Fantasy writer lands £2m film and book deal for trilogy he has yet to write

Jonathan Stroud used to edit children's books. Now, at the age of 31, he has landed transatlantic film and publishing deals worth more than £2m for a fantasy trilogy he has not even written yet.

The astonishing deal has been sewn together in frantic negotiations which look likely to make The Bartimaeus Trilogy a rival to Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy or J K Rowling's Harry Potter saga.

Stroud's stories feature a young wizard hero, called Nathaniel, who conjures up a resentful genie, Bartimaeus.

Talk Miramax, the American film giant which has a publishing arm, snapped up the film rights with a bid in the region of $3m (£1.9m).

Random House Children's Books, publisher of Stroud's first two children's novels, fought off four other publishing houses on the basis of a 92-page manuscript for the first book and an outline for the other two. They are said to have paid about £250,000.

Annie Eaton, Random House's children's fiction publisher, said their hearts sank when they learnt that Stroud was working on "yet another book about a trainee wizard". But she said: "When you read the material, it's just absolutely brilliant, wickedly funny and quite dangerous. It's just terribly original. He could well be the next Pullman. They're both ingenious and cleverly worked out."

Rod Hall – who acts for screenwriters such as Billy Elliot's Lee Hall, and negotiated the film deal with Miramax – said he read the manuscript as soon as he was sent an e-mail from Stroud's agent, Laura Cecil, saying: "I've got a hit on my hands."

"That is not the usual kind of e-mail I get from Laura," he said. "She's extremely cautious. But I read the material straight away. It's a real page-turner with fantastic characters and wonderful set pieces."

He sent it to film makers in America and the UK and was soon in negotiations with Miramax, who said: "Tell us what it will take."

Mr Hall said: "It was nail-biting, but fun in retrospect. This is certainly the best, most impressive film deal I've ever done as an agent. It's a seven-figure deal with huge advantages down the line. Each subsequent film will earn him a huge amount of money."

Stroud, who lives in Hertfordshire, gave up his job editing children's non-fiction last December to write full time and to work on the manuscript. He said he knew when he had written the first part that he liked the book.

"But I had no conception that it was going to take off like this. There's been very much a snowballing effect which is very exciting but terribly bewildering. It all seems very unreal," he said.

"The film side is amazing and an extremely beguiling prospect, but I'm deliberately trying to deal with the book first, for the fundamental reason I haven't written it yet. It seems foolish to look too far ahead and celebrate too loudly."