My adult debut, A Shot in the Dark, came out this week. I’ve been lavishing in the photos of my first romance book in the hands of readers, wrapping up the nice things people have told me in silk and holding them close to my heart.
If you’d asked me if I ever wanted to write adult, I would have said yes. If you’d asked me if I’d be writing it so soon…I’d probably have a different answer.
My first attempt to write adult was a fantasy called In The Devil’s Garden. It’s still unfinished. I originally attempted to sell it as a semi- exclusive, in proposal form, to only two editors/publishers. I got really great feedback, people liked it, but everyone said it needed to be longer than a proposal for the house to muster the money.
At the time, I had A Lesson in Vengeance to finish, so I focused on that. A little before ALIV was scheduled to come out, my agents sent me a TikTok at like 11 pm at night and suggested I write something with the same steamy trans vibes for an adult market.
I, of course, was hooked.
I slammed out the quickest proposal ever written, because adult romance proposals are easier to sell than fantasy (apparently). This was about 15k words plus a synopsis. (I’ll copy paste the synopsis down below so you can see what it looks like, but keep in mind it involves spoilers, and obviously ended up a little different in the finished book.)
We fiddled with the pages and synopsis for a bit - surprisingly not all that much? I had written the proposal like a bitch on fire, and I was really proud of it. Those first 15k words are still really close to what ended up in the final draft. (I say all the time how passion and obsession make for the best books, and I really was passionate/obsessed as I wrote these pages.)
The proposal went on sub. We got a couple of rejections to start off with, but an offer came in from Shauna (my actual editor for this book!) almost immediately after. That offer set off a chain reaction. I had several calls with different editors to figure out their styles, the revisions they were interested in, etc. Some of those editors even brought their marketing and publicity teams along, which was nuts! We ended up with multiple publishers interested! So my agents set up an auction.
This is what the auction functionally looked like:
The top three bids came with quotes of praise from marketing/publicity people, to sweeten the pot.
I had a really hard time with this one, guys. I could see myself being elated with any of the offers. Me and my agents ended up having a phone conversation outside a restaurant where my partner and I were eating dinner, me huddled under an awning because it was pouring rain, and we came to a decision.
We said yes to Shauna and Ballantine/Bantam/Dell at Penguin Random House.
I was going to be a published adult author.
As promised, I put the synopsis that I submitted as part of the proposal under the cut. It is longer than what you would probably submit as a query synopsis, but a lot of the structure of it is the same.
As an aside, if you did not know, I also offer a paid subscriber tier as part of this substack. The synopsis for A Shot in the Dark is visible for those subscribers.
In case you’re interested, here is what paid subscribers get:
Extra content, like this
Excerpts from upcoming books
Excerpts from super secret WIPs
Guaranteed personal replies to every comment
Extra tips and tidbits about querying, publishing, craft, etc.
It costs $5 a month, and I promise to make it worth it! You can also cancel at any time.
What I’m reading: A Night To Surrender by Tessa Dare
What I’m watching: 12 Monkeys (although I don’t think I will continue)
What I’m listening to: Quitcast for Writers with Becca Syme
What I’m cooking: Salmon with garlic cream sauce