Some honest thoughts on turning down a book deal
It’s October and I’m in full flow with my new book. I’m about 30k in and am so excited about it. I have been truly loving writing it.
I’ve been listening to lots of podcasts recently with experienced authors, and have been surprised at how many of them have said that they have a kind of annual schedule they stick to when it comes to writing a book.
For example, John Grisham recently shared that he starts writing a new book at the beginning of January every year and aims to have a draft by July.
I’ve come to realise that I have a very similar thing - except that my start date is always September, and I like to complete a first draft by Christmas.
I realised that I have - completely inadvertently - stuck to this same rhythm ever since I got my first book deal!
So yes, it is the autumn ‘term’ and I am merrily on my way to completing a first draft before Christmas.
The last time I did this, I wrote a really short first draft - just 60k - but this time I’m going for an 80k one. Just because this story doesn’t break into three parts in the same way that that previous book did, and the words are flowing quite easily (more on why I think that might be that later), so I feel I’m going to be able to write a full draft this time round.
You are probably all wondering what this has to do with the (admittedly) very clickbaity title for this post.
OK! Let me catch you up.
The last time I overshared dramatically in a blog post, I was giving you guys an update as to how my writing career was going, explaining that last year I wrote a bookclub novel that didn’t sell when it went out on submission.
And so instead this year I’d written another book in a different genre that had got a lot of interest - and two offers on the partial alone.
No idea what I’m talking about? You can read it here →
First of all, I want to say a huge thanks to everyone for the amazing response to that post. It was really quite mindblowing but also, so heartening.
Some incredible things happened off the back of it too!
Thanks to that post, the amazing Phoebe Morgan (Big 5 Publishing Director) got in touch to ask if I’d like to do a guest post for her fab Substack. (You can read that here!)
I also had numerous people offer to read the novel that didn’t sell, to see if they could help me find a ‘fix’ for the structural issue I was having. SO kind.
I even had an incredible Big 5 editor reach out and offer to read it for free (!??!!), with a view to giving me an editorial report on it (again, my mind was very much blown by this generosity).
And finally, another fab publisher also invited me out for three-course lunch just to chat publishing?!
What is this life, as (annoying) people say 😝
Suffice to say, the response was more than I could have imagined. So a huge thanks to everyone who reads my posts, or comments on my Insta, or messages me about them.
But that post was published earlier the summer, and I left you on a cliffhanger.
Junking a book 😲
As I said, I was offered two book deals based on a partial submission of a suspense I’d written.
Since then, my agent had read the whole thing and thought it needed a lot of work but was also optimistic that we could send it out more widely once it was ready.
We agreed I’d have the summer off to think everything through and then make a plan.
So why - you might ask - am I writing an entirely new book instead?
Because I realised that deep down, I just didn’t want to edit it.
And even more significantly than that - I realised I didn’t want to publish another suspense.
Let me back up a bit…
I am really proud of my Charlotte Duckworth novels. They were fun to write and I am so grateful to all the readers who still contact me to say how much they enjoyed them.
But the truth is, when I wrote my debut (The Rival), I wasn’t planning on writing a psych suspense.
I thought - somewhat naively - that I was just writing a twisty book about the devastating impact of losing your job when you’re pregnant.
My publisher, however, had other ideas and quickly saw that it could fit in nicely with the crime / thriller market, which was having a real boom at the time.
This was 2018. I started reading more of them, and really enjoyed them. So I figured it made sense to lean into this genre.
And so I did, and I published four more novels, all with suspensey themes.
But then Connie came along. And I knew I didn’t want that book to be another suspense.
Because I was… not exactly bored of writing them, but perhaps a little creatively unfulfilled?
Thankfully, my amazing editor (who has since moved to a new publisher) was happy to let me try something new.
If you’ve read Connie, you’ll know that it is very different from my other novels. Much more of a character study, written in the third person, less twisty and pacey, and more considered.
Interestingly and hearteningly, it’s had the best reviews of all my books so far.
However, sales-wise, my most successful book is The Perfect Father, which is very much a conventional psych suspense.
And that’s why, feeling downhearted about the fact the bookclub novel I wrote last year didn’t sell, I decided the sensible thing to do was write another suspense.
It seemed like the easiest route to being published again - and I was proved right, because I got offered those contracts.
One editor even invited me into their posh offices and offered me a three-book deal in the meeting (along with strawberries and cookies!).
We had an amazing discussion where they outlined all their plans for me and my career. It was the sort of meeting past me could only have dreamed of.
But despite all of this, my heart wasn’t in it.
Crime/thriller/suspense are huge genres and there are incredible authors who are hugely passionate about them writing in this space.
And I am just not one of them any more. I have read too many. I have written too many. I still enjoy and very much respect them (they are seriously hard to write!) but they are not what I want to write any longer.
And so, after thinking it all through over the summer, I asked my agent to turn down those offers (nicely, with so much gratitude).
I feel a bit sick even writing that. The editors who offered were incredible powerhouse women and I would have genuinely loved to work with them. I know they would have done fantastic things with my books.
But I also knew that I wanted to take my career in a different direction, and that if I accepted one of these deals, I’d be doing it because I felt fearful it was my only option.
And I want to be brave.
To write a book in the first place, you have to be incredibly brave. Or delusional. Or both.
That’s basically par for the course.
It’s an insane thing to do.
If you’re doing something insane anyway, then I think it makes more sense to just go for it. To be as insane and delusional as possible.
And meanwhile, I had this idea that wouldn’t leave me alone…
Another idea for a completely different book that I desperately wanted to write. It had been hounding me for more than a year, and I kept pushing it away because it didn’t fit in with the ‘sensible plan’, which was to try to build on the success I’d had with my Charlotte Duckworth brand.
But these characters wouldn’t go away. I felt a genuine pull towards the story that I haven’t felt since I wrote my last bookclub novel (yes, the one that didn’t sell - but I still don’t regret writing it, which also feels very telling to me).
I have been thinking about these characters on and off for a year and I think that’s why, now that I am finally allowing myself to write about them, the words are flowing so easily. They feel real to me and they want me to tell their story.
Unlike when I was writing the recent suspense novel ‘to order’, when it felt as though the whole thing was forced and artificial (actual quote from my agent when she’d read the whole book: ‘who are these people, exactly? Do you know?’ DEVASTATING FEEDBACK 😭)
I don’t want to get too philosophical, but, well, life is hard. And life is uncertain. And life is short. It is worth taking risks.
I want to be brave.
I want to write books I really deeply love. That I feel passionate about.
It may be career suicide but, um, I don’t care?
I don’t want to write books because it’s the sensible thing to do. Clearly - given my agent’s reaction, I’m not very good at it anyway.
I know that publishing is hard. Harder than ever, in fact.
I know there are absolutely no guarantees that anyone will want the book I am currently writing.
I know that the sensible thing to do would have been to stick with my established ‘Duckworth’ brand and continue writing suspense.
But I want to be brave.
And somehow, being brave does also make me feel delusional. It makes me feel as though anything is possible.
It makes me believe that an editor out there is going to read this book next year and fall in love with it 🙏
(Perhaps I’m not totally delusional, because this did happen when I took a risk and wrote The One That Got Away, which got multiple deals across the world…)
But honestly, the main thing is that I am loving writing this book. I am loving the process. It has brought the joy back into my life.
I am about a million times happier than I was earlier this year, and I am creatively fulfilled.
Which means, wherever this book ends up, writing it will have been a good use of my time.
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