To give you some idea of just how long the publishing process takes, I took on Heather Child as a client in January 2016. We sold the book to Orbit in May 2017. And today, her first book, EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU, is published. Available here.
I was used to the long turn around times and the year long process it took as an Editor to get a book through the critical path of publishing. The edits, typesetting, the copyedit, proofread, and then all the other meetings involved: covers, marketing, PR, social media, sales - it's a well-oiled machine but the cogs turn slowly. What I hadn't appreciated when starting as an agent is also how long the process - before a deal is even struck - takes.
First there are the edits - an agent still edits. Heather and I went over the script a couple of times before we started sending it out on submission. Then it's the waiting game. Editors are inundated with books from agents - and they can take a while to get through. So for a while the author and I were waiting on tenterhooks. It was finally Jenni Hill and Tim Holman over at Orbit who saw the amazing potential in the book and made an offer.
And just under a year later it's publication day!
We went out on Tuesday with Jenni (the editor) and Nazia (who is covering PR) to raise a glass of celebration and then headed to Goldsboro and Forbidden Planet for a couple of signings. I was unbelievably proud to watch Heather sign copies of her finished book.
See today is something of a red letter day for me as well as for Heather. After spending over nine years working as an Editorial Director at Macmillan, building a list for Tor UK and taking on some amazing authors such as Blake Crouch, John Gwynne, Naomi Novik, The Walking Dead series and Adam Nevill, after editing China Miéville over seven books, Ann Cleeves for her Shetland and Vera series, Peter F. Hamilton's Chronicle of the Fallers and Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shadows of the Apt series - it was really very difficult to leave and imagine trying something different.
So today - I'm excited for several reasons. 1) Heather is a fab author and her book is amazing. It so deserves to be out there and read. 2) I've thoroughly enjoyed the whole process of agenting and now can't imagine doing anything else. 3) I still get to find brilliant new authors and put them out there for you to read.
EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU is unbelievably timed - we couldn't have asked for all the interest in data management that there has been in the last few weeks with Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. :-) This novel takes it a step beyond and makes it personal - what exactly could be done with all the data that's collected about you?
So if you enjoyed any of the authors that I took on at Tor UK over the years, if you like your psychological thrillers or if you just have an interest about how your data could be used in the very near future - then pick up a copy of the book today!
Here are just some of the amazing quotes we've already received for it:
‘A wonderfully imaginative, deeply disturbing and totally believable view into a tech-controlled future; when I put down this novel and picked up my smart phone I felt I was taking a step into a sugar-coated nightmare. Black Mirror meets Gone Girl’ Rosamund Lupton, International Bestselling author of Sister
‘Exquisitely plausible and insidiously chilling’ M. R. Carey, author of The Girl with all the Gifts
‘A compelling, terrifying and stunningly assured debut’ Gareth Powell
‘Gone Girl for the VR generation . . .’ Starburst
‘Everything About You is an excellent creation of that most difficult place, the believable near-future. First class realism and a sinister mystery combine as a compelling thriller’ Peter F. Hamilton
‘Sinister and seductive’ SciFiNow
