This is a long audio, so I’ve split the audio (and transcript) in half. Since it’s been a while since I did any paid content—and I really need to say thank you to all you awesome readers giving me your hard-earned $5 a month—I’ve got half to this beast behind a paywall.
Freebie friends (whom I also love!), you can listen and read the first half of this discussion. And paid pals, you get the whole thing! 🫶
💚 - Sooz
Links Mentioned:
Transcript:
Hello, everyone. It's been a minute. I had a book come out a few weeks ago, and then travel with that. And once I got home, I was hunkering in to finish two things: Executioners Three, which is now off to copy edits. Woohoo. I should be getting that back shortly. Imminently, so that I can do it over the holidays.
Because, lol, that's how publishing often operates. They send you things right on the day that they all go off on holiday, and we get to toil away over our Christmas and New Year's…
But ‘tis how it works. It's understandable. We want to get this book out on time in August. So I will do it!
I also—drum roll—turned in Witchlight. Ha! It's a complete and finished book. If everyone had to read it right now, they would have a fully finished, satisfying read that I'm very proud of. I'm doing one more little lightning round to just make sure everything is clear in the ending. Because (as you know, if you've read the series) many, many, many, manythreads being wrapped up. So I just want to make sure that it's all landing, and so I will hopefully hear back soon on that as well—and work on that over the holidays too, to get that in to copy edits in January.
It's kind of wild having two books come out so close together next fall. August, end of August, and then in November. Early November, I think—ha. I should probably check what day it is.
And it's interesting, because I've never had books come out that close together, and they're so very different. Executioners Three is so firmly teen. YA, standalone mystery. And then Witchlands is…well... ‘Tis the Witchlands: a beast of high fantasy. Epic fantasy. An ongoing saga with so many stories and characters and plot lines and romances and yes, I just hope…
I hope I did all the readers justice. And the characters! It really it is bittersweet to be done (for now, lol). And yeah, I will say nothing more on that. (I probably will talk a lot more about those books and the creation of them and the finishing of them next year.)
But for now, I did have a topic I wanted to discuss today, and that is proposals. This was something that came up in my fan discord. I was, you know, celebrating being done with Witchlight and saying how I was now diving into a proposal for the next thing. And I realized a lot of people don't necessarily know how that process works.
And of course, it's going to be varied for every author and every agent and every publisher. But I did want to give some basics in terms of my experience and what I myself—who has been publishing for 12 years, has 12 books under her belt—what it looks like for me when I submit something new.
So I have been publishing for a long time at Tor Teen. I sold my first book to them 11 years ago. Before that, I was at HarperTeen, and for the most part, the rigmarole was the same at both places. I submitted the same proposal package that I had for Truthwitch to both places and some others—like lots of other places. It went on what's called wide submission, meaning to lots of different editors and publishers.
And just so you all know—in case this is totally new information for you—editors, acquisitions editors are the people who read books and decide if they think the publisher would be able to publish them.
If they love the book, then they will take it to the team (which includes all the different departments) and try to see if they can convince the team that, yes, this is a worthwhile buy. And then they make a complex profit and loss statement where they figure out what they can offer—what they think this book will sell, and therefore what they think they can offer the author, in terms of an advance.
Sometimes markets sag. So right now, the YA market is in a rut. It's in a tough time, and so we're seeing advances there really shrink across the board (except probably for the big, heavy hitters). And everyone is moving into adult, particularly romantasy. And so that's where you're seeing a lot more of these big heavy hitter deals.
But for a while now, those big heavy hitter deals were happening in YA. These cycles move and flow. And if you're lucky enough to be in the industry for a long time—as I now have been—you get to ride those waves through all the different hot genres, hot shelves and trends. And you will see your career reach awesome heights, and you will see it hit deep, painful lows. (But that is a recording or post for another day.)
Today again—Sooz, focus—we're going to talk about proposals.
So because the editor (the acquisitions editor will also, for the most part, be editing your book) is trying to…
You're trying to convince the editor to buy your book, and they, in turn, are trying to convince a team. So proposals, typically…well, if the book is finished, great. Then the whole book will be a part of that proposal package. If it's not—which is very much often the case for authors who've got multiple books under their belt—it will typically only be sample pages, which can vary greatly in size.
Certainly, authors who are more successful don't need very many sample pages to prove a point. Or if they have a really established relationship with the editor and the house.
So for example, with The Luminaries proposal, I had an outline, which I will get into what that means, but think of it as like a long synopsis of the entire book that gives away the ending, and then I had sample pages, but it was only, I think, three chapters. It was very short. But at that point, I had been working with Tor Teen for such a long time, they knew me. They know what I write. They know how I work with them and what audience I bring to the table. So sample pages, all they really needed was enough to get a taste of the flavor, the vibe.
Which The Luminaries, if you've read it, you know, is very heavy on vibe.
When I sold them Executioners Three, I had, I think, 125 sample pages, plus a detailed synopsis (which is called an outline in a proposal). But I actually had a lot more of the book written. For those of you who've read the Wattpad version, it was almost the entire book. But again, they don't need to have that entire thing, because they knew me. They know me, and they just really need enough to get a sense of the mystery, to get a sense of the romance (because it's a very romance-forward book), and the voice, because Freddie, as a main character, has an extremely strong and distinctive voice.
So that was all. I didn't edit the entire book for them. Or polish the entire book for them. Or include the entire book that I had written in the sample pages. I just gave them a very meaty chunk. (I think it was more than the first to act, but maybe, maybe right up to or near the midpoint.)
When I sold Truthwitch back in 2013, we were trying to sell it initially to HarperTeen as well, just because I owed them. And also, you always…it's nice if you can stay with a publisher (if you're not unhappy with them). And so I gave them the proposal. It was not a good fit, which is true. It's a very crunchy fantasy, and that is not necessarily with the HarperTeen brand.
It is very much the Tor brand, so I was thrilled when Tor showed an interest. But I made an, I mean, I made a huge proposal for that book, guys. It was, it was like 200 pages of the book, which was the first, I mean, it's a big book, so that was actually only like the end of Act One (and I think it was a very long Act One. So it was, it was more than 25% of the book). But it was a meaty, meaty chunk. A lot happened. It really set up the stakes and scale of the series ahead.
And then I had, in addition to that, at very detailed outline—again, which is essentially a synopsis. And then opening the proposal, I had a shorter pitch. Like a shorter one page synopsis pitching the book, giving the main details, followed by a detailed world guide in which I defined terms. In which I introduced and described all of the characters.
I talked about, all the different nations and the different cultures. And it was really big, because it's a big world. It's big fantasy world that had a lot going on and a lot of different players and a lot of different points of view. So the world, the world guide ended up being quite enormous.
And actually, now that I'm saying that, I had a world guide with Luminaries as well, but it's a much more contained world. So it wasn't nearly as large, but it defined the clans and some different nightmares, and what the Luminaries as a society do, and who the main characters were.
Because I write fantasy, I really like including world guides. I have clearly done that since the beginning, and I think it can be really helpful when you're trying to pitch something new to an editor because even though they're going to read the sample pages before they put in an offer—or bring it to the team to maybe hopefully get an offer—if they have materials to work with and to show the team (and also to help them digest fully because it may not be the entire book before them, or the entire series—in this case, it was a many-book series), having more information about what's ahead and what this world is and these characters and what they're trying to sell to the team can be helpful.
And yes, since I'm sure many of you are thinking about the pitch deck trend, I will talk about that at the end because I do have some insights to offer there. And if you're wondering what the pitch deck trend is, don't worry. We'll get into it.
If I were to make a big fantasy proposal right now, I would do the same thing. I would make a world guide.
I usually follow this format: I open with a like one sentence pitch, followed by a paragraph, maybe two or three paragraph pitch, almost like I’m writing a query letter. It does not include the ending. It's more like, let me hook you in with this snappy back-of-the-book type summary. And then from there, I dive into the world guide and the characters, usually a glossary of characters, all that stuff.
And then the last thing I finish, oh…and then I will have the detailed synopsis, the full outline. And the last thing at the end of the proposal are the sample pages, however many those might be.
For something simpler, such as Executioners Three or this next book that I am putting together to propose, to give to my team—which is also another standalone mystery set in the 90s, romance forward. It's very similar to Executioners Three. It is even technically, in my head, happening in the same alternate universe where ghosts are real…
And for that, I will also…I'm not going to bother with the world guide. We don't need that. What we need is a pitch, a short summary (a hooky summary because again, that's why I will do that as well), followed by a more detailed outline, and then sample pages.
I don't know how many sample pages I'm going to include yet. It's a very different voice from Freddie, and I actually don't…But it's not as unique a voice as Freddie, where you're kind of like… She comes on strong, so I've really got to convince the reader that she's worth it. She's funny. (I think Executioners Three is the funniest book I've written.) But you have to, you have to get to know her.
And this book, this book, which I'm currently calling just working title Magpie, because the main character is named Margaret. She's called Magpie. Magpie is a very different voice. She's maybe a little bit more like Winnie, although even that isn't quite right, because she's more of an introverted character, a quieter character—which is very different also from anything I've written, except for maybe Iseult.
So I don't know how many sample pages I will need yet. I'm waiting to hear back on that from my agent. If she thinks we need to do a meatier chunk like we did Executioners Three, 125 pages, or if we need to…Or if just a few chapters is sufficient because again, my editor knows me. I've worked with this team for such a very long time, and even though I have been through a number of editors at this point (which is totally normal in this business. People don't stay at one publisher or they don't even stay in the industry. And if you are lucky enough, as I have been, to have a long career and have this longevity, then you will go through many different editors).
But the team at large, they all know me. Tor Teen as a company knows me, and yeah, so I'm waiting to hear how many pages I need to give. I am happy to say that a huge part of the book is already written. So that helps. I can just kind of decide how much I want to include and what I think is a good break-off point.
I would probably pick something high stakes, no matter where, like, even if I only do three chapters or so, I would want to make sure that those first pages end on a really high note. Strong, high note. We've met all the characters. We know where this story is going. It is a story that initially, starts with these really like violent pranks at a museum.
There's a cult-following film that was made in the town where my main character, Magpie, lives, and there's a museum dedicated to that cult movie, and so all these, like really gruesome, horrible pranks start happening there. So I would probably end somewhere like that if it's a short sample.
If it's a long sample, then I would probably go all the way up to the sort of big romantic first moments. And like, maybe the big first, big steamy kiss. Something like that. Something that really, we hope, makes the editor and the team want more.
Now, if I were going more widely with this book—like, if we, for whatever reason, decided we were going to be submitting to other houses—I would, honestly, in this day and age (because of how fraught YA currently is), I would probably finish the book. Unless my agent felt that really wasn't necessary.
But I think having a finished book is always, always an easier sell. It just…the editor now knows there is a complete book. It is more easy for them to say: Okay, here's where we could fit it into our schedule in terms of printing.
Because publishers need a huge amount of lead time, which that lead time has increased dramatically post COVID. And in this future of tariffs, it’s going to increase even more, assuming they happen. There's just so many pieces that go into a book, and so many different steps along the way, ranging from printing to binding to storage to warehouses to shipping. All of these things, not to mention just what happens in the actual publisher with the different departments: getting the book into stores, getting the book into libraries, turning my Word document into a physically typeset book.
All of those steps have to be accounted for, and so whenever there's an unclear turn-in date for a book, so to speak—which I have been very guilty of in the past, with the Witchlands, you all know. I was really good with The Luminaries, and I've been good with Executioners Three, but you all know the Witchlands broke me in many ways. Also because it was happening simultaneously with extremely hard things in my life.
(So to the people at Tor: thank you for your patience. And to the production team: thank you for constantly adjusting your schedule to accommodate me. Bless you.)
All of this is to say, though, that if the editor has a finished book, it's much easier to say here's where we're going to slot it into the schedule. We can see that this would do well as maybe a summer release or an August release, because we want to…August, counter intuitively, if you want a book to get fancy Halloween promotions, you have it come out in August. So maybe we want it to be a Halloween book, so we will release it in August.
(That is why we are releasing The Executioners Three in August, FYI. It is actually…that book is set over the course of Halloween. It's leading up to and then ends on Halloween. So it is very much a Halloween book.)
So it's easier for an editor to say, great, we've got a finished book. We know what we're going to do with this, versus saying, oh gosh, the author's only written three chapters. That's a bit harder for them to plan for. Even if you are a reliable author who gets things in on time, it is just safer for the entire company if there is a finished book in their hands.
(The rest of the transcript is after the paywall, along with the rest of the audio! Thanks for reading/listening!)
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