No News is Good News

Whenever I’ve heard that in the past it’s made me grumpy. It’s one of those things trotted out to make worried people feel better. However, in the case of the Split Worlds, it’s absolutely true.

I’ve been quiet lately; every week since November last year I was faithfully releasing a new Split Worlds story, chatting about it, writing the books and then… nothing. Over the past month or so I’ve been very quiet online, only returning to Twitter this last week.

I promised to explain why and that time has finally come: I have signed a deal with Angry Robot Books: they are going to publish the Split Worlds!

I can’t believe it. Even now, writing this, it still feels unreal. If you’re reading this it means the official announcement has been made (I’m writing this whilst it’s still a secret) and it’s been so hard not to explain why I had to drop tools. The last few weeks have been full of anxious waiting, first for the results of the acquisitions meeting, then the process of finding an agent to negotiate the deal I suddenly found myself with. None of this was planned, if you want to know more about the way this came about, I wrote a guest post for Adam Christopher’s blog which tells the story.

What does this mean for the Split Worlds project?

As regular readers here will know, The Split Worlds was originally a self-publishing project. Now it will benefit from the incredible support from Angry Robot and their amazing authors, their spectacularly cool cover design (look at Empire State, Seven Wonders and Blackbirds for just a small sample of these) and their brilliant marketing support and global distribution that really does get books into shops across the UK and US….

I still plan to release fifty-four stories building up to the release of the first book, there will just be a little pause in the middle. The weekly stories will resume on September 6th 2012, but if you sign up here you’ll get every story, one a week, from beginning to end. I also still plan to do some game/ARG/cool events around launch time.

But what about the investor?

Well, after Lee asked whether I would consider placing the Split Worlds with Angry Robot (holy teapots, that was a great moment I can tell you!) the first thing I thought was “But can I even do that?” I had a contract with an investor, a plan, and the possibility of it being picked up by a publisher never came into it. I designed a way to live the life I needed and wanted now, would that all be impossible if I was published traditionally?

I talked it over with my investor, who was completely unsurprised and very cool about it. We’ve changed our arrangement, it’s all good and full of happiness.

What now?

Well, I’m working on edits that have come in from my agent (Jennifer Udden at the Donald Maass Agency in New York) for the first book. I’m developing ideas for a completely new project and will very soon be resuming work on the third Split Worlds book after I’ve had a long chat with Lee at Angry Robot.

Anxiety Wrangling

I must confess, I’ve been a mess since this all started. My anxiety went off the chart and I have really been freaking out over the past week in particular, in the build-up to the announcement. And there is still a part of me that really can’t believe this. Even though I’m not a debut author, I feel like one all over again because Angry Robot is such a respected imprint and the exposure this deal will get, and the books will get is so much more than anything I’ve experienced before now.

But that’s to write about another time. Let’s focus on the positive. No, not “the positive” – the freakishly unbelievable and amazingly unlikely happy news that I am to be one of Angry Robot’s authors. And I am pleased as Punch about it. When I’m not hiding under my duvet that is.

Tagged as: Angry Robot Books, book deal, Split Worlds