MY ONCE AND FUTURE BOOKS

Publishing, someone once said, is like throwing a leaf into the Grand Canyon, and I have to agree. Yes, most of the fifty-some novels I’ve published have felt like that. At first there was something: a spot of color, a glimpse of flight, paper winging on the breeze. But very quickly there was nothing. No echo, no indication of any impact. After the reviews were over, silence, except three (it was almost always three) fan letters mailed to me by the publisher after a six-month delay. Then, within a terribly short time, the out-of-stock notice would arrive like a messenger of doom, and sometimes (*shudder*) the remainder notice, and finally (terribly finally) the out-of-print notice. That felt like a kind of death for each book. The occasional copies being sold “used” served as ghosts.

And that’s the way it’s been for most of my career. Some books lasted longer than others, but eventually they all succumbed, like T.S. Eliot’s version of the way the world ends, “not with a bang but a whimper.” In order to make a living, I wrote at least one new book every year, resigned to its fate yet secretly hoping that this one might do better, might thrive and grow, might even outlive me.

Now I am of retirement age, and to my eye-blinking amazement, that secret hope is coming out of hiding.

For some of my novels, the end will not be the end after all.

A lot of those leaves I threw into the Grand Canyon are flying back out, bright, beautiful, and digitally enhanced.

It’s official. Here’s the notice:

In a major deal with the Jean Naggar Literary Agency, Open Road will publish 29 titles by Nancy Springer in digital form. Titles include the Book of Isle series (The White Hart and its four sequels) and 12 other adult titles, including Larque on the Wing, which won the James W. Tiptree Award, and Fair Peril, which was nominated for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award. Open Road will also publish 12 of Springer's books for children and young adults, including Looking for Jamie Bridger and Toughing It, both of which won the Edgar Award.

My babies are being reborn!

Even my very first novels, the Books of Isle, are coming back! They and many others! This is whole-heartedly wonderful to me, but also, like many of the major events in my life, exquisitely ironic, thus: For decades now I have obstinately resisted the technology that is making this possible. It took me years and years to have a website and get on Facebook. I don’t own, and have never used, a Kindle or any whatchamacallum, e-reader. Heck, I don’t even own a functioning cell phone, far less a “smart” phone. Yet the people who, unlike me, choose to embrace the e-future are the people who are making my wonderful new hope possible.

I can’t wait to see, on my venerable computer, the new covers of my re-released books!

All of the old rules have changed, and while the process was happening, I did not like it, Sam I Am. I did not like Green Digital Eggs and Ham, not whatsoever. But now I do, I like e-publishing, Sam I am. Thank you, thank you, Sam – no, seriously. Thank you, JVNLA and Open Road Media.