P&P200

For the few of you who may not have heard about it, austen authors is celebrating the 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice by writing vignettes from Jane Austen's novel through the point of view of a variety of characters. See what happened behind the scenes that she didn't read about. We are posting the vignettes on the 'day' that they would have happened. This weekend was the Netherfield Ball, and yesterday, the day of the ball, November 26, we had vignettes from everyone from Darcy to Darcy's valet. You can read from the beginning by clicking here.

Today is the day after the ball, and is anyone happy? We have three stories for you, including mine, as Caroline Bingley and Mr. Darcy conspire about what to do with Mr. Bingley and his interest in Jane Bennet. Come on by! You won't want to miss a single one!

How to Get the Paperback!

Compare to get the best deal!

"Pemberley Celebrations: The First Year" is now showing up as a paperback at amazon.com. Here is the link. The retail price is $12.95 and it qualifies for Super Saver shipping on orders over $25. Although it says 'temporarily out of stock' it is self-published and a print on demand book, so they should be able to get it fairly quickly once the orders come in. Eventually, they will carry them in stock, as they do my other self-published books. And they'll probably begin showing up on other online booksellers.

As usual, the paperback is available at lulu.com. Here is the link to my storefront there. I have a permanent discount on the book selling at $10.36, and currently there is a coupon code you can use at lulu to get 25% off your total book order through Dec. 14, up to $50. See which one gives you the best deal before you buy from either. The code is BUYMYBOOK305.

Winners!

Congratulations to the 2 winners of "Pemberley Celebrations: The First Year! Kelli H and Oloore each won a copy. Please email me with your mailing address and I'll get them right off to you. I hope you enjoy it!

Launch of Pemberley Celebrations

Today is 11/11/11! And if you pay attention, twice today it will be 11/11/11/11:11:11! This happens only once every one hundred years, when the TWO numbers are all the same! It’s an exciting day, isn’t it? (BTW, Jane Austen would have been just one month shy of 36 when it occurred 200 years ago!

Well it’s an exciting day for me for another reason, as it is Launch Day (both here and at Austen Authors) for Pemberley Celebrations: The First Year!

Yes, I am celebrating a new book, but it is very different from my others. First of all, it’s not a novel, but a compilation of short holiday stories. You might be saying to yourself, Not another book of Christmas stories! I’ll respond to that with a definitive “Yes” and “No!”

This is a book of holiday stories in the Darcys’ first year of marriage. So, since they were married before Christmas, I have begun the book with Christmas stories (4 of them, in fact!). But then we follow them through the year with New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day, Easter, May Day, Midsummer’s Day, Michaelmas, All Hallows’ Eve, A Birthday, and finally, A First Anniversary (and don't worry, there are 2 birthdays celebrated, but the other is associated with another holiday).

Some of the stories are just sweet stories (in fact, you’d probably say there is very little angst in the Christmas stories – after all, they are just newlyweds). But difficulties eventually do come their way, whether it’s in dealings with other family members, acquaintances, or simply circumstances.
I began writing most of these stories ten years ago as I was working on one of my earlier books. I posted the stories online throughout the year as the holidays came around.

When I broke my ankle earlier this summer and had some time on my hands (because I was off my feet!), I decided to go ahead and clean these stories up, write a few more, and self-publish it. I hope you will enjoy it, whether you read it all at once or read each story at the appropriate time of the year.

Self-publishing gives me the opportunity to be more hands-on with the book. I enjoyed making the cover from a photograph of a friend's daughter who had gone to England. When I saw her photo of the four paned window, I knew that had to be part of my cover! Each pane, of course, shows the grounds of Pemberley in a different season.

The other thing I enjoyed was making the silhouettes of Elizabeth and Darcy. I started with a big black oval and cut away, added to it, hit ‘undo’ several times, over and over, until I was happy with them. Some of you may remember that I have a bookcase which has all my Austen-related items on it, including something special from each of my books. For Pemberley Celebrations I have a little double frame that has their silhouettes in it.



Last Halloween I posted a link to my All Hallows Eve story from this book. This year, since it is November, and I have chosen that to be the month of Mr. Darcy’s birthday, I have included a segment from that story at Austen Authors.

As usual, I will be giving away two copies of Pemberley Celebrations: The First Year here. I will allow one international winner. To be entered in the drawing, please leave a comment and include your email address and where you live (US, Canada, or other country).

I will also be giving away one copy at Austen Authors so stop by there, too. That one will be US and Canada only. You have through next Thursday, November 17, to post a comment to qualify at both sites. I will announce the winner on Sunday, November 20. Good luck!

The iBookstore!

Pemberley Celebrations is now at the iBookstore. But wait! This is not the only news! My other self-published books will soon all be there, as well. Right now you can get Assumed Engagement and Drive and Determination for your iPad. Assumed Obligation has been approved, so it should be showing up shortly. Master Under Good Regulation needed some things to be changed, so I had to resubmit it. That one will take longer to show up.

November 4 - Surprise! Surprise! Just discovered that Sourcebooks has put Darcy's Voyage on iBookstore! Must have done it in the last few days. Now hoping Only Mr. Darcy Will Do shows up.

Paperback and hardback at lulu.com

Celebrate Pemberley Celebrations! The big news is that not only is the paperback now available on lulu, it is discounted (and always will be at lulu) from $12.95 to $10.96 (there is no guarantee what amazon will do when it shows up there), but also... there is a free ground shipping coupon at lulu good through Oct. 20. If you use it, you can buy my book and any other books you find there for free ground shipping up to $50. This is a great deal! Use the code OCTGROUND305 when you check out.

Also, for those who may want one, I have also made a hardback, which is more money, but I wanted one for myself and others in the past have purchased my other self-published books in that way (only available at lulu.com).  It is $18.95.

Here are the two direct links:

paperback: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/pemberley-celebrations---the-first-year/17969475

hardback: http://www.lulu.com/product/hardcover/pemberley-celebrations---the-first-year/17978656 

Again, I'll let you know as others become available. Remember, the kindle format is now available on amazon.com.

It's Starting to Show Up!

The first version of "Pemberley Celebrations - The First Year" is available on kindle at amazon. It snuck in there sometime between Thursday night and Friday morning. I uploaded it Thursday afternoon and was supposed to wait 24-48 hours before it finished 'publishing.' I wanted to catch it as soon as it went live, so I could buy it for my kindle and see how it looked. So the next morning, which was only about 10 hours later, I was suprised to see I had some sales on it! I went to my kindle 'dashboard,' saw that it still said 'publishing' but went out to the amazon store, found it, and bought it for my kindle. There were a few formatting changes I wanted to make, but while it was in this nebulous publishing stage, I couldn't do a thing to it. I had to wait until this morning, when it was finally finished with publishing, and I was able to upload the new file with the few format changes.

If you purchased a kindle yesterday (or will today, for I don't know when that new version will go into effect), you can always reupload the book to get the current book.

I hope you enjoy the stories in the book. There are 4 Christmas stories, which are basically one long story divided up into 4 events. Nothing traumatic or angsty in these stories - remember, Elizabeth and Darcy are just married! But as you get into the other stories, there will be a little bit of conflict, whether it be between the two of them, acquaintances, family members, or just circumstances.

I know that everyone will want to read all the stories when you first get the book. But feel free to go back on the different holidays throughout the year and read them again. I hope you will.