How Jericho Writers Helped Me Get My Book Deal

I’d enjoyed writing stories since I was a small child, but I spent most of my twenties writing non-fiction, working on my doctoral thesis in history. It wasn’t until I had my daughter, missing my office job and desperate for something to occupy my brain outside endless repetitions of In the Night Garden, that I got the idea to write a novel.

So – without any kind of plan – one night I put my daughter to bed, sat down at my computer, and began typing. I carried on every evening for three months, deliberately not scrolling back to read my words of the night before – until I got to the end, so I thought, of a wonderful work of literature. You can imagine my embarrassment when I plucked up the courage to go back and look at what I’d written! It would be another eight years, and two more unsold manuscripts, before I had a book a publisher wanted.

I spent the next five years reading every how-to-write book I could get my hands on, while writing another novel. This one was better, although at over 130,000 words it was perhaps a touch too long for historical crime fiction. Still, I submitted it to some literary agents, which was when I came across Jericho Writers for the first time. I signed up for an agent one-to-one, which was incredibly helpful. Diplomatically, the agent picked holes in my synopsis, and told me that while my writing showed promise, the book was indeed far too long. I went back to the drawing board, signing up for a Premium Membership with Jericho Writers. I watched every self-paced online course and quite a few workshop replays, and for some reason the teaching stuck in a way that reading how-to-write books never had. For the first time I learned to line edit my work properly. As if by magic, my book shrunk to under 100,000 words without needing to change anything that actually happened in it.

I submitted to agents again, and ended up with two offers of representation. I signed with the brilliant Joanna Swainson at Hardman & Swainson and we went about editing my book and submitting to publishers. Unfortunately, that book didn’t find a home. However, I didn’t give up. As well as learning through the editorial process with Joanna, I carried on using the resources at Jericho Writers and, bit by bit, improving my writing. I did, in the end, write a book which got a publishing deal. The Relics is a medieval mystery set against the backdrop of the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt and will be published by Fontana in 2027. You can find out more here or follow along on Instagram.

Five Jericho Resources that Helped Me

Self-paced courses

Yes, writing is an art, but it is also a craft. Yet we frequently expect someone to write a wonderful novel without any prior training at all. It really helped me to watch through the (numerous) courses carefully, then go back and apply what I had learned to my own work.

Masterclasses about the publishing industry

All the masterclasses (replays of the live events at Jericho Writers) are helpful, but I found it especially useful to learn about the different paths to publication, hearing from real industry professionals. You do not always need an agent, for example. If you watch a live event, you can put your own questions to the speaker.

AgentMatch

Literary agents specialise in widely different areas, with varying tastes, and it’s a waste of time submitting to someone who will pass purely because you’re writing in a genre they don’t represent. It’s far more useful to submit to agents whose interests overlap with what you’ve written. AgentMatch makes this sorting process so much easier.

Agent one-to-ones

I cannot stress how invaluable it is to seek feedback from a real person. For me, this was the first time a professional had looked at my writing.

Free query letter review for Premium Members

If you are submitting to agents, the query letter is important but surprisingly hard to write. When I used the service, it was really helpful to get feedback about where I was on the right lines, and where I needed to make changes. Jericho Writers also provides detailed downloadable guides to structuring your query letter and synopsis, or you can watch the self-paced course on getting an agent.