In the third major deal for an indie author struck during the run-up to next week's London Book Fair, Grand Central's Forever imprint has signed Meredith Wild to a five-book, seven figure agreement. Through the deal GCP will acquire Wild's bestselling Hacker series, which she self-published. Wild's books, according to GCP, have sold 1.2 million copies in digital and roughly 200,000 copies in paperback (via print-on-demand).
Wild's deal follows that of Jasinda Wilder, an indie author who last week closed a seven-figure deal with Berkley, and A.G. Riddle, another indie author who just signed major deals with Fox and HarperCollins.
In this deal, Forever editorial director Leah Hultenschmidt took world rights to the books from agent Kimberly Brower at the Rebecca Friedman Literary Agency. Forever will release the existing four books of the series--Hardwired, Hardpressed, Hardline and Hard Limit--in e-book, on April 7. Forever trade paperback editions of those titles will follow on May 12. The final book in the series, Hard Love, will then be published by Forever, in both trade paperback and e-book, on September 15.
Wild graduated from Smith College and formerly worked in technology. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and three children.
