My book journey has been so quiet, it’s been nearly a year since I last wrote here. I’ve been focused on learning and doing well in my Big New Job, which is going great, while my agent has been methodically shopping my debut manuscript. But I’m now I’m back, hoping that everything is about to change.
In all honesty, I’m leery of even writing this post, as it could jinx what’s happening. It might all come to nothing, and then I’ll be… what? Embarrassed, maybe. But I’m so excited, I need to get this out. My compromise: I’ll write and publish this post, but not send it out on social. What a coward I am!
My sister Alice says it’s not cowardly; it’s like being pregnant, when it’s too early to tell everyone. However, it’s not so early that you don’t tell those whom you’d want to know, whichever way it goes. I see the parallels, although writing a blog post on my website isn’t exactly keeping things under wraps. Oh well.
What am I pregnant with? My book baby may—just MAY—be about to be born. After more than a year of submissions, we have a qualified bite. A publisher in the UK, who knows my agent from previous deals, has just joined a London house as its new publishing director, and reached out to my agent Victoria for any hot manuscripts to bring to her new role. (That’s a rarity in itself, as most publishers are inundated; it was just great timing.)
Victoria immediately sent her my first novel and the publisher read it that same night, and loved it. LOVED IT! She was absolutely gushing. “Expertly executed… achingly romantic” were phrases she used in her response. It’s such an honour to read those words from a highly thought-of publisher, and so very promising!
I contacted a good friend of mine who is high up in the UK publishing industry, and she confirmed that this is a successful, totally legit publishing house. My friend also knows this particular publishing director through her work, and assures me this woman is “lovely.” So that’s also very encouraging.
There are still no guarantees, of course—which is why I’m not going to name the publishing house. At least not yet. The publisher has to take my MS to her team and get full buy-in from the group before they’ll make me an offer. And it’s entirely possible that she’ll be the only person at the company who loves my book enough to publish it. I’m sure she won’t go against the consensus of her new colleagues.
Fingers and toes crossed that at least a couple of her team also love the book, and that I get an offer! Hopefully I’ll know in the next few weeks. I’ll keep you in the loop, which also means it shouldn’t be a year before my next post. (Sorry. I’ll do better.)
CJ Connolly 