Well, I was all worked up to unleash a little ranty-rant about the schmagenty agent antics* I’ve been hearing about lately.
(*Not at agents, I love my agents etc etc)
But before I got a chance to rant write a thoughtful, balanced nuanced post about these antics, I got swept away by an obsessive deep dive into book titles.
Specifically, I’m putting a lot of time into pinning down the exact right title for Book 3, because the right title can be, in my experience, a BIG potential selling point.
And as I was falling down the title research rabbit hole, it struck me that it might be helpful to show you the inner workings of how the title for my debut novel THE MARRIAGE VENDETTA was arrived at (it wasn’t straightforward), and why it was chosen.
The process turned out to be trickier than expected and culminated in one of the most dramatic (in a bad way) moments of my publication journey, but my agent and editors on both side of the Atlantic were extremely understanding and the problem was resolved with a level of kindness that I won’t forget and a compromise was reached.
Publishing DOES have a heart! 💖
But first…
Thanks to the super-supportive subscriber who sent this to me (I love when people send me info they know I’ll find useful/enjoy — it’s usually feminist memes but agent updates are much appreciated too!):
Marilyn Biderman of the Transatlantic Agency in Toronto, Canada has opened to queries and is looking for upmarket women’s fiction/accessible literary fiction and historical fiction.
You can query Marilyn here - good luck!
💖Rising Tide Writers Community Corner! 💖
I’m thrilled that members of the Rising Tide Writers tribe are achieving such great things lately.
✨Huge congrats to Laurie MacIntosh whose writing has been selected (from over 700 entries!) for inclusion in the upcoming Lemon Jelly Press anthology, By Morning, The Sea had Taken It, which looks gorgeous.
A number of other Substack writers are included too, so if you’d like to support them, Laurie and Lemon Jelly Press, you can pre-order here!
✨I’m also madly impressed by Diane Roth who has pivoted into humour with great success. Her very first humour piece was published by Belladonna Press over on Medium and was their MOST READ PIECE FOR JUNE!!! 🥳🙌🍾
And because of this traction, the Belladonna editors asked Diane to do an ‘author spotlight’ Q&A — read it here!
Also, if you’re querying, do take a look at Diane’s brilliant post from earlier in the week. She polled 10 literary agents on Substack to find out whether or not writers should include a one-sentence pitch in their query letter.
By now, it’s indisputable that a strong concept/hook is an incredibly valuable selling point for your novel.
But a strong title can also do a lot of leg-work for you, even if it has to be changed later down the line.
My debut novel started out life as a three-word title.
That’s all I had: a sudden flash of inspiration one day.
The words ‘The Husband Whisperer’ popped into my mind.
Those three words came with a concept baked in. The title encapsulated the hook. Already I could see the story rolling out in front of me.
Years ago, as part of my work as an equestrian journalist, I’d been on a horse whispering course in the Cotswolds (this is not a metaphor or a joke — I did actually complete a horse whispering course… and I was actually quite good at it 🤣).
And it struck me how darkly funny it would be if an unorthodox marriage therapist applied strange ‘whispering’ techniques to recalcitrant domestic males. (Yes, I have a warped mind, that’s why I’m a writer 💅)
So anyway off I went and wrote the book in a blaze of lockdown-induced fury and when I started entering competitions, the title got attention, with feedback saying things like, ‘LOVE that title!’.
And when I was signed by my wonderful former agent, there was no question of changing the title before going out on submission.
And when I got deals on both sides of the Atlantic, it was full steam ahead for The Husband Whisperer.
But then, later in the process: a hitch.
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