In 2009, Paula Lafferty was leading literary tours in the United Kingdom when she was struck by a “flashbulb idea” that would become her debut fantasy romance novel, The Once and Future Queen. After scribbling down the premise for a time traveling tale about Queen Guinevere, Lafferty set the idea aside until 2022.
“There was an intervening 13 years where a whole lot of nothing happened,” Lafferty said at a book talk last week at Banter Bookshop in Fremont. Plagued with self-doubt, she described experiencing “a litany of ‘not enough’ over and over again.”
One night, at dinner with a septuagenarian mentor who was reminiscing about a long-deferred dream to become an author, Lafferty decided she would not wait any longer. Starting with journal entries, she committed to writing daily and soon revisited the Arthurian romance she had dreamt up over a decade ago.
The story begins in the present-day with protagonist Vera working at the “George & Pilgrims Inn” in Glastonbury, a hotel where Lafferty stayed during her stint in the U.K. One day, a mysterious bearded visitor reveals that Vera is actually Queen Guinevere from 7th century Camelot and insists that she must travel with him back in time to avert disaster.
The tale is a modern reimagining of the legends of King Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere, whom Lafferty felt had always been represented unfairly in history as a mere plot device.
In a nine-month period that Lafferty jokes felt like “an appropriate gestational period,” she completed the manuscript and posted videos documenting her experience on social media.
One video montage of her progress went viral, attracting over 13 million views to date and making waves in the “BookTok” community, where avid readers and writers interact online. BookTok has become extremely influential and is now “one of the commanding forces in adult fiction,” reported the New York Times.
As she meticulously documented her journey on BookTok—including the heartbreak of rejection by literary agents and her original plan of “100% pursuing traditional publishing”—Lafferty decided to self-publish her novel.
In 2024, she launched a Kickstarter campaign that attracted nearly $66,000 in funding. The campaign also caught the attention of foreign publishers who acquired rights to translate her novel into eight languages.
Eventually, the debut became so popular that it caught the attention of a traditional publisher, Kensington, who retitled the novel, The Once and Future Queen, and released a new hardcover imprint with a bonus chapter in December.
“I would not go back and change the way I did it for anything in the world,” Lafferty said of her circuitous foray into book publishing, which mirrors a path taken by contemporary authors like Colleen Hoover (Slammed), E.L. James (Fifty Shades of Gray) and Andy Weir (The Martian), all of whom independently released their fiction before transitioning to conventional representation.
Lafferty’s heartfelt and engaged fanbase was present at the Fremont stop of her book tour. One woman from Texas instructed her mother to attend the signing while video calling so she could participate remotely.
Iann Ivy, a self-published children’s book author, arrived at the store dressed in a medieval gown and holding a copy of the deluxe gold-foiled limited edition of the novel. “I’ve been following [Lafferty] since the release,” Ivy said, paging through the special edition’s acknowledgements section to show her name listed among the early Kickstarter supporters.
At times, members of the audience seemed awestruck as Lafferty described the “magical” experience of her book coming together over the years. And yet her trail of social media posts could be characterized less by effortless magic than by the Herculean effort and determination in persevering through setbacks and self-doubt to achieve all that she has accomplished today.
Near the end of her talk, Lafferty offered a final word of advice and inspiration: “If there’s something the universe is pulling you towards, you better run to it.”
