Cotton finds her Happy Place with new list for Ebury

Penguin Random House’s non-fiction division Ebury is launching a new imprint with broadcaster and author Fearne Cotton pictured above, which sees her podcast and events brand Happy Place extend into books.

Cotton has signed a five-book deal with Ebury, ranging across inspirational, wellbeing and cookery titles, to be published on the new Happy Place Books list, which the publisher says will “champion exciting new voices and modern wellbeing talent, offering support for our everyday needs with the mission to share positive stories and ideas to inspire everyone”. The world rights deal was agreed by Ebury Press publishing director Lizzy Gray and Amanda Harris at YMU Group.

Happy Place is a collaboration between Cotton and her talent management company YMU Group, which promotes physical and mental wellbeing and already includes projects such as the “Happy Place” podcast and Happy Place Festival. Cotton says the literary arm of the brand felt like “a really exciting yet natural route to walk down” as the team’s work on the podcast and festival had organically built up a community of talkers, writers and experts in the wellbeing space. She adds: “It’s something that we had been thinking about within the Happy Place team for some time, and moving over to Ebury enabled me to bring that to life. They totally understood it, and wanted to run with it as much as I did.”

On the move into publishing, Cotton explains: “I think there’s something really special and also legacy-leaving about having that physical element of a book, so it’s definitely an important focus for everything we are doing with Happy Place. Everybody that we are working with feels the exact same and that’s why, internally, there’s a lot of excitement around making that happen.” Initial meetings were based around the themes and voices the imprint might want to feature. Cotton says that from the start she wanted to focus on people with interesting stories to tell, rather than on an existing brand with a large following.

“I don’t care about that; I actually want to do the opposite. I want to bring people to the table that don’t have a massive following but have a huge amount of knowledge and life experience and wisdom.” She continues: “That’s the whole point of Happy Place’s platform: to bring new voices to the forefront and for everybody, myself included, to learn from these stories. I’m lucky that I’ve got that pre-existing platform so they don’t have to have one; we can get their story out through Happy Place.”

Boxing clever
Launching the Happy Place Books list is British professional boxer Lawrence Okolie’s first book, Dare to Change Your Life. Cotton heard Okolie speaking about his journey from obesity to competing in the Olympics when she was working at BBC Radio 2. Finding his story inspirational, she interviewed him as part of the Happy Place digital festival last year, and then invited him to write a book when the imprint was established. The Happy Place team spent a lot of time working with him to determine the angle that the book should take. Rather than focusing on boxing or sport, it will centre around mindset; it “is a book about empowering people to know that they can do whatever they want with their lives”. Okolie then worked with a writer to finish the book, which is being released on 8th April. Planned publicity for the book will include a spot on the “Happy Place” podcast and joint press appearances with Cotton.

In May, Happy Place will publish The Instant Mood Fix by Cambridge University mental health researcher Dr Olivia Remes, who was brought to Cotton’s attention by someone in-house at Ebury. She says: “I was instantly interested… At the moment, it seems extremely relevant to have a book that is about mood because it’s been such a rough couple of years for everybody.” Following this will be a book from Cotton’s breathwork coach Rebecca Dennis, Let It Go, coming in July. Cotton says: “She’s helped me out hugely and I’ve referred so many friends to her. I’m really excited about that, because I think breathwork is so underrated. Looking at solutions to help anxiety and stress is imperative with Happy Place.”

Cotton’s own first book for Happy Place, currently untitled, will be published in spring 2022. It will explore what modern spirituality means. It is a topic that she has been curious about since childhood, and she says:“I want this to be a very grounded look into spirituality and how all of us can apply certain aspects of it to everyday life to help with our wellbeing.” Cotton is “really thrilled with the line-up so far” for Happy Place Books, and also promises that going forward there will be more from “some really interesting voices that are going to cover some much-needed subjects”. She says: “I’m really passionate about getting a full-bodied, very diverse list of stories and themes covered.”

On the inside
Considering the difference between writing her own books and working on publishing others, Cotton says it has been “maybe more exciting because it’s given me a real chance to look at different subject matters and how we can bring them to life.” She notes that one of the surprises of now working behind the scenes has been that “it all takes much longer than one would imagine”, particularly at the acquisition stage. Other new considerations have included making sure that each title fits in with the overall brand and working out the voice of authors who may not have writing experience. She says: “That’s been interesting, but there’s not been any negative element. It’s just really joyful, and I’m really lucky that the team at Ebury are as excited as I am. When I come to the table with an idea, they are massively supportive and they will do anything to try to make it happen.”

Looking to the future of Happy Place Books, Cotton is confident that it will be able to keep finding new voices to publish on the list, given that she is regularly connecting with inspiring people via online platforms such as Instagram. She says: “We need to work out the right stories to bring to the surface, but I don’t think that we’ll run out. There are so many brilliant people out there doing amazing work online, creating communities and talking about important subjects, who don’t have the platform that I believe they should and might not have thought about doing a book yet. That’s where we can certainly help out.”

Her overall vision for the imprint is to “elevate voices that need to be heard and cover diverse subject matters to ensure that everybody out there feels like they are being spoken to”. She continues: “I want that to be the starting point and I want us to grow confidently with that… and just to keep publishing beautiful books.”

Cotton previously published a number of titles with Orion Spring. Pippa Wright, publishing director of Orion Spring said: "At Orion we will always be proud of launching Fearne’s publishing and that so many readers have found inspiration and comfort from her books. We wish Fearne every success with Happy Place."