Homeless

On March 12th, Simon & Schuster announced they were closing Crimson Romance.

Crimson Romance, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, is/was my publisher. While Simon & Schuster still holds the contracts on Courtly Pleasures and Courtly Scandals (released one week after closing), they reverted the rights of my third book, Courtly Abandon (which was scheduled for release on 7/2/18), back to me. This affected the entire staff of Crimson Romance (who got the news about the same time I did) and hundreds of authors.

What does any of this mean?

Courtly Pleasures and Courtly Scandals are still available at this time in eBook. Courtly Pleasures was supposed to available in print on 3/12/18, but that has been delayed and I'm not even certain if they will continue to support the print on demand for this title. Pre-order for the print version of Courtly Scandals was available until this morning, but that was probably just a matter of S&S having not gotten around to canceling it (which kept my hopes up). I am certain Amazon will be sending out the email shortly to any who have reordered alerting them to the cancellation.

My plan was to continue promoting my books as if nothing had happened. My husband is dealing with the next steps because this has been very difficult for me to process. I'll keep writing and he'll deal with the legal issues (which is a gift to me because, right now, I just can't). It's messy and I hate it. I'm only writing about this here to answer, calmly, like a rational person, the questions that will come from my friends and family having their orders cancelled.

The worst part, for me, was that I'd started thinking of myself as on a safe path. I've used the analogy of a race in the past, so I'll continue here: I thought writing a book, learning the industry, promoting my product, etc... was the first race with publication at the finish line. I have said that I never felt like I'd won, but that I'd just started a new race. Well, this has shown me that I'm still in that first race and, from here, it doesn't look like there is an end, just more hurdles. I was in a straightaway and lulled into a false sense of security. My publisher suddenly being closed was a major wake up call and I'm still reeling.

The good news? I have readers, I have two books out that are selling, and I have a completed third book (the best of the three, imo). I'm ready to pitch to publishers again, but I'm a better position than before. I may not be a featured author signing at a convention, but I'll be there with a viable product, sales numbers, and a little more faith in myself. I did it once, I can do it again. And maybe next time around the covers will be set in the right century (I can dream, right?).

In the meantime, if you look up Courtly Scandals on Amazon, it does not have any matches and asks if you meant "courtly sandals" but does suggest Courtly Pleasures as an option. But if you select Courtly Pleasures, it doesn't suggest Courtly Scandals as book 2. You can see both books if you go to my Amazon author page. This wouldn't have happened if Crimson was still supporting my titles.

I wrote this blog for two reasons:
1. So it's all here in a nutshell and I don't have to explain it any more.
2. The purpose of my blog has always been to document my experiences and life lessons along the road to publication. When I signed with Crimson, I decided to keep up that aspect of myself. Publication is just another part of that journey and, if you're a writer trying to figure all this out, my little babbling anecdotes might help you feel less alone in this mess. I started querying with the expectation that my book was the BEST BOOK EVER and I'd be the exception to the long haul of rejections I'd heard so much about. Well, I wasn't. I'm not. I just keep trying. I'm a better writer because of the rejections. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger and I'm not dead yet.