How My Agent and I Sold My Book
A Behind-the-scenes Look at Editorial and Business Collaboration
I signed with my agent in 2019, but we didn’t sell my first book until 2024. This week, in a guest post for
, I wrote about what those five years looked like on a writing and business level.There are a lot of reasons why it took five years to sell my debut novel, Good People, but one of the biggest hurdles to overcome was the book’s age category. Jo—the protagonist—is twenty-years-old and in the no man’s land between YA and adult fiction. I had written the novel as an adult book, but it explored coming-of-age themes that are commonly associated with YA.
During my MFA, one of my professors differentiated adult stories from YA stories with this: YA stories are about a protagonist leaving home whereas adult stories are about a protagonist returning home. Throughout my novel, Jo—as a college student—is constantly leaving and returning home. In retrospect, I wish I could have seen this cyclical homecoming as a sign that the novel’s age category and target market might come into question.
When I signed with my agent, our early conversations revolved around this issue. She was (rightfully!) concerned that the book would be “too YA” for adult publishers and “too adult” for YA publishers. As a result, she suggested aging Jo down and doing a YA revision of the book. But there were two problems: (1) I was not well-read in the YA genre and (2) I needed to have an adult book under contract to apply for certain university teaching jobs. In collaboration with Sub Club, I wrote about how my agent and I navigated this issue on both an editorial and business level. Head over to Sub Club to check out the full story:
What questions do you have about the author-agent relationship? What advice do you have for writers currently on submission to publishers or querying? Let’s chat about the business of writing in the comments.
Next week, we’re doing a deep dive into style and methods for developing your writing on the line level.
See you then,
Kat
The way your professor differentiated between YA and Adult is so interesting and also--it totally complicates the age question! I didn't move out until I was 25 but was also very much an adult. Your post makes me want to write about what it means to come of age during a housing crisis where moving out (or getting married) doesn't mark adulthood anymore--but then what does? Getting a job? Anyway lol Thanks for sharing this!! I'm def going over to read the full story on SubClub <3
This is fascinating Kat, thank you for sharing an inside look. I remember reading that Curtis Sittenfeld had the same issue with Prep; it got a lot of publisher rejections for being an adult novel told from the perspective of a 14-year-old. But the voice in the final version of the novel does come across as very retrospective, so I'm guessing she did a lot of work on that aspect, incorporating maturity and hindsight to age the book out of YA.