Debut Author Rachel Harrison on Letting Go Of Some Control

Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. Always including in the WHAT is one random question to really dig down into the interviewees mind, and probably supply some illumination into my own as well. 

Today’s guest for the WHAT is Rachel Harrison, author of The Return.

Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?

I vaguely remember coming up with the concept. I write really early in the morning so a lot of what I come up with is in a pre-caffeinated haze. I love to write about relationships, especially friendships. My relationships with my friends are very important to me, I love my friends, but our dynamics can be complicated sometimes. I wanted to explore that in my writing. More specifically, The Return is about what happens when your friends change, and the fear of losing them. I think the origin of this book was really a mix of personal experience and a vision for a more feminine, kitschy version of The Overlook hotel from The Shining. 

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

I created a detailed outline for The Return. I went to college for screenwriting, and sometimes my screenwriting background is a disadvantage when writing prose, other times it’s an advantage. When it came to plotting out The Return, it was definitely an advantage, because I felt I was able to have a clear vision of the arc of the story, what beats it should hit. Doesn’t always work that way! I got lucky with this book. 

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?

100%! I’m a teensy bit of control freak, so it was a hard lesson for me to learn, but I think as a writer you need to follow your gut and allow yourself some flexibility. Sometimes your characters chime in, and sometimes what clicks in an outline doesn’t align with how things are progressing in your prose and you have to adjust. Change can be good – though, being a teensy, tiny, itty-bitty bit of a control freak, I’m reluctant to admit it!

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?

I usually have ideas come to me pretty often (*knocks on wood*). For me, the challenge comes with executing the ideas well. Because of my screenwriting background, I was basically trained to think of very high-concept ideas that could be summed up in a log line. But sometimes those high-concept ideas don’t work on paper. I try not to get too attached to my ideas. I casually date my ideas, then decide if we should commit or break up. 

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?

I typically only have one idea at a time. I fancy myself a monogamist. I’m really running with this relationship metaphor. In the spirit of full transparency, I have to admit that I have, on occasion, had mistresses. I’ve definitely been 20,000 words into a project and had a mistress idea. A new idea that tempts and distracts me. Then I have to make a judgement call. If I’m really obsessed with my mistress and she’s all I can think about, then I need to figure out if I should finish my current project or abandon it for my mistress.

I have 5 cats (seriously, check my Instagram feed) and I usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting?

I have one cat, her name is Gatsby, and she keeps me company sometimes, but she can be very distracting. She is a brat and demands constant attention. I like silence when I write, and she does not abide! My husband has learned to leave me alone and stay quiet while I’m writing. He’s a good sport!

Diana Urban On Managing Your Expectations While On Sub

If there's one thing that many aspiring writers have few clues about, it's the submission process. There are good reasons for that; authors aren't exactly encouraged to talk in detail about our own submission experiences, and - just like agent hunting - everyone's story is different. I managed to cobble together a few non-specific questions that some debut authors have agreed to answer (bless them). And so I bring you the submission interview series - Submission Hell - It's True. Yes, it's the SHIT.

Today’s guest for the SHIT is Diana Urban, an author of dark, twisty thrillers, including All Your Twisted Secrets (HarperTeen). When she’s not torturing fictional characters, she works in digital marketing for startups. She lives with her husband and cat in Boston and enjoys reading, playing video games, fawning over cute animals, and looking at the beach from a safe distance.

How much did you know about the submission process before you were out on subs yourself?

Well, first of all, I was on submission four times before landing my book deal for All Your Twisted Secrets. So let’s start at the beginning. 

The first time I was on sub, I knew nothing. I hadn’t researched how to get published until I was ready to send my first manuscript… somewhere? Anywhere? I was vaguely aware that I’d need a literary agent, so I Googled how to get one. I quickly discovered that #PitMad was later that week — a Twitter pitch contest where agents “like” pitches as an invitation to query. I tweeted my pitch, knowing nothing about the publishing industry, the author community, or the submission process. Yet a few days later, I had my first offer of representation. Several offers followed, with agents throwing around phrases like “the next Hunger Games” and “probably a two-hundred thousand dollar advance.”

So I went on sub with sky-high expectations. At the time, I wasn’t even aware of how difficult it was to land a literary agent. I assumed publishing normally moved this fast. OH PAST-DIANA, YOU SWEET SUMMER CHILD. 

That book wasn’t the next Hunger Games. That book didn’t get a two-hundred thousand dollar advance. After a year and a half on sub, that book didn’t sell at all.

I was crushed. I think if I’d known more about the submission process from the get-go, I would have had more realistic expectations, and the results wouldn’t have been so devastating. But public information was sparse; in fact, the SHIT series on this blog was my primary source of information, and there were fewer posts back then. 

Fast-forward to signing with my third agent, and I had more experience and industry insight under my belt. I’d been on sub three times, had completed four editor R&Rs that went nowhere, and had many friends who’d been on sub with a wide array of agents. I learned how fickle the industry is, and how timing and luck play enormous roles in this process. So the fourth time I was on sub, I knew a lot. And I knew to keep my expectations low. You get less hurt that way. 

Did anything about the process surprise you?

It surprised me that landing an agent is absolutely no guarantee that you’ll land a book deal. I have many friends who also had multiple agents before selling, and many friends who haven’t sold yet, even after being on sub 8+ times. And the most surprising thing of all is: this is normal.

It’s weird that something so normal is so surprising. But if you look at social media, you see good news and happy book deal announcements all over the place. So that seems like the norm. But it’s not like authors are tweeting things like, “I’m thrilled to announce that my agent and I have pulled my book from submission!” You’re not seeing all the waiting, all the rejections, all the second, and third, and fourth tries. 

So to anyone out there gobbling up every post in this SHIT series looking for reassurance, here it is: You are not alone. You’re not the only one who feels left behind. Far from it.

Did you research the editors you knew had your ms? Do you recommend doing that?

I did and I absolutely do not. 😂 The first three times I was on sub, I asked my agents for the names of the editors along with the imprints. Then I’d create private Twitter lists these editors and would check that feed about three bajillion times per day, looking for clues that someone was reading and/or loving my manuscript. DON’T DO THIS. 

My fourth time on sub, I explicitly asked my agent not to give me editor names, only imprint names. I didn’t want to be tempted to look. And I was much happier that way.

What was the average amount of time it took to hear back from editors?

This varied tremendously. During my first three times on sub, it would usually take 2-3 months for the first responses to start trickling in. There were a lot of responses after 8-10 months, and some editors would never respond. And I usually would go on a second round of sub somewhere between 4-6 months.

During my fourth time on sub, we got the first response within a week, and had heard back from half of the first round of editors within a month. We went on a second round of sub after only two months. I was on sub for about four months before selling to HarperTeen. This felt lightning fast compared to my past experiences!

What do you think is the best way for an author out on submission to deal with the anxiety?

The biggest piece of advice I could give is to reframe your thinking around your need for control. Think of it this way: Once your manuscript is in your agent’s hands, your actions won’t sell your book any faster.* Checking your email accomplishes nothing. Stalking editors on Twitter accomplishes nothing. Checking your author website’s Google Analytics for traffic from NYC accomplishes nothing. (Yeah, I’m not proud of that one.) Writing your next book accomplishes something. You can control your creative output. 

Of course, “write another book” sounds so cliché, but you really should — not only to distract yourself, but to have another project with which to go on submission in the (likely) event that your current project doesn’t sell. And if your current project does sell (yay!), you’ll have a nice head start on your option book (or book #2 in your contract). Always be writing!

I also recommend befriending authors at the same stage as you that you could vent with any time. I’ve bonded with many authors this way, but special shout-out to Shana Silver, Mike Chen, and Dan Koboldt for being on-call pretty much 24/7 over the years. 😂 

Another thing that really helped me during round #2, #3, etc. was RPG video games. I beat Skyrim and Fallout 4 during this time! Find something completely enjoyable outside of publishing that you can fully immerse yourself in.  

*Caveat: Signing with an agent I trusted, Jim McCarthy, helped a lot — I trust in his relationships with editors in my genre, his knowledge about who to match projects with, his effectiveness to get responses, and his timeliness to reply to me. That took a LOT of the anxiety out of the waiting game for me this time around. (For authors still querying: Do your research, ask lots of questions on the offer call, and speak to existing clients!)

If you had any rejections, how did you deal with that emotionally? How did this kind of rejection compare to query rejections? 

Badly.

But you get used to it.

In the early years, the rejections hurt a lot — and more severely than query rejections — because I felt so close to the end goal, yet so unbelievably far (and farther each rejection, since the pool of editors is so small). Querying was easier because with each rejection, I could fire off a new query. When you’re on sub, there’s nothing you can do to boost your odds. 

Over time, the rejections were easier to take, simply because I got used to them. I racked up 120+ editor rejections and non-responses over the years before getting “The Call.” After a while, you just get numb. 

If you got feedback on a rejection, how did you process it? How do you compare processing an editor’s feedback as compared to a beta reader’s?

The level of feedback I got varied over the years. In my experience, editors used to give more concrete reasons for rejecting. With my first novel, unlike my beta readers (who each offered similar feedback), the feedback was all over the place and contradictory. It gave me no solid basis for revising between submission rounds. But at least I got a sense for why each individual editor was rejecting — and I learned how incredibly subjective this business is. And that was surprisingly reassuring. 

During my second and third times on sub, I got four R&R requests, and had concrete feedback from which to revise. Unlike beta reader feedback, where I felt free to choose which feedback to incorporate, I wanted to take action on all of the editors’ feedback — they were the specific people I wanted to impress right now. (With one exception: There was a 5th R&R request I didn’t do because I didn’t agree with the feedback.) But most of the editors responded with vague “this isn’t for me” passes, or didn’t respond at all. So for the most part, there was nothing to process, which was more confusing than anything.

My fourth time on sub, HarperTeen asked me for a partial R&R — they wanted me to change the weapon in the room and to reduce the number of characters locked in. By this time, I was jaded about R&Rs. I’d already spent so much time revising projects that ultimately got shelved, and was wary to “waste” more time. But I had a fantastic call with my now-editor. I could hear her enthusiasm for my story, as well as my ideas for tackling the revision. And it was reassuring that she was only asking me to revise 50 pages — it felt like she loved the project, and all her team needed to know was that I could pull off the edits. So I went in with a bit more confidence than my previous R&Rs.

When you got your YES! how did that feel? How did you find out – email, telephone, smoke signal?

My editor had read my revision just before BookExpo, but needed to wait until after the conference to get the rest of her team to read. I could relate; I work in publishing and go to BookExpo each year, and know how everything else gets pushed to the back-burner. So I expected it would be months before I’d hear back — which is what you expect after four years on sub, I mean, come on.

But it happened the Wednesday after BookExpo. I was busy writing an article at work, and my phone rang for what seemed like the umpteenth time that day — I’d been getting so many spam calls lately, but I always answered just in case. It wasn’t a 212 number (a common NYC area code), and I expected more spam. So I barked, “Hello?”

My agent replied, “Uh… hi? It’s Jim.” 

I kid you not, my stomach dropped into my uterus.

I sprinted across the office to the nearest available conference room, and it was THE CALL. HarperTeen was making an offer. I couldn’t believe it had finally happened. I couldn’t believe the book had gone to acquisitions so quickly. I couldn’t believe any of it. After hanging up with Jim, I immediately called my husband, and shrieked, “IT HAPPENED!!!!” He thought something terrible happened and kept trying to find out what was wrong until I finally coherently conveyed the good news.

After I called my parents to scream a bit more, I slinked back to my desk with a huge grin plastered across my face. My coworker who sat across from me, clearly suspicious, messaged me on Slack: “So how are things post-BookExpo?” Me: “Things are great because I JUST GOT THE CALL!” This led to a scene straight out of a sitcom; she announced the offer to the whole office, and there was clapping, hugging, and lots of blushing profusely on my part. 

Did you have to wait a period of time before sharing your big news, because of details being ironed out? Was that difficult?

I had to wait about three months for the contract to be finalized before announcing via Children’s Bookshelf. The first month or so was easy — I already knew my book was getting published, and that’s what mattered! — but then I started getting a bit antsy keeping such a huge secret. But it was worth it when the email went out, and people started tweeting at me immediately. I couldn’t even post the announcement I’d prepared right away because I was sobbing so hard. I couldn’t believe it was really happening. I still can’t believe it’s happening, and here we are.

Suggestions for Great Book Cover Design for Independent Authors

People will often judge a book by its cover; that’s normal because there are simply so many books out there that it can be overwhelming trying to choose your next read. That’s why as an independent author you should be designing an engaging and memorable book cover. Something that’s unique and different can drive a potential customer to look at it with more interest. Here are the top suggestions for getting a great book design.

1. Hire a Professional Designer

As an author, you’re probably a great writer but you don’t have much experience creating a book cover. That’s why you should hire a designer that has experience and can make sure your cover is optimized to appeal to readers. Look at their design portfolios and styles and hire one that works in your budget. On top of designing it, they can explain to you the different aspects of a successful cover.

2. Come Up with a Unique Concept

Once you have your designer, you need to decide your cover concept. Discuss with your designer the theme for the book, and if you can, they should read your book as well. Afterwards, you can develop the concept.

3. Choose One Element to Emphasize

As per George Ford, creative writer at Dissertation Writing Service and Essay Help, “a good book cover should have only one element highlighted. That’s because you want one particular thing to dominate the whole cover and draw in your customers’ eyes. That can be either an image, a symbol, an object, or even text.”

4. Play with Sizing

You need to have some different sizes and scales for your cover because if everything is the same size, nothing will stand out. Make one of your elements in a bigger size to draw the attention. For new authors, you don’t want that to be your name since no one knows it. Instead, focus on the title of the book.

5. Don’t Clutter the Cover

If you have too much going on on your cover, such as images, type, and more, it will create what’s known as visual noise. Too many aspects will be fighting for the viewer’s attention. Floyd Weir, a business writer at Professional Essay Writer and Assignment Writing, says “that means the viewer won’t know what’s the core message and won’t be appealed by this cover. To avoid clutter, don’t use too many colors, fonts, or quotes.”

6. Choose Your Typography

Using the right typography has a big impact on your big cover. Colors speak to our emotions but the typeface will give your design a personality. Use only one or two so the cover isn’t too busy, and try to stay away from all caps typefaces. Play around with different weights and options and try different combinations. Don’t use font smaller than 8 points, and don’t outline it because that’s rarely a pleasant look. 

These are the main points to think about when you design your book cover. If you’re in doubt about any step, consider hiring a professional. 

Bea Potter, a writer and editor for Custom Essay and Assignment Writer services, helps independent writers and artists get successful. She enjoys helping them with marketing and social media strategies and is passionate about giving indie artists a platform. In her spare time, she travels and writes at BoomEssays about her adventures.