What did you do when you found out Give Up the Ghost was going to be published?
Something I suspect most non-authors don’t realize is that the “finding out your book will be published” part of the process is more complicated than it sounds. In my case it took place over the course of six weeks! Consisting of (through a combination of e-mail and phone calls with my agent):
-Hearing that an editor planned to offer but wasn’t officially going to until after the Christmas holidays.
-Hearing that the editor had officially offered.
-Hearing that another editor had offered.
-Waiting while my agent negotiated.
-Deciding with my agent which house we would go with.
-Waiting while my agent continued to negotiate with the chosen house on the deal terms.
-Finally hearing everything was settled, and being able to announce the good news!
When the first offer came in, I celebrated by babbling about it to my husband and on the phone to my parents and ordering in Thai. But nothing feels totally certain until you get the go-ahead from your agent to announce the deal publicly. And it took another six months before I saw and signed the contract itself! After that, I celebrated by getting myself a shiny new computer (an iMac to replace my old eMac that was still running fine but getting a little slow). 🙂
Other authors want to share their “when I found out I’d be published” stories?
That’s so interesting that it took 6 months to decide on a publisher and sign the contract. I always thought it went much faster. Thanks for sharing.