Published
What I liked was that her name was Vero,
which means real or true in Italian. I took it as a good
sign – and I was desperate for one of those, because I was prepared to meet
with the commissioning editor, of course, but not the director, as well as
sales, as well as publicity. It was the PR who was “truth”. Well, that’s unheard of, I thought, cynically.
I sat in the glass-walled meeting room of
the publishing house with views of the Thames, swallowing hard as I sought courage
enough to meet the eye of the woman with my future, my dream, in her hands.
She’d said in her email, I honestly
believe every woman will find themselves in this book, and my agent had
told me so as reply to my email that
said: Urm, OHMYGOD THE WHOLE TEAM ARE
FOLLOWING ME ON TWITTER. That’s a good sign, right? They wouldn’t follow me if
they weren’t interested?
When those names appeared in my
notifications, I almost threw up.
Waiting for the week of scheduled meetings
was the longest month of my life. The day my agent sent out the proposal for my
manuscript, polished as it could be, laboured over with 45,000 words of the book,
an ‘about me’ section, ideas for future projects and links to my social media, I
whispered into the flame of the candle I burned daily as prayer to the
publishing deities, PLEASE JUST GET ME A MEETING. I knew, believed in my bones,
that if I could simply get an audience with the editors I most admired, I could
get a book deal itself. I just needed my foot in the door. Face time.
“So,” she said, the one with my future in
her hands. “Can you tell us more about you, and the book; your vision?”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it.
“That’s the biggest question I’ve ever been
asked.”
Everybody else laughed, too.
I rose to it. Soft faces and kind eyes
encouraged me to. I started off timid, I think. I remember looking to my agent
a lot, for approval that what I was saying was okay. Over a breakfast meeting
before the week began she’d said to me, when I asked her what, exactly, I
should behave like in these meetings, “Laura, just be yourself.” That seemed a
bit of a gamble, but I trust Ella more than I trust myself, so if she said do
me, me I would indeed do.
The women around the table were all about
my age, give or take. And… and way back when - way back when I decided, almost
ten years ago, to commit to writing every day and hone my craft, when five
years ago I first started work on this book, when twelve months ago I began to
piece together the proposal I understood all books needed - I didn’t think it
would be that way. I thought the gatekeepers were old, fat men in suits,
chomping cigars and gleefully telling girls like me no. I didn’t know the women commissioning my book would be women
like me. But then, of course they are. Of course they are. Who run the world?
I talked about pre-sale marketing strategy
and did impressions of my mother, both. These women, I wanted to head down to
the pub with them and drink – get totally arseholed – and swap stories about
our lives. I trusted them. In the other meetings we had, at other fancy
offices with other fancy publishers, I was a version of myself. Myself, of course, but more guarded, less
confident, somehow not all there. But with them, I was home. For a full hour
magic coursed through my veins and I knew I had presented myself not only as a
writer, and as a woman with a story to tell, but also as a businesswoman who
has toiled for a decade to get a seat at the table. It was my moment, that
meeting. I felt like I shone, and knew – just knew – that they’d ask for a second meeting. They had to.
They didn’t ask for a second meeting.
What happened, instead, is that they
emailed my agent to say they’d be putting in an offer. And then, when they did,
it was a pre-emptive offer, meaning it was for a bit more money than they’d normally
give, on the condition I agree or decline by the end of the day. “They’ve done
that,” my agent told me, as I groggily woke up from a nap that saw me miss her
first four calls, “So that you don’t go with anybody else.”
“But… But I already told you I don’t want
anybody else!” I exclaimed, unbelieving and not unsure that perhaps it wasn’t
an actual dream, half-asleep as I still was.
“Well then I advise you, as your literary
agent, to say yes.”
So we did. We said yes.
My book, the labour of love from the whole
of my twenties, gets published in June 2016 – a sort of thirtieth birthday gift
to myself.
I’ve never worked harder.
I’ve never been prouder.
----------
Want to say something about this post? Talk to me!
Comments
Post a Comment