In another column for KentOnline, Broadstairs writer and dominatrix Melissa Todd reveals her joy at being signed by a literary agent – and her subsequent feelings of imposter syndrome...

I got signed by a literary agent! If you’re trying to be a writer, this is a Big Deal.

So when will your book be published, some wag on Twitter asked. Well, no, it’s not quite that big a deal. If anything, getting an agent represents a throbbing protuberance in the road towards getting my words read, for I’ve now aligned my future with a chap who’s keen I should actually make money from said words, rather than fritter them freely, like streamers on carnival day.

But it does mean that someone who knows about books believes in my book, sufficiently enough to invest time and thought into marketing it. That’s pretty cool. Even if henever succeeds in getting it published, it’s still pretty cool.

And my agent proper knows his stuff. Matthew Smith of Exprimez has been a commissioning editor and director of some huge international publishing companies, and has developed over 3,000 titles, bringing them expertly from imagination to shelf, managing every stage in between. I am in competent, experienced hands.

So why do I feel such a terrified fraudster? Well, because I don’t quite know how I’ve been this lucky, and having got over the initial glee I feel the first anxious gnawing twinges of Imposter Syndrome.

Surely this is all a mistake? Pure jam, rather than any reflection on my actual ability? After all, I’m quite good at feigning charm, when there’s something I want in sight; and I wear short skirts, and possess an established fanbase who’ll buy anything I produce, so probably that’s why I’ve been signed, rather than because I have any talent?

Well, maybe that’s true. Probably people have been signed for less. There’s no way to prove it isn’t true, so perhaps I should try to get comfortable with that idea, rather than try to reassure myself.

After all, I would rather be a published marketing genius than an unpublished literary genius: a published mediocre writer rather than a brilliant unknown.

Other writers have been largely congratulatory, although some have expressed a good honest jealous rage about my good fortune, which I rather admire. If I weren’t me I’d be sticking pins into a grotesque effigy of me. Why me, and not them? I know lots of people with more literary talent than I’ll ever possess. Why aren’t they in my position?

As the Stoics say: you only control the effort, not the results. Do your best, then forget about it. I can’t choose what impact I or my writing will make in the world. I can only try my hardest, then not worry what happens next.

“Having got over the initial glee I feel the first anxious gnawing twinges of Imposter Syndrome...”

And I believe in my book, and feel confident I’d be eager to read it, myself, which is probably all you can ask. It’s called Americaned, and tells of my journey from Boston to Texas last year, and the adventures I enjoyed along the way: it’s part travelogue, part kink, part slapstick, part idiot Englishwoman abroad.

I love travel writing. You get to experience the world without the inconvenient expensive boring bits, the queuing at airport security, trying to find tea, sacrificing comfort and a small fortune in a bid to inspire jealousy with your funky foreign Instagram postings.

My book combines travel writing with quantities of sex and Bacchanalian excess, all of which I enjoy unashamedly.

So did my agent. Hurrah!

And with a bit more jam, maybe more people will get the chance.