The Good Thing

I sold a book last month based on an idea mentioned casually over lunch with a friend who has talked books and writing with me for over 25 years. (He’s not a writer, but he is a voracious reader.)

I finished writing that book two years ago. I wrote it about it in December of 2019 here on the blog.

I was very confident about selling that book.

Why?

I thought it had an unusual premise. Everyone who heard the idea liked it.

In addition, I had fantastic feedback from my early readers and support from my agent, Josh Getzler. If he thought it was ready for prime time, so did I. This was my first novel that wasn’t crime fiction, but I felt like I had written something that worked.

Two months after going out on submission, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Train wreck in publishing land. Upheaval. Uncertainty. No need to recap here. All I knew was that it would mean a setback. In the big context of fatalities and hospitalizations, however, who cared about my little old novel?

But…still.

After laying low for six months or so, I started to push. Gentle nudges to my agent. What are you hearing? Is the market picking up? 

In the meantime, I did something I had never done before: I reached out to fellow writers for pre-publication blurbs. I thought if I sent my agent some dynamite quotes from others that it might give him some reason to believe. (I did not tell Josh in advance about these queries.)

I’m not going to mention their names here. (I don’t have their permission in this context.) But, in my world, all are well-established writers. Very well established. Two mystery/crime folks. One literary with a decades-long career. My point here is: the power of networks. One of the writers, who hangs out routinely on best-seller lists everywhere, even wrote a note to his editor encouraging him to take a strong look at my novel.

This was the summer and fall of 2020.

We received a few glowing rejections from publishers, but no bites. One said the novel would make “a perfect movie” (then why wouldn’t you want to publish that book?) but no sale.

Winter of 2021: nothing.

Spring: nothing.

Summer: nothing.

I nudged Josh from time to time, but zip. In late July, I asked Josh how much longer I should give him before going another direction. He said mid-October.

More and more readers were perplexed. One writer pal in San Francisco sent copies out to his friends and, again, more raves rolled in. One of his friends said my book was the best thing he’d read in the past ten years.

What to do? Stick with Josh or try a different route? Self-publish? 

I knew that looking for another agent would set me back.

But, still. If you had a house for sale and your agent couldn’t sell it, wouldn’t you try a new company? 

On Wednesday, Oct. 6 I asked to schedule a call with Josh to discuss.

I wasn’t absolutely sure I would pull the plug, but I wanted to get his thoughts.

On Wednesday, Oct. 7 Josh forwarded a note from an editor at Lake Union:

“I’m barely in but already immensely enjoying it.”

Gulp.

Three weeks later, the editor took the book to her editorial team for approval to make an offer.

It felt like I’d been given a transfusion—months and months of worry and wondering and uncertainty evaporating in a flash like a miracle cure.

Did my pre-publication blurbs help? Did my nudges help? Did the positive psychic energy my friends put out into the world help?

Who knows?

All I know is I wouldn’t have sold the book if I hadn’t been open to that initial idea—and if I hadn’t kept that particular friendship for years and years and years.

And the only other thing I know for sure is that I stuck with it.

An old line from The Talking Heads (“The Good Thing”) comes to mind: Add the will to the strength and it equals conviction.

That, and a whole lotta luck.