Breaking the news of your book deal

There’s something oddly perverse in posting this particular information considering the subject matter’s all about keeping secrets. But that’s the fun of this worldwideinterweb thing. And the tale that Stuart MacBride, whose debut crime novel hits bookstores next May, is a most interesting one. For even though the world at large knows about his book deal, his friends and most of his loved ones are decidedly in the dark about it:

I’ve been kinda circumspect about the whole three

book deal thing. In fact, I’ve not told anyone about it. Not a soul.

Well, three souls: the good lady wife (Fiona), my line manager (and I

had to tell him so I could arrange to go part time for the writing of

book II) and my best friend James.

Other than that – no one. Not even my family know about this. Which is

a bit odd, considering that you’re currently reading this on the

internet, where any old sausage can dial up and take a browse around.

So basically you could say that I’m only not telling the people who I

know and might actually be interested. Sounds a bit odd now I come to

think about it, but hey-ho.

The problem
was that I signed up with HC back in March this year – 14 months before
the thing was due to be published in the UK. This I felt was WAY too
long to have people pestering me about when it was coming out and could
they read it and blah, blah, blah… This did not fit with my hermit-like
image. So I came to the decision that I wasn’t going to tell anyone at
all until the end of Feb 2005 (at some sort of birthday party). This
was as long as Fiona would agree to keep the secret. Any longer, she
said, and she’d explode, splattering the landscape with tattered bits
of her head. And mine if I didn’t get out of the way fast enough. To be
honest, I’d be happier just not telling any of the family / workmates /
people until after the fact. You know, drop; it into casual
conversation like. “What? Oh, no sorry: I can’t come to tea on the
twelfth, I’ve got to go to this launch party thing for my
internationally published novel.” Very smooth, no?

Like Stuart, I’m also interested in what people do when they get "the call": do they tell everyone in sight, do they keep it a secret for months and months, or something in between? Because there is an awfully long lead time between the time the contract’s signed and the book’s in a store, but as faithfully documented in other places, that lead time is full of twists and turns and valuable information.