Reclaiming that Book you Wrote & Loved

I wrote my first paranormal romance book about four years ago. I have no idea where the time went. Rapture, was the first novel in a six book mermaid/Siren series I mapped out. I loved writing Rapture. I poured my heart and soul and my love of the sea into this book. I was lucky that book secured me an agent (okay, I fired my agent after this) but the book also got me a publisher, Cerridwen Press (CP). I didn’t know a whole lot about CP but I had heard of Ellora’s Cave which was their sister company and a much bigger erotic e-publisher. Now, my book Rapture is not erotic. I would classify it as highly sensual. So excited newbie author I signed a contract with CP and that awoke my own passion to write more erotic stories for Ellora’s Cave.

Fast-forward two years later. My sales at EC were climbing but my book Rapture was not doing well at CP. Why? I always felt a key part of what happened was that my books from EC did not link to my CP profile page so it was hard for readers to discover my sensual writings. This book was my baby. I wanted it back. What did I do? I waited for CP to close and they did and EC gave authors the option of getting our rights back to our books or merging into their new line. I got my rights back and thought what now? I couldn’t very well send it off to another publisher because it had already been published, so I thought I’m going to try the Indie route. At this point I had nothing to lose.

I knew in my heart that Rapture was a good solid story. It won an EPPIE in 2008 for Best Fantasy/Paranormal Romance and all the reviewers who had read it ranked it 5-stars. Last year I hired a cover artist who did an amazing job on the redesign of the cover and this month I launched Rapture as an Indie publication on Smashwords and Amazon.com. I know building my market for this is going to be a slow climb but I’m approaching this like any new mother setting her child off into the world—one day at a time. Today I’m off to set it up on All Romance E-books (http://www.allromanceebooks.com) and I’m off to Createspace to upload it as a print book. I figure the more markets I can get Rapture into the better exposure overall for my books in general.

What has this also inspired? Well, book two Bliss is already 86,000 words written so I’m planning to finish that book within a few months so I can launch that. In the meantime, I’ve got a few more short erotic novellas centered on Titans and Sirens that I also plan to launch. And, HQN Spice Briefs in October 2012 will be launching Claiming Poseidon’s Daughter, which is a spicy, contemporary paranormal novella. Overall, I’m feeling excited that I’m back in the driver seat and helping my baby, Rapture see the world.

Rapture – modern mermaid tale with a twist
http://amzn.com/B0068OWVZE
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/105558