Ask an author: How did you find the submissions process?

Curious about what it’s like to submit a book to Mushens Entertainment? Author Lia Louis writes about how she found the submissions process and what it is like to get an offer of representation!

Tell us a little bit about yourself!

Hello! I’m Lia Louis and I’m a writer of commercial women’s fiction – my first novel, Somewhere Close to Happy came out in 2019, and my next novel, Dear Emmie Blue – a romance about a girl called Emmie who found her best friend (and the man she secretly loves) when he found the balloon she let go of, hundreds of miles away - comes out this summer in both the US and UK! 

When and how did you write the manuscript you submitted?

Somewhere Close to Happy had been a novel that I had written and tinkered with, before dismantling and starting over a lot, from 2010 and maybe earlier, really! It’d had almost-success agent wise, but it never quite got there, with agents citing ‘not enough plot’ and beta readers telling me I’d needed more. After I had twins in 2016, I was suddenly aware of how precious my time was. Looking after them was so all-consuming, so hard, and writing my book became my way of surviving – snatching tiny bits of time just for me when I felt my identity had been totally lost (even if I did write a lot of it on my phone while feeding and watching the washing pile up!). I finished it in summer 2017, then polished and polished until autumn 2017, and I sent my first batch of agent queries out on Halloween 2017! 

Why did you choose to submit to Juliet?

I’d followed Juliet on social media and admired her from afar for some years before finishing a book and loved how strong and driven and passionate she came across. I also read an interview with her in Psychologiesmagazine during one of my darkest hours, and found her self-confidence and self-belief so inspiring and refreshing. I read it and thought ‘I would love someone like that in my corner.’ She was my number one dream agent – when she replied wanting the full manuscript (December 30th, 2017!) I screamed and burst in on my poor partner who was mid-relaxing bath, shouting ‘JULIET MUSHENS WANTS TO READ MY BOOK!’

How did you find the submissions process?

Juliet’s submission guidelines are really straight forward, clear and to the point, and I made sure to pay exact attention to these, as agents do ask for different things, meaning when I did submit (I chose 6 to submit to at a time), I did have to tweak what I sent. 

If I am absolutely honest, I found submitting probably 20% exciting and electrifying, 80% terrifying and anxiety-inducing! The exciting bit is once you’ve honed your package (your submission, your cover letter, your synopsis!) and you’re thinking, ‘Yup, it’s all officially as best-as-I-can-get it,’ and pressing send. You feel like you’ve taken this huge step out of your comfort zone and put yourself out there. You’ve pressed send, you’ve sent your ‘baby’ into the world, and there is a chance that one of those email replies might change your life. But in my experience, once that’s worn off, the fear creeps in and the email refreshing becomes utterly exhausting! I was really down in the dumps after I sent my manuscript off and the adrenaline wore off, and I just convinced myself it would be nothing but rejections! But I heard from Juliet eight weeks after pressing send, during the Christmas holidays. ‘Would you please send me the full manuscript?’ her email said. By January 15th, we were having coffee in Soho. It was a gorgeous whirlwind.  

What was it like getting an offer of representation?

It changed my life. I remember sitting at my laptop at 11pm, while everyone was asleep, reading the email offer, and thinking, ‘my dream has come true.’ It felt dizzying and I walked around for days after with butterflies in my stomach. I didn’t eat! I didn’t sleep! I just walked around thinking, ‘I can’t believe someone like this thinks I can actually be an author.’ I cried a lot. The realisation of all that hard work, all those tears, being worth it. I’ll never forget it!

What words do you have for authors who are thinking about submitting to Mushens Entertainment?

Firstly, make sure your submission package is as good as you can absolutely get it. If you feel like your book could do with a little bit of editing, if you feel deep down you could probably make your letter even better, then do it and trust your gut on this. I treated my cover letter like another project in itself in the end (after a few near misses with a not-ready book). I spent weeks online every night in bed, reading sample cover letters, successful letters, essays on submitting to agents (Jessie Burton has a great blog post on this) and making notes as I went. If you’re happy (well, as happy as writers can ever be!) with your chapters and your letter, then that takes away the anxiety of ‘I could’ve sent something better’ as the anxiety arrives anyway, and you want to be able to say ‘Well, I sent my very best work, and that is all I can do.’

I would also say, please don’t be disheartened if you don’t hear straight away. Everyone hears of those stories – about agents getting back to authors within 12 hours, and 24 hours later they had 8 agents vying for their attention. The time an agent takes to reply just means they probably haven’t got to it yet. I waited eight weeks for my first full manuscript request, and I had another a few days later, proving that not getting a reply straight away means they probably just haven’t read it yet!

And don’t give up. I know it sounds twee, but it’s the thing that pulls me through even now. Writing a book is hard. Submitting to agents is hard. Being on submission is hard. But keep chipping away. If you give up, you’re guaranteed to never get there. All good things are worth waiting for!