This post is about the Journey of Book 2: Promise Me. You can buy my books here.

I’ve tried to strike a balance in this post, of being completely transparent, but not too negative, as ultimately I’m writing these posts to encourage anyone reading to keep going, and to not give up, whichever direction you decide to go with your writing.

When my debut Follow Me was released in 2015 I knew my publisher was interested in reading my next stand-alone, Promise Me.  I was now doing talks and creative workshops in schools and the community, chatting to librarians and slowly building ‘an audience’. Reviews were also starting to come in for Follow Me, and teenagers talked to me about the book at events. (I also got interviewed for Teen Titles magazine at one school).

For the first time in my writing life I was suddenly acutely aware of who might read my new book when it was released, and what their expectations might be. This put a low-level pressure on my creativity; something I had never really experienced before.

I was also trying to juggle the events, (always feeling I was never doing enough compared to other writers I was connected to on social media), whilst working full time. I stupidly went for a promotion at my day job (and got it), all before Promise Me was done and dusted. But it was a time in my life where I felt super-motivated and had more energy (I was younger!!), and the excitement of having a ‘book out’ always spurred me on.

When I had nearly finished my first draft of Promise Me I entered it into the SAW Pitlochry and won second place. The crime writer who adjudicated told me she could imagine her teenage daughter really enjoying having a teen sleuth at the centre of trying to solve the mystery of a crime that had already occurred. I felt this was a good selling point too, and it kept me motivated to get the book finished. I signed the contract for publication in 2017.

Fast-forward two years, copy edits done, release dates promised, then passed, with no response, and so began a repeat cycle. In amongst this a lovely librarian offered to launch Promise Me in her community library in a local area where I had done several events; another librarian wanted to book me for her new festival which would tie in to local schools to promote the release of the book. My publisher knew all of this, and still silence.

I never feel comfortable going into detail about this in a public forum, but needless to say, this was a not a great time for my creative confidence (especially when I genuinely did not know how to explain to the librarians, or to anyone, what was happening, as I had no idea what was happening!).

Every time I heard the question, ‘When’s your next book coming out?’, deep down I felt like a failure.  

I realise now that the people who persistently asked this question hadn’t even read my first book, and had no intention of buying my next one, but the amount of pressure and frustration I felt at the time was immense.

My advice: ignore the external pressures, unless it’s from someone who is involved in bringing your next book to life, and they’re actually nudging out of necessity, or to give you encouragement

The thought of going back out on submission filled me with dread (as the average time of your book seeing the light of day after acceptance, never mind how long it takes to get there, can usually be around 2 years) But I knew I had hit a brick wall with the current situation.

So, at the end of 2019 I took the rights back for Promise Me. I was also in the middle of writing my new YA thriller (Young Blood).

I started to send out Promise Me again to select agents (I was being fussy), but mostly got rejections, or no response. Then I noticed a new publisher was running an open submissions competition for Young Adult novels. I scoured the rules and realised it was open for published writers, as long as you didn’t have an Agent. (Most big competitions like Chicken House and Bath Novel etc. are only open for unpublished writers– see the end of the post for links to these).  

The publisher was professional and dynamic, and making waves, so I excitedly sent off my work.

Fast forward a few months later I received an email to let me know I’d made the long list. The day I moved into my new house in 2020 I received an email from the editor saying I had made the final seven. It was a massive boost. I didn’t win, but the editor had a chat with me and said the book sellers and librarians on the judging panel were very positive about my book. She also offered me some really helpful editorial feedback.

At this point some writers in my network were taking control back, and independently publishing their work. I had watched my Mum do this to a high standard, and she kept saying it was another option I could try.

Not long after this, I entered a call-out for a Zoom pitch event with a big agency. I was selected by the agent to have a chat.

Weirdly she recognised my name as she had been copied in to one of the emails relating to the acquisitions meeting for Follow Me at ‘the big publisher’ I mentioned in my last post. (She was an editor with them at the time).

The agent was really enthusiastic about Promise Me, said she loved the first few chapters and premise, and asked me to send through the full manuscript.

A few months went by with no emails, so I sent a polite ‘nudge’. I received an apology, saying she was behind in reading. I appreciated the update.

Then another six months went by, so I sent another polite email. And never received a response.

To this day, I never did get a response.

I totally understand that agents are busy people. Plenty of agents have ignored me during ‘cold submissions’ which is fine, because most will clearly state on their website, if you have not heard from us in X amount of weeks, we’re not interested.

But when you’ve had a full manuscript request, and a face-to-face chat (it was on Zoom because we were still in semi-lockdown), I think it’s rude to leave someone hanging.

At the time I wish I had used this website called Query Tracker see here You can sign up for free and it provides information on pitching to agents, but also people leave feedback on response times and reply rates from agents they’ve subbed to. The aforementioned agent now runs her own agency, and interestingly lots of people have posted on this site with the exact same experience as me; ghosted after full requests following on from personal contact during pitch events.

During lockdown when life slowed down, it gave me proper time to reflect on what I actually wanted from my writing career. I asked one of my career guidance friends to give me a coaching interview, and this helped me unpick my motivations and priorities.

She asked me an important question: What was stopping me from taking control myself, and independently publishing?

I realised the biggest thing stopping me was fear of perceived external judgement. Who does she think she is….Clearly she’s not good enough if she has to do this herself… We’re not interested in self-published books at this bookshop. But when I unpicked this further I realised none of my worries related to my actual readers. These thoughts related to other writers I knew, random people in my life…mostly ones who had never even read my first book, or cared about it enough to support any attempts at promotion, and gatekeepers (like bookshops *I’ll focus a bit more on the gatekeeper aspect in my next post*).

Returning to the point that the folk who usually ask the most demanding and nosey questions about my writing life (and probably yours), …How many books have you sold? Why’s your next one not out yet?  Are you not quitting your day job yet? Why aren’t you in a window display or the Buy one Get one free in Waterstones? Are you not speaking at X book festival?

..are usually the ones who haven’t even read my work, and are never going to buy my books, even if I get a 5 figure book deal and it’s optioned for film...

In fact those people would probably be the first to ask: How much did you get for your film deal?

I want to point out here that I don’t mind being asked questions about my writing at all, if the intention is good. And I 100% don’t expect everyone in my life to champion my work!  It just made me realise, I shouldn’t care so much about what people think about me and my work, definitely not to the point of stopping me exploring new ways of getting my book out there.

A few months later, I bit the bullet and started the process of Independently publishing Promise Me. It had already gone through many professional copy-edits, I’d received further editorial feedback after the open submissions competition, and I was very fortunate that my Mum is great at editing, and is a genius when it comes to all of the technical support needed to format and publish.

I had already dabbled in releasing a short story collection, and my designer friend Dainty Dora (see site here) aka Rebecca,  supported with a great cover design for this, so I enlisted Rebecca’s support again for the cover of Promise Me.

Promise Me was released into the world in October 2021 and I went with wider distribution, meaning it’s fully available everywhere. I hosted an online launch on release day through Facebook which generated enough sales to put my sales ranking on Amazon alongside big sellers like Holly Jackson. (If you like A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder you might like my books, just sayin’) Those kind of figures are fleeting, but it gave me a huge boost on the day to know people were interested enough to buy my new book.

A librarian friend also invited me to take part in an online group workshop for a teen writing group, and last Spring I was part of the Paisley book festival schools programme, with Promise Me promoted and bought into libraries. During another school event not long after publication, a highlight was seeing teachers sitting reading my book when I arrived to the class for the session, telling me how much they were enjoying it. Last year an English teacher in a school I’m connected to in my day job said that Promise Me is never on the school library shelves and she often sees pupils reading it. After such a long up-and-down road with this book, every single moment like that means so much to me.

Next time I’ll post a bit more about my experiences of Independent Publishing.

In the meantime, I hope this post hasn’t put you off trying the traditional route, as it’s something I know I will attempt again (due to some of the cons that come with Independent Publishing).

If you’re unpublished and have a novel ready to send I recommend trying one of these big competitions which are closing soon

Chicken House Books Competition – for Children/YA books– closing 2^nd June

Bath Novel Award – for both Young Adult and General (adult) fiction Closing 31^st May

Bridport Prize – General Novel – Closing 31^st May

Keep an eye out on Mslexia Competitions – they have run both General novel and Children’s/YA in the past

Happy Writing!