I’m thrilled to be writing today for the Verve blog about my debut novel, Made for You, a speculative thriller that was ten years in the making.
Okay, not literally. In point of fact, I drafted this book in 7 weeks, and from that version to its final form, it didn’t change that much. But let me explain…
I wrote my first novel in late summer 2014… yep. Over 10 years ago. It was a cozy mystery called The Deadly Alb that you will never read, nor do you want to (trust me). Still, it was my recovery method of choice from a traumatic ectopic pregnancy, and it taught me that 1) writing books is an excellent way to dip out of the painful real world and find escapist relief, and 2) I was capable of writing a whole darn book. Whoa.
That fall, I wrote another – a YA dystopian you will also never read (nor do you want to). That’s the first book I seriously queried. Prior to that, I didn’t even know what a query was! Or what an agent was. Or anything, really.
Imagine my surprise when right away, I got an R&R from a really amazing agent! Which I tackled far too quickly and went on to totally bomb. Oh well. In retrospect, thank God that didn’t work out. As a much more seasoned writer than I was a decade ago, I can say with utter confidence that getting a book deal that fast would have 1) set me up for very unrealistic expectations in all things publishing, and 2) created a whole set of problems that I couldn’t then anticipate.
At that point, for example, I didn’t really understand story structure. I’d written two books – but that didn’t mean I understood what I’d done, what was working and why, and what wasn’t working and why. I didn’t understand the concept of reader expectations. Character arcs (*I know*). Delivering on a premise. Pitching. The market. I didn’t even have a clear sense of genres – what they were, and what I was writing.
I had basically winged it, twice, and if (God forbid) I’d landed a two-book deal with that YA dystopian, I would have fallen on my face with Book #2. I happen to know this is factually correct since, contrary to all the advice on the internet, I did attempt to write a sequel to it before securing an agent. 125k words later, it still wasn’t done. It now rotteth on the graveyard of my hard drive where, I’m sorry to say, it belongs.
Over the next few years, I wrote more books in a variety of young adult genres, perfected my querying skills, participated in Twitter pitching events (which really helped me hone my pitching skills!), read everything about the publishing industry I could get my hands on, fielded hundreds of rejections, and started to actually learn what it was all about – both the publishing industry, and what makes a book work (or not).
Some of the books I queried got me close to landing an agent, but it wasn’t until Book #5, a young adult mystery called Not the One You Think, that I got two offers! One of them was from my now-agent, Lauren, and her enthusiasm during our call sold me hard. We signed together in June of 2019, after I’d been in the query trenches for more than four years.
We revised and honed and cut words and revised again before going on sub later on that year… and we did not sell it. Then, 2020 hit: COVID. We pulled back a bit. Publishing was (we heard) in chaos. No one knew what was going on, and it seemed like a bad time to keep pushing editors. Meanwhile, though, I was working on another young adult mystery with a Pan’s Labyrinth comp that I loved (and still love, to this day, and hope to eventually sell).
Later in 2020, when things had stabilized a bit, we sent that one out on sub. We got some really nice rejections over multiple rounds, but still no enchilada. Next up was a YA crossover speculative… then an adult epic fantasy (that has my heart, still)…then an adult women’s fiction (that made me snort laugh while writing it)… and finally, the one that would go on to sell: my first adult thriller.
Yes, by the way. You read that correctly: it took me SIX manuscripts with Lauren to finally sell one. Three young adult and three adult.
We sent Made for You into the world in late summer 2022, right as my youngest sister was dying. It was a grueling time for me personally, and when the rejections started rolling in, I couldn’t help but think this one would likely end up just like the others, on the hard drive that now housed so many ‘dead’ projects.
It was February 2023 when Leah Mol from Mira/HarperCollins first reached out with interest. I could hardly believe it. Could this be it?? One thing led to another (a story for another time) and she made an offer in early May 2023, which we accepted. We were able to announce the (2-book!) deal later that month, and my life has not been the same since! It went on to sell to South Korea, where it released November 2024, and Verve went on to snag UK rights, and here we are with my first UK release! (but not my last, hee hee–stay tuned…)
I couldn’t be happier that Made for You is my debut. It’s a high concept thriller that I describe as The Bachelor meets The Stepford Wives, and I have to add that the AI angle which people are describing as ‘timely’ was merely a stroke of luck, since I wrote it before the conversations around AI started heating up. After years of bad luck (such as querying a dystopian right as everyone decided they were done with it), I’ll take it!
Since then, Lauren and I have also sold another thriller, Beach Bodies, to Thorne Ryan at Transworld/PRH UK, which I’m publishing under pen name Sienna Sharpe. Both Mira and Verve will also be publishing my next mystery, The New Year’s Party, later this year (December in the UK!). It’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that, after more than eight years of rejection, within a single 12-month period, I sold not one, not two, but three books to a total of five publishers across territories.
There’s no moral to this story, but I’d like to highlight two things. First, between agent rejections over more than four years in the query trenches and editor rejections over six projects with Lauren, I once tallied up all the rejections. There were over 700. Yep.
Second, Lauren has always made me feel super secure. There was never a sense that she would cut me off if we couldn’t sell Book #1… or book #2… or book #3… or (you get the point). In fact, she went out of her way to reassure me that we were in it to win it, and that one day I’d have a breakthrough and we’d go on to sell my backlist too (fingers crossed!).
Fast forward to January 2024, a little over a year ago, and my journey through the world of publishing took a fun new turn: I joined Storm Literary in January as an Associate Literary Agent (a story for another time!). As I’ve made my first deals and run my first auctions and continued to sign incredibly talented authors, I can’t help but think of my own agent, Lauren. She has truly set the example of the kind of agent I want to be – an unshakeable cheerleader. If as an agent I can provide that safe “risk free” space for my clients, I believe that is where their creativity can best thrive long term, just as my creativity has done through Lauren’s loyalty and belief in my talent and potential.
I hope you’ll pick up Made for You, and if you see any drops of wetness on the page, just know that’s not a defect–that’s the literal sweat and tears of the 10 years of writing that led up to being able to write and sell this one.
Here’s to many more!!
Made for You is available to order here