If at first you don’t succeed…

I’ve been dreading writing this post. A week has passed since I woke up to some upsetting news. My publisher, Royal James Publishing, closed it’s doors last Tuesday.

After being available for purchase for 2 months, The Door Keeper will be pulled from Amazon and Barnes and Noble effective immediately. The good news is that the publisher was very happy with TDK and how it was selling. Her decision to close had more to do with how the overall business was doing. But still, a big time bummer.

So, I’m back to square one. Well, not completely at square one at least. I have a beautiful cover, the writing went through a round of editing (although, I think it could use some more), I got some great reviews, the book is formatted for e-version, and all rights remain with me.

I don’t have any regrets. I knew signing with Royal James was a risk, and I have learned SO much since signing my contract. Lessons that I will absolutely use moving forward. It’s just difficult when you have been building momentum and suddenly have to halt everything. So the big question is, what am I going to do now? What’s my next step?

After seeking some counsel from author friends, I’ve decided to restart my search for an agent. An agent would be able to help me know where to go from here. An agent could answer the questions that I have: Do I self publish TDK and work on selling the sequel? Do I shelf it and attempt to sell the first and second together? Or do I just start over and re-sell the TDK before doing anything else with the sequel?

For friends of mine, I have about 30 copies left I can sell you from the trunk of my car. 🙂 To those of you I’ve already talked to, thank you so much for your kind words and support. It means so much.

I’d love any input you guys may have for me. As in most of my short writing career, I’m in unchartered territories here…

What do y’all think? What would you do if you were in my position? How do I move forward from here?

Announcing the March Book Cover of the Month!

Thank you everyone! What a fun couple of weeks. Thank you to everyone who voted & in so proud of the cover that Meghan created. She deserves all the recognition!

M.L.S. Weech

The March Book Cover of the Month bracket has just wrapped up. This was a very tough bracket from my point of view. We had some heavily-supported authors and some tight races. We didn’t break a ton of records, but still had a solid month. We had a total of 2,808 votes. The last round had 190 votes. It was a pretty close contest, but someone has to win.

The March Book Cover of the Month is…

This image and all associated images are used for review purposes under fair use. The intent is to draw attention to the product.

The Door Keeper by Steen Jones! If you’re curious about how I felt about the book, check out the Facebook post that I posted when this book first landed on the bracket, here.

Let’s look at the stats!

I’d have to say this is a bit of an…

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Vote for The Door Keeper’s Cover!

Hey everyone! I was thrilled to learn over the weekend that The Door Keeper’s cover was entered into a cover bracket!

Thank you to M.L.S Weech for including my beautiful cover art designed by the talented Meg Brim.

Everyone go to the CONTEST and vote to send The Door Keeper to the Sweet 16!

Vote and share with your friends! (And see some of the other beautiful covers there are in the fantasy genre.)