My First Sale by Leon Husock

 From Publisher's Lunch

Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Holly Jennings's VIRTUAL REBEL, a New Adult science-fiction about a near future where virtual reality gladiatorial combat is the new popular pro sport and a 20-year-old is the first female captain in the league, to Anne Sowards at Ace, in a nice deal, in a two-book deal, by Leon Husock at L. Perkins Agency (World).

Selling my first book didn’t really play out the way I had imagined it.  In my head I would get a call from an editor with an offer, we’d haggle a bit and agree on an advance and terms on that first phone call (hah!).  I’d hang up, do a little victory dance and call all my friends and family to tell them about it.  It would be a moment of sheer triumph and exultation.  Then, despite the fact that not one of my authors lives in the tri-state area, we’d somehow all end up in a room at a publisher signing the contract together, in person.  Afterwards I would go out for drinks with my friends and celebrate.

I did get the phone call from the editor.  Admittedly, I got it while I was at the gym and had a brief conversation in the gym lobby, covered in sweat, before telling her I’d have to call her back later.  That was the beginning, and while it was certainly exciting, it wasn’t quite final enough for that moment I was looking forward to.  The negotiations were conducted alternately over phone and by email, and all told they took about two weeks and, though the haggling is done, the contract has yet to be signed.  There wasn’t really a single moment where it felt done, and so I have yet to get those drinks with my friends.

            It wasn’t the big first sale I was hoping for, but it wasn’t insignificant.  I realized afterwards that you read about authors selling first books for hundreds of thousands of dollars often enough that it’s sort of what you expect.  Of course, when I thought about it I realized that the reason you read about it is because when it happens it’s newsworthy.  So I didn’t quite get that moment I was hoping for, but having sold that book gives me a quiet confidence about the future which is, perhaps, just as valuable to me.  Any career you have yet to succeed in inevitably fills you with a certain unease about your prospects; now that that first book is sold all the others I might sell in the future have become infinitely more tangible and concrete.  Plus, I think I’ve finally convinced my parents I have a real job.