It is only now, as I write these interstitial pieces, that I have realized that being forced back to the day job was a key to unlocking a future I had failed to identify as even a possibility, before then.
While writing full time and sinking further into debt because of diminishing sales and cheques that failed to arrive at all (let alone on time), my entire focus was upon writing more and marketing more to the readership I had already established, via the publisher I was already with.
Being forced back to a day job took all the pressure off. Once I had caught up on the major bills, and while I was still in my demoralized funk about having to work a day job and the failure that represented, I did not write much at all. I no longer had to write to make rent.
That altered my perspective. I started questioning everything that had been locked in place for ten years. Who I was writing for, what I was writing, and why? And most importantly…how I was writing—and publishing—that output.
It was early 2011 when I got the smack between the eyes. Indie publishing was just stepping into legitimacy, and while I had heard about it for a few years, the obvious question (i.e., why was I not indie publishing?) simply didn’t occur to me until then.
All my current properties (except for a half dozen shorts and short-shorts) were tied up in traditional publishing contracts. I did have a novel I had been half-heartedly developing for Ellora’s Cave, but I was so soured on the publishing process that I couldn’t seem to finish it.
When I finally did wonder if I should self-publish, I tested the waters by finishing the novel (from another series), and spending a few weeks figuring out how this indie thing worked.
That was the smack between the eyes.
As soon as I had the story published, and could watch sales reports right there before my eyes, and most importantly, control every facet of the publication, I knew I’d found my publishing home.
Within weeks, I started the process of retrieving the rights for all my books. I had to wait at least a year before I could claim back rights, and only after that year, and if the sales were low enough, would I be successful in retrieving them. So I stopped marketing, stopped advertising the books, took them off my site and let the sales dwindle.
While that was happening, I wrote and published a few original stories in other series.
But I kept coming back to the Kiss Across Time series, and counting up sales, waiting for them to drop below the red line so I could get the books back. I re-read both novels, and all the shorts I’d written while I waited. It took two years to have the rights returned and by then, I’d already written the third book, Kiss Across Chains, in another marathon sprint of enthusiasm. I had been obsessing over Brody’s story for years. I barely plotted it. It just spilled out onto the page.
I’d got my mojo back, big time. Now I could the series how I wanted to, so long as readers liked it.
And they did.
I republished Kiss Across Time under my own name, in May 2013, and Kiss Across Swords in June of that year. Kiss Across Chains was all ready to go, and was released in July, 2013.
All three books sold mega amounts, got huge numbers of glowing and rave reviews…and for the first time my sales reflected the feedback.
While working to retrieve rights on the 33 other books held by publishers, and re-publishing them, I failed to notice the shorts and short-shorts on my hard drive. Then, with another jolt, I realized I was free to publish those, too.
So I put together the frame story and published it…which is why Time Kissed Moments was published well after Kiss Across Chains, despite coming before it in the series.
I received some delightful, and delighted, notes from readers when Brody and Veris returned. I agreed completely with all of them.