How I got a literary agent completely by accident

.. which is very on brand for me, really

Hi, I’m Amber Eve — author of smalltown romantic comedies, and my long-running blog, Forever Amber. If you’d like to know more about me, start here. If you’d like to hear more from me, meanwhile, hit the button below. You can also read this post on the blog.

Well, I don't know about you, but I've just had the most surreal Easter holiday of my life. OF MY LIFE.

Let's see...

On the first Monday of the school holidays, while in the middle of hosting a dinner for 14 people (Fourteen! People! Did I mention I am not good at hosting?), I got an email from a publisher offering me a book deal (A BOOK DEAL!) for the book I finished writing back in February, and had intended to self-publish long before now. So, if you’ve been wondering what on earth happened to that one… well, now you know!

This was, of course, very exciting… but it was also very confusing in a lot of ways, because, in the normal run of things, you’re supposed to get an agent and then a publisher. As is typical for me, though, I’d somehow managed to get it all back to front, and found the publisher first (Or they had found me, rather — but more on that later…), so, on Tuesday, Terry frantically contacted a bunch of literary agents on my behalf to see if anyone would be interested in helping us negotiate this deal … and, by the end of the day, I had 3 full manuscript requests, out of the 5 agents he’d contacted.¹

On Wednesday, I had a video call with one of those agents, who’d started reading the book at 9pm on Tuesday night, and wanted to speak to me about it. All of my instincts were telling me to drop to my knees and straight up beg her to be my agent, but, of course, she wanted to finish reading the book first, so she promised to do that ASAP, and then get back to me. Exciting! And also nerve-wracking! It felt a bit like that time I went to London and auditioned for a hair commercial, only thankfully without the dancing.

On Thursday, we got into the car and headed up to the Highlands for the Easter break, crossing our fingers and hoping to God we’d remembered to pack everything we needed for this trip during the chaos that was Mon - Wed, when we’d been attempting to pack while simultaneously dealing with all of this book/agent stuff, and also trying to entertain Max, who was on school holidays by this point, and apparently intent on bringing as many of his little friends into the house as possible — ideally while I was on a video call or doing something else with the potential to make or break my entire career. Excellent!

On Friday, I wrote my name in the sand on Nairn beach. That doesn’t really have anything to do with this story, to be honest, but here’s a photo anyway:

It was very, very cold…

On Saturday, we attended my cousin Melissa’s wedding, which was the reason we were in the Highlands in the first place. The wedding was lovely, the bride was beautiful, the weather was sunny ... and Max made £42 by selling the free sweets that were dotted around the place to the other guests. “Maybe Max could be my agent if no one else wants me?” I thought idly. “I feel like he’d be good at it…”

Meet my new agent and his mouthful of sweets…

On Sunday, while touring the library at Brodie Castle, I got an offer of representation from Kate Nash — the agent we’d spoken to earlier in the week — and then had to spend the rest of the tour pretending to be interested in ancient castle-y things, while internally screaming, “OMG, I GOT AN OFFER FROM AN AGENT. I COULD BE A PERSON WITH AN AGENT.”² We had a few questions about the contract, though, so I emailed them to Kate, and then we packed up and prepared to head to our next location — Glen Clova Hotel and Lodges in the Cairngorms National Park, which I’d been invited to review for my blog.

On Monday, we drove for almost five hours, stopping for a quick break in Aberdeen … which was where I got an email from another agent saying she hadn’t had time to read the book yet as she’d been ill, but she was going to make it her top priority, and get back to us ASAP. I literally died. “This will probably come to nothing, though,” I told Terry confidently that night. “I bet she won’t even even read it, let alone want to represent me. I mean, what are the odds of two agents being interested in me?”

Well, it turns out the odds were apparently higher than I thought, because, on Tuesday morning, while at our lodge at Glen Clova, I got an email from the second agent saying she’d read the book and was ALSO interested in potentially representing me. Now I had to choose between two different agents — a situation which briefly made me start wondering if I’d actually fallen ill at some point during Monday’s dinner party, and everything after that had been some strange kind of fever dream, because that’s how surreal it all was. By this point, however, I’d already decided I wanted to sign with Kate Nash, and, fever dream or not, we were still on holiday, and it wouldn’t have been very fair to Max to make him sit around a lodge all day discussing literary agents (Even though Max would probably have been up for it, given that he has an opinion on literally everything…) so we got ready and headed to Glamis Castle … which is where I was when I got the final version of the contract through from Kate … just two minutes before she was due to finish up for the day. “Why am I always in a CASTLE when stuff happens to me?”³ I wailed, in what is possibly the most ‘Scottish romance author’ thing I’ve ever said.

On Wednesday, I finally signed the contract with Kate Nash Literary Agency, and officially became an agented author. In related news, this was also the first time I had a decent night’s sleep since I got the offer from the publisher, because, by this stage, all of the uncertainty had really started to get on top of me. I was supposed to be on holiday, and taking some time to relax, but all I could think or talk about was agents and contracts and book deals, and what might or might not happen next, so … yes. I was a lot of fun to be around, I’m sure. Apologies to everyone who had to deal with me during this time.

On Thursday, we went to the House of Dun, which is NOT a castle, just a really big house. Nevertheless, that’s where I was when I got another important email from Kate — MY AGENT — detailing the conversation she’d just had with the prospective publisher. Terry and I spoke about this email and its contents obsessively for the rest of the day and long into that evening. We’re still talking about it now, in fact. So, more fun for us!

On Friday, we drove home — still talking about The Email and all of the questions it had raised — feeling like we’d been gone for weeks, as opposed to just nine days.

Aaanddd….

… that brings us pretty much up to date, really. Of course, I really wanted to be able to end this post by telling you I have a book deal as well as an agent, but, alas, the world of traditional publishing moves painfully slowly, so… let’s just say that particular part of the story is to be continued. I know, bit of an anti-climax, really, isn’t it? Maybe I just need to visit a castle, to see if that speeds things up a bit? Anyone got a handy castle I could borrow? Anyone at all? No?

For now, though, it’s back to business as usual — which is actually taking a bit of getting used to after the surreal whirlwind that was the Easter holidays. The thing is, though, even if this deal does go ahead, in real terms nothing much will change; I’ll get a (very) small advance, yes, but I won’t be able to start earning royalties until after the book is published — and, even then, the sad truth is that most authors are … not rich. So, right now, I’m back to working on book number 9, which I started writing just before the holidays, and which I’m still planning to self-publish, because, well, a girl’s gotta eat. And also pay for all of those books she keeps buying in the name of ‘research’ apparently.

(Oh, I’ll also probably still be doing freelance editing in a bid to stay afloat, which … yes.)

There is, of course, a lot more to say about all of this — I obviously didn’t just get an offer from a publisher completely out of the blue, for one thing — but I think I’ve rambled on for long enough for one newsletter (plus, this book isn’t going to write itself, much as I wish it would…), so that, too, is going to have to be another story for another time.

Finally, I know it can be really cringe when authors apologize for not sending out their newsletters according to the strict schedule only they know about, but I hope this explains the recent radio silence here. I had actually intended to try to bash out a newsletter while we were away, but, honestly, between the weddings, and the birthdays⁴, and the packing, and the video calls, and the dinner-parties-for-14, and … well, all the castles … even if I’d had the time to sit down and write something, my head’s been so scrambled from everything that I feel a bit like I haven’t been able to think clearly for weeks now. It would be fair to say I do not cope well with uncertainty — or, indeed, with the lack of routine that comes with the school holidays, when I’m frantically trying to juggle childcare with all of the other things that need to be done, and trying to keep Max happy and entertained, and not feeling like he’s missing out on some kind of seminal childhood Easter experience.

But here we are: and, of course, it goes without saying that I’m incredibly grateful and excited to be here, because, however surreal and occasionally stressful the last couple of weeks have been, I’m very aware that my journey to getting an agent (and hopefully a book deal at some point) has been at least 100 times easier than most people’s — mostly because it’s all happened completely by accident — so trust me when I tell you I don’t take any of this unusual run of luck for granted. I’m hoping to have some more book news for you soon, but for now I have to go and crack on with book number 9… so if anyone needs me, um, I guess you can talk to my agent…

Until next week,

P.S. If you’d like to stay in touch, you can also follow me on Instagram, TikTok, and Threads.

1. Meaning 3 of those agents asked to read the manuscript so they could decide whether the book was a good fit for them, and if they wanted to represent me/it.

2. At one point the tour guide asked if we had any questions, and I had to stop myself from putting my hand up and saying, “Yes, do you think I should go with THIS agent or wait for one of the others to get back to me? WWYD?”

3. If you’ve ever visited a Scottish castle, you’ll know they tend to have very thick walls and therefore really shit internet /phone coverage, which made it really quite difficult for me to keep up with all of these emails. So that’s something to be aware of if you’re ever thinking of buying a castle.

4. Did I mention it was my mum’s birthday on the same day as my cousin’s wedding?