My very first book deal

After many anxious weeks of biting my tongue, I am finally able to share my good news with the world – I have a three-book deal from UK SF&F publishers Angry Robot

Back in September last year, this was only a distant, fervent dream. I met Angry Robot head honcho Marc Gascoigne at FantasyCon and pitched him my book and, despite the lateness of the hour and my nervousness, I was apparently coherent enough for him to request some sample chapters and a synopsis. These were duly sent, and a few weeks later I got a reply to say he and Lee (the editor) loved my writing – yay! – but thought that magic should play a larger role in the plot. We bounced some ideas back and forth until we had a solution we were all happy with, and I set about revising my novel along those lines.

At the end of January I sent off the complete manuscript, followed a couple of weeks later by a revised synopsis of that book plus one for a sequel, to form the basis of a potential book deal. My hopes were really up by this point, partly out of sheer keenness to work with Angry Robot but also because of Marc’s enthusiasm so far – but at the same time I was just a little bit terrified that I was being over-optimistic and setting myself up for disappointment. However barely a week later I received another email to say that the synopses had been received – oh, and by the way, they’d like to make me an offer!

Once I had calmed down a bit, I emailed John Berlyne at Zeno, who offered to represent me and negotiate the deal. After that it was just a matter of sending some more emails back and forth, signing paperwork and so on. The worst part was the waiting; signing a new client is a big deal for the agent and publisher as well as the author, so it all has to be coordinated and planned and done properly.

Anyway, now it’s all public! To find out more, including titles and publication dates, visit the Novels section of this site which, unlike this blog post, will be updated as I get more news. As for me, I’m going to pinch myself one last time, then get back to writing the next book in the series…