Joffe Books, in conjunction with bestselling crime writer Dorothy Koomson and literary agent Susan Yearwood, is seeking to discover a new crime fiction writer to join our bestselling list. We are launching a new writing prize for unagented crime fiction writers of colour to turn their fantastic manuscripts into bestsellers. The winner will receive a two-book publishing contract with Joffe Books.

The competition aims to champion authors from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds writing in one of our favourite crime fiction genres: electrifying psychological thrillers, cosy mysteries, gritty police procedurals, twisty chillers, unputdownable suspense mysteries, shocking domestic noirs . . .

Whether you are writing your crime fiction debut, previously published or self-published, if you are an unagented crime fiction writer of colour, we want to hear from you!

DOROTHY KOOMSON, BESTSELLING CRIME WRITER, says: “I think crime fiction in all its glory could really benefit from more stories by traditionally underrepresented writers out there. This competition is one way of doing that. I’m so excited to be a judge on this and can’t wait to read the submissions.”

SUSAN YEARWOOD, SUSAN YEARWOOD AGENCY says: “Joffe Books is one of the most innovative and inclusive-thinking digital publishers in publishing today and I am pleased to be asked to judge Joffe’s inaugural competition to find a great crime writer. I have long been a fan of Black, Asian and minority ethnic writers in this genre and I look forward to meeting big talent in crime writing.”

EMMA GRUNDY HAIGH, JOFFE BOOKS says: “We are very excited to launch this competition. If we are to create meaningful, long-lasting change within our industry, it is not enough to claim to have an open-door policy. It is our responsibility to actively seek out writers from communities that are underrepresented in our genre and support them in building sustainable careers. I can’t wait to discover the fantastic writers that enter this competition and get their work to the hands of readers.”

THE PRIZE
The winner will receive a two-book publishing contract with Joffe Books.

HOW TO ENTER
Entrants are invited to submit their full-length manuscript, written in English, along with a synopsis of the book and author biography, to prize@joffebooks.com. 

The opening date for entries is 1 May 2021. The closing date for entries is 30 September 2021 23.59 p.m. GMT. No entries received after this date will be accepted.

THE JUDGES
All submissions will be read and judged by the Joffe Books team, Dorothy Koomson and Susan Yearwood from Susan Yearwood Agency. The winner of the competition will be selected by these judges based on the strength of the writing and commercial potential.

Jasper Joffe

Emma Grundy Haigh

Dorothy Koomson

Susan Yearwood

ABOUT JOFFE BOOKS
Joffe Books is one of the UK’s leading independent publishers of excellent commercial fiction, especially crime and mystery fiction. We are renowned for working closely with authors from across the world to create fantastic books and turning them into bestsellers. Since 2014, we have published more than 500 books by over 70 authors, sold over 10 million books and been shortlisted for Independent Publisher of the Year twice (including in 2021!). Our roster of award-winning authors and New York Times, USA Today and Amazon bestsellers includes Joy Ellis (currently up for Crime & Thriller Book of the Year), Faith Martin, Robert Goddard, Rick Mofina and Stella Cameron.

While Joffe Books maintains open submissions for all authors, this competition is designed to offer an exclusive opportunity to Black, Asian and minority ethnic writers, who are particularly underrepresented in crime fiction publishing.

ABOUT DOROTHY KOOMSON
Dorothy Koomson is an award-winning, global bestselling author of 16 Sunday Times bestsellers. She was featured on the 2021 Powerlist as one of the most influential Black people in Britain and appeared in GQ Style as a Black British trailblazer. Dorothy uses her platform to support new writers and recently launched The Happy Author podcast. Her latest paperback, All My Lies Are True, the follow-up to the ITV-adapted, The Ice Cream Girls, is out now. Her next book I Know What You’ve Done, is published in July (Headline) and available to pre-order now.

Image credit: Niall McDiarmid (used above)

ABOUT SUSAN YEARWOOD
Susan Yearwood began her career in publishing in the early 1990s, gaining valuable experience at Virago, now part of Little, Brown Book Group and Penguin Books Ltd (Penguin Random House). Susan Yearwood Agency was founded in 2007, starting the successful careers of debut writers Kerry Young, shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and Prajwal Parajuly, shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. Susan now represents a wide range of clients who write everything from book club fiction, crime/thriller, YA novels, well-being and cookery.

“The 2021 longlists for the prestigious CWA Dagger awards, which honour the very best in the crime writing genre, have been announced.

The world-famous Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Daggers are the oldest awards in the genre, and have been synonymous with quality crime writing for over half a century.”

Congratulations to both Judi Daykin and Margaret Murphy who have been longlisted in separate categories for the CWA Dagger Awards!

This is a wonderful achievement and we’re beyond proud of our authors for being nominated for the below awards.

Judi Daykin’s Under Violent Skies for The John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger
This award is for the best crime novel by a first-time author of any nationality first traditionally published in the UK in English during the Judging Period. ‘Best crime novel by a first-time author’ means that the author must not have had a novel of any sort traditionally published before under any name whatsoever. In the case of novels with more than one author, all the authors must meet this requirement.

Margaret Murphy for the CWA Dagger in the Library
The Dagger in the Library is a prize for a body of work by an established crime writer that has long been popular with borrowers from libraries. It also rewards authors who have supported libraries and their users.

Both Judi and Margaret are in excellent company and we wish every author longlisted the best of luck!

The shortlists will be announced at 9am on Thursday 20 May, before the winners in each category are revealed on Thursday 1 July.

We’re thrilled to announce that Under Violent Skies by the wonderful Judi Daykin is now available in audio! Under Violent Skies is the first book in the DI Sara Hirst series and has been hailed by readers as a “brilliant debut novel”.

Set under the brooding skies of North Norfolk. Meet Sara Hirst as she searches for her lost father and finds that great beauty sometimes conceals great violence.

You can pre-order a copy of the audiobook via the following link: https://adbl.co/3e2ZddT. Release date is 20 April 2021. Thank you to Tantor Audio for publishing the audiobook of Under Violent Skies!

It’s been an excellent week for audiobook releases and our next announcement just adds to this excitement – Charlie Gallagher’s Maddie Ives books 4, 5, and 6 are all now available in audio! Congratulations, Charlie, we’re delighted to hear this news!

If you’re not familiar with Charlie’s Maddie Ives series, where have you been?! Don’t worry, there’s plenty of time to catch up and binge-read the entire series of eBooks, paperbacks or audiobooks. Whatever your taste, we’ve got you covered!

Big thanks to Lorella Belli and Bolinda for making this happen and publishing the audiobooks.

Listen to a teaser for each audiobook below, or dive straight in and purchase the audiobooks from all great booksellers including: Bolinda.com, Audible, Amazon, Apple and Google Play.

HE KNOWS YOUR SECRETS: https://amzn.to/39fW0WB

HE WILL GET YOU:
https://amzn.to/3fdWNv6

THE DEADLY HOUSES:
https://amzn.to/3riKO1z

We’re thrilled to announce that D. E. White’s Glass Dolls, book one in the addictive Detective Dove Milson series, is now available in audio! Narrated by Zara Ramm, the Glass Dolls audiobook is the perfect lockdown pick-me-up and accompaniment for those long walks we’re all finding ourselves taking.

Glass Dolls is now available on Audible: https://amzn.to/31iE09u

But that’s not all . . . Audiobook lovers are in for a real treat this week as The Ice Daughters, book two in the Detective Dove Milson series, is now available to pre-order! You can have book two in the series lined-up ready and waiting for you once you’ve devoured book one, and if that isn’t welcome news during this difficult time, I don’t know what is!

The Ice Daughters is now available on Audible: https://amzn.to/3cmZsAV

INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER OF THE YEAR

We are delighted to announce that Joffe Books has been shortlisted for Independent Publisher of the Year for this year’s British Book Awards!

We are honoured to make the cut for the second year running, and could not have done it without all the talent and hard work of our authors, in-house team and amazing freelancers.

Check out the full list of nominees here: https://www.thebookseller.com/british-book-awards/independent-publisher

BOOK OF THE YEAR – FICTION: CRIME & THRILLER

We are equally ecstatic that the wonderful Joy Ellis has been shortlisted for the Crime and Thriller Book of the Year for The Patient Man! Joy has worked incredibly hard and we are thrilled that she has been awarded this recognition.

Here’s the full shortlist for the Crime and Thriller category: https://www.thebookseller.com/british-book-awards/crime-thriller

For those of you yet to read The Patient Man (it’s an absolute corker), you can find it here: https://geni.us/thepatientman

Thank you to all our authors and readers who have supported us on our journey over the last few years, and congratulations to all the nominees!

We’re delighted to announce a number of our wonderful authors have been chosen by the TCKPRCA committee to feature in the Reader’s Choice Awards line-up!

Featuring this year is:

• Love Byte by David Atkinson

• The Smart Woman’s Guide to Murder by Victoria Dowd

• When He Vanished by T.J. Brearton

• Murder the Boys by Judith Cutler

• Witch Fire on the Levels by David Hodges

• Crime in the Gallery by Catherine Moloney

• Crime in the College by Catherine Moloney

• Murder Among Friends by Janice Frost

• Before He Kills Again by Margaret Murphy

• Don’t Scream by Margaret Murphy

• Hidden in the Heart by Beth Andrews

Congratulations to David, Victoria, T.J., Judith, David, Catherine, Janice, Margaret and Beth!

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the award, TCK Publishing Reader's Choice Awards believe readers deserve to have a choice in the outcome of the awards. This belief has helped structure their casting, voting and award process and is central to everything they do. Once an author's submission has been approved by the TCKPRCA committee, it will appear on the Readers Choice Voting Page.

Over to you, our lovely readers! It’s up to you to decide a winner in each category. To cast your vote, please visit: https://www.tckpublishing.com/2021-readers-choice-voting-page/ and read the guidelines below:

How to vote:

• You may have to disable pop-up blockers to vote depending on your web browser. The pop-up notification when you vote is necessary so that bots and spammers cannot vote.

• If you are clicking on a book to vote but nothing is happening, scroll down the page and click “Change Vote” (it’s right above the “Share on Facebook” button).

• You can vote one time for ONLY ONE BOOK per category.

• Just click the arrows on the left and right side of the voting form to navigate between categories.

• Click on the BOOK TITLE of your favourite book to cast your vote and then you’re set to view your results.

• To change your vote, just click on the “CHANGE VOTE” option on the lower left corner of the voting form (just above the Facebook sharing option) and then click on the title of the book you want to vote for instead.

• Only one vote per IP address will be accepted. Offices and schools usually only have one IP address, so it would be best to vote from home to avoid losing votes.

• The awards committee will check the legitimacy of each vote before announcing the winners.

Good luck to our authors, and a big thank you to our readers for participating!

The wonderful Victoria Dowd, author of The Smart Woman’s Guide to Murder and Body on the Island, is in the latest edition of Waitrose magazine!

Her most recent publication, Body on the Island, features in ‘10 things to do this week’ where readers are encouraged to ‘curl up with a crime thriller’ in Fran Quinn’s weekly guide to livening up lockdown.

At number five in the list of ten, Body on the Island is pitched as the perfect antidote to lockdown blues: ‘Dive into a murder mystery. Curl up and be whisked off to the Outer Hebrides in Victoria Dowd’s Body on the Island, a darkly comic, modern take on the Agatha Christie-style crime story, set on a survivals skills course.’ Pick up a copy of Waitrose magazine this weekend to read more.

Congratulations, Victoria! Body on the Island is available in eBook and paperback via Amazon. Be sure to get your copy while the launch deal lasts: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08W9F5ZKC. Only 0.99 for a limited time only!

Last week Joy Ellis had an exceptional week. After securing the #1 spot on Amazon’s Kindle Top 100 with Secrets on the Fens, Joy went on to appear in the Bookseller’s Bookstat e-Book Top 10 charts with Secrets on the Fens sitting nicely at number 3!

Huge congratulations to you, Joy, and thank you to all of our wonderful readers for making this happen!

Secrets on the Fens is available on Amazon.

We’re thrilled to announce Secrets on the Fens has reached #1 in Amazon’s Kindle Top 100!

Thank you so much to everyone who has bought a copy already. If you're yet to do so, you can still grab a copy at the bargain launch price of 99p / 99c: https://geni.us/secretsfensfbt

Huge congratulations to Joy Ellis for this fantastic achievement!

Get to know author Daisy White – aka D. E. White – in this interview with West Sussex County Times: https://bit.ly/38YCuOC

Daisy, who lives just south of Horsham, has published her seventh crime novel, The Ice Daughters, which is book two in the Detective Dove Milson series. For anyone who missed our December launch (where have you been?!), her latest novel is out now and available on Amazon. Grab a copy today to see what all the fuss is about: https://geni.us/icedaughtersfbt

If you’re yet to discover Glass Dolls, book one in the Detective Dove Milson series, you can still purchase a copy of the eBook and paperback via Amazon: https://geni.us/glassdollsfbt

We’re delighted to see Helen H. Durrant’s Forgotten Victim as a new edition in the Bookseller’s Digital Bestseller Lists. Coming in hot at number three, Helen’s latest soared straight to the top three upon entry and we couldn’t be happier! Congratulations, Helen, and a big thank-you to all of our lovely readers for your continued support.

Forgotten Victim is available on Amazon

We're delighted to have the front cover of the Bookseller magazine today. It features our wonderful authors and celebrates their amazing achievements. We're very proud to work with and publish our authors’ brilliant books!

As well as celebrating our authors, we would like to celebrate you too, our wonderful readers. It goes without saying you’re a key part of our team too. Thank you for your continued support. We look forward to sharing more books with you this year – there’s plenty more to come!

In the latest edition of the Bookseller, industry heads predict what 2021 will bring to the publishing industry. Our very own Jasper Joffe weighed in on the discussion and I’m thrilled to share his/our response below:

Jasper Joffe, Founder, Joffe Books
I asked the team at Joffe Books to weigh in on the question of what publishing 2021 will look like, as together we are much smarter. The consensus is that 2021 will be about solidifying three major changes that took seed during the pandemic. Conscious actions taken in 2020 will begin to translate into real, measurable progress for the industry and spearhead further campaigns and initiatives to create greater diversity than ever. There will be a paradigm shift in work-life balance (for good or bad), thanks to home working. We’ll see huge, simultaneous growth of digital publishing (being super-convenient and accessible, especially during quarantine) and local bookshops (meeting the desire for real-world community).

Across our sector, I’d like to see books by authors from a broader range of backgrounds. In our case, we hope to see results. We’ve shown everyone can work remotely but we miss the doughnut parties to celebrate our successes. The convenience of digital and its global growth will continue to mean agile indy publishers will be building readership. Our own sales are up 25% this year. But I think (I hope) from Easter on, there will be a return to the office and the high street.

If you haven’t read the latest edition, pick up your copy today! There are some incredibly interesting predictions from other industry heads like David Shelley, CEO of Hachette UK; Perminder Mann, CEO of Bonnier Books UK; Tom Weldon, CEO Penguin Random House UK; Stephen Page, Chief Executive at Faber and Catherine Bell, Group co Managing Director at Scholastic.

We are thrilled to end the week with news that Joy Ellis is in the Bookseller’s Bookstat eBook Top 10 charts! They Disappeared is sitting comfortably at number eight and is certainly in good company. Huge congratulations to Joy and a big thank you to all of our lovely readers!

They Disappeared is available on Amazon

We're currently open for submissions. Please read the guidelines carefully and we hope to find some more amazing writers of top quality crime fiction to join our brilliant team of authors! https://joffebooks.com/submissions #publisher #submissions #crime #thriller #mystery

WHAT WE PUBLISH

• Our favourite genres are crime fiction, mysteries, psychological thrillers, cosy crime, police procedurals, chillers, suspense and domestic noir. We will also consider women’s fiction, historical fiction and romance novels.

• We encourage authors of colour, LGTB+ authors, differently abled authors, authors from diverse backgrounds to submit their work and make their voices heard.

• We especially look for great stories, fresh ideas, excellent writing and original voices; in short authors who say something interesting about the world as they see it.

• We publish writers we believe in, from debut novelists and agented authors, to self-represented writers and authors who are already well-established.

We’re delighted to announce The Dying Light, book three in the bestselling Matt Ballard series, is now available in audio! The audiobook is narrated by Matthew Lloyd Davies and is now available on Amazon thanks to Tantor Audio.

Huge congratulations and happy audio publication day to Joy!

For our audiobook lovers, you can purchase your audio copy of The Dying Light on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08L6Y1HRC

It’s been a busy autumn at Joffe HQ and we’re thrilled to share some of our latest signings with you. We can’t wait to publish each and every one of these amazing authors. We hope you’ll join us in welcoming them to Joffe Books.

British-born Canadian author Jackie Elliott has signed a three-book deal with Joffe Books for her Coffin Cove crime series. The series, set in an atmospheric fishing village, is peopled with fantastic characters and fast-paced intrigue and just might have created a new genre of crime fiction: the coastal noir. The first book in the series will be published in spring 2021.

Gretta Mulrooney is back with a brand-new Tyrone Swift novel! The eighth in the series takes the eponymous detective to Wales in search of an old friend who mysteriously disappears. We can’t wait to hear what readers make of this gripping new outing for our favourite private detective.

Linda Mather has joined Joffe Books, with her Zodiac Mysteries. We are so excited to be re-publishing the first three books in the series in early 2021 and thrilled to announce that a brand-new fourth addition to the series will swiftly follow!

Judi Daykin’s debut novel, Under Violent Skies, got off to a flying start. We’re delighted to announce the second book in the Sarah Hirst series is on its way. Expect the hard-hitting sequel to land in your Kindle and on your bookshelves in spring 2021. Watch this space!

Former detective turned novelist, Rebecca Bradley has hit the gold standard with her new series featuring the ambitious and straight-laced DI Claudia Nunn, and we are delighted! We’ll be publishing the first book in the highly anticipated series in spring 2021.

A prolific writer of romances and cosy, South Africa-born Biba Pearce joins Joffe Books with her gripping DCI Rob Hill series and we’re ecstatic. We will be re-releasing the first three books in this series, set in in the bucolic boroughs of Surrey, in 2021 and with the fourth instalment coming hot on their heels.

We are delighted to be publishing the complete five part Old Minister series by Norman Russell. Norman is best known for his spy novels and historical mysteries, but in this brand-new series he leaps into police procedurals with aplomb. Norman’s Inspector Antrobus series, perfect for Victorian crime fiction fans, is expected to be re-released in late 2021.

We are thrilled to announce Joffe Books has sold its 10 millionth book! Nominated for Independent Book Publisher of the Year in 2020, we have experienced extraordinary growth in the past year, selling 2.1 million books in in 2020 alone. We are very proud to be publishing some of the UK’s best-loved authors and grateful to our amazingly loyal readers. To celebrate we commissioned this brilliant artwork by internationally acclaimed artist Adam Dant, featuring the people of Shoreditch reading books by our authors. It will be displayed on the back cover of the Bookseller, Friday 16 October 2020. Both Joffe Books and the artist are located in the thriving and historic area of Shoreditch, famed for its unique location at the intersection of business, innovation, entertainment and culture.

ABOUT JOFFE BOOKS

Founded in 2014 by Jasper Joffe, we at Joffe Books pride ourselves on our history of innovative publishing. Thanks to the unflagging passion and dedication brought by everyone in Team Joffe, we have built a reputation for crafting great books for readers, long-term relationships with authors, and fleet-footed marketing of the books we love. We were very proud to be shortlisted for Independent Publisher of the Year 2020 at the British Book Awards.

We have achieved industry-wide renown for discovering new talent as well as bringing overlooked books back to life and delivering them to millions of readers – transforming the careers of their authors in the process. In 2019, we acquired the Robert Hale backlist from Crowood Press and extended our core list of crime and mystery to include sagas, historical and romance. In 2020, we acquired the rights to Nicholas Rhea’s Constable Nick series, Murder Squad founder Margaret Murphy’s critically acclaimed backlist of gripping thrillers and the whole of Faith Martin’s romance list, written under the pseudonym Maxine Barry. We also began a partnership with Severn House to bring the likes of New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Stella Cameron and Judith Cutler to a whole new audience.

ADAM DANT BRIEF BIOGRAPHY

Born in 1967 in Cambridge Adam Dant studied Fine Art Printmaking at The Royal College of Art, HDK Berlin and MS University, Baroda, India. He was a recipient of The Rome Scholarship in printmaking in 1993, The Jerwood Drawing prize in 2002 and was appointed by parliament as ‘The Official artist of The 2015 UK General Election’. Adam Dant’s work is exhibited internationally and is in the collections of Tate Britain, MOMA, New York, Deutsche Bank, UBS, Musee D’Art Contemporain. Lyon, HRH The Prince of Wales The Museum of London and various other public and private collections.

IMAGE CREDIT: Adam Dant

Back in May we announced a new publishing partnership between Joffe Books and Severn House. The collaboration sought to bring together the best of both houses: the success and expertise in eBook publishing of Joffe Books and the long-established reputation of Severn House’s marvellous backlist. The partnership began with two of Severn House’s most popular series, Judith Cutler’s DS Kate Power series and the Alex Duggins series by New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Stella Cameron. After the astounding success of the first two series from Judith Cutler and Stella Cameron, we are delighted to announce that our partnership is still going strong and Joffe Books will be publishing more eBooks from the wonderful list of authors at Severn House.

Kick-starting the next round of eBook releases in our partnership we're going to be launching Cathy Ace, Margaret Mayhew and Jeanne M. Dams into the eBook stratosphere, starting with the first three in each of their respective series!

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Margaret Mayhew

CATHY ACE: Cathy Ace’s Welsh Canadian criminal psychologist, and foodie, sleuth Cait Morgan encounters traditional, closed-circle whodunits around the world, while her WISE Enquiries Agency Mysteries feature a quartet of soft-boiled female PIs who solve quintessentially British cases from their office at a stately home in Wales. Her standalone novel of psychological suspense, The Wrong Boy, became an amazon #1 bestseller. Shortlisted for Canada’s Bony Blithe Award three times in four years, winning in 2015, she’s also won an IPPY Award and has been shortlisted for an Arthur Ellis Award. Cathy lives in Canada, having migrated from her native Wales aged 40.

MARGARET MAYHEW: Margaret Mayhew was born in London within the sound of Bow Bell and her earliest memories are of the German Blitz on the city. Her father was a pioneer heart surgeon at Guy’s Hospital and her mother was French. She was educated at Malvern Girls’ College and in Lausanne, Switzerland. She began writing short stories and novels in her mid-thirties and a number of her books are set in the Second World War. She has also written a series of six English village detective mysteries featuring a retired army Colonel as the investigator. Margaret is married to the American military aviation author, Philip Kaplan, and they live in Gloucestershire, England.

Jeanne M. Dams

JEANNE M. DAMS: Jeanne was born and raised in South Bend, Indiana. She’s read English mysteries since she was a teenager and they bred in her a love of England that led to her first mystery series. Enter Dorothy Martin, who is essentially Jeanne’s alter-ago. The first book in the series, The Body in the Transept, won the Agatha award for Best First Novel of 1995, and Dorothy has gone on to many more adventures since.

Cathy Ace

We are thrilled to announce that Joffe authors Jane Adams and Victoria Dowd have been chosen as winter finalists for The People’s Book Prize 2020/21!

“The People’s Book Prize is the unique literary competition aimed at finding, supporting and promoting new and undiscovered works wholly voted for by the public who choose the Next Best Sellers.”

Jane Adams’s Safe and Victoria Dowd’s The Smart Woman’sGuide to Murder are in excellent company among the many other talented authors selected as finalists in the fiction category – a huge congratulations to all who have been selected. We’re in great company!

FICTION
An Artist's Muse, Deborah E Wilson (Victorina Press)
Battle Cry, Rosie Jones (Blossom Spring)
Hallowed Ground, Paul Twitty (Conrad Press)
Michel-Michelle, Margo Gorman (Victorina Press)
Safe, Jane Adams (Joffe Books)
The Euro Man, Edward Figg (Moonshinecover Publishing)
The Nobody Man, Steven Jenkins (Victorina Press)
The Smart Woman's Guide to Murder, Victoria Dowd (Joffe Books)
The Virus Poems, Michael Burton (Poems & Pictures)
You Have To Make Your Own Fun Around Here, Frances Macken (Oneworld)

Voting is open until April 2021, so be sure to use your voice and cast your vote before the deadline. You can vote online via the following link: http://www.peoplesbookprize.com/

Good luck to all!