the cover is finally here
Hi friends—
How've you been? Is everyone staying cool? It's 101 degrees in London today, so my strategy is basically to sit and not move for twelve hours straight.
Lots of exciting book news to share this month. First, I finished the first draft of book 2! It needs a lot of work, but feels fantastic to have 98,000 words to play with. (For reference, Rose Gold is about 91k.)
As for Rose Gold news, this month my agent secured foreign translation rights with the Chinese publisher People's Oriental! That brings us up to 15 territories, and I'm super jazzed and a little jealous that Rose Gold gets to visit China before I do.
Now onto news closer to home.
UK: First Writers' Festival
Last weekend my book was officially introduced to the world at the Theakston Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate (northern England). My team at Michael Joseph (MJ) (UK publisher) came up with the stunning limited-edition proofs above, which were handed out to other authors, key media folks, and, most excitingly/nerve-wrackingly, readers!
While the MJ team was handing out the book, I met tons of people in the publishing industry. I got to meet fellow authors, some of whose books are sitting on my shelves at home. (I tried to play it cool and only ended up gushing once.) I spoke to a couple journalists and bookstore owners, which was super helpful as I'm not that familiar with the UK media landscape. Perhaps most delightfully, I got to spend a lot more time with my team at MJ, which has to be the nicest group of people in London. Oh! I also learned that talking about your dog is a perfectly acceptable conversation starter in this industry, so obviously I shared as many photos of Moose as I could without coming off as a crazy dog lady. (Most likely I came off as one anyway, but that was bound to happen sooner or later.)
While at the writing festival, I also signed my first book! I was standing around, talking to my editor Maxine, when this sweet woman approached and asked if I'd sign the proof for her. I was so thrown I don't even remember what I wrote. I had to borrow a pen too. Oops. This whole process is simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying. It's like the world's longest-sustained adrenaline rush. 🙃
US: Cover Reveal
You've waited patiently for months, and now—drum roll, please—here it is: the final cover for the US edition!
I was nervous going into the cover design process; what if I hated what they came up with? But I loved this cover right off the bat. The final product is very close to the first iteration the Berkley team sent me.
I love that it's pink! Many of you know I'm generally not a huge wearer or fan of pink, but this shade will stand out in a sea of black and dark blue thriller covers. I also love the juxtaposition of the innocent rose wallpaper and butterfly with the darker vibe of the suffocated letters and pins on the butterfly's wings. Very apropos to the character development. And I love the leaking ink of the "darling" typeface. I think the cover is both distinctive and discomfiting, and I'm thrilled with it.
Loren and Danielle, my fantastic publicists in the US, secured an exclusive cover reveal, plus first chapter excerpt, with PopSugar this week! You can read that first chapter here, if you'd like.
Last note on covers: the UK cover, as you will see next month, is SO different from this one! They are two completely disparate interpretations of the story, but both nailed the execution and are equally chilling. I'm looking forward to seeing all the foreign publishers' covers as well.
Author Photos
I think I mentioned in last month's letter that I was about to embark on my author photo shoot. I'm happy to report that in spite of 90-degree heat that day (and jeans that felt painted on), I managed not to sweat through every piece of clothing I wore. The photographer, Simon, was really laidback and made the shoot pretty easy as we traipsed around Kings Cross. Above are my publishers' final picks for the UK and US book jackets, respectively.
Pre-Order Links
Finally, my book is officially available to pre-order! If I may get a little sales-y here... pre-orders are super important because a) they're a good early indicator of a book’s success, which can lead to retailers increasing their initial orders, and b) all sales of my book between now and March 17 (pub date) will count toward the first week’s sales. If you have a really effective pre-order campaign, you have a better chance of hitting the bestseller lists. 😱
If you are so inclined, here are the US retailers where you can buy my book:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books A Million | Apple Books
IndieBound | Kobo | Google Play
And UK retailers (more to be added soon!): Amazon
That's it for this time. To reward my book 2 progress, I'm heading on a 5-day trip with close friends to San Sebastian—one of my favorite cities in Europe—and Rioja. Bring on the 🧀 and 🥖 and 🍷. You can follow me on Instagram (link in the footer below) if you want to come along for the journey.
8 months until publication!