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Yesterday I posted about Bookmanager’s Future Canadian Fiction Releases rankings where Operation Angus had broken in the Top 10. Perhaps I should have waited another day. I checked this morning and Operation Angus has jumped from 10th to 6th in the rankings. With six weeks to go until launch, this is good news.
Bookmanager is a great resource for writers, booksellers, and publishers alike. I use it to gauge how well my novels are selling, or in this case, how much anticipation there is for my new novel, Operation Angus, that’s due out at the end of August. For novels already released, Bookmanager tracks sales and ranks books accordingly, and provides bestsellers lists to major media outlets including the CBC. You can filter for various criteria to ensure you’re comparing apples to apples. In my case, for books already published, I filter the search to yield “Canadian-fiction” rankings. For novels soon to be published, as below, I filter for “Canadian-fiction-future releases” rankings, presumably based on pre-orders.
Enough context. When I checked this morning, Operation Angus had broken into the Top 10 rankings for future Canadian fiction releases. I’m thrilled, particularly looking at the company I’m keeping. No one is likely to displace Louise Penny, Chris Hadfield, Linden MacIntyre or some of the others, so I’ll happily ride on their coat tails. I’m just happy to be in the same postal code with them. This all bodes well for Operation Angus due in bookstores August 31.
Just in case any of you were wondering just how the cover and spine of the novel will look in 3-D, wonder no more!
Love it. Three months today Operation Angus hits bookstores.
We’ve now finalized the cover for Operation Angus, my eighth novel, due in bookstores August 31, 2021. It certainly is eye-catching. I really love it. A big thanks to Matthew Flute the talented designer at McClelland & Stewart who came up with this design, and to my editor, Bhavna Chauhan, and publisher, Jared Bland, for their guiding hands. I love the little spy running across the roof of Centre Block on Parliament Hill. Perfect.
You should see the novel now in the online retailers available for pre-order. (The cover image may take a few days to appear in the online listings.) Stay tuned for a sneak peek at the back cover copy in the next week or so.
I started writing the manuscript for Operation Angus on March 27. With the Corona Virus cancelling every book-related event in my busy calendar since mid-March, I suddenly had much more writing time on my hands than I’ve ever had before. So I decided to seize the opportunity and commit all of that suddenly “found time” to writing. So 44 days and 90,627 words later on May 10, I wrote the words “The End” to close out the manuscript. It’s the fastest manuscript I’ve ever written, by a long shot. Of course, I spent about a year planning, mapping, and outlining the story and characters, yielding a 60-page bullet-point, chapter-by-chapter outline, so I could then write the manuscript in a sprint.
Since finishing it about a week ago, I’ve managed to go through the entire manuscript for the first of several passes at editing and polishing. This resulted in some trimming and some adding. Much to my editor’s chagrin, I’m more of an adder than a trimmer. But it does feel good to have taken this major step forward on the new novel. It’s not due out until next year, so I’m ahead of schedule. Now, a few trusted beta-readers are having a look at it, which might lead to some more editing. There remains lots to do. After I send it to my editor at McClelland & Stewart, the real editing begins. But for now, I’m happy.
As promised, here’s the cover for the French translation of Albatross, published by Les Éditions de l’Homme. They’ve based it on the McClelland & Stewart cover and it will be published sometime this fall. It was to happen next month, in May, but the Corona Virus has thwarted those plans. I’m really looking forward to this. Albatross is my first French translation. May there be more in the future.
This has not been a closely-guarded secret. In fact, I’ve been mentioning it when asked at talks and readings for the last few months (back before the Corona Curse when I was still touring around). But I realized yesterday as I finished writing Chapter 1 of my eighth novel, that I’ve never formally noted it in this space. So here goes. The characters from my first two novels, The Best Laid Plans and The High Road, are returning in my next novel. That’s right, Angus McLintock, Daniel Addison, Muriel Parkinson, Lindsay Dewar, Bradley Stanton, and some new players are back in Operation Angus, the tentative title. It should be out sometime in 2021, likely the late summer or fall.
After having given nearly 1,000 book talks and readings since 2008 when The Best Laid Plans was published by McClelland & Stewart, the most common questions I field from readers are various versions of “When will you write another Angus novel?” I never closed the door on another “Angus novel” but to be honest, I never really had the intention of returning to the principled Scottish engineering professor with the unruly hair and beard. Okay, “unruly” is a profound understatement. But as the years passed and more and more readers asked about it, the idea of a third novel about Angus, his trusty sidekick Daniel Addison, and the rest of the gang began to sound more appealing. Well, now is the time.
The tentative title is Operation Angus, though that could change before publication. (After all, Albatross, the title of my last novel was an eleventh hour change just before publication.) I’d like to have “Angus” in the title to make it perfectly clear for readers that the accidental MP is back. The story is less a political satire and much more of a comic thriller. Without going into too much detail, Angus, now a Cabinet minister, and Daniel, while in London, stumble upon information about an assassination plot against the President of Russia set to unfold while he is briefly in Ottawa for a meeting with our Prime Minister. For various reasons, the intelligence is not considered credible (except by Angus and Daniel) and so the RCMP and CSIS don’t really pursue it. Angus and Daniel are left to uncover and thwart the assassination attempt pretty much on their own, supported by the quirky bunch around them. I should probably stop there.
If all goes to plan, I should have a completed manuscript ready for my editor at M&S, Bhavna Chauhan, by the end of August. Now back to Chapter 2.
This is the simple table I use when writing my novels to help me keep track of word count and sometimes to make me feel good about my progress or daunted by what remains. Right now, it’s more of the latter.
This afternoon, on a lark, I checked back in with Bookmanager, where you can find all of the books in Canada ranked according to the previous week’s sales. Bookmanager provides the bestsellers lists for several major media outlets including CBC Books. I confess that in the weeks following the launch of my novels, I usually check the Bookmanager rankings every half hour or so! (Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration.) But Albatross has now been in bookstores since last August so I haven’t checked the numbers for quite a while. But I just did, filtering for “Canadian” and “fiction.” What a lovely surprise it was, in these bleak days of social distancing and self-isolation, to see that Albatross remains among the top twenty bestselling Canadian novels some seven months later (albeit at number twenty). Chuffed. Now back to our regularly scheduled hand-washing and crowd-avoidance. Stay safe, all.
I’m thrilled to report that a French translation of Albatross will soon be released in Quebec. Les Éditions de l’Homme in Montreal secured the North American French language rights late last year. I’ve been working with the translator in the last month and the plan is to release the French edition in May. I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with for the cover. This is actually the very first French translation I’ve ever had, hence the “I’m thrilled.” Here’s hoping it leads to more. My thanks to my tireless literary agent, Beverley Slopen for her work in making this happen. I’ll release the cover when it’s all been decided. Stay tuned. À tout à l’heure!
Now that The Testaments, Margaret Atwood’s much-anticipated sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, has arrived, hot on the heels of Louise Penny’s latest blockbuster, I’m thrilled to be still in the bestseller mix. This is the top ten list of Canadian fiction bestsellers according to Bookmanager as of this day. It’s a veritable “who’s who” of CanLit with Margaret Atwood, Miriam Toews, Michael Ondaatje, Emma Donoghue, Esi Edugyan, Michael Crummy, Cherie Dimaline, and Louise Penny… and somehow I’m there, too. Surreal.
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