The Launch

I’m declaring tomorrow, August 1, as the official launch date for The Darcys of Pemberley!

I’ve been dreaming of this day for a long time – the day my first novel would be published.  I’m thrilled to have come this far, and proud to be sending my “baby” out into the world! But I must admit that this day looks a little different from what I originally thought it would.

Of course, when I started the book in January 2005, I didn’t know if I even had it in me to write a novel. Could I do it? Would I lose interest before finishing it? If I stuck with it, would it turn out to be any good? In the last six years, I’ve learned a lot. And, while I was honing my craft and polishing up this novel, the publishing industry changed dramatically too.

In the traditional publishing model, a book launch would have been preceded by press releases from the publishing house, ARCs (advance reader copies) sent to key people for reviews and cover quotes, the clatter of great printing presses, with boxes of books shipped and waiting to hit the shelves at Borders.  Hmmm.  What’s wrong with this picture?  The brick-and-mortar retailers are disappearing (along with the truckloads of preprinted books), and the e-book market is taking over an ever larger piece of the pie.

So instead of press releases to newspapers and trade periodicals, the launch of The Darcys of Pemberley will be announced on Facebook and Twitter (and all the reviews will be online too).  Instead of boxes of books awaiting you at Borders, Amazon will print and ship your very own copy within 24 hours. If you can’t wait that long, an electronic version can be downloaded to your Kindle or Nook in 30 seconds! I couldn’t have imagined these changes when I began. 

Six and a half years is a long time to work on a project, especially not knowing if it will amount to anything in the end. Yet today I am smiling, like Elizabeth Bennet, as things finally come together.

Elizabeth … now smiled at the rapidity and ease with which an affair was finally settled, that had given them so many previous months of suspense and vexation.   (Pride and Prejudice, chapter 55)