Pan Mac snaps up Amazon bestseller Wilkinson

Pan Macmillan has snapped up UK and Commonwealth rights to Amazon’s self-publishing bestseller Kerry Wilkinson in a six-book print and digital deal.

Wilkinson has already self-published three novels through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing tool, with his first, Locked In, making the headlines when it became the site’s top selling Kindle book over the last quarter of 2011. His other two books in the Jessica Daniel detective series are Vigilant and The Woman in Black, which are also on Amazon.

Wilkinson will keep the e-rights to those titles until a date to be confirmed in September or October, when they will then revert to the ownership of Pan Macmillan. Pan Mac will repackage the first three novels and e-books for publication in December. The fourth book in the Jessica Daniels series, Think of the Children, will be the first it publishes exclusively in February 2013 and will be followed up by the fifth, Playing with Fire. Wilkinson is beginning to write his sixth book today, he told The Bookseller.

The writer is the second big-name self-publishing author Pan Macmillan has snapped up. The publisher bought UK and Commonwealth rights (including e-books) to seven books by self-published US sensation Amanda Hocking last May.

Editorial director, Trisha Jackson said: “We are delighted and excited to be the publisher to be taking Kerry to a wider market in the physical format and in e-book. His storytelling skills, the plotting and his characters plus his enthusiasm and energy are a recipe for success. I am so looking forward to working with him editorially and developing the Jessica Daniel series.”

Wilkinson said: “I am thrilled to be linking up with Macmillan. Their enthusiasm and dedication to Jessica Daniel as a character has blown me away and I feel very privileged that I will now be able to work with such talented people.

“The fact they have committed to publishing six books in a series that didn't even exist a year ago shows the faith they have in both me as an author and the world I have created.

“I look forward immensely to working at my new home and cannot wait for readers to find out what happens next.”

The deal was negotiated with agent Nicola Barr at Greene & Heaton.