In The Shadows Of The Heartman

To start with its all about the cover. But I'm getting ahead of myself. There's something, dear reader, I'd like to share with you and it involves a little bit of crying....

Here's something I've learnt... its never wise to Google your own name. I know many of us have done it, mainly for a giggle. Now, if  I'd chosen to put my moniker, Mark Wright into a search engine six months ago it would have most certainly come back with a 101 hits for an ex Chester City football manager and a bloke with shiny white teeth and a fake tan who stars in 'The Only Way Is Essex! But over the past few weeks things have changed and M P Wright has now joined those other two name only doppelgangers and is vying for web page space. This, if I honest is a little unnerving.

When I first started to write Heartman back in the spring of 2011 the most important thing in my mind at the time was to finish the book. First draft took six months. The second, another three, whittling down the narrative and sharping the prose. I felt I had something special in my 373 pages. I just needed somebody in the publishing world to feel the same way about it too. In May 2012 I was lucky enough to pitch Heartman, (then called, Rock a Bye Blues) to a panel of literary agents at the crime writers festival, Crimefest in Bristol. Esteemed in their field, Broo Doherty, Camilla Wray and David Headley all loved the book and wanted to see more. It was however a chance meeting with a very special person that took me from aspiring author to soon to publish crime writer. That special person was Philip Patterson. Mr P. as I like to refer to him is my literary agent. I was introduced to him in the bar of the swishy Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel. It was 4pm. The guy doing the introducing was the wonderful Brighton based writer, Emlyn Rees. Emlyn had read the early chapters of Heartman a few weeks before and had kindly informed Mr P. about the book and that he thought it 'Had Legs'. Emlyn felt the two of us should hook up at Crimefest at some point.

It has to be said that first meeting with Mr P was a joy. I was dressed in a fancy grey suit. Mr P was in a pair of shorts and resembled the submarine Captain from Das Boot. Phil listened enthusiastically as I sold the book to him. We drank beer. We talked about our favourite writers. He laughed at my jokes, I laughed at his. We drank more beer. We spoke about our families. Then Mr. P asked to read the rest of the manuscript and we had another pint. I sent him the manuscript, then heard nothing. It was fretful time and as Mr P will tell you, I could never be called a patient man. On September 4th 2012, I met up with Mr P again, this time on his home turf in London. We met unsurprisingly in a pub. The Bee Hive at 126 Crawford Street. We sat outside in the September sunshine and drank Meantime Brewery Pale Ale. Mr P told me how much he'd like the book and he commented on 'How well I turned a chapter'. He then out of nowhere offered me representation. A heavy lump formed in my throat and I struggled to swallow. I felt a wetness form around my eyes but thankfully and rather stoically didn't shed a tear. Two days later I received a letter from the much respected Marjacq Scripts. It simply read; 'Dear Mark, Great to meet you last night and I am thrilled to be offering you representation.' Now I cried quite a bit.

Receiving that wonderful letter was the start of a very long journey. One that saw many ups and downs along the way. Finding an agent to represent you is hard. There's a lot of great writers out there but very few agents. Getting published can be harder still. I got impatient again and shed quite a few tears in desperation at not seeing the book get snapped up as quickly as I would have liked. The submission process was lengthy and the pass rate was pretty high. Months dragged past. I became occasionally despondent and Mr P sent me lots of short tempered emails informing me in so many words that "Rome wasn't built in a day and to chill out!" Then some great news, my Marjacq Film & TV agent, the brilliant Luke Speed sold the optioning rights to Heartman to BBC's Line of Duty & ITV's The Bletchley Circle creators, World Productions in April 2013. I was elated and thought we were on the way to finding Heartman its happy publishing home. The summer came and went and Autumn rolled in. Then as the first frosts of Winter began to rear its head I had news from Mr P that an Edinburgh based publisher with a great reputation for working closely with its authors and who made a point of choosing any new writers it consider working with wisely and carefully had shown interest in the books. Behind the scenes negotiations got under way and in November of last year Campbell Brown, CEO of the Black & White Publishing offered Mr P and Myself a two book deal.
On hearing the wonderful news, I cried a little bit (well, I cried a lot actually, then I went to the pub to celebrate, there I drank lots of beer and cried a bit more!). It was however all happy crying.  2014 has seen the Heartman develop in ways I could never have imagined. All writers say how wonderful there publishers are. Well my publisher, Black & White are more than wonderful.That term really does not do them justice. My publishers are miracle workers. My publishers are geniuses. My publishers are like one big, happy family and I feel so lucky to have joined that family.
Since January, Campbell and Head of Marketing, the brilliant, Ali McBride have worked tirelessly along with the B&W team to bring Heartman to the fantastic place it is today. I've been assisted by a great bunch of professionals who have each (and still are) putting a very special personal stamp on the book. My editor, Karyn Millar (how swell is that as a writer to say you have an editor) honed in the prose and we finished the editing process in less than 14 days. Janne Moller and Paul Eckersley are at the moment grafting with all things PR and press and the publishing house have brought on board one of the UK's finest PR companies into the fold. Emma Draude and Sophie Goodfellow (Sounds like the name of a great Bond girl, dont you think?) at EDPR are currently working their magic with Heartman.I never thought I'd hear myself say this but, Heartman is published on July 1st. Its such an exciting time. Now, before I sign off on this first post I'd like to go back to the beginning of it. The part about Googling my name. When I did tap in my name, Waterstones, the booksellers came up. I clicked on their web page and followed the Heartman/M P Wright link. When it flashed up in front of my eyes it informed me that there are only 75 days until publication day. Just 75 days. The last 18 months have been a real journey. One I never believed I would have taken a few years ago. But the journey's happened and I would not have changed a moment of it. (Not even the crying!)

During the next two months I hope you'll join me on the last leg of Heartman's journey. There is some exciting news I'd like to share during the coming weeks and you'll be able to hear it all here first. In the meantime I'm just tidying up Heartman's sequel, 'All Through The Night'. I can't wait for my publishers and Mr P to read it. My fingers are crossed they'll fall in love with book two just as they did with Heartman. As I'm writing the last few lines of this blog, I've just glanced over at the cover of the proof copy of Heartman thats sat on my desk. As I said, this blog started with thoughts of the cover. I think (and fellow writers have told me) that its a strikingly beautiful jacket for a paperback. I'd dreamed of many things in regards to being a published writer but I never dreamed of having such a beautiful cover as the one that now adorns my book. The next part of that dream will be to see it standing on the shelves of the bookstores this summer. When I get that first glance, I can't promise that I wont be shedding a few tears, again...