Earlier this week I tweeted and posted on Facebook that we had received an offer for UK and Commonwealth rights to A GOOD AMERICAN.  This is obviously wonderful news for me personally, since I am English, and it would have been a little strange to have written a book (even though it is an “American” book) that wasn’t published in the UK.  Even better news for me is that the offer was made by Fig Tree, an imprint of Penguin UK, which is a wonderful imprint and I am very excited to be published by them.  My editor-to-be in the UK, Juliet Annan, also published mega-seller THE HELP by Kathryn Stockett, who is a fellow Amy Einhorn author, and she did it wonderfully well.  The book is scheduled to be published in the UK next summer, after the US publication.

So that’s all very exciting.  A number of people have asked how all this works, though – they had assumed that since Amy Einhorn Books purchased world rights, they would be publishing throughout the world.  In fact AEB will only publish the novel in the United States – but they now have the right to sell publishing rights to publishers in other territories (rather than those rights remaining with me.)  So it’s actually Penguin/Putnam who did the deal with Penguin UK.

It’s particularly serendipitous timing, because next week is the London Book Fair.  This is the annual shindig where publishing houses and literary agents get together and do exactly these sorts of deals.  The foreign rights team from Penguin/Putnam will be trying sell right to other foreign territories.  With a bit of luck having a UK sale under their belt might create some momentum for further sales.  We shall see.