Anatomy of a Book Deal

With just three weeks to go before my very first traditionally published book hits the shelves, I thought I’d take a look back at how it came about, and how long it takes to go from initial idea to published book. (Or how long it took for me, rather; obviously all books are different, your results may vary…)

SPOILER: It takes a long time. A verrryyyy long time. And so does reading this newsletter, actually, so I’m going to cut the waffly introduction for once, and just get straight to it. So, here’s my indie-to-trad publishing timeline, right from the very start…

I came up with the idea for the book while making myself a Pot Noodle one lunchtime, and immediately went back to my desk and bashed out a 6-page outline for it. This went back and forth between me and my husband (who normally works on the initial plot ideas with me) a couple of times, but I don’t think I looked at it again after November 13th, when I sent Terry version 2 of the outline, which seems to have been the final one, and which looks roughly the same as the original to me, so God knows what I thought I was doing there.

(This was quite unusual for me because I can spend weeks on end working on my outlines1, but this one seemed to come out almost fully formed, and didn’t change much until my future editor got her hands on it. I wish they were all like that…)

I started drafting as soon as I had the outline sorted, but we had the Christmas holidays to contend with (and just December in general, which regular readers will know is my Bad Month, when I get barely anything done), so although I’d confidently predicted I’d have it finished by Christmas (oh my sweet summer child…), it actually took me until…

… or thereabouts, when I finished the first draft, and immediately started work on the self-edits, because my self-publishing empire (lol) at the time relied on a fairly rapid release schedule, and at this point Terry and I were already starting to plan the book that was to become The Love Curse.

I didn’t track how much time I spent drafting, but I’d say it was somewhere between 6-8 weeks; this was definitely one of the quickest drafts I’ve written and, despite the lack of a detailed outline, it came to me quite easily, with the main issue being all of the school holidays and other events which slowed down my progress. (Don’t worry, I’d get my comeuppance with the next book, which was to take approximately forever…)

It was the half-term break, and we had a houseful of kids. I briefly escaped to the bathroom to check my email, and that’s where I was when I read that first message from Clem Flanagan — an editor at Black & White Publishing— asking if I’d be interested in a chat.

I genuinely thought this must be either some kind of joke, or one of those vanity publishers at first, because this kind of thing just doesn’t happen to me. A quick Google, however, revealed that Black & White was a real publisher, and Clem was a real person, so I emailed her back, then waited for someone to pop out of wherever they’d been hiding and tell me it was all some elaborate kind of practical joke.

My first video call with Clem, during which it transpired that not only was this NOT a joke, Clem was particularly interested in acquiring Scottish books by Scottish authors. I swear to God I almost fell off my chair at the serendipity of this happening just as I’d finished drafting a book set in the Highlands. I mean, what are the chances, right?

I sent Clem the unedited manuscript, then continued with my self-edits, at which point I realised I’d somehow managed to write the worst book in the entire history of books. The literal worst. The draft was riddled with typos and other errors, and because I’d sent it while I was in the middle of editing, there were things that happened at the end that were now completely inexplicable given the changes I’d already made to the start.

I’d completely blown it, in other words.

I sent Clem an updated version of the manuscript, but confidently assumed I’d never hear from her again.

The waiting game. I was absolutely convinced at this stage that Clem wouldn’t want the book, and figured I should probably just forget about it altogether because it clearly sucked. Also, the book was originally set in winter, and now we were heading into spring… which isn’t exactly a great time to release Christmas books. So I decided to shelf the book, along with any thoughts of getting a traditional book deal, and started work on The Love Curse instead.

By this stage, my previous release had been out for three months, and had not done well. We would later re-release it under a different name, and it would go on to become my biggest seller, but in March of 2025 I didn’t know that, and I was so down about everything I genuinely considered quitting writing altogether, and just going to work down the mine, or whatever it is that people with ‘real’ jobs do these days.

It wasn’t a fun month, really.

BUT!

Plot twist! Clem got in touch to say that not only had she liked the book, the rest of her team had liked it too, and she wanted to take it to an acquisitions meeting (which is where the editorial team pitch the book to the sales/marketing people and try to convince them to make an offer on it) the following week.

I still thought the book sucked, so I told everyone who knew about it that I wasn’t going to get too excited about this, although I was secretly a little bit excited.

The acquisitions meeting. Clem had told me I’d be unlikely to hear anything right away, and we had family visiting from England, plus a wedding in the Highlands to prepare for, so I tried to put it to the back of my mind and pretend nothing was happening, while also checking my email approximately every 5 seconds. I even went back to the bathroom to see if whatever magic had brought me the first email would somehow bring me another, but apparently publishing doesn’t work that way, so no.

While in the middle of hosting a dinner for 15 family members, I reflexively (and completely without hope) checked my email, and found this email from Clem:

Panic ensued.

I had somehow found myself in a position where I’d been offered a book deal, but I had no agent, and absolutely no clue what I was doing. Oh, and I also had a houseful of guests, so there wasn’t much I could do about it until …

Terry got up the next morning and immediately set to work emailing a list of literary agents, which he’d pulled together from a hasty Google search. He emailed about half a dozen, saying I’d had an offer and now needed representation — to my amazement, almost all of them replied and asked to see the manuscript.

(If you’re wondering why Terry did this instead of me, it’s because the one thing I knew — or thought I knew — about literary agents was that they were notorious for not replying unless you sent them a very specific kind of query letter, along with a single unicorn’s hair and a promise to give them your firstborn child. And while I was faffing around trying to pull all of this together2, Terry just got on with things and started sending emails…)

(I mean, it was also because I’m so painfully awkward and lacking in confidence I assumed that even with a deal already on the table, no literary agency would want to sign me, so there was that, too…)

Of all the responses we had, though, our favourite was Kate Nash , who called us as soon as she got Terry’s email. Kate promised to read the book ASAP and set up a video call for the next day.

Video call with Kate, who did a great job of explaining how everything worked and what would happen next. She hadn’t, however, finished reading the manuscript yet, and we were leaving for the Highlands the next day (Which was appropriate, really, given the book is set there…), so Kate promised to finish reading it, and get back in touch.

The day after my cousin’s wedding, we were wandering around Brodie Castle when I received an offer of representation from Kate.

We were in Aberdeen, en route to our next stop in the Cairngorms, when we got an email from one of the other agents we’d contacted, saying she’d also loved the book and wanted to have a chat about it.

This was both awkward and amazing, because I’d never in my wildest dreams imagined having one agent interested in me, let alone two.

Much discussion ensued.

I signed with Kate, while staying at a gorgeous lodge at Glen Clova. I was officially an agented author! But I still hadn’t signed the book deal… which was a surprise to me, because I’d naively assumed that once Kate had checked the contract, I’d just … you know, sign it… and that would be that.

But no!

There were a few things in the contract we wanted to query, so we left Kate to get on with that, and I went back to drafting The Love Curse, still feeling a bit shellshocked by everything that had happened.

We finally agreed the terms of the deal with Black & White, after a lot of back and forth between Kate and the publisher. My instinct was to immediately rush to Instagram/ the newsletter to tell the world, but was asked to hold off at least until the contract was signed.

For a long time, nothing seemed to happen. Of course, behind the scenes quite a lot was happening, and Kate was having lots of discussions with the publisher, but I, who’d naively expected to just sign the contract and start telling everyone about it, found this apparent lack of progress quite difficult, and kept convincing myself the deal wasn’t actually going to go ahead. This timescale, I was to learn, was all very normal for traditional publishing, though; unlike self-publishing, things tend to move super-slowly, and that definitely took a lot of getting used to, especially for someone as impatient as I am.

While we were waiting for the contract to be finalised, Terry and I headed into Edinburgh to finally meet Clem at the Black & White offices for a chat about the book, and what would happen next. After this, Clem sent over my edit letter with suggested changes, and we also started discussing the title, which I already knew from the discussions Kate had been having was going to have to change.

I was a little bit worried about starting a structural edit without having actually signed a contract, but Kate assured me this was all completely normal, so I got to work, aware that the summer holidays were coming up, and that once they started, my time wouldn’t be my own.

I’d always assumed traditional publishing would allow me the luxury of much more time than I was used to for each stage of the process, but we had two holidays arranged for July and August, and not a lot of childcare over the summer, so I ended up having to somehow complete the edits (Which involved changing the season the book was set in, and completely rewriting the first few chapters, as well as adding at least one extra…) in the couple of weeks I had before the holiday.

Gave Clem some details for the cover briefing. This part was also quite strange for me as I’m pretty obsessive about my covers, and am used to being heavily involved — to the point of control freakery, really — in the design process. That’s not how trad publishing works, though, so while I had some input in terms of telling Clem what the characters should look like and which castle was the inspiration for the setting (this one), that was the extent of my involvement and I was simultaneously excited to see what my book would look like with a professional cover (we’ve only ever had a tiny budget for covers, and have done most of them ourselves) and terrified in case I hated it.

Sent the completed structural edit to Clem, just 14 days after receiving the edit letter. Really wanted a lie down afterwards, but Max’s school broke up for summer at around the same time, so NO.

The night before we left for our summer holiday. I’d just got out of the shower and decided to quickly check my email before bed, only to find a message from Kate saying the contract had finally arrived, and would be ready to sign within the next few days. Exciting!

I’d just climbed into our rental car in Lanzarote when the contract finally arrived, ready to be signed. But I wanted to do it somewhere other than in the back of a Cupra, so I waited until that night, and signed it at a cute cocktail bar with my parents, Terry and Max.

Afterwards, I messaged a few of my friends, but still wasn’t allowed to announce the news publicly — a fact that genuinely almost killed me. (Cause of Death: signing a book deal but not being allowed to tell anyone…)

The last day of our holiday, and I got a notification saying the publisher had also signed the contract. It was finally official… but not really official official as far as I was concerned, because I still couldn’t tell anyone.

I got back from holiday to find the line edit of the book had arrived, and now I had to go through it and make changes as required. Unfortunately for me, I had very little time to do this, as we were off to the south of England for my brother-in-law’s annual summer party at the end of the month, so I had to do it while unpacking, repacking, and juggling childcare. Once again, I have to laugh at Past Me for thinking the trad publishing route would give me more time for everything — with this book I felt like I did everything from writing it to editing it in a panicked rush…

Sent off the line-edit and headed to Kent.

The first portion of my advance was paid — five months after receiving the offer and one month after signing the contract. This is one of the things I think a lot of new authors don’t realise; even if the advance looks like a decent amount on paper, it’s then split into chunks and paid in installments, often with long gaps between them, which makes it really hard/impossible to rely on as your sole income.

The copyedit came back; there wasn’t much for me to do here, fortunately, but by this stage I’d read the book so many times that I didn’t want to even think about it, let alone do any more work on it…

I sent back the copyedits, along with a couple of pitches for book two, which Terry and I had been discussing for the last few weeks, mostly during long walks on the moor near our house. We’d whittled it down to two different options and I put together a short, one-page synopsis for each of them, which I sent to Clem, along with a note telling her which one was my favourite.

Clem got back to me saying she’d discussed both pitches with the team, and they were happy for me to go ahead and start writing the one I’d identified as my favourite. Yay! But meanwhile…

The first draft of the cover arrived, while we were on a half-term trip to Edinburgh with Max. (Side note: why does every important milestone with this book seem to happen during a school holiday?!) We spent the train journey home discussing it (to the fascination of the woman in the seat next to Terry, who blatantly stared at the cover over his shoulder the entire way home. Really hope she sees it in a bookshop one day and thinks, ‘oh, it’s the book from the train!), then had a video call with Kate the next day, to discuss it with her.

I can’t remember exactly when this was, but at some point the final proofread came back, and I almost cried when I realised I’d have to read the book in its entirety YET AGAIN. By this stage I’d read it so many times I honestly think I could recite it off by heart. I was seriously tempted just to hit ‘accept all’ on the changes, but I forced myself to go through it line by line, and it’s a good job I did, because although it had been through multiple edits at this point, I STILL found some glaring errors. GAH.

The cover was finalised. It was all starting to feel very real … except for the fact that I STILL wasn’t allowed to announce the fact that I had a book deal, let alone say anything about the book itself.

The ‘secrecy’ aspect of all of this was probably the hardest part of the whole process for me (other than that two-week structural edit,. obvs…). As a former blogger/Instagram addict I’m used to over-sharing everything, and doing it almost immediately, so keeping a secret as big as this one was genuinely hard for me, and although everyone who knows me in ‘real life’ knew about the book, the fact that I couldn’t share the news with my actual readers was weird and frustrating. Imagine having your childhood dream come true and not being able to tell people about it, though!

I sent in the final bits for the proofs — acknowledgements, dedication etc. My work on Highland Getaway was officially done, but it still didn’t feel quite real on account of the continued secrecy surrounding it. I just wanted to be able to tell everyone about it, but every time I sent out a newsletter I felt a bit like Taylor Swift, all ‘not a lot going on at the moment’…

Started drafting book 2 of my contract. I optimistically announced to the internet that I intended to have this finished by the end of January.

I am so funny.

Video call with Clem, Kate, plus the publicist and marketing exec assigned to the book. It was during this call that I found out when the book would be published — July 4th — and we agreed a date for the announcement. I was finally going to be able to talk about it, and there was a good chance that once I got started, I might never stop…

Almost one year to the day I first heard from Clem, I finally got to tell everyone my news:

Having been waiting for this moment for essentially my entire life, when it was time to publish the post, I briefly panicked, and didn’t want to do it, which is just the most me thing ever. I did it anyway, though… and that brings us more or less up to date, with me now counting down to…

… when Highland Getaway will finally be out in the world!

(You can pre-order it here, if you haven’t already!)

I’ll be honest: it still doesn’t feel quite real yet, and I’m not sure it will until the day I see it in a bookshop. So roll on June 4th… and, in the meantime, it’s back to plotting the next book!

Thanks for reading,

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