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On Saturday, I announced my latest book The Mental Load Diaries which has been a passion project of mine for some time. There were many times when I didn’t think it was ever going to see the light of day (every author says that…but it’s true) and then times when I wondered if I even wanted it to anymore! But, there’s not a lot of transparency when it comes to the actual nuts and bolts of getting something published, so I thought I’d share my journey (warts and all) in case it’s helpful.
Listen - I’m not going to beat around the elephant bush that’s in the middle of the room here. I am a content creator with a significant following (over 500,000 across Instagram & TikTok) and to suggest that those numbers didn’t play a part in helping me on my way to being a published author would be disingenuous. But, I was a writer first. I was a writer before I ever even knew Instagram existed. I was a blogger. I was a copy-writer. But the point is - my social media following played a part in getting to where I am today and I don’t want to ignore that.
Sidenote: I always used to say, wistfully (and always when drunk) that I had a book in me, I just didn’t know I was able to get it out of me. Turns out, getting drunk a lot was probably part of the problem.
Back in 2021, Harper Collins approached me and asked if I was interested in writing a book. I immediately said yes, but naively didn’t realise they had a specific book in mind. There has definitely been a significant shift towards recruiting writers who already have a social media following. Easier marketing, right? Well, I didn’t really understand all this at that point, but I did know that writing a book - even if it wasn’t necessarily a book I’d thought about writing - was definitely a step in the right direction.
I’ve mentioned it before (but just in case you missed it), I always decide whether I’m going to do a gig based on what my husband and I call The Primitive Power Triangle. Basically, we decide whether to do a gig based on money, love and/or opportunity.
I will say yes to something because I love everything about it, it pays me really well and/or it will lead to other opportunities. My first book was about doing it for the love of writing and the opportunities it would offer. I knew I was unlikely to make any money from it - I got an advance of £6k and I’m yet to earn out which means, I’m not making any royalties yet. That’s ok though - money wasn’t the reason I did it and therefore not a success/failure metric.
In terms, however, of love and opportunity, it was hugely successful. Firstly, I loved writing a book. I couldn’t believe that I was actually writing a fucking book! The didn’t get old ever - it still doesn’t - and so in terms of love, the project was a huge success. But it was when it came to the opportunity, that the real success became clear.
Firstly, writing it proved to myself that I could, in fact, write a book. That was essential. Secondly, it meant that I had built contacts within the publishing industry that I otherwise never would have got to make. Thirdly, it gave me the confidence to start writing another book and approaching potential literary agents.
Full disclosure: I was introduced to my agent (the wonderful Anna Dixon at YMU Literary) via a very good friend of mine, Cherry Healey. Here’s where the social media advantage comes into play. My career on Instagram has meant that I have met and become close with lots of incredibly creative and successful people and Cherry Healey was one of those people. Without her introduction, I’m not sure YMU would have even let me through the door, but Anna agreed to read the first 25,000 words of my novel and invited me to lunch where she offered to represent me. It was everything I’d ever wanted but I had to make something really clear to her.
“I know I have a social media following and I know that’s great for marketing down the line, but I really need to know that you are signing me because you love my writing, you think I’m a good writer.”
She assured me that was, indeed, the case at which point, I’m pretty sure I cried real tears, in a public place (mortifying) because I couldn’t believe this was actually happening.
So book one - The First Time You Smiled (or was it just wind?) - had done it’s job. A success! Now on to the next one.
I finished the novel in October 2023 and we were hopeful to have sold it to a publisher by Christmas. In the end, it took a year to sell it. In the meantime, I pitched the idea of The Mental Load Diaries, in the hope that a two book offering may be more exciting. It was rejection after rejection. None of the rejections suggested they didn’t like it. Most simply said they had other books that sat in a similar space, they didn’t like the protagonist, they weren’t sure about the subject matter. It was enormously disheartening and then something weird happened.
My editor for The Mental Load Diaries liked the idea but wasn’t in a position to sign it. She was about to move companies and promised she would come back to me. At the same time, my agent encouraged the fiction editor at Simon & Schuster, to read it again. She did just that and wrote back asking if we’d made any changes because she really loved it this time around. We had made no changes at all. The only thing that had changed were certain things in the zeitgeist that had emerged making it more relevant and the day. It was a valuable lesson in the subjectivity that plays out when you’re trying to get published. It’s rarely about you and your writing (if it is, they tend to make that clear); often it’s about timing.
Then another gift from the timing gods: the editor interested in The Mental Load Diaries came back to us and said she had now moved to Simon & Schuster and was able to make an offer. We couldn’t believe our luck. Now, the two editors interested in the two books, were somehow now working for the same publishers and all of a sudden, I knew that the time was right - things were clicking into place.
I ended up signing a two-book deal with S&S and the first of those books - The Mental Load Diaries - has just been made available for pre-orders with a publishing date of July 3rd 2025. Of course, when I signed the deal in October 2024, S&S said they wanted to pubilsh the non-fiction first, since that was what I was mostly known for. Great, except that I haven’t actually written that one yet.
“When would you need the first draft?” I asked innocently.
“By December 31st,” they replied deadpan.
“No problem!” I said with way more confidence than I felt and headed off to get working on pulling 70-80,000 words out of my bumhole in about 6 weeks. I managed it - just - and since then it’s been a whirlwind of first read edits, final edits, legal reads/edits and then we had to all agree on a title and a cover.
Anyone who’s published a book will know that the title and cover is not always chosen by the author. We get to make suggestions and have final say, but there are a lot of people who have skin in the game. Your editor will have a clear idea of a title based on where she believes the book should be positioned, the sales and marketing team will have strong views based on what does and doesn’t sell, the design team will have input because it needs to look good too. It’s a wild ride and it was probably the hardest part of the whole thing because, I know I’m not an expert in any of those things, but I also know my book and I want to be comfortable with it and proud of it. We got there in the end - there were tears - and I’m delighted with The Mental Load Diaries.
Then it’s the fun stuff - it’s the marketing and PR chats, the content ideas, the getting it out there. It’s the launch event, the interviews, the promo. It’s picking an outfit for publication day, telling all your friends and family that it’s finally happened and seeing the rewards from months and months of slog finally come to fruition.
There are things you don’t plan for as well - getting a sickness bug the night before you announce and having no sleep and no energy to even respond to a comment let alone be perky and bright and ‘all things book’, having to change significant elements because legal say so and no one wants to get sued (fair enough!) and realising that writing your darkest secrets and worst moments is one thing when you’re doing it but a whole other thing when you realise it’s going into print.
All that being said, writing books is my favourite thing to do and I feel very fucking lucky to be able to do it. There is one thing I really want to make clear though: it’s a bloody crime that only one name goes on the spine of a book. They say it takes a village to raise a child…well, that also applies to books.
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