Publisher: Bookouture | Grand Central (Hachette)
Genre: Thriller | $3.99 ebook | $12.99 paperback
Release date: April 26, 2022
Freida McFadden is a self-published thriller and medical humor author. She is also a practicing physician specializing in brain injury, and she brings her medical expertise to her writing. Before The Housemaid, she self-published 14 other novels and edited one anthology, with many Amazon bestsellers among them. Her novels have been listed among Amazon Editors’ Best Books of the Year and Goodreads Choice Awards nominees.
In The Housemaid, a woman begins a new job at the home of an affluent family, the Winchesters, cleaning the house, caring for the daughter, and preparing meals. And in this role, she begins to observe the family, learn their secrets, and fall into a twisty mind game with the woman who hired her. Even though the book was released in spring 2022, it reached its first week on the USA Today bestseller list in December 2022, just as the list went on hiatus.
When asked what contributed to her book landing on the USAT bestseller list, McFadden said, “It was a perfect storm, honestly. The right book at the right moment getting in front of the right readers! There is always an element of luck in these things, in that the same book published 10 years earlier might have been a flop. But my publisher, Bookouture, did a great job getting it to the right readers, who helped make it a success. I definitely have to thank all the readers who promoted my book on Bookstagram and BookTok as well as the book equivalent of Facebook (Bookbook?). I had a few viral BookTok videos that really helped propel the book up the charts.”
McFadden said she has made a point to always keep trying new things with her book’s marketing and to resist the temptation of settling into a comfort zone with promotion. “The publishing business is always changing, and you have to keep changing with it. I was in my independent comfort zone, but I took a chance by going with a publisher, and it was life-changing.”
While two of McFadden’s previous titles had made the Amazon bestseller list, this was her first one to rank on the USA Today list. “The rest of my books are independently published, which makes it harder to hit the traditional bestseller lists with paperback sales, but the Kindle sales have been enough to hit the Amazon charts.”
She said the success of The Housemaid has had a halo effect among her other titles, with six of them in the top 100 in the Amazon Kindle store at the time of interview. “But the most important thing of all is to write good books that people will love. Whatever else, that is always my primary goal.”
The sequel to The Housemaid, The Housemaid’s Secret, released on Feb. 20, 2023, also with Bookouture. It is currently an Amazon bestseller in the category of psychological thrillers.
Emily Wenstrom is a freelance writer and platforming expert and writes award-winning speculative fiction for teens and adults as E. J. Wenstrom.
E. J. Wenstrom believes in complicated heroes, horrifying monsters, purple hair dye and standing to the right on escalators so the left side can walk. She writes dark speculative fiction for adults and teens, including her new release, a young adult dystopian novel titled Departures (August 10, 2021). When she isn’t writing fiction, E. J. Wenstrom is a regular contributor to DIY MFA and BookRiot, and co-hosts the Fantasy+Girl Podcast. Learn more at her website.
