My Book Sold!

Finally, finally I can scream from my rooftop that I've got a book deal! I've been keeping this little secret for a hundred years now. (Okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration).

I am so pleased to announce that my young adult paranormal, GILDED, sold to Amazon Children's Publishing (formally Marshall Cavendish)!

Here's the blurb from Publisher's Marketplace:

Christina Farley's GILDED, in which a 16-year-old Korean-American girl with a black belt and a deadly proclivity with steel-tipped arrows discovers an ancient Korean god has been kidnapping the first-born daughters of her family for generations, to Miriam Frank at Amazon Children's, in a nice deal, for publication in Fall 2013, by Jeff Ourvan at Jennifer Lyons Literary Agency (world).

I know you're waiting for all the gossip on how it happened. So...

Let's rewind back to January, when on Martin Luther King's birthday I got this stop-your-heart kind of email from Margery Cuyler, Publisher of Marshall Cavendish, saying she loved my book and was taking it to acquisitions. (Wow!!!!! She loved my book!!!!!!)

For the next week I was on pins and needles. Waiting, staring at my phone, waiting and staring at my phone some more. Then I got the call from Jeff, my agent. THE CALL. It was during my school day and I'm not allowed to answer my phone so he sent me a quick email first. Amazon Children's had offered to buy my book. Squeal!

Somehow I got through the school day. I have no idea what I told my students or if I even taught the math lesson correctly. All I know is that I had this huge smile plastered across my face. As soon as I herded my students out the door, I was dialing Jeff to talk about all the juicy details.

 

Signing my contract

 

I am just so thankful to my agent who knew how to navigate through the whole submitting maze because the next few months after that were a bit insane. And he put up with my bizarre emails that looked something like this:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(I know, who sends crazy emails like that?)

Yes, he's totally a black belt in agenting.

I am thrilled to be working with my editor, Miriam Frank, who said she fell head-over-heels in love with GILDED (I can't help but love her already).

Below you will find a short video I made that highlights my journey in writing this book. If you have read my blog over the years, these pictures will be familiar to you. Most of the pictures my husband or myself took while living in Korea.



Thanks as always to my crit buds who have endured emails and reading too many versions of this manuscript among others: Casey McCormick, Beth Revis, Larissa Hardesty, Ellen Oh and the amazing girls from the MiGs!

I hope you will stop by later this week to celebrate with me because I'm holding an EPIC contest giving away books, critiques, gift cards, and jewelry based on GILDED.