Publication!

Book 5's available! Get your copy, hot off the presses (somewhat literally, because it's print-on-demand).

You can buy it directly from Createspace here.
You can buy the paperback on Amazon here.
You can buy it for Kindle here.
You can buy it for all other eBook formats here.

It behooves me to say that if you buy it on Createspace, a greater percentage of the money goes to me than if you buy it elsewhere, where Amazon takes more.

Back copy:

Twenty years have passed since Mr. Darcy married Elizabeth Bennet, and their family has grown. All of the Bennet sisters are married, and their children are on the threshold of adulthood and ready for entrance to proper society. War in Europe is over, and it seems that England, and our beloved families, are at peace.

But trouble lurks on the horizon. A popular revolt is brewing in Derbyshire, lead by a deluded radical. The very safety of Pemberley and Chatton House are threatened when a family member goes missing, and Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley, with the help of relatives and friends, must attempt a dangerous rescue while the wolves close in around them.

In Altman's fifth installment of "The Darcys and The Bingleys," she continues Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice not just through romance and foibles but political intrigue, action, and the occasional brutality required of life in Georgian England.    

Whither Book 6?

I'm a bit in the hole from editing and design costs, but as soon as I get out of that - get your copy of book 5 today! - I will start working on book 6, hoping for a fall release.

Rolling rolling rolling

Feels like this, right?

Hopefully, book 5 should be out next week. The print version is there, but lacking a cover. A couple people have responded to my cover design ad, but no one has actually delivered the cover yet or said officially they would do it. So, if you can design book covers, there's $50 in it for you. The eBook version is pretty much there, but it's hard to tell. I can't submit it for premium distribution on Smashwords until I publish it, and only when they review it for premium distribution do they find if things are problematic in the file formatting. And that takes a week. And I can't put up the Kindle version until the print version goes up. But rest assured, I am working on it.

Whither book 6? Well, that depends on sales of book 5. If I earn back my money on book 5 (I did shell out good money for copyediting), I'll try to do book 6 in the fall or winter 2012. If I'm in the hole, we'll see. It's kind of a tense time for me, because both of my bosses and my first publisher owe me money, but until they get it to me, my bank account is pretty low.

If you're looking for a review copy of book 5, the e-version will be pretty easy to get from me, but if you want a print copy for review, you need to be someone who will actually really super do the review. No offense to reviewers, but this time it's money out of my pocket to get you a the book, so if you want to do the print review, please be serious about doing it, and give me an email.

There is no textual differences between the books, except maybe in the acknowledgments if I forget to line up last-minute additions correctly. Also, I worked really hard on the formatting for book 5's print version, because you need to format print versions, so I'm really proud of it, but I know some people like their eReaders. Just so you know. 

Jane Austen with me in Kathmandu, Nepal

Boy, it sure has been awhile, hasn't it? So long that Blogger has significantly changed its layout for designing posts.

I have been back from India for the last month, and insanely busy for all of it. I arrived on top of Passover, then had to begin to catch up at my job and finish my Kickstarter project, which has had just hours and hours of audio to transcribe. And I've been working on book 5. I'm doing the last of the copyediting issues now and from then it's formatting, layout, then publication.

A couple things of note:

- The size of the book will be the size of The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy, as those proportions are easily available on Createspace, whereas the proportions that Sourcebooks used (shorter with wider pages) are not allowed for wide distribution

- All of the previous books have used a creme-colored paper to some extent; book 5 will be whiter. Again, this is a distribution requirement. I am making an effort to have the books look similar, but I also want to get it to the most people possible, because I know a lot of people are going to want the hard copy.

- The price for the hard copy will probably be around $14.95, or less on discount, and the price of the eBook will vary depending on sales and promotional periods, but stay between $2.99-$4.99 for the most part. I don't think I'd put it way above that. Please watch my group page and blog for announcements of specials. I may even reduce it to .99c a couple times for a day or something.

- Because this is a POD book, there will be a delay on shipping. I don't have any control over this. If you want to buy a copy directly from me because POD is not available in your area (non-US), you can contact me and I'll set that up.

- While I'm trying to keep the general layout from book 4, I won't have as much freedom for fancy flourishes that Sourcebooks did a lot of at the beginning of chapters and between scenes, but I'll do what I can for the hard copy. The eBook will pretty much just be text because it has to work on all formats. The Kindle version has more room to move.

- It's 80,000 words, so it'll be somewhere in the 300-350 land of page numbers. Again, this is only relevant if you're buying the hard copy. Book 5 is not as long as the previous books because it has a more concentrated plot. Book 6 is the shortest book by far, at least 67,000 words or something like that, and after they get longer and longer as I have more and more to do with the younger cast. The final book is something crazy, like 200,000 words. Man, I hope we get there.