It’s been a LOONG time since I’ve written a blog post on here, especially since I’ve started my monthly newsletter: Just Another Chapter where I update readers with my news and event info! But since this is a really exciting deal, I thought I’d come on and share the process, all the lingo, what it means, and the real effort it’s taken to get this far.
I’ve just announced my 2-book deal with Simon & Schuster US, UK, AUS and I couldn’t be more thrilled. It’s always the dream to have a deal like this, not just with the UK and US, but also within the same publishing house. FIND ME will be in hardback in the US and with 3 separate cover designs, including a 4th for the paperback. But it hasn’t been luck or easy-going. Since THE RIP came out last February 2024, there has been a lot of writing, drafting, brainstorming and collaborating going on behind the scenes to get the right, the unique, THE breakout book.
After THE RIP came out, I had finished writing MOURN RIVER (my 2027 thriller). But my agents and I brainstormed other ideas/plots/hooks. We wanted something with a hugely compelling hook, something totally original and super suspenseful. So I wrote a book called PINE PEAK in March 2024, which again, we decided to shelf. My team of agents are so collaborative and amazing at brainstorming, coming up with ideas, all of them sharing their advice and wisdom with their writers. We all knew MOURN RIVER wasn’t there yet and PINE PEAK just wasn’t the one. It was SO exciting to write, but it wasn’t THE breakout book.
So then I came up with FIND ME in July 2024. I used the setting and remnants of PINE PEAK to create some of the characters, setting, names, the mountain, even the mood of it. I completed the final edits for FIND ME in November while I was in London, and then in Jan, I had to write MAYDAY for Audible UK on a deadline. Phew, after writing four books, you can imagine, I was creatively spent and praying FIND ME would ‘find’ a perfect home.
In December, my agents took it out on an exclusive submission to S&S UK. (An exclusive submissions means the publisher has the MS on their own, without any other publisher considering it. They have a strict time frame – for instance, a few weeks – to come back with an offer. If they don’t come back after that time, the agent can take it elsewhere.) Thankfully, my publisher, Charlotte, came back and instantly, absolutely loved it!
During that time, S&S UK approached S&S Australia and the director of Simon & Schuster Australia, Ben Ball, also loved it! Also during this month, S&S US and my publisher, Taylor, offered on a pre-empt. (A pre-empt means the publisher makes an offer quickly to avoid a potential bidding war between other publishers).
As you can imagine I was THRILLED and elated. I was sent a lovely and head-expanding letter with the publishers detailing all the marketing and sales plans they had for me, along with the most incredible quotes from all publishing departments globally on how much they LOVED Find Me. A true pinch me moment. The excitement, the collaboration, the plans for my future was all set out in a lovely package.
But it also goes to show how much hard work I put in to get this. Four MS’s (including Audible’s MAYDAY) and with THE SHALLOWS and THE RIP already published. Sometimes you have to leave books alone. Sometimes you have to write something from scratch. Sometimes you use parts of other manuscripts to create something bigger, hookier, more compelling.
FIND ME was the hardest and most complicated book to write, but it’s now the best thing I’ve ever written!
I can’t wait to see if you all feel the same when you read it next Northern Summer! 🙂
Holly x
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