Holy crap.
May 1, 2015
So.... I have news.
The Graces, my new novel, has sold. To... quite a few places, as it turns out.
Here are the places so far (with the specific imprint of each publisher it has sold to in brackets):
U.K. - Faber & Faber (Faber Children's)
U.S. & Canada - Abrams Books (Amulet
Germany - Fischer FJB
France - Hachette Livre (Hachette Jeunesse)
Holland - Uitgeverij Unieboek | Het Spectrum (Van Goor)
Spain - RBA Libros (Molino)
Brazil - Editoria Record (Galera)
Denmark - Lindhardt & Ringhof (Carlsen)
Some of these were auctions, some were pre-empts. The US in particular was a big auction, involving more than one pre-empt before it even began. The kind of auction that makes your eyes pop out of your head, that makes you worried some will deride your book as overblown hype, and also how you're ever going to live up to the expectation.
Yes, I know. First world problems. I fully acknowledge the wonderful position I am now in.
If you want to know what such fun things as pre-empts and auctions are all about, I've done a video explaining pre-empts, and will do one soon on auctions.
This is categorically not to show off, as the details of what happened to me I will only ever make as clear as it is here - but because I believe in and enjoy being transparent about the publishing process, rather than jealously guarding its secrets like some kind of Scion of the Publishing Gods (I'm in! You're out! Secret language handshake! Haughty stare!). Because the more you understand how publishing works, the better equipped you are as a writer to navigate it.
Publication is set in most of these territories for Autumn 2016, and all so far have bought both The Graces and a sequel.
At some point before this date, I will definitely get over the shock.
Oh, and I now have an accountant and am taking a desperate 'google searching and asking everyone I know who vaguely knows what they're talking about' crash course in limited companies, copyright law, corporation tax and VAT*.
Just in case you thought it was All Glamour, All The Time.
* There's probably another video in this, but like a really, really dull one.
