It’s a long story, but the short version is that the publisher who published A Cutthroat Business last year, decided not to publish the sequel, Hot Property, this summer. They gave those rights back to me, and for a couple of different reasons, none of which matter to this blog post, they threw in the subsidiary rights for A Cutthroat Business as well. Subsidiary rights meaning audio, electronic, foreign, movie and serial rights. Anything except print.
What that means is that I can now self-publish A Cutthroat Business in electronic format, along with all the other books in the Savannah Martin mystery series.
So that’s what I’m doing. What you’re looking at is the new cover for A Cutthroat Business, which is available from Amazon.com, BN.com, Smashwords.com, and maybe a couple of other sites, for the low, low price of only $3.99.
(Yeah, I know there are people out there who sell their books for $.99. But this is 88,000 glorious, beautiful words that I spent a year of my life crafting, and believe me, they’re well worth $3.99. Library Journal said so. “Will delight fans of chick-lit mysteries and romantic suspense.” And if Library Journal says it, you know it’s gotta be true. Besides, $3.99 is only half of what the DIY e-books sell for, and I have it on good authority – I did a poll – that my readers would pay more.)
In another month, I’ll be publishing Hot Property, and the month after that – that’ll make it July – I’ll be throwing book 3, Contract Pending, out there. Book 4, Close to Home, is written but not yet edited, so I don’t know if I can get it ready by August – I’m a third of the way through writing DIY-6, and that’s the priority right now – but I’ll be able to get Close to Home out sometime this fall. If I’m super-focused and really, really lucky, I might have book 5, which has the tentative title of A Done Deal, written by Christmas, although that’s probably pushing it. Anyway, for the next couple of months, my posts will most likely be focused around this brand new adventure I’m trying on for size. If you’re not interested in e-publishing and the skinny on my journey through the twisted maze of doing it myself, feel free to tune out the first Friday of every month.
If, on the other hand, you find the new frontier to be as exciting as I do, stick around and answer a few of the following questions for me:
1. Do you buy/read e-books?
2. Does it matter to you whether an e-book is self-published (by the author) or traditionally published (by a publisher)? Do you even know whether it is or not when you buy it?
3. Do you think the e-book revolution means the end of the printed word as we know it? How does that make you feel, one way or the other?
4. Does it piss you off when people show almost malicious glee at the thought that print books are on their way out and traditional publishing may go the way of the dodo? (You can probably tell where my feelings are on this subject.)
5. If you’re into e-books and I offered you a free download of A Cutthroat Business, would you read it and do me the favor of posting a review somewhere?
Thanks, y’all! I’ll see you next month with an update.
