My Books
20 Years of Enchanted, Inc.
This week marks the 20th anniversary of the publication of the first Enchanted, Inc. book. I think yesterday is actually the anniversary of the first time I saw it in a bookstore. The big books may have strict “don’t open this box until this date” policies, but with books like mine, no one cares when it goes on the shelf. I remember stopping by a bookstore on the Sunday before the book’s Tuesday release date and being surprised to find it there on the New Releases table at a Borders (yes, the book is so old that it was sold at Borders).
But then when I went around to area bookstores on the actual release date, when it was supposed to be on shelves, it wasn’t at half the stores I went to. I don’t know if there was a delay in unboxing the books and getting them on the shelves, since the Monday of that week was a holiday, or if they just didn’t plan to stock the book at all in those stores. It was a huge emotional roller coaster as I drove around to bookstores. When I found it in a store, I’d chat with the staff and sign their copies and leave the store feeling like a famous author. When I didn’t, I’d slink out, hoping no one noticed me. It tells you something about how much turnover my wardrobe gets that I still have the top I bought for those release day visits hanging in my closet. Hey, it was cute, and it’s fairly classic, so I don’t think it’s out of style. If it ever gets warm here this summer, I’ll have to wear it.
I guess because it was shelved early in some places, I was already getting e-mail from readers who wanted more books, which was exciting. I was also getting “I heard about this book but I can’t find it in stores” e-mails, which was encouraging that people wanted it, but frustrating that people who wanted it couldn’t find it, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I just had to tell people to ask for it, and the stores could order it (and maybe if people were asking for it, they might get copies to put on the shelf).
The book wasn’t considered a particular success. It got great reviews and had really good sell-through, but it wasn’t a bestseller. Still, it just keeps plugging along and is still in print all these years later, when some of the books the publisher actually pushed at that time have gone out of print. They did do a little more promo with the next book and they bought two more books (the first contract was for two books), so it did well enough to get that. The book launched that phase of my career and brought me a lot of recognition. The book has been published around the world. I have translations in Dutch, German, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese, and Indonesian (or some language from that area — not sure exactly). It’s been optioned for film by Universal Studios and had a screenplay written by the same writer who wrote I, Tonya and Hope Floats, but the movie never got made and the option lapsed. There was a team including a writer who worked on Angel as showrunner trying to get networks interested in a series, with no bites. More recently, it was optioned by Disney+ for a streaming series, but they let the option lapse. Really, my whole experience with this book has been a roller coaster, with lots of exciting highs followed by letdowns, but it just keeps plugging as more people continue to discover that universe and those characters.
Thanks to all who’ve been with me along the way, whether you found these books (and me) back in 2005 and have been following my work since then or whether you just found me recently. It’s the readers who keep me writing (literally, because if people weren’t buying books, I’d have to quit writing and get a real job).
I wonder what the next twenty years will bring.