Jane Austen Influencers

It's all about connections

I have spent many a pandemic evening watching various BBC movies and series based of Jane Austen novels, in a complete cliche of myself. And I have spent many a pandemic day marketing Belt titles. Inevitably I was going to ask myself this question: how were Jane Austen’s novels initially marketed? And how did she get published anyway?

So I read a Claire Tomalin’s biography, Jane Austen: A Life. I was annoyed by Tomalin’s arch tone, and got bogged down in her prodigious archival research into an assortment of Austens, but generally enjoyed the book. Everything that follows is due to her research and writing, and is indebted to her.

Perhaps because I read it to prove my own thesis, I came away concluding that Jane Austen’s marketing success lay in her family’s connections, as well as some strategic and lucky placement of her books in the hands of (wait for it), influencers.

First, some backstory. The first book Austen had luck finding an interested publisher was Northanger Abbey. Her …