Is Your Book Already Out There?

Do you ever notice when you’re working on a book that you think is brilliant (or when you just finished one and you’re about to start shopping it around) that all of a sudden you start seeing books exactly like yours everywhere you look? I know there is no such thing as a purely original idea (especially when your idea is Austen-based, as mine is, so it’s already derivative), but it can be a bit demoralizing to keep seeing evidence that someone else got there first.

I think when this happens...