I Want To Sell My Next Book
I should probably write it then
Hey friends!
Thank you SO MUCH for all the shares and subscribes last week for the Agents & Books 2025 Guide sixth anniversary extravaganza. Welcome new readers! Each Tuesday we talk about something writing/books/publishing related, whether it’s a nuts and bolts post like What’s an Option Clause? to a more thinky/feely post like today’s is going to be. On Thursdays, for paid subscribers, we often have Q&A Thursday, where paid subscribers can send in questions for me to answer, or other new and fun things I have planned for this year. Want to send in a question? Reply to any subscriber post!
Ok, so this week, I was scrolling through my feeds and I saw a person I know post their deal announcement, a classic Publishers Marketplace screenshot with some news!!!! in the caption. This is great! It sounds like a fun book. I do not begrudge that author their deal. I’m happy for them! But I also thought (and felt) I want to sell my next book. I do! I admit it! I am a writer just like you who wants the rush and attention and validation that comes with announcing a new book deal. My first book isn’t even out yet (and oh god I have to read it one more time!!!) and yes, I also have a picture book coming out in 2026 so I KNOW. I don’t really have any room to stomp my foot and whine that I want something.
Except! Except I’m allowed to want it and you are too. Want whatever your little heart desires. Want freely and expansively and without boundaries. The wanting is not the problem. It’s what you feel next. I felt well, I better get writing then. I have like 5k of something new cooking and that’s barely a simmer. That’s ok—I just started. I didn’t hit my word goal last week, and that’s ok, too. I had other stuff to do. I still wrote something, and that is good enough for me right now. I want that new book deal and I am ok with wanting it. I am not talking myself out of wanting it. Wanting it doesn’t make me feel like a loser because I don’t have it yet. I am consciously avoiding the well if I had just written 1000 words every day since Labor day I would have a draft by now modes of thinking that are so easy to fall into. I didn’t do that, so I don’t have a draft yet. And I still have the want.
The first step in the wanting to go away is to write something. If I write something, that brings me closer to a draft, and when I write the whole thing, my want can turn into hope, and maybe that will turn into luck and a book deal. With, yanno, a lot of hard work in there, too. It doesn’t go from wanting to book deal without all that stuff in between.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re an agent and you already have a book deal so you probably are going to get whatever book deal you want after this. And that is a big ole NOPE. I am not guaranteed any more book deals than anyone else. It took me seven years to sell my first book. My agent and I tried to sell five other books before this one. So yeah, I have privilege, knowledge, and connections, but that doesn’t guarantee me the success some think it does. It has just better prepared me for the hard work to come.
SO! I want another book deal. I’m going to go write another book so I can try to get it.
XOXOXOXOXOX,
Kate
ICYMI POST:
With six years of newsletters, I’ve probably covered something you want to read about. Today’s blast from the past is:
As the author of two nonfiction books via traditional publishing with a third on the way I COMPLETELY agree with Kate here: You're only as good as your current book. Writing one book does not guarantee the publication of your next.
In fact, and this is especially true in nonfiction, your proposal if you're going to New York houses needs to be killer. A sizzle reel of your best material.
That's how I've always viewed the proposal process anyway.
I so feel this! It's why I end up with drafts in three different genres and age categories...