Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Getting the Call with Rachel Simon

Ready for a dose of inspiration? This story from Rachel Simon will make you smile and make you wish we all had this kind of control when it comes to our email inbox obsessions. Let's see if we can hold off checking our email as we read all the way to the bottom of this post...you can do it!

And if you can't make it to the end, you have to admit as much in the comments!

Thanks for making our day, Rachel.

  






I got The E-mail on a Friday - May 9th, 2014 to be exact. 

And the truth was - I almost didn't check my e-mail!

I had just come home from grocery shopping and was about to settle in for some reading or Netflix or maybe both when I realized I hadn't checked my e-mail all day. Which, for a querying writer, is impressive.

I sat down, turned on my laptop and checked my e-mail. There was an e-mail from an agent who had requested the full a week before. I braced myself for yet another rejection and to my surprise it was a "I'd love to talk today, or if not, Monday" e-mail.

Wait…WHAT?

I wondered for a few minutes what kind of "call" this was. Two years prior, on a different manuscript, I'd had what I *thought* was the offer call only to find out it was a revise-and-resubmit call. I frantically instant messaged my critique partner and she definitely thought it was an Offer call. I didn't want to take the risk of the high, and yet again another fall when it wasn't an offer but yet an R&R, so I ignored her. (Note to self: never ignore CP's gut reactions!)

I e-mailed the agent to say I was free until 3 and we had a call a few minutes later. Let's just say this call went on for almost two hours, but it wasn't easy. I had no idea that my apartment had such bad service and my Call - the one I'd been dreaming about for-EVER - dropped 5 times. Yes, 5 times!! 

I frantically e-mailed everyone that I had an offer and waited. Some agents rejected, some wanted to see the full. I had two more calls the next week and I had given everyone until May 19th. To my surprise, on May 19th, I got one more offer. I'd gone to the movies to distract myself from this Very Important Day (ha!), but realized I'd forgot to turn my phone off. Luckily it was a nearly empty theater and I sat, slumped in my seat, and checked my e-mail to find a fourth and final offer. (Let's just say I need to rewatch that movie!)

I was dumbfounded. I loved this manuscript, but in a way that it was written just for me and, emotionally, the closest you could get to me in anything I'd ever written. It never would have been queried except that my critique partners and beta readers demanded I send it because they all knew it was "The One". 

 After speaking with the 4th offer, I thought about all the agents that had wanted to put their hat in the ring. I kept going back to the first agent who had offered. Her enthusiasm was above and beyond, I'd spoken to some of her clients who raved about her, and she was in love with my next WIP idea, which only had three pages written. In the end, I signed with her.

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Bio: Rachel Simon is a YA contemporary writer represented by Carrie Howland of Donadio & Olson, Inc. When she's not writing or reading, she likes traveling and binge-watching Netflix. She's been to 4 out of 7 continents and plans to go to them all…one day. She wants to grow up to be Katherine Applegate. You can find more about her at her blog or her Twitter feed

4 comments:

  1. Does it count as not "checking" if my email checks automatically, so I don't have to look until I see a notification? ;-)

    Either way, I admire your self-control. And congratulations!

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    1. My phone notifies of new emails, but it makes the same sound for twitter. My twitter is always going off and I can't tell if it's an email or a retweet. :P

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    2. You can personalize your sounds on the iPhone. I turned off all notifications of everything except my author email (typewriter sound) so I know if I'm getting something from an agent.

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