Well, I never expected to be doing this today…

As some or all of you will know, a couple of weeks ago we announced the news that three authonomy authors have been signed to HarperCollins. In light of this, we approached one of the three, Miranda Dickinson, to see if she'd be interested in blogging about her journey to publication. Happily she said yes, so in the coming weeks and months you'll get a unique insight into what actually goes on behind the scenes, once the ink on the contract has dried...

Welcome to my first blog post for authonomy – which is yet another surreal thing to happen to me during the past couple of months!

But let me start at the beginning... Picture, if you will, a small office somewhere near Birmingham airport, September ‘08. This was my workplace – and things were not boding well for my job. We’d started to notice that work just wasn’t coming in, with our bosses remaining tight-lipped about the reasons why. All they said was, ‘As long as you look like you’re working, we don’t care what you look at on the internet,’ – which meant I could write all day and get paid for it! In a desperate bid to keep my bank manager smiling and avoid the perils of online shopping, I spent some time chatting to friends on MyWritersCircle.com – and that’s where somebody recommended authonomy.com I wasn’t really sure what to make of the site at first, so I spent a few weeks dipping in and out, reading other people’s work and building my bookshelf and watchlist. Then a few weeks later in October, I mustered all my courage and took the plunge, uploading my unfinished novel, Coffee At Kowalski’s to see what other people thought. To be really truthful, I wasn’t sure if Kowalski’s would be of interest to anyone other than me. It was my little pet novel – something I’d been writing on and off for about seven years – and it was more out of curiosity than sparkling self-confidence that I chose this novel to upload to the site.

I lost my job at the end of October – an excruciating process that saw the colleagues I’d grown really close to over the past two-and-a-half years completely torn apart and ripped off – and I have to say, without any pretentiousness, that the lovely comments Kowalski’s I received on authonomy, together with great friends I was making on the site, made such a difference with my self-confidence in tatters and fears for my financial future building.

Fast-forward to December ’08… I received an email from an editorial assistant at Avon Books (part of HarperCollins) saying that she’d seen Kowalski’s on authonomy and was interested in seeing the full manuscript, as part of several she was calling in for a closer inspection. Now this is where I have to be really honest and say that, at first, I thought it was a scam email! I’ve been writing seriously for several years and have come across more than my fair share of misleading and dodgy companies during that time – and this just seemed too good to be true… So I Googled the sender’s name and discovered – to my utter shock – that she was who she said she was. Panic!!

Good news: they want to read my manuscript! Bad news: it’s only about three-quarters finished! Aargh! However, being recently made redundant meant I had a whole week of garden leave, which allowed me to spend three days (and nights) writing just over 20,000 words to finish Kowalski’s.

Again, I never expected to hear anything else – after all, I was the first person to admit that Kowalski’s needed work. Writing the novel over seven years meant that I hadn’t really looked at some chapters for a while and, while I was fairly pleased with the end result, the annoying copy-editor in me kept niggling away!

A week later, the Publishing Director of Avon Books emailed to ask me to call her. Panic again!! Trembling, I made the call from my car, outside the offices where I was now working (one of three part-time jobs I now have!). At the risk of sounding like a complete doofus (which I will probably do throughout this year at regular intervals!) I have to say that for the best part of an hour I just sat there, wracking my brains for the reason why she was speaking to me. Was she just being kind and offering a little free advice? Was she going to say something like, ‘Go away and work on this and then come back to us in six months’? It was only when she said, ‘We are wanting to publish your novel, by the way,’ that the penny finally dropped!

I was in total shock – and still am, in many ways. All over Christmas and into the New Year, I verged between jumping up and down like an over-excited three year old and being dumbstruck with the enormity of it all. For years I’ve walked into places like Waterstone’s and Borders and said, ‘One day my book will be on those shelves’ – and it’s crazy to think that now it’s actually happening (in November, to be precise!)

It’s going to be a lot of very hard work, but I can’t wait to get started. In fact, I’ve already begun.

I know absolutely nothing about the publishing process; I have no agent; I have never had a novel published before. I know there’s going to be a lot to learn over the coming weeks and months and I’m really grateful to authonomy for letting me share my journey here.

Just before I go, there’s one more thing I’d like to say: if this can happen to me, it can happen to anyone. There’s nothing special about me – I have no golden ticket, vast marketing team behind me nor sneaky insider information – I just wrote a book, uploaded it and someone noticed. Publishers and agents are looking here – and there are so many fantastic writers on this site that it stands to reason that more people will be discovered really soon. Keep writing and keep believing!

Miranda x

(click here to see Miranda's recent appearance on BBC Midlands)