Starting Over

I've had several chances to just glimpse success on the horizon and need to start over. Part of that is needing to redefine success. Another part is the uncertainty of life as an author—changes in audience, genre conventions, expectation, and the one hot thing. A large part for me has been press closures and rights recovery. When you combine that with a pandemic, a severe and traumatic physical injury, and a the need to cope with a mental health condition that puts me solidly in the "measures energy with spoons" category (if you know, you know), you end up with everything grinding to a halt. So, with my rights reclaimed from Dreamspinner during the pandemic, and a dearth of those books having been released even while I still had the press, I have been left in a position I hate.

For six months all of my romance books have been out of print.

The College Rose Romances have been waiting on their fifth entry since 2018. The Sam's Cafe Romances slid into obscurity when they went out of print with the rights recovery from Dreamspinner. And of all my miscellaneous shorts published at Dreamspinner, only The Byte of Betrayal had made it back into the world - with a new cover! (and like all the others, it went out with Purple Horn at the end of 2022). 

Getting started again carries with it costs. Some monetary, some energy and time based. With an ongoing struggle to write at all, I have debated for a long time giving up my lifetime dream. Just considering giving it all up was making me miserable. So I catalogued the costs again... and delayed.

The delays are done.

This past week, I worked to figure out the logistics - ISBN numbers, a bank account, a kdp account in my name, and so forth. And I put out The Tendire Gate. And because some things have gotten smoother and there's a whole lot to rerelease, I put out American Pride for good measure. A hefty dose of angst too, with The Byte of Betrayal.

These are all old stories and I know I'll need to release new ones too. There's a plan for that. The College Rose Romances has a volume five, Forgiving James, which is complete, but I can't release it until the rest are back out. Sam's Cafe Romances has a spin off... two novellas telling the story of Brandon and Brice, Brian's brothers - The Stouten Duet. Those are also written, but need editing. And I have a costumed hero story too. 

Stuff is in the works. There's a new dawn. I have a plan. The stories are coming back out. 

There will be new stuff too, I promise.