What a year.
The Silverblood Promise isn’t even out yet – and won’t be until this coming April (nudge, nudge, wink, wink, get your pre-orders in, etc – but it’s been a rollercoaster of a year.
It took me a long time to write this novel. The first draft alone took three years, partly because I was learning my process and was in thrall to bad habits, but mostly because I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. It took me another two or three years to wrangle the resulting manuscript into something that resembled a novel. Then came two years of being in the submission trenches, which as most authors will tell you is . . . not fun. It’s gruelling. Emotionally draining. My personal journey from going out on submission to landing a book deal was an unusual one, to say the least, but that’s a story for another time.
It will suffice to say that when the offer of a book deal landed in my inbox in February, it was the end of not just the writing journey that began in January 2015 when I typed the first words of what would become The Silverblood Promise, but the realisation of a dream I’d chased since I was fifteen (I’m forty now, to put that in some meaningful context). I’d been chasing this dream for quite a long time, so for it to finally happen was . . . well, it was a moment.
That February email resulted in me agreeing a three-book deal with Anne C. Perry at Jo Fletcher Books. (I cannot sing Anne’s praises highly enough. The Silverblood Promise is so much better for her involvement, even if she nearly gave me a heart attack by asking me to cut 40,000 words.) We revealed the cover for the book – with the very kind help of Petrik Leo – at the same time (a book normally doesn’t have a cover this early in the process, but there’s a reason why we did have one, which I’ll maybe talk about another time). Anyway, the reaction was incredible and I was overwhelmed to see so much enthusiasm.
There was more excitement to come.
In the summer a hard-fought bidding war broke out over North American rights for the book (which, given that the book had gone out on submission in the US a year earlier, without getting so much as a sniff of interest) came as something of a surprise, to put it mildly. Tor eventually emerged victorious and will be publishing The Silverblood Promise in May next year, hot on the heels of the UK publication. (Quick shout-out to my US editor Stephanie Stein and everyone else I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with at Tor so far – you’ve all been a joy to work with).
With book deals secured on both sides of the Atlantic, I figured I ought to try and get a respectable author photo – no easy feat for someone who hates almost every single photo ever taken of them, and has a weird tendancy to thrust their head at strange angles when having a camera pointed in their direction. Fortunately Ella Kemp came to my rescue. For any London-based authors in need of a photo, I highly recommend Ella. She’s relaxed, friendly and professional, and her prices are very reasonable.
As summer waned, the first author endorsements for Silverblood starting arriving. Now, I can tell you that asking authors if they’d like to provide a blurb for a book is something that all editors hate having to do. For obvious reasons, really: authors are generally very busy, juggling their own writing with whatever else is going on in their lives, whilst trying to ignore the general state of the world – not to mention their already-towering TBR piles. Happily, being on the other side of this equation – as the recipient of said endorsements – is a lot more fun. So I’m extremely grateful to Ed McDonald, M. J. Kuhn, James Islington, Sebastien de Castell, James Rollins, and Peter McLean for taking the time to read my book and provide such enthusiastic quotes. To have received these endorsements from such excellent writers means a great deal.
The first review of The Silverblood Promise dropped in early November, courtesy of Petrik Leo, and . . . well, what a wonderful first review to receive. “The potential of The Silverblood Promise becoming, at least, one of the best fantasy debuts of 2024 is guaranteed” – yeah, I’ll take that all day long. I’m so grateful to Petrik for taking the time to review the book so thoughtfully, and for all of his support to date – not just for me, but for all the books he’s championed over the years. Reviewers like Petrik are so crucial to helping authors find their readerships.
Advanced reading copies (ARCs) from Tor arrived in early December. What a buzz seeing your book in print for the first time. Surreal. But wonderful. It’s the moment, perhaps more than any other, when you find yourself thinking “Wow, this is actually happening.” The Tor proofs have been making their way out into the world in the weeks since, and it’s a constant delight seeing my book in the hands of others. Especially when there’s animals involved.
While all this excitement has been happening, I’ve been working on copy edits, page proofs, and typing away furiously at book two. At the time of writing, I’m approaching about 90k words on the new manuscript. Not a bad return for the past twelve months, given all the excitement, other commitments, and the fact that I’m not a very fast writer, but I’m going to have to speed up in the new year in order to hit my end-of-April deadline. No rest for the wicked.
Anyway – what a year, as I said. Seeing a long-held dream become reality has been an incredible experience. Huge thanks to my editors and everyone else whose digital fingerprints are on my book, to my fellow authors for their endorsements, and to all the readers and reviewers who have shown such early enthusiasm for The Silverblood Promise. It means the world.
There’s a lot to look forward to in ’24, not least the book’s publication in April/May – but there’s also a lot more exciting stuff cooking. If you like special editions, for example, then keep your eyes peeled . . . There will also be a cover reveal at some point too.
But for now, holidays (and more writing, since deadlines apparently don’t take vacations). Wishing you all a great festive season and a prosperous 2024.
See you on the other side.
James Logan 