Female Undercover Cop Story Scoops Over £1million!

Small Businesses Ideas 007

Name: Paul Eddy.
Nationality: British.
Age: Not known.

'Foolish' Idea: A female undercover cop, named Flint.

Start-up Costs: Nominal.

How Idea was Launched: Through top London Agent, Ed Victor.

Within a month, Flint, which is a story of a Scotland Yard-based policewoman, had been snapped up by British American and European Publishers.

Sales: Bookshops.

Earnings: A deal for two books, worth more than £1.2 million.

Spin-offs: Warner Brothers are interested in making a film.

Paul Eddy, a journalist for 35 years, scooped a £1 million deal - for his very first novel! He had spent five years, mulling over the idea of a female undercover cop, name Flint. In that time, he wrote about 25,000 words, but knew it wasn't right. However, while on a holiday in Tuscany, he took the paperwork with him and worked on the story, and finally it gelled. He decided Flint would be about 33 yrs, Christian name, Grace, a Scotland Yard-based policewoman, working undercover. The first story is set partly in the United States. But Flint is also an attractive but emotionally scarred divorcee who still sleeps with her former husband. Paul based Flint on three undercover policewomen he knew from the extensive work he'd done in America during his journalist years.

Paul had written the first 40,000 words of Flint, when he was in France, having dinner with a British couple. The wife complained there was nothing to read, so Paul gave her those first words of Flint. She enjoyed the story so much, that her husband, the publisher, Bob Gavron, put Paul in touch with Ed Victor, a top London Agent. Ed said that the character Grace Flint was a woman he'd like to sleep with. Within a month, Ed Victor had secured a deal with British, American and European publishers. The mixture of emotion and undercover female cop is clearly an appealing idea and the author also believes publishers were interested that a man was writing about a woman. Whatever the reasons, Flint has earned Paul a cool £1.2million deal.

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