I’ve continued to submit my book to one or more agents every weekend (the first step is to get an agent, usually). Today I submitted my book to Hay House (a publisher which does accept unsolicited manuscripts); due to the volume of submissions this is now via a form (rather than sending cover letter, sample chapters etc) where there is space for a 500 word synopsis. I’d previously honed my synopsis down to about 300 words so I tacked on some details about me and where I see the book fitting, the kind of information I would usually put in the cover letter.
I’ve used the agent search facility at Jericho Writers and the one at Writers and Artists. I’ve looked around the bookshop for titles in some way similar to my own and googled who the authors’ agents are. Friends have told me about similar books and I’ve searched my memory and found and submitted to those agents. Right now I have no more on my list.
So I thought I’d ask the WordPress community. I’m going to paste what I submitted to Hay House in full below. Who knows, it may help one of you who are writing your submissions. If when reading it you think of any books that in some way resonate with my story, please do let me know in the comments so that I can google the author’s agent. And if there is anything I can do in return- read a sample of your manuscript, provide motivation or any advice on your projects, please do let me know.
With very best wishes
Rachel
I fell in love with you and I cried, a spiritual, personal and travel memoir of a year in India and Southeast Asia, complete at 113,000 words.
In April 2017 my husband and I asked ourselves: What would we do if we could do anything? It was scary but we decided to sell up, leave our jobs and go travelling, along the way unpicking the conditioning of property, career and security and exploring what a life with less stuff would look like. We gave away most of our possessions and in March 2018 we went travelling for a year to India (where we spent seven months in all), Thailand, Tokyo, Nepal, Cambodia and Vietnam.
My book documents the trip through the eyes of a relatively inexperienced traveller. The sights, sounds and colours of India and Southeast Asia, the physical and emotional ups and downs, my anxieties and my increasing confidence, the connections we made and the fascinating people we met.
I share the personal challenges, discussions, reflections and spiritual realisations of a year of travel and a mid life rebirth; the search for meaning and reclaiming ones purpose and the process of separating from family and becoming someone new. All wrapped up with noticing beauty- the external environment and the internal world intertwined.
It is also in part a mental health memoir documenting moments of despair and suicidal feelings. My journey is about self acceptance and finding a way to forgive myself for mistakes of the past. It’s also about living before it’s too late and trying and learning to be happy.
This was a pre Covid19 trip of a lifetime, making connections with local people and fellow travellers and putting beliefs about minimalism into practice by living out of a small backpack for a year of slow travel.
I have a long running personal blog with readers who are supportive of me personally and have followed my travel journey with great interest, commenting that my travel writing makes them feel as if they are there too and admiring my honest vulnerability.
I have been a dedicated writer for years, attending creative writing classes, self publishing small books (Self help for the suicidal (Rachel Doran), Make it Happy: a short guide to long term relationships (Rachel and John Hill), and How to find Heaven on Earth: love, spirituality and everyday life (Sadie Wolf) the memoir of my spiritual awakening, and am a published writer of short stories of women’s erotica under the name Sadie Wolf with Black Lace and Xcite Books.
I feel my book will appeal to people who enjoyed All the Way to the Tigers by Mary Morris, Wild by Cheryl Strayed, Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, A Round-Heeled Woman by Jane Juska and The Salt Path by Raynor Winn.
PS My husband came across this fascinating article. I go to work in a responsible job, manage in society (well just about) while at the same time I have felt all the states described. ‘The mind is as big as space,’ as my old meditation teacher once told me.
Rachel 