Sanctuary Editorial Success Stories: How Emily Wood got her agent and book deal

1.     We originally met through a query letter critique giveaway! Do you want to share that story with the readers?

I had actually discovered your books in my local library before finding you online! In 2022, I was preparing to query a new novel, after my unsuccessful attempt with a different project the year before. I was hopeful that my new story might have a fighting chance, but I didn’t want to blow it. I was absorbing every tip I could find and had edited my query letter within an inch of its life. But there is no substitute for fresh eyes, so when I saw your giveaway on social media offering a query letter edit, I jumped at the chance to get some personalized feedback.

Your feedback was so much more detailed than I could have hoped for.

It helped me drill into the specifics of what was at stake for the characters, and what their goals were. My sentences sounded good, but they were vague – and ultimately underwhelming. Two things you definitely don’t want your query letter to be!

The bonus that I wasn’t expecting was that you identified that my opening pages didn’t quite match the expectations my query letter set up, something that could easily deter agents.

Independently, the query letter and the opening pages were strong, but that’s not enough. They have to work as a package.

I ended up writing an entirely new opening chapter and moved the original opening scene to later on in the book. That new chapter one that I wrote made it all the way through the edits, pretty much as-is, so it must have been the right call!

2.    I'm so glad you mentioned the disconnect between first pages and query letter! That's one of the hardest to identify issues I see ALL THE TIME in queries. Even if they're strong separately, they need to work as a package.

Next, we'd all love to hear more about the book that snagged you an agent!

Just My Luck is an open-door rom-com about a thirty-year-old woman whose life falls apart in every conceivable way, just when things were supposed to be slotting into place. The business she’s launching with her best friend falls through, her boyfriend dumps her, and she discovers a family secret that shakes her sense of belonging. She retreats to her favourite aunt’s farm to regroup, but the grumpy farm hand is bent on making that impossible. He wants her gone, and she makes it her mission to outlast him, only to find out that he might be the only one who can help her get her business--and her life--back on track. There’s plenty of butting heads, shenanigans, verbal sparring, and lots of tension.  

I’m a horse girl at heart, so I loved writing a story with a farm setting. The family aspect is the real inspo for the story, though. My aunt and uncle are younger than my parents, and they jokingly asked me once how I would react if I found out they were my real parents. It made me wonder – would I feel differently?

It’s a question I come back to often. What is it that makes us feel that we belong in a family? How much does biology play into it, and how does it affect our sense of identity, and how we connect with the people in our lives?

3.     I'm a horse girl, too, which made me immediately connect to your book cover! So, tell us more about your journey to sign with an agent. How many books and how many years did it take you to sign with an agent?

I’ve written two other full novels and a few other partial ones that now live in a closet (RIP). The first was a YA book about horses (turns out I was determined to make that happen) that I wrote while I was in college.

The second was a women’s fiction which I spent eight years working on, off and on, before I queried it in 2021. I got a couple of full and partial requests, but when they were rejected, I ultimately decided to put all my efforts into Just My Luck. I’d started writing that while I was querying and was glad to have another project that I was excited about. I also knew that I had to start speeding up the writing process if I was ever going to make a career out of writing, so I managed to get that one ready for querying in under two years.

4. It's always fun to hear about The Call. Where were you when it happened? How did you know this agent was the right fit for you?

There were a lot of happy tears! I started querying in January 2023, and heard back from my now agent, the amazing Nicole Payne, in April. I remember getting excited about Nicole Payne when I came across her MSWL page. There was so much alignment there, but I tried not to let myself get too excited when she requested the full manuscript. I wanted to be happy when good things happened, but not so happy that the disappointment would crush me when things didn’t work out.

I was just on the couch with my husband, wearing sweats after dinner one night when the email came through asking to set up a call. I’d had a pretty good query response rate with requests for more pages, or the full manuscript, but the furthest I’d gotten were polite and encouraging rejections from other agents. That’s what I expected it to be. You almost tell yourself that’s what will happen so it doesn’t sting so much.

It was overwhelming in the best way. I was like oh my gosh…is this it? Is it happening? The best part was that my husband was with me, and for the first time we started imagining what could happen. I hadn’t let myself think about that reality too much.

Nicole was so lovely to talk to, and she absolutely loved the story and the characters, but she also had some great ideas to help take it to the next level. She was a newer agent at the time, but she valued my vision for the story, and for my career as an author in a way that I truly appreciated.

I was fortunate enough have one other offer of representation from an agent who had years of experience, but I felt a more personal connection to Nicole, and my gut told me she was the person who I would be able to grow with. She’s taught me a lot, is always in my corner, and I am so happy with my decision.    

5. And then you got a book deal! How did that happen for you?

We went on submission in June, and then I spent the summer not thinking about that book at all. I actually started writing another book when I was supposed to be on vacation (oops!), which is coming out next spring.

A few months later, we heard back from Rising Action, which is a women-owned, women-run independent publisher based in Toronto, which I was super excited about. All I kept thinking while I was on the initial call with my amazing editor, Alexandria Brown, was how unreal it was to hear a stranger talk about the story and the characters. It wasn’t even the fact that she liked it, it was that she was so familiar with it.

Hearing people talk about my characters like they’re real people is the coolest thing.

I trusted Alex’s vision for the story, and by December, the book deal was official and announced. It was super exciting to finally be able to tell people!

6. Was there anything you’d point to as a turning point or turning points where you really leveled up your writing?

My writing absolutely leveled up when I found a critique partner to share work with, the incredible Annie McQuaid (author of Crash Landing). I’m pretty sensitive to outside judgement, so the key for me was to find someone I trusted, and who would be gentle with their constructive feedback, and encouraging about what did work with my writing. Annie is the best writing buddy and hype person I could have asked for. Her writing and the way she sees stories continues to teach me so much. I’m also an over-writer, and she’s an underwriter, so together we make a great pair. She’s my go-to when I need to sort through a story problem, for sure.

7. What's your #1 tip for querying writers?

I don’t think anyone ever feels “ready” for the next step. You can keep tweaking your query letter forever, keep polishing your manuscript until you die. The doubt in yourself and in your work doesn’t go away. When I was doing the first round of edits for my publisher, I cringed re-reading parts of my manuscript, and at that point, I already had an agent and a publisher backing me.

You just have to learn to recognize when the doubt is critical thinking from your knowledge of your craft, and when it’s just fear taking the wheel.

For me, I don’t get any kind of magical “feeling” that my work is done. I just do my best to decide when to draw that line and put it out there. At some point you have to choose to trust yourself, trust what other people believe you can do, and be proud of what your best is, even if it’s not perfect. 

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Emily Wood writes contemporary romance with high heat, humour, and found family. She is represented by Nicole Payne at Confluence Literary Agency.

When she’s not writing or daydreaming about other people falling in love, there’s nothing she enjoys more than being at the lake with her husband and golden mountain doodle (although let’s be honest, she’s never really not writing). 

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For fans of Jen DeLuca and K.A. Tucker, a contemporary rom-com set on a small-town farm where a social media brand manager discovers love, family secrets, and the courage to show her true self.

Sloan Sanders’ perfectly curated online life is in shambles. Dumped the same day her dream business collapses and rocked by a shocking DNA test, she escapes to her aunt’s farm to regroup.

Instead of peace, Sloan finds herself knee-deep in manure and butting heads with Parker, the annoyingly hot stable hand who seems determined to make her life difficult. She thinks he’s shady. He thinks she’s an entitled princess. But as sparks fly and secrets come out, Sloan realizes the line between enemies and something more is getting blurry.

When a chance comes to prove herself and reinvent her future, Sloan needs Parker’s help. Transforming a dusty hayloft into an Instagram-worthy event space might just change everything—if she’s willing to show the world her unfiltered self.

Perfect for fans of Jen DeLuca’s Well Met and K.A. Tucker’s The Simple Wild, JUST MY LUCK is a heartwarming rom-com about identity, family secrets, and finding love where you least expect it.

Read it Today!

Willa’s dream of being hired as a photographer for music magazine Offstage is a long shot when the only people she mingles with are the customers that come into the coffee shop, but she’ll think of something. But when her brother announces he’s going to college and practically shoves her out the door, and the rock star in question sweetens the deal by offering to pay her even more and giving her the opportunity to build her photography portfolio in the process . . . Willa has to admit that it seems like the universe is sending her a message.

"I’m a horrid reviewer. I can never say what’s in my heart when it comes to books, but y’all, this book. This. Book. I want to marry it and have its book babies." - Leslie Gail, Amazon reviewer