How I Got A Book Deal - Part 1
How I Found My Agent and the Origin Story Behind "The Ultimate Mom Challenge"
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My book comes out in less than two months, which might sound like a long time to you, but to someone who first started pitching agents and putting together a book proposal, this journey has been five years in the making. Yes… FIVE YEARS and an entirely different book. Let me explain…
Initially, my book concept came from an experiment I did in 2017 that I called The Ultimate Mom Challenge. It was a self-improvement project inspired by the book The Happiness Project — where every month Gretchen Rubin explored different ways to boost happiness. My efforts were towards becoming a better mother, and each month I explored different points of focus on how to achieve confidence, self-satisfaction, and mindfulness — various characteristics I considered the “ultimate mom” would exude. Each month I focused on things like finding internal peace, exercising more, and even being more Earth-friendly and centered. The irony of this experiment is that in my last month (December — where my theme was “giving back”), I quit drinking in a completely unrelated spin of events. Little did I know that my sobriety was and continues to be key to what makes me a great mom. I laugh even typing this. God certainly smiles when we make plans!
If you’ve followed my sober story, you know I didn’t tell anyone besides my mom and husband about quitting alcohol for the first year. But what you don’t know is that during that year, I was also compiling an outline of a book concept for The Ultimate Mom Challenge. I started pitching agents, and as someone completely clueless to how this works, I literally looked up Liz Gilbert’s agency and found they used an agent query database in partnership with other agencies. I uploaded my bio, my pitch and what I had on the book so far and waited.
It’s worth noting that since I did this, a friend and fellow writer showed me an agent listing database where you can query agents proactively. I would imagine this is a far more direct route and better way to exert some control over who you are reaching out to in finding representation and if I were to do it again, I would do it this way instead!
Believe it or not, my agent found me through the query database. It wasn’t Liz Gilbert’s agent, it was someone who saw through the mess of my outline and concept and liked my writing style. She saw real potential despite the mess. We started working on the outline of The Ultimate Mom Challenge with the understanding it needed a LOT of work.
And then, on December 18, 2018 I posted on my Facebook page that SURPRISE! I am one year sober. My agent read my post about feeling like I was going to lose everything to alcohol, quitting through gritted teeth, and eventually finding freedom and newfound excitement on this new journey. She called me (or maybe it was email?) and she said we need to table The Ultimate Mom Challenge. Because THIS… THIS is my first book!
I was shocked and a little scared. I never intended to be a “sober writer.” My writing had always been motherhood focused. My following was completely around my writing about parenting. Sure, I posted one thing about being sober but sobriety wasn’t my identity. It was just a thing I’m doing, like tiptoeing into a vegetarian diet or running marathons.
But I also saw the huge gaping holes of The Ultimate Mom Challenge. It didn’t stand up on it’s own as a book, especially now that sobriety has entered my story. The idea of starting a new book concept from scratch felt exciting, like a blank canvas and I got to work on a book proposal immediately.
It took months and months to shape the book proposal. By the time it was done and ready to go out to publishers, I was eager to start writing the actual book. I had visions of quitting my day job and working on the book full time. My agent began actively pitching publishers, but the “no’s” started rolling in. I have no idea how many rejections we received, because my agent protected me from the sting of them. And then… March 2020 rolled around and the entire publishing industry changed almost overnight.
To be continued in next week’s post!
My book, It’s Not About the Wine: The Loaded Truth Behind Mommy Wine Culture, is now available for pre-order here.
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