I have a couple of bits of spiffy (if a tad old) news I’ve just realised I’ve not yet blogged about, but first: why I turned down a three-book deal, and why I don’t feel the slightest twinge of uncertainty that I’ve done the right thing.
My most recent publishers offered me this deal way back this year, and for a day or two I thought my reaction was delight. However, I quickly realised it wasn’t, at all. It was relief that they wanted me to write more, because they liked what I wrote. I still feel gratified, and I’m still pleased to have been asked, but I’ve known for some time that this was utterly the wrong publisher for me, and I’m the wrong writer for them; I don’t fit their ideal list. Not even sideways, squished up, and with a good hard shove. Nope. Not happening.
I think, what I’m getting at here, is that while a three-book deal sounds like the holy grail, if it’s with the wrong people, you WILL regret it, eventually. So tread carefully, do your homework, and check with other authors IN YOUR GENRE who write for the same publisher.
Anyway, that said, I now have a paperback deal with Piatkus Books (part of the Little, Brown Book Group) for my new series, currently known as The Penhaligon Saga. It’s only for the first book in the series, but I would take a single-book contract with this publisher over that 3-book one any day of the week… and not only because the other deal was a digital-only one! I have a new editor, a male one, and I can’t help hoping that’s really going to help with the deeper characterisation of my male protagonists.
Aaaaand, Good News the Second: Daughter of Dark River Farm, the last in the Oaklands Manor series, has been short-listed in the Love Stories Readers Award, in the Best Historical category. This means all three books in the series have now been short-listed in the same category, for the past three years – I can’t adequately express my delight at this! I’m up against some real heavy-weights though, including Saskia Sarginson, who I admire SO much, so I have no illusions that this year will be any more successful than it is now. But the third nomination, for this last book… absolutely bloody magic!
Onward and upward… going to have a launch party in Waterstones next March, for the paperback release of Maid of Oaklands Manor (also with Piatkus Books.) Proper excited!
Terri Nixon 
It takes bravery to turn down a deal like this, as well as good sense and sight of the bigger picture.
Congratulations on the deal and it will lead to better and better things.
And huge congratulations on the nomination too
Thanks, Jane! 🙂 I still can’t quite believe I’ve ever been in that position to do that, so I’m totally aware of how lucky I am! Hope things are going well with your course, too. x