Un-published

This is both an unwonted and an unwanted post. It’s not about stately homes and I did not want to be in the position where I need to write it, but we are and so here goes.

As some of you may have pieced together, I am embroiled in the great Unbound publishing fiasco¹. They published my last book, The Hard Way, and I had signed a contract with them for Burning Down the House. But like many of their other authors, I have not received most of the money I am owed for this.

This is where it gets a bit technical. Unbound has gone into administration and reformed itself as Boundless. This company, in theory, will continue to publish the Hard Way and will take on Burning Down The House. The only problem is, they also said that this new company would honour the payments owed to authors, and now they don’t have the money.

Financially, this is upsetting for me, but for some other people involved, it’s the difference between paying the rent or not - and one person has lost a house purchase as a result. But it also puts me in a really difficult position.

I was about due to deliver the final manuscript (well, ZIP file) for Burning Down the House at the end of the month. In theory, Unbound as an imprint still exists to publish it, but why would I give a book to people who are not paying me?

The problem is, if I walk away, all the people who have pledged for the book (and apologies to every single one of you for this mess) don’t get their copies and may not - unless they paid by credit card - get their money back either.

There isn’t a simple answer to this, and I don’t as yet know what I am going to do. The ideal scenario is perhaps that I get a decent enough advance for a book that is pretty near finished and use that to send out copies to everyone who pledged myself.

I hope that this is the case, but the other problem with the whole situation is that it’s not just a financial headache, it’s also profoundly depressing. The thing about writing, sitting in a room pounding away at ridiculous ideas for months on end, is that you are doing it on the basis that someone out there has faith in what you are doing, and because of that, other people will read it. What Unbound has done is take all of that away without warning, and this is a huge part of why people are so angry. As you can imagine, there are a whole lot of social media chats flying around, and people are heartbroken. Like the editor of a book of essays about child loss and infertility, whose authors are now losing all over again.

One person said that they’d spent three days in their pjs, not doing much but staring at the wall. I’m trying to keep the household spirits up because of exams, but it’s hard work. And I certainly don’t feel much like putting on my most chipper email tone and sending the book proposal around to a load of cynical agents one more time.

So the main purpose of this email is to say that I don’t know what will happen, and I am sorry, but I will keep you updated. And if anyone knows a nice agent (or is a nice agent), who’d like to read a funny and almost entirely written piece of shouting at stately homes, do send them this way.

1. If this means nothing to you, can I recommend a short trip to Bluesky where over the weekend approximately 25% of all content seemed to be disgruntled Unbound authors. Which says a lot about the demographics of Bluesky, amongst other things.