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 which was not shared with me, 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 release me 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 out, TikTok reviewers, book clubs, and book fairs planned, and access to the book would disappear at an unknown time.

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 already owned the licence for the cover and, while I can't use it for the paperback, allowed me to use it on Kindle. The cover will cost £350 + and take weeks to create. To make life more miserable, this is the fifth artist I've approached and the second to currently be late sending the concept image. I continue to enjoy the Calm app and its short meditations.

To find an immediate solution, 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 book on Amazon is that I will lose all my reviews once the last book is sold --- one remains. To prevent this from happening again, I am asking reviewers to also leave their review on Google which automatically saves to my website home page.

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 another 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.