Ebury Edge buys 'All the Cool Girls Get Fired' from Laura Brown and Kristina O'Neill

Ebury Edge has acquired All the Cool Girls Get Fired, the blueprint for a new way to think about job loss – by former editors-in-chief Laura Brown (InStyle) and Kristina O’Neill (WSJ Magazine).

Géraldine Collard, senior commissioning editor, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights alongside Isabelle Yates at Penguin Random House Australia from Suzannah Ball at WME. The book will be published in trade paperback in January 2026.

Brown was “eliminated” from InStyle in 2022 while O’Neill “stepped down” from WSJ Magazine last year, Ebury said.

All the Cool Girls Get Fired “offers an empowering mindset shift and a pragmatic roadmap for life after radical job change”, Ebury said. This ranges from “managing your money to legal recourse, navigating mental health, networking and recruitment”, among other issues.

Ebury added: “It will also include exclusive, intimate interviews with well-known women who share their stories of resilience and inspiration: how they rebuilt and thrived after being thrown into the professional abyss."

O’Neill said: “We want to change the narrative about being fired. Panic, isolation, embarrassment and fear are very real. But the most important thing to know is that value lies in the person, not the company. Your equity – what you have earned, built and put into practice over the course of your career doesn’t just go ‘poof’ when your job goes away.”

Brown said: “Losing a job is a gateway to a whole new world of opportunity. When you look out of your career sandpit, wouldn’t you know it, there’s a whole beach.”

The authors added: “Since we announced the book in the US in April, we’ve had an outpouring from women sharing deeply personal stories of getting fired and moving on. All the Cool Girls Get Fired is building a global community with inspiration, humour and heart.”

Collard said: “The promise of publishing a book that frees women of career shame and panic, in a job market that is ruled by restructures, was too good to pass up. This book is a shot-in-the-arm for career rebuilding when it all goes wrong.”