Change Already?

Being the great, great, great granddaughter of Matthew, I do like to set myself a challenge!

Those who follow me on social media will know that I've left my publisher and embarked on a journey as a self-published author.

I learned very quickly that publishing is a minefield and you have to learn so many new skills. I also learned that publishing houses vary from one to another. The publisher I was with did not edit, proofread, launch or market the book, other than sending (at their own expense) fifty books to a media list of newspapers and reviewers. I wasn't given this list and so I couldn't follow up any potential reviews.

I have paid for an editor and proofreader, organised my own launch, approached book shops and libraries and paid for SeventyOne Media to promote my book to a long media list (which I have access to). I also run my own social media and that is HARD GRAFT! I have been acting as a self-published author but without any access to the dashboards to see if my efforts were making any difference. All I could see was that I had the worst of both worlds.

It was an easy decision to give the publisher three months notice to leave, as per a signed agreement. However, they chose to give me free rein immediately and pulled A Legacy Forged from all platforms. Kindle dropped within a couple of hours of me emailing the publisher. All others, including access for book shops will be gone over the next few weeks. My carefully laid out three month plan was blown out of the water. I had two great radio interviews due to go out, TikTok reviewers, book clubs, and book fairs planned, and no one could access the book.

Fortunately, I have Seller blood in me and after three long days of emails and calls I had a temporary solution in place. The publisher purchased the licence for the cover and, kindly allowed me to use it on Kindle, however, I need to do another cover for paperback. This will cost £350 + and take weeks to create. I bought more paperbacks from the publisher and am selling signed and embossed copies from my website. I paid a smashing chap to help me format ALF correctly and upload to Kindle, so I'm back there again.

The tragedy of losing my old product/book on Amazon is that I potentially lose all my reviews. I am in communication with Amazon to resolve this, I hope.

In the middle of the shenanigans, I was finishing the story of Angelina. It took long days to finish alongside rescuing ALF, but I'm almost there. Angelina is edited and awaiting proofreading. I've created a cover which needs further work and I'm setting 30th March as my launch date. ALF has a cover in progress, he's on Kindle and for sale here so, for now, things are under control.

It seems the story of the saga has a saga behind it!

Picture above shows me hard at work under the watchful eyes of my two "rainbow" Border Collies and my Great Grandfather Albert.