UK FICTION MARKET
Moonflower Books is a new publisher of commercial fiction with a twist.
‘We look for books that don’t fit neatly in any publishing box,’ said Moonsflower’s publisher, bestselling author CJ Daugherty. ‘Books that are commercial, but just slightly outside of mainstream trends’
CJ and her team started Moonflower during lockdown in 2020. ‘I’m an author myself, having traditionally published seven young adult novels before moving into adult fiction,’ said CJ. ‘When I decided to go back and write another young adult thriller I found the market for YA had changed in the UK, had been very successful, my agent couldn’t find a home for , a political thriller set in Number 10 Downing Street. Publishing slots for YA were few and far between in the UK. And yet the book had sold for translation in six languages. I had a following already, and publishers around the world for the series, so my agent and I decided I would have to publish it myself. But how? I could have popped it up on Amazon and called it a day, but I didn’t want to do that. I’m an ex-editor myself, and I have a strong network of connections inside the industry. My husband is a filmmaker with strong connections in the film and TV industry, as well, so we knew we could create an multilayered business, if we worked together. So we created Moonflower, with the purpose of using it to publish my YA and my backlist books. But within months, we’d received a couple of submissions from authors that we loved. That was when we decided to create a full imprint – not just for my work, but for other books we both loved. We decided to focus on books that, for whatever reason, don’t fit on the lists of major publishers, but that still deserve to be discovered.’
