of New York City public transit.)
It’s a funny dance, these calls. It’s not quite like a job interview, because the editors want you to pick their imprint or publisher if you get multiple offers, but you still have to sell yourself, especially if you’re a first-time author. I heard a lot of nice praise, but I also got a couple of challenging questions on whether I’d address this or that in the book. For one publisher, I had to write up a one-page memo answering a broader question the team had about the topic. As far as I recall, only one editor asked about my platform. I, in turn, got to ask about how my book fit into the editor or publisher’s roster, about how they approached editing, or how they would see marketing the book when the time came. After the first couple of calls I’d text my agent nervously “how did I do?” and she’d reassure me that I did just fine, like a kind pageant mom.
The great part about all of this was that it was quite clear who was the best editor and publisher for the book. The One Signal folks and my editor Abby Mohr were clearly psyched about U Up? and deeply understood why it was important to write a social history of online dating. The book also fit in really well with the works of the other authors they publish, like
and . On the call, there was giggling and giddiness and it felt like we were on a group date that was going very well.As we were setting up the editor calls, my agent nudged everyone else on the list that if they wanted in, they had to say so or forever hold their peace. When we were done with the meetings, she set the date for the auction, which is when the publishers had to get their offers in. I can’t get into much detail here, but after a bit of stellar negotiating from my agent, we ended up agreeing to a great offer from One Signal, who were my top choice anyway. Two weeks, all in. My agency’s international partners do the foreign sales, and a couple of weeks later I also got a UK deal with Icon Books, which is absolutely rad.
A thrilling ride.
P.S. If you’re curious how this is all decided on the other side, check this post.
This is fascinating. Thank you. The journey from idea to publication is dimly understood and you are shining a light on it. Good luck the rest of the way.
Thank you for sharing your experience! It is interesting how it works. I never was thinking about the process of writing a book. I just love to read books. Now, I am starting to think about my favorite authors and how they are going through the writing and publishing process. Thank you!