Cover Reveal & Navigating 3 Agents

Check out my cover reveal, Episode 1 of My Writing Journey, and a book blurb!

Nov 29, 2023

Hey, y’all! What an exciting month it has been! So much great stuff to share with you this newsletter: a fabulous book blurb for In the Hour of Crows, more of my writing journey as I talk about navigating through three different agents, and the most epic part…my COVER REVEAL!!!!!

Isn’t she gorgeous!!??? I’m so thrilled at the final cover. As an author you’re always nervous about what the publisher will design, but I think Mira Books did a beautiful job. And from what my editor tells me, there will be foil treatment on the title, stars and my name. PLUS there will be custom end sheets!!! (Which are the fancy pages at the beginning and ending of the book for you non-bookish peeps. Though I don’t know what they will be yet.) If you haven’t seen the book cover reveal over on Instagram, you HAVE to check it out. I did a hilarious reel with Serene Heiner, aka @MagicalBookNook.

My Writing Journey

EPISODE 1: NAVIGATING THROUGH THREE AGENTS

When I consider all the factors of how I arrived where I am in my career right now (adult debut sold at auction to a big publisher), navigating through three agents has been a significant road I’ve had to travel. It’s daunting enough to get one agent, why in the world would someone go through three?! Well, it wasn’t always my choice. Grab a cup of coffee, I have a story to tell.

It took me a year and thirty rejections to get my first agent (for my debut YA novel South of Sunshine.) Agent #1 and I had a great working relationship (I’m still friendly with her today!) But I felt as if she wanted more agenda type novels from me and that’s just not who I am or what I wanted to write. After two shelved books, that I had rewrote to shape to her tastes/vision, I decided to write something different. Something I didn’t want her to know I was working on because I didn’t think she would like it. A YA Southern Gothic novel.

I just want to point out something important here, something I didn’t fully understand until later. I didn’t tell my first agent I was writing that YA Southern Gothic because I didn’t want her to inject her opinion about what she thought that book should be or how she envisioned it. Because I’m a people pleaser, and I would have let her opinion influence how I wrote the book. Which is exactly what I did when I rewrote those two shelved books to fit her vision. I didn’t realize I was doing that. That was my mistake, not hers. I viewed her opinion as insights on how to make those better books. But in hindsight, I can now see I was writing to please her instead of writing the story I wanted. There is absolutely nothing wrong with her sharing her opinion and vision with me. Agents know what’s selling and what’s not, and sharing that knowledge can make you a great team. But stop and ask yourself if that vision fits your vision. If the answer is no, then you might want to rethink that relationship. And that’s exactly what I did.

I’m not going to lie, it was scary as hell to walk away from my agent. What if I never got another agent again??!!! But I knew in my gut she wasn’t the agent who could help me achieve the career I desired, so I parted ways with her.

And I reminded myself, if I got an agent once, I can do it again.

Fast-forward one year later with a polished YA Southern Gothic manuscript in hand, I started the query process again. Immediately got requests for fulls (some within minutes of the request going out), so I knew I had something good. After two months of querying and twenty-nine rejections, I landed Agent #2, a junior agent at a big agency. We went on submission with that book for a year, and she couldn’t sell. (In hindsight, I can see she wasn’t the right agent for that book.)

Agent #2 and I also had a great working relationship, so I wasn’t going to give up. I decided to write a better, more incredible book! One that there was no way publishers could reject. Problem was, it took me three years and two complete rewrites to get it right. (More about that in future posts.) Happily, I sent “crow book” off to Agent #2, and three days before Christmas she got back to me…and dumped me.

Yep, I got dumped.

She absolutely loved my writing and the story concept, but she no longer represented YA or fantasy/paranormal type books (it was a Southern Gothic.) In the three years I shared with her sample pages she couldn’t have mentioned that?!?! **deep breath** What I learned from that relationship, she was a new agent when I signed with her, and she hadn’t shaped what genre/books she wanted to represent yet. While I worked on “crow book,” she started taking on clients in historical adult. We were no longer a fit (if we ever were to begin with.) So, I calmly thanked her for her time and moved on.

You have to understand, I’m the type of person that will turn any adversity into my advantage. Similar to tennis champ Coco Gauff’s mindset, her haters thought they were throwing water on her fire but instead it was gasoline. I used getting dumped to be the fuel to reinvent myself, yet again. Go bigger with the story. Dig deeper with the writing. And there might have been a pinch of, “She’ll rue the day she dumped me!” in there, too. Over the next nine months I rewrote that book—from scratch—for the THIRD time. (I promise, a post is coming about that too.) I completely shifted the story into a murder mystery and turned it into an adult novel. By October 2022, I started querying again.

Immediately I got seven requests from the thirty queries sent out. (Thirty is my magic number, apparently.) After two agonizing months, waiting for those agents to read it, I got an eighth request…three days before Christmas. Jill Marr with Sandra Dijkstra Literary got back to me within 24 hours of receiving my full, absolutely in love with my story. By Christmas Eve (on a Saturday no less) she was blowing up my email with excitement, already putting together her list of editors she wanted to send it to and telling me she thinks this book will sell big and sell fast. She hadn’t even offered me representation yet! Those other agents never had a chance.

By the end of January 2023 we went on sub with In the Hour of Crows, and just as Jill had promised, we sold big and sold fast—at auction for six figures to a big publisher. I’m actually getting a little teary-eyed as I write this post. Seeing my long journey on the page is a bit overwhelming. But I did it. It wasn’t luck, it was hard hard work. But after seven years (since my YA book published in 2016), I finally get to see the fruits of my labor, and it couldn’t taste sweeter.

Here’s the most important lesson to takeaway from this, walking away from my first agent forced me to reinvent myself as a writer and level up my writing. It shifted my mindset drastically, because if I wanted greater things for my career, then I had to do greater things. You can’t keep doing/writing the same things and expecting new results. These agents didn’t make or break my career, I did. I gave my current agent such a fantastic product, it was easy for her to sell. The power was in my hands all along, and I didn’t even realize it.

Want to hear a little icing on the cake? The morning my book announcement went public, Agent #2 emailed me “Wow!” with a huge congratulations. **insert smirk-face emoji**

Silliness aside, I’m here to tell you, you’ll be okay if you don’t have an agent. Whether you leave one, get dumped by one, or don’t have one yet, you’ll be okay. Everything happens in time. I wrote a Instagram post about trust the timing of your life. It’s so true. Just as friends come and go out of our lives, you might also grow apart from your agent. Or she’ll grow apart from you and won’t tell you until three years later, three days before Christmas. Most of the successful authors I know are on their second, if not third agent. This isn’t a marriage, it’s a business. Remember, your career is in your hands. Don’t settle for an agent just to have an agent. Don’t stick with an agent just because you don’t want to be without one. Listen to what your gut is telling you, then make smart decisions to move your career forward. I promise you, as scary as it might feel, the success on the other side is worth it all.

Curious to know more? Each newsletter I plan to share a piece of my writing journey. If you have questions, ask them in the Substack comments, and I’ll try to include them in the next newsletter.

Bookish News

Check out this incredible book blurb from author Paulette Kennedy! So flattering!

IN THE HOUR OF CROWS has everything I love in a good southern gothic--family drama, earthy magic married with religion, and a sense of coiling, visceral dread. Elmendorf's small Georgia town is both stifling and sensual, filled with characters so realistic you'll swear you've met them before. Enchanting, gritty, and impossible to put down.

--Paulette Kennedy, bestselling author of The Witch of Tin Mountain

I absolutely love Paulette’s books and style of storytelling. She is a master at atmosphere and rich lyrical writing. Her southern voice is spot on. And I am so grateful she blurbed my book for me.

My heart is full.

What a special month it has been. There’s so much more great things to come for this book. I’ll also keep sharing more of my writing journey. Soon E-galleys will go out (hopefully first of December.) ARCs not long after. I am grateful for all of you who want to share in my journey. Thank you for reading! Talk to y’all again soon.

xo,

Dana

P.S. Next month’s newsletter: My Writing Journey Ep. 2 - How I Advanced My Writing Skills. Where I talk about what I did to get a six-figure deal with a big publisher and what it means to “dig deeper” as a writer.

If you haven’t yet, I’d love for you to add In the Hour of Crows to your Goodreads TBR list. It’s a great way of showing the publisher this book is wanted by the reader. Thank you!