I’m of an age where seeing my work in print is still very important to me. I love and am very grateful for e-publishing, don’t get me wrong — it’s a totally awesome publication avenue, and I take advantage of it all the time. That being said, as a writer born in the 1960s there’s still a part of me that wants to see a book in my hot little hands with my name on it in order to feel fully validated. When my first shared novel came out, I wanted to dance around Dallas in utter glee, waving it over my head like a flag, and immediately added it to my book shelf that held various anthologies with my short stories.

So when I published my first standalone novel Storm Season with Evernight last year, I was immensely proud. But there was also a tiny twinge that it would never be tangible, printed words on a page with my writing name on the cover that I could put on my bookshelf. Oh, I knew there was a chance that Evernight might add it to their print collection if it sold well enough, but it was my freshman novel, no one really knew me, and so I put it out of my mind and just concentrated on writing more stories and becoming the best damn writer I could be.

And then, this morning, I opened my email and saw something from Evernight with PRINT in the Subject line. I tell you, I felt like my heart stopped for a moment. Part of me was scared to open it, thinking that it couldn’t be what I thought it was. I was scared to hope, silly as that sounds.

But I opened it. And started crying when I read, “Your book Storm Season is now available in our print store…”

So, yeah, Storm Season is now a print book. It’s currently available directly from Evernight via CreateSpace, but will be available at Amazon in a week and other online booksellers in 6-8 weeks. I’m not saying this so that anyone feels like they have to buy it — I figure anyone who enjoys this particular genre already bought it as an ebook.

But damn. My first novel is now in print. And so, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go flail like a Muppet around the house for the next hour or so.