Wednesday 9 April 2008

Policeman lands £800,000 publishing deal

Nothing to do with genre, I'll admit, but I just came across this article on the BBC news website:

"A police officer has quit his job after landing a £800,000 publishing deal to write crime thrillers.
Pc Matt Hilton worked as a beat officer in Cumbria before securing the five novel deal with Hodder and Stoughton."


Not bad work if you can get it...

Every time I see a story like this it just makes me all the more aware that I've neglected my own projects for far too long...

3 comments:

Mark Newton said...

I read this and thought it was a bit odd, this article. Because there is an auction involved. That usually means it was with a few publishing houses. My question is, how come a slush pile manuscript was on the desk of more than one major editor at the same time? Unless he got an offer, then immediately got an agent who sent it around other publishing houses to get an auction -- bad juju, if you ask me. I'm thinking some kind of spin is involved here. For example, paying so much in such a razzmatazz way has already got the article, the author and the book on major news websites...

It's a filthy ol' game, publishing!

James said...

Filthy, indeed. Yeah something doesn't seem right about it all, and it does seem an absurd amount to be paying. They must have great confidence in him...

Bad juju? Speak sense, man!

Mark Newton said...

juju: see Wikipedia!