2024 was the year I achieved my lifelong dream—I became a novelist when my debut novel, Voyage of the Damned, was published by Penguin in the UK on 18 January 2024.
To make it through the querying trenches, then the editor submission process, to a final book on the shelf is one hell of a feat in itself, but this was just the first step in what would become a wild year for me.
Voyage of the Damned received numerous special editions, multiple foreign rights deals, award nominations and the paperback version even chosen as Waterstones’ Science Fiction and Fantasy book of the month for January 2025.
But how does all that actually, you know, happen? And what is it like when it does?
I had a very fortunate debut year and to be frank...I’m not sure anyone saw it coming (certainly not me.)
So, I want to reflect on my debut year, and at the same time draw back the curtain a little on the mysterious publishing world. Hopefully it’ll provide some insight for those who are debuting soon, or just anyone who is interested in publishing.
Firstly, my book deal was not a large one. It was a one book deal after four months on sub and it was in the low five figures. I have heard of lower deals, but I’ve also heard of lots of bigger ones. I suspect Voyage of the Damned was regarded as somewhat as a risk by editors. It's a weird crossover book in an untested market and was a relatively new genre for my publisher, so I think it’s fair to say bets were justly hedged.
I was still thrilled, regardless, but my deal size did temper my expectations somewhat. I’ve heard that advance can often equate to how much your publisher promotes your book, and often as a result its ultimate 'success'. (I actually don't believe this is the case with my publisher, i've noticed no drastic differences in treatment at all which is AMAZING, but I didn't know that the time!) So even while celebrating I was somewhat cautious...
Little did I know my debut experience would start off with a big bang.
My book deal was completed on a Thursday evening, by the following Monday Illumicrate confirmed they wanted the book for their January 2024 box.
For those unfamiliar, book crates are HUGE in the UK. They order big numbers and often dominate the bestseller lists. For a debut it’s an amazing opportunity as it gets your book into the hands of readers who might not have ever heard of it otherwise. The visibility a book crate can give you is almost unmatched. As a long time subscriber of Illumicrate, I was about as excited about this as the book deal itself!
But my Illumicrate deal, along with a lot of publishing, was the result of a hefty dose of luck.
When I had a chance to ask Daphne, head of Illumicrate, about it at a later date, she told me that she had just recently watched Knives Out and had it in her mind that she would love to do a murder mystery box. The very next day my book dropped in her inbox. That’s why it was read so quickly and leapt on. Sure, it probably helped that she enjoyed the book, but I want to highlight how something that proved so huge for my book’s success was largely the result of lucky timing.
The Illumicrate deal took a lot of stress off my shoulders regarding my book’s performance, mainly because I knew I had already earned out my advance on that alone. But even being in a crate is not an assurance of a book’s long term success, there are plenty of book box books that have hit the bestseller list then fizzle out, and for me it didn’t result in a flurry of…anything really.
From the start we struggled to sell foreign rights for Voyage. In fact, by the time of publication despite my agent’s and publisher’s best efforts we had zero foreign rights deals. It was a little depressing to know that even with Illumicrate’s backing and the enthusiasm of my publisher, no foreign publishers showed interest in the book. We rinsed the US market especially, with over 35 publishers turning the book down, mostly citing the fact they wouldn’t know how to sell it and that it was difficult to shelve. I convinced myself no foreign deals would be happening for this book and focussed solely on my UK release.
So, despite the Illumicrate deal there really wasn’t a ton of buzz about my book in the lead up to publication (although the cover reveal did do very well, which is entirely down to the stunning design by Nina Elstad).
The Illumicrate deal was done in October and wasn’t until over a year later (yes! A year!) in October 2023 that I heard that Goldsboro would be choosing Voyage of the Damned for their January SFF pick, and the VERY SAME DAY Waterstones also agreed to do a special edition. That really is publishing summed up, very little for a year, then suddenly all the news in one day.
I am less sure of the mechanics around how those two special editions came about, and with a book releasing in January I had written off any further editions happening. These were both a big last-minute shock to me. (The best kind! I adore both these book shops.)
Goldsboro did tell me they adored the book, so hopefully that factored into it being chosen. I think I can thank my publisher for tirelessly pushing Voyage for the Waterstones special edition, as I believe they were a bit wary because of the other special editions and my book being a debut without an established readership. However, Waterstones took a punt on it and I’m so glad they did.
The Waterstones Edition in particular was a huge boost for readership as the shops will often feature tables of their special edition books, further increasing visibility. They also highlighted it in some blogs. There is a theory that any potential readers have to see your book multiple times before it sticks in their brain, and it being out on tables, even if readers walk right past it, likely helps.
Voyage of the Damned was released on 18 January 2024 and further thrust at people through The Illumicrate and GSFF editions. I had a lot of people tell me they likely wouldn’t have picked it up otherwise, so I owe a lot of thanks to both boxes for their support and gorgeous editions, which are perfectly Instagram and TikTok worthy. This is also how a lot of the most passionate fans discovered my book and as a result were so enthusiastic in forcing their friends to read it. It became an instant Sunday Times Bestseller the week of release.
On that note: Thank you so much for the readers who have screamed about this book online, irl or otherwise. I don’t think the power of word of mouth is spoken about enough, and I truly believe that is what helped my book's long term success. Books with huge marketing campaigns and six figure deals can crash and burn. Money and marketing push don't assure anything. Nothing is a sure thing in publishing, especially for debuts. But I have a lot of belief in the power of readers' enthusiasm and thanks to mine, it found its readers and they’re awesome. For that I am very lucky. <3
Another source of readership came from the audiobook. I requested that Nathan Foad read the book. Nathan is a fantastic comedy actor and appears in Our Flag Means Death, a show about gay pirates (watch it, it’s great.) I didn’t think it was likely that it would happen, but my amazing publisher managed to wrestle Nathan into a recording booth and I supposed he thought he might as well read it while it was there.
Nathan’s narration led a small army of his fans to discover the book, who I was pretty sure would vibe with it if they enjoyed OFMD. So that was another contributor to Voyage’s visibility. (Also the audio is awesome and everyone should listen (even Audible agrees, having named it one of their Top 25 audiobooks of the year.))
It was then, as the book began to gain readers, that foreign deals finally began trickling in. Two deals, from Italy and Ukraine, happened around the same time, in February 2024, and I had another (unannounced) come in September 2024.
I suspect the publication of my English language edition perhaps impacted some other markets, such as Germany, where a lot of readers will just read the English version if their own language is not available, so my release did impact my foreign sales in that way. However, just because you don’t have foreign edition offers by publication doesn’t mean you never will. They can come in seemingly at random so never write them off! I’m so excited to see my book in different languages!
I was so ecstatic with how Voyage had done, but the one thing that was still niggling at me was the North American deal…mainly because so many readers wouldn’t shut up about it! (In the nicest way possible!) Every day I was getting emails and messages asking when the book would be available in the US.
One lady in particular kept jumping into my Instagram DM’s and asking repeatedly: ‘does it have a US publisher yet?’ ‘How about now?’ ‘And now??’ I was grateful she was so enthusiastic, but part of me did think… ‘Gosh, she only asked a couple of weeks or so ago!'
Unbeknownst to me, this enthusiastic lady was actually Brianna, a marketing employee of Mira, a HarperCollins imprint in North America. She was messaging me to check that the NA rights were still available!
Brianna had read Voyage (I believe, correct me if i'm wrong, Brianna!) organically through a book club who all adored it so much she decided that she would make her Publisher acquire it. She put together a presentation (which I assume was fabulous but in my mind just says BUY THIS NOW BEFORE SOMEONE ELSE DOES) and thrust it at the important people. It worked. I got a phone call in March 2024. Mira were offering me a three-book deal. I accepted in utter shock and delight.
Yet again, something incredible had happened for my book because it landed in the right person’s lap who felt so enthusiastically about it, they went out to bat for it. I am eternally thankful to Brianna for this, but can’t empathise again just how LUCKY this was. Tons of books in the UK don’t get a US release. I don’t know the exact reasons for this, and I’m sure a publishing professional can offer a greater insight, but from my own rejections I get the impression that US publishing is very risk adverse, moreso than the UK, and I suppose my book was a risk (until it wasn’t).
It was a VERY wild ride from then on. Mira acquired the book in March and wanted to publish it by August, this was the fastest they’d ever sent a book to print.
Because of this my expectations again were lowered somewhat. I had confidence in the team at Mira, but with such a short time frame I wondered how much they could actually DO for my book before release.
I shouldn’t have doubted! Mira managed to secure Barnes & Noble and Indigo special editions of the book (yes another special edition!) and that came with all the advantages of the Waterstones one. Both bookshops got behind the book and pushed it hard, I have no doubt this helped the American release, alongside the word of mouth building online thanks to the UK release.
Because of the North American release, I didn’t really have a chance to ‘come down’ from the UK debut. It felt like I was doing it all again, with ARCs, early reviews, blogs, interviews etc. I believe this was a huge part of why I didn’t get the post-debut crash like quite a few of my fellow debuts reported having.
North America is a HUGE market, and it was after my book released there when I started seeing it appear in a bunch of 'best of' lists online, alongside receiving trade reviews (I got a bunch of starred reviews which is utterly wild for me, as someone who has always doubted my writing ability.) I had an interview with Audible who got behind the book hard, and Goodreads was similar. The book was nominated for two Goodreads awards—Best Fantasy and Best Debut.
I’m not entirely sure what led to those nominations, but I’m told rating average and number of reviews/interactions is a contributor, so thank you, readers, for all those five stars. I never thought anything I wrote would be nominated for anything, so that is still very surreal.
The final cap-off of my debut year was the paperback release being chosen for Waterstones SFF book of the month for January 2025.
I must confess again to know very little of how these decisions happen, but I’m aware that publishers will send details about books they want to put forward for book of the month, and the powers that be at Waterstones pick one. In this way I am very grateful to have a publisher in Michael Joseph who were so tireless with promoting and pushing my book. I am indeed very lucky because not all publishers are created equal in that regard.
I did secretly hope it would happen, in the same way I hope an animated series gets made of my book, but didn't actually thought it would. I told my friends: ‘it’s too weird, too gay, too risky’. Never have I been so glad to have been wrong.
A small sideline--one part of debuting that I didn’t expect to love was events. I started off the year a complete nervous wreck on stage and by the end I’m…still a nervous wreck, but for a much shorter period of time! I got a lot of practise, with events at various Waterstones, FantasyCon, WorldCon, Cymera, literary festivals and MCM Comic-Con to name a few.
One of my resolutions for my debut year was to say yes to everything I could possibly do, even if it was out of my comfort zone, that way I could learn what I enjoyed doing and what I would say no to in the future. I didn’t think I would enjoy being on stage as me, and not playing a character as I have in my theatre background, but by the end I felt so much more confident in myself. I’m so glad I pushed through the anxiety and did the thing. I'm sure these events also all helped the books success even in a small way.
However, my absolute favourite part of the whole process has been meeting readers. I’ve been blown away by the response to Voyage of the Damned. I’ve received the most heartwarming messages from readers who have felt represented in the book, whether that’s because of the queer rep, fat rep or just plain anxious mess rep. Talking to people who relate to Dee and feel seen by the book has in turn made ME feel less alone.
I’ve been given fanart, earrings, bracelets, a custom Funko pop, people have even tattooed my cover on their bodies! As great as awards and critical praise are, what I wanted more than anything was an enthusiastic fandom and I’m so grateful to have found it. I treasure every message readers send to me. Thank you thank you thank you. <3
Sappiness aside, that was my debut year! A year of a lot of highs but not without its lows. Debuting isn’t all rainbow fish and sparkles, and is one of the most stressful things I’ve done in my entire life. (To survive it I HIGHLY suggest connecting with other writers at the same stage as you who will understand what you're going through. My team of writers talked me down off the ledge more than once. <3 )
But for now I’m trying to focus on the positives and appreciate every moment of this journey. I’m aware of how quickly the winds of publishing can change, but hopefully my ship can keep sailing for a bit longer.
Speaking of which, my second book, The Bone Door, has just recently been announced! It is a standalone Fantasy Horror escape room novel, following a team of amnesiac kids who wake up in a mysterious labyrinth. They must travel through different realms and solve a series of impossible missions to escape through the Bone Door. An extract of the first chapter can be read in UK paperback of Voyage of the Damned, and you can add it on Goodreads and pre-order now.
The Bone Door releases in 2026 and was the hardest book I’ve ever written, but is also the book of my heart. That’s for another blog post. For now, thank you again for your support, and I hope readers embrace Hop just as you have with Dee.
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