Adventures in Self-Publishing

I finished and published "This Just In" a few weeks ago. Shortly after that I bought and downloaded my own book, so I could see it on my Nook. Funny thing happened.
It wasn't right.
The first paragraph of the first chapter was wrong.
So I went to Amazon and checked, and to Smashwords, and every other way possible. Somehow I had managed to publish the draft version of my book! And not the final copy!!
Don't ask me how it happened. It's a long story. A lot of it has to do with always trying to do writing and publishing stuff in my "free" time, which tends to happen after midnight. You know what else happens after midnight? Mistakes. Not to mention, it was a result of originally publishing unedited serial editions, group sourcing the edits, compiling them into one, and somehow accidentally not paying attention to the thing I swear I pay great attention to, and probably just giving files stupid names. Really, it was probably all because of the file names, and then deleting the old files, because at one time I had about 15 different files of the same book, and it was getting confusing.
I have spent the last 2-3 weeks re-editing my book all over again. (So not fun.) This was a TON of work. And I raised the price of the published version so that no one would want to buy it, and did nothing to promote it. Thereby hopefully reducing the chances of anyone buying the embarrassingly bad published version!
(I hang my head in shame!)
But the good news is that the newly revised and edited version is now up and running again! (And the crowd goes wild!) A few tiny discrepancies were fixed in addition to the grammar.  (For instance, I corrected Hank's age between books 1&2. No one called me out on it (thankfully it's an incredibly minor detail), but with the details given in the two books, he would have been over 100 years old. Oops. You know what else no one called me out on? (And this one cracks me up. And also makes me think I can't trust any of those people who claimed they edited it!) Some of my funnier phonetic mistakes. I do most of my writing really late at night. And sometimes I get sleepy while I write and make really odd mistakes, most of them phonetic. I think the best one I found in the book was that I typed coffin instead of often. And no one told me. You know what mistake I never made though? There/their/they're and your/you're. Another mistake I make and have to double-check no matter what time of day I wrote it- passed/past. And my high school French teacher would be proud to know that I was consistent in writing blonde for a girl, and blond for a boy. Even though in English all that matters is that you pick one and stick with it.)


Oh the joys of self-publishing!
But thankfully now the edited, clean, less phonetic version of the book is available! And I lowered the price back down to $4.00.




You can also get it on your Nook here!


If you happened to have purchased one of the ugly versions at the high price, I would be more than happy to send you a free copy! (Don't try and trick me or lie to me though. I know how many copies sold, and what e-reader service they sold on!) Prove it to me by sending me an example of one of the more atrocious mistakes! (For instance, there is half a paragraph missing and it is pretty obvious, considering it picked up mid-sentence, and didn't have correct punctuation or capitalization.)
And for those of you (who read the horribly unedited version and liked it anyway) who have been asking about a third book- it is underway! I don't expect it will be finished within the next 2 months though. Maybe right in time for some summer beach reading? We'll see.  There is a huge flashback to Haley's past, and you'll get to see how she really met Cam that very first time in Haiti. It has been a lot of fun to write, and very emotional as well. It is no secret that a lot of Haley's background stories come from my personal life. So digging deep and pulling out some of those memories to write about has been an adventure. But the book is all the better for it.
So here- enjoy the picture of the real life Henri (from the book)- and go buy the CLEAN, ERROR FREE VERSION!!!

This is the little guy I think of when I write about Henri. However, in the book he is described much younger. I always describe his "marble hazel brown eyes." Can you see why now?

The picture below is the real life Nichelle, also described in the books.  Her story is described in greater detail in book 3.

Thanks to everyone who read the books and did not leave scathing reviews about the horrible grammar and mistakes! I appreciate it!