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the Independent’s list of the 100 most influential LGBTQ
people in the U.K. in 2012). The book, according to B+B,
is “a fierce coming-of-age verse novel about identity and the
power of drag.” Susannah Palfrey at Hachette Children’s
Book Group handled the North American rights agreement
on behalf of the author’s primary agent, Becky Thomas at
Johnson & Alcock. Flamingo is slated for spring 2020.■ HC Gets Novel by ‘The Jerk’
Screenwriter
In a North American rights deal, HarperCollins’s Sara
Nelson bought You Can Go Home Now by Michael Elias.
The author is an actor and director who wrote the screen-
play for the Steve Martin–starring film The Jerk. Home,
a thriller that HC compared to work by Tana French and
Karin Slaughter, follows a New York City police officer
who, while searching for a killer, goes undercover at a
homeless shelter. The move, HC said, forces her to recog-
nize “that she has her own history of violence that needs
to be addressed.” Caroline Michel at Peters Fraser +
Dunlop represented Elias. Home is set for June 2020.■ Penguin Nabs Bedtime Book for Adults
A collection of stories designed to lull their readers to sleep
sold to Meg Leder at Penguin Books (in a copublication
agreement with Penguin Canada) for six figures. The deal
for Nothing Much Happens by Kathryn Nicolai was handled
by Jackie Kaiser at Canada’s Westwood Creative Artists.
Westwood described the book, subtitled Bedtime Stories
for Grown-ups, as “a deceptively simple, brilliantly conceived
collection of brief fictional stories written with the precise
intention of carrying readers off to a peaceful and restorative
slumber.” The book is based on Nicolai’s podcast of the same name, which the
agency said has garnered more than 10 million downloads to date. The agency
also reported that, in the run-up to the Frankfurt Book Fair last month, interna-
tional deals for the book had closed in more than 10 other territories, with a
number of the sales being auctions.■ Smallwood’s ‘Mind’ Goes to Hogarth
Christine Smallwood’s debut novel, The Life of the Mind,
was preempted by Alexis Washam at Hogarth. Chris Parris-
Lamb at the Gernert Company brokered the North American
rights agreement for Smallwood, a contributing writer for
the New York Times Magazine. Hogarth said the book
follows an adjunct professor “whose days are disrupted by
a miscarriage, forcing her to reckon with shame, relation-
ships, the passage of time, the meaning of endings, and the
illusion that our minds may free us from our bodies.”AttaEliasNicolaiSmallwoodWWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 11‘Flowers
In the
Attic’ Still
In Bloom
At 40
A
s part of its 1979 launch for
Flowers in the Attic—the first
book by a then-unknown
author named V.C. Andrews—Pocket
Books took a full page ad in PW touting
the novel as its November “Total
Release” selection, a program Pocket
used to promote what it believed were
“highly salable” books. The marketing
effort for the $2.50 mass market
paperback featured a network radio
campaign plus 36-copy floor displays
highlighting the book’s “striking cover
art.” Flowers in the Attic did indeed
prove to be highly salable, and there
are now 3.3 million copies in circulation
(including print copies and e-book
sales), S&S said.
To celebrate the 40th anniversary
of the publication of the book, Gallery
Books, which took over publication of
the Andrews franchise from sister
company Pocket, employed a 2019-
style campaign that doesn’t seem to
have radio or PW ads but does feature
a heavy dose of social media promo-
tions, including ads on Facebook and
Goodreads; posts on Gallery’s
Bookstagram ambassador program,
which S&S said reaches more than one
million people; and a dedicated
e-blast. Jennifer Long, v-p and asso-
ciate publisher of Gallery Books
Group, said S&S will declare the
Flowers pub date of November 12 “V.C.
Andrews Day,” which it will mark with