Janet Aylmer's Blog: Darcy and the accidental author, page 4

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The second printing

Once we had printed the first copies of Darcy’s Story, we were able to send copies off to ask for testimonials or endorsements. There is, of course, no obligation on the person contacted to say anything, or anything favourable
But we were lucky.

A letter sent to Andrew Davies, the scriptwriter for the BBC serial of P&P, met with a friendly response –
"I was glad to see that Janet Aylmer takes the sympathetic view of Darcy that I do. I enjoyed it."

At Jane Austen’s House in Chawton, the author’s last residence before moving to Winchester in her last weeks of life, there was understandable caution, and they had not been happy with some other books submitted to them.

However, the Curator there, Jean Bowden, was happy with Darcy’s Story, and said –
"I am very pleased with the book. I enjoyed Darcy's Story because it is faithful to Jane Austen's plot and to her characters."

So we were able to use these comments on the back cover of all subsequent printing of the book.

Why should people buy a book

People deciding to buy a book look at only a limited part at the beginning before deciding whether to buy – the cover design, the book title, the author’s name, the first few pages of “the prelims”, and the first page or two of the first chapter.

So it is very important to get these aspects right.

Having commissioned a cover which did NOT show Darcy’s face (since we all have our own idea of what he looks like!), in the first printing the title - Darcy's Story - was almost certainly the most important selling feature.

Deciding how many to reprint

After selling the first print run of Darcy’s Story - 2000 books in 6 weeks - we reprinted the novel.

First, we did a run of another 2000 books in September 1996, then 5000 more in October 1996.

Bear in mind that almost all these sales were in the UK, and through only around 10 outlets. A few sales were via the Internet.

At last, we got to calmer waters, and printed another 2000 books a year later.

That was a satisfactory situation, since the average novel in the UK sells around 3000 copies in its “lifetime”.

What approach to take to writing my novel

A major decision when writing Darcy’s Story was how much of Jane Austen's conversation between Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet to use. Either Jane Austen's dialogue had to be changed into description only, or there needed to be some form of commentary to show that Darcy had a very different view of the situations and their conversations when he and Elizabeth were both present.

I decided that the story would be more enjoyable if I used the second approach, even though that meant repeating some lengthy sections of dialogue which Jane wrote.
What I could not do was use different words between them for the conversations which Jane Austen herself had "reported"!

There has been a lively debate on this subject over the years, but I still hold to my view that an alternative version to JA’s words is not an acceptable approach.

A heart-warming letter

Within 4 weeks of Darcy’s Story being printed and sent to the stockists, I received a letter from one of the first readers to purchase the novel. I can truthfully say that it would not have been possible for anyone to write a more pleasant and complimentary letter to a new author.

She was, I would guess from the notepaper and her style of handwriting, an older lady who may have been a fan of P&P for many years.

Her letter began -
“Darcy's Story is an absolutely wonderful, thoughtful book: what an inspiration it was to write this story.”
and continued for two full pages.

I wrote back immediately to thank “Miss E.B. of Sheffield”(she did give her full name and address in her letter, but we agreed to use only her initials) and to ask whether the publishers could quote from her letter when the novel was reprinted, which by that date was becoming urgent.

She very kindly agreed to that, and she was sent a copy of the novel from the second printing, with her words quoted on the back cover, together with endorsements from the Curator at Jane Austen’s House in Chawton, and from Andrew Davies, the scriptwriter for the BBC TV serial. To date, many tens of thousands of people have read her comments.

“Miss E.B.” most probably bought the book on an outing to the “stately home” at Lyme Park used as Darcy’s house at “Pemberley” in the BBC production. For those of you not familiar with the geography in northern England, Sheffield is just over 30 miles east of Lyme Park, travelling through the very attractive Peak District National Park. If you have time to look at the top of my Twitter page (a link is on http://www.janetaylmer.com/authorbio....), you can see there a picture of the handsome house with the lake.

Since it is now more than 18 years since that correspondence, Miss E.B. may not be with us anymore. I shall always be grateful to her, and I hope that some of you reading this will be as fortunate as I was with one of the first people to read my book.

Darcy and the Accidental Author

However, printing books is, of course, only part of the task. It seemed very likely that we would have those 2000 books stored under the stairs for a very long time.
How to market a book is, of course, a major consideration. We contacted our local (large) Waterstone’s bookshop, and spoke to various National Trust venues used for the BBC P&P serial. Jane Austen’s House at Chawton were very selective about the books that they would take, but the Curator liked the novel because it was faithful to JA’s story. We used about 10 outlets in all. Each agreed to take a box of Darcy’s Story.
I vividly remember the moment when it became clear that this book was not going to be stored under the stairs for ever – a phone call from the shop at Lyme Park - “Pemberley” in the BBC TV serial - to say that they had sold all their books in less than 2 days, and could we please deliver more immediately. Within 6 weeks, all the books had sold – quite an achievement for a new small publisher with few outlets.

Darcy's Story into print

I then asked a friend to read these two chapters, to see what she thought. Stephanie suggested that I continue with more of Darcy's Story, so I did, and completed the book. But it is one thing to write a novel; quite another to get it into publication, and then to tell people about it so that some copies can be sold.

My husband was doubtful that it would be possible to find a publisher, and certainly not in a reasonable timescale to get the book into shops within 18 months. It also seemed likely that some enthusiasts for Jane Austen's works would be unhappy, or at least disappointed, that a story she had written was to be used in a different way. However, a few weeks later my husband decided that he would lend me a small amount of a legacy from a dear relative that he had recently received.

So we contacted Antony Rowe Ltd, who specialises in short runs of 500 to 2000 books. We commissioned a book cover, and some 2000 copies were printed in July 1996.

How it all began

Let us go back to the beginning of my journey as an accidental author – a Sunday evening in Bath in the autumn of 1995. With more than 10 million other people in the UK, we were watching episode five of the BBC serial of P&P.

My second daughter was staying with us for the weekend, a break from working in London, and she commented that she wished that she could read Darcy’s side of the story, since Jane Austen had not said much about that in her novel.
I had not read the book for many years, and was surprised, and later in the week I bought an inexpensive copy of P&P from our local book shop, and highlighted the passages in which Darcy was present. I found that she was quite correct.

Having just finished a lengthy and rather boring task at work, I sat down and wrote two chapters of the story from the hero’s point of view.

News from Janet

Hallo everyone

I am new to Goodreads. As you will see if you have a glance at my web site, some of my novels have been available for some years, but another has been out of print since 2006 - The new Illustrated Darcy's Story - 9780952821038. With new copies fetching fancy prices, it seems a good time to make that available again in paperback (it is a larger than usual format).

That idea led to my deciding to put 2 of my other books, both sequels to books that ARE in print, available as paperbacks also. They should be available in the next 7 days.

Please see www.janetaylmer.com for details.