HOLD ME Countdown – The Day I Got The Call

15 Days to Release Day!

 

The day a writer gets “The Call” saying that somebody wants to acquire your book is a day about which many dream.  And if “The Call” is to say that an editor wants to acquire your first book, well, then the future just opens up, does it not?  It does!  When receiving such a call, the writer holds the phone receiver cradled to her cheek while, through eyes drowned with tears, she gazes into a sky filled with rainbows, and moonbeams.

So, here’s how it happened with me.

I had submitted HOLD ME to Carina Press and, after a month or two, I got an email from an editor named Rhonda with a “revise and return” request.  I about lost control of my bladder in excitement.  I had made call-backs!

It took longer than it should have, but I made the changes and resubmitted.  Then I settled back to wait for the ultimate rejection.

I’m a little insecure, okay?

I don’t think it ever really occurred to me that I’d get “The Call.”  When I let myself consider that my book might be accepted, I figured I’d get “The Email.”  Everything else had been handled through email up to this point, so I thought the acceptance would be as well.

So it didn’t dawn on me that I should actually answer my cell phone when it rang one afternoon in the Fall of 2010.  The caller’s number was unfamiliar, and I was at work.  I think there were people in my cubicle talking to me.  Besides, I’d been getting a lot of phone calls offering to lower my interest rates, and I thought it was one of them.  I looked at the incoming call, sneered, and sent the unknown caller directly to voice mail.

I was surprised when I actually got a voice mail message, because those salespeople don’t usually leave one, but I ignored it.

The next morning, I checked my cell phone and saw the voice mail message light.  “Oh, yeah,” I said.  “Maybe I should just delete it.”  Then I thought, “No.  Might as well listen.”

I dialed into voice mail and there was this woman’s voice:  “Hello, this is Angela James from Carina Press…”

What?  I listened to the message again.  Then again.  And every time I listened, it said the same thing.  Angela James, the Senior Editor from Carina Press was calling me to tell me that they wanted to acquire my book, if I was still interested.  She said that she’d sent an email.  I checked, and there was indeed an email saying basically the same thing as the voice mail.  They wanted my book.  They really did.

And then…I screamed.  And almost lost control of my bladder.

Yes, one of the most important moments in a writer’s life.  The first editor offering to acquire my first book.  The moment many writers dream of.

And I sent “The Call” to voice mail.

That’s just the way it goes sometimes.

But I did get to save the message and listen to it over and over again.