Zibby Mag

By Amy Klein

If someone is interested in your book, what do you do? And more importantly, what do you wear?

I’m standing in front of the mirror wearing a teal V-neck wrap dress and waffling between an over-the-knee black boot on one foot that either telegraphs “I’m super fashionable,” or “fuck me,” and a chunky bootie that says, “I’m very laid back” or “I don’t care about fashion at all” on the other.

I was torn.

I hadn’t been sure about anything when it came to editor meetings…or was it editorial meetings? I didn’t even know what to call these jaunts with my agent to meet with various editors and publishers who might be interested in publishing my first book.

My book! I should have only been exuding pure excitement that anyone in the world would be interested in paying me to write — and I was — but I was also a bundle of nerves.

We had sent my fifty-page nonfiction proposal to many publishing houses. Which ones would want to talk to me? What if I had to settle for a low-ball offer and put my life on hold to research this self-help book for infertility? Perhaps no one would want me at all.

While there’s plenty of advice on how to write a query letter, and how to write that damn book proposal, and how to find that perfect agent, no one tells you what happens after that. If someone is — finally, miraculously — interested in your book, what do you do? And more to the point, what do you wear?

As a writer and newish mom, my wardrobe had finally graduated from nursing T-shirts to “fancier” T-shirts to cover my postpartum stomach, paired with pre-pandemic leggings. I was probably overthinking my outfit, but I was noticeably worried about selling editors on my project, my ever-important “brand” and, well, myself. Whoever that was.

“They just want to see that you’re not some crazy person, that you’re someone they could work with,” my agent said.

On the day of the first meetings, I wake up to good news in the form of a hail storm, yet I still run out of the house at daybreak to get my curly locks smoothed. By the time I get up to leave the salon, the V-neck shirt dress I’m wearing is a wrinkled mess.

I frantically run into the mom shops: Banana Republic, Ann Taylor Loft, Eileen Fisher. Why yes, Eileen, that’s a beautiful lavender cashmere sweater, but I don’t have a book deal just yet. In the window of Bolton’s — no doubt an unfashionable shop — I spot a print dress with impressionistic dashes of pink and blue recalling Modigliani. It’s so not me. But isn’t that the point?

“You look amazing!” my agent says as I rush through the door.

We get set up for our Skype meeting with the West Coast, where the editor is wearing an off-white fuzzy wool sweater and jeans and the publisher is equally casual. They like my proposal. They like my “voice.” They understand what I’m trying to do and how I’m going to do it.

I’m ready to sign on the dotted line right then and there.

But, my agent reminds me, the point of these meetings is for them to sell themselves to me. Still, I’m glad the chair in front of us in the conference room blocks my fussy hairstyle and fancy frock.

Regrettably, there’s no chair to block me at our next meeting.

I was probably overthinking my outfit, but I was noticeably worried about selling editors on my project, my ever-important “brand” and, well, myself. Whoever that was.

The next editor we meet is wearing something so fashionable I’m almost too unfashionable to notice: a white short-sleeved shirt with different tiny words scrawled on it, paired with a micro black skirt and black ballet flats I likely wouldn’t be able to afford even if I became a national best-seller twice over.

Sitting in front of the Classy Editor, I feel silly in my dress, which is not artsy after all. She makes me want to lean forward and sell myself on how I’m the right person for this book and the book is right for these troubled times. I leave the meeting like I had many dates when I was single — bemused and unsure that I’ll see that person again.

“She’s just laid back, that’s her style,” my agent says, checking if we have any other meetings coming up. “We’re going to get some passes, you know,” she adds.

Do I want her to forward me the rejections?

“Just give me the good news,” I say. Why should I devote a minute to negativity?

It should’ve been enough that I’d signed an agent. It should’ve been enough that perhaps one publisher wanted my book. But I wanted more offers, more publishers, more money — enough to take time away from the penny-pinching journalism industry. I wanted it all.

I’m relieved when my agent sets up another two meetings. This time, I don’t buy an over-the-top dress, but a silky, pale lavender T-shirt tucked into a tight black skirt. It was the closest to the Classy Editor’s look I could approximate.

My agent looks relieved by my appearance. We meet with a young, hip editor, a millennial Brooklynite whose tattooed arms are covered by a short-sleeve zebra sweater. She and her marketing director promise that they’ll make my book beautiful. She also explains how much she likes to be in touch with her writers. Not only do I want to sign right away, but I also want to hang out with her and her hipster friends.

“We’re in good shape — we have that meeting on Thursday and I’m waiting for two others to get back to me,” my agent says. “Even though you never know who’s going to make an offer.”

Is that a thing — editors wooing you and not making offers? As it turns out, yes. That’s what ends up happening with Brooklyn girl: she loved me but couldn’t sell me to the higher-ups. The other two editors we were waiting on don’t want a meeting. Because I elected not to get the play-by-play, I have no idea why.

They like my proposal. They like my “voice.” They understand what I’m trying to do and how I’m going to do it. I’m ready to sign on the dotted line right then and there.

My fourth and final meeting is with one of the most venerable publishers in the city. The editor is wearing a dark polka-dotted shirt weirdly similar to one I purchased in my weeklong shopping haze but thankfully am not wearing it now.

As for me, I feel like I finally achieved sartorial perfection. In the depths of my closet, behind the pregnancy and nursing clothes, I had unearthed a dry-cleaning bag protecting a silky white V-neck blouse. I pair it with black pants and riding boots.

This publisher and editor don’t bother to sell me. They don’t invoke similar titles; they don’t talk graphics or marketing plans; they simply have some ideas for the book that I hadn’t thought of.

“Do you have any questions?” my agent asks. I look at her and nod. I’m beginning to see that she was right; it’s less about the discussion and more about the feeling.

In the end, we are all alone. Or at least I am on the day of the auction when publishers have to make an offer by 3 p.m. I’m resigned to my momfit of leggings and a T-shirt, watching my daughter and my nephew because my husband and sister have chosen this day, of all days, to bond.

My two-year-old daughter is in her everything-is-mine-and-I’m-not-sharing phase and my nephew is in his let’s-pour-everything-on-the-floor-even-if-I’m-not-playing-with-it phase. Normally I’d be in their faces trying to stop them from killing each other — but I’m too nervous, so I plop them in front of the TV so I can stare at my email and imagine each editor raising their paddles like we were at Christie’s.

At 2:48 PM, twelve minutes before the deadline, my agent writes that the bids have started coming in. She won’t tell me from whom or for how much. Time passes. Juice boxes are spilled. Bids are offered, taken, and summarily thrown on the floor.

I am literally wiping my daughter’s butt when the call comes in: We have some final numbers. I mute my side of the call as my toddler is yelling, “Wipe me, Mama, Wipe Me!” and then race to the table to jot it all down.

I am surprised to learn that Ms. Classy Editor was the third bidder, knocked out of the two-tiered bidding my agent had set up. Now it’s between Enthusiastic Cozy Sweater from the West Coast and Warm Polka Dots from the rainy day in New York.

My agent wants me to make the decision on my own — by morning.

What to do? Whom to choose? How to decide? That first Skype meeting with California seemed like it was so long ago, so far away. And the meeting with Polka Dots in rainy New York was so fresh in my mind, so warm, so inviting.

These last few weeks feel like a whirlwind: I’d been so nervous about the meetings, now I wasn’t sure I had asked the right questions. I should have looked at these women thinking, Are you who I want to spend the next two years with? Will you take utmost care of my book and me?

I wish I could start the whole process all over again. I’d make them prove themselves to me instead of the inverse. I have no idea how to choose a publisher — a luxury to have such a decision.

By the time my sister comes and takes her kid, I am wearing sweats — real sweats, not leggings — a loose, stained T-shirt, and mismatched socks with holes in them. Perfect for an all-nighter, deliberating. Instead, I stay up until dawn watching Younger — that cotton candy show about a forty-something woman who pretends to be twenty-six so she can work in publishing.

I glean what I should have been doing the whole time: Not acting younger. Just acting confident.

At 9 a.m., I tell my agent my decision. I know both options are amazing, and there’s no way to really know which is better except to go with my gut. My bloated, hidden-under-a-stained-T-shirt-postpartum-mom gut. It’s the only one I’ve got.

New York, it is.

Now, I just have to return all the clothes.

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Amy Klein is the author of The Trying Game: Get Through Fertility Treatment and Get Pregnant Without Losing Your Mind (Penguin/Random House).