It turns out that my proposal for a book about how tattoos can communicate all kinds of messages (it was tentatively titled, Unveiling Tattoo) had crossed Lisa’s desk just after a proposal for a dream dictionary.  She then came up with the idea of putting the two together for a tattoo dictionary, starting with A and finishing with Z.  Although S&S wanted a book about tattoos, they wanted it to be a reference book.  And, as a reference book, it had to be fairly substantive, i.e., have numerous entries.

I knew that Jane had already beaten long odds to get the proposal as far as it had gotten.  It was a far cry from what I had proposed, but I jumped at the chance to write it anyway.  I said I’d be glad to write a tattoo dictionary.

The next step was talking to Lisa and making sure that we both understood what the tattoo dictionary was going to be about.  I was on board, right down the line, right up until she said that, like a dream dictionary, it didn’t need any images.

No images?  In a book about tattoos?  Hmmm.

I then talked with Jane (this is all happened on the same day, by the way) and I begged for images.  We talked about the number of dictionary entries that Lisa had in mind, as well as a word count, a due date, and the amount of the advance that they were offering.  It all seemed good except that I really felt that a book about tattoos that didn’t have any images was going to be about as appealing as dry pasta.  We hashed out how many images I thought I might need and I reasoned that it’d be ideal to have an image for every entry but acceptable to have one for every third entry.  I then made frantic phone calls to tattoo artist Greg James and he graciously agreed to do the drawings.

Jane got S&S to agree to one image for every third tattoo definition, but they insisted that all of the images had to be line art, without color and without grey shading, black lines only.  It was a severe limitation to Greg’s artistry, but once again, he accepted graciously.

In the end, Jane not only got the book hammered out to everybody’s satisfaction, she got the advance more than doubled.  Yes, that’s right, more than doubled.  I was already flying high, but this was so totally and completely a surprise that I couldn’t help but howl “You rock!” into the phone.  Despite the fact that I must have burst an ear drum, she managed to laugh.

I signed the contract not long after and, in my timeline of how to get published, where I started writing my proposal in month one, this was month thirteen, and the real work was about to begin.

Next post: Step 8.  Writing The Tattoo Encyclopedia

To recap my timeline:  At the end of month three, I had my finished proposal and query letter.  At the beginning of month four, I sent out twelve query letters.  Now, in month five, I received one request for the proposal.  I sent it immediately and, in keeping with my plan to send to agents exclusively, I waited to hear back, and it was a pass.

So, in month six, I sent out twelve more query letters.  I received another request for the proposal in month six, which was also a pass.  In month seven, I had a third request for the proposal – and then something wonderful happened.

On a weekend, I don’t remember if it was a Saturday or Sunday, we got home and there was a voice mail from Jane Dystel, saying that she’d like to represent my book.  After shouting to my husband, followed by jumping up and down, followed by some whooping, and then more jumping up and down, I replayed the voice mail.  And yes, it was just an excuse for more jumping and whooping.  Jane had left a phone number where I could get in touch with her and that’s what I did, as soon as I could breathe normally.

Out of all the days in my writing life, this is the day that I remember the best.  Oh frabjous day! Calloo! Callay!

Next post: Step 6.  Rewriting The Proposal