​My anthology is published!  Wow!  I forgot what a rush it is to see a brand new book on Amazon!  I had planned to publish it last year, but, you know, 2020 being what it was – quite a lot of my plans turned to dust.  I never stopped working on it, though;  it just took a lot longer to happen. 
The manuscript itself was ready to go by summer last year, only the cover needed work.  I spent an intemperate amount of time working on it, really fretting and sweating over it, tearing out my (overgrown lockdown) hair.  I’d decided to go with a custom-made cover and really, really wanted to get it right.  I researched it, looked at similar books, studied anthologies, tried to find the right pictures.  I had, really, wanted my daughter to draw it for me.  Her digital art had gone through a phase which was just perfect for the style of book, but she had not only abandoned that style but had no interest, no confidence and no inclination to help.  Hence the custom-made cover.  I finally found a cover that was similar to what I wanted and I’m SO glad I did because it made me realise what a cliché my idea was!  Also, my go-to book cover designers (The Cover Collection) had closed their time slot for custom submissions by the time I was ready.  This was actually fortuitous.  I realised I wasn’t ready to publish.  I hadn’t the energy and couldn’t face the work it would involve.  By lockdown 2, I had to find other ways to get myself out of the writer’s funk (the gigantic editing job did the trick!)
New year, new ideas, and I decided to go with a premade cover.  The one I found was perfect except the bird.  I loved the bird, don’t get me wrong!  But it was a trifle too serene and looked just a weeny bit like a seagull.  I really needed a crow!  I wrote to Debbie at TCC and asked if I could have the bird changed for an extra charge.  This turned out to be no problem at all.  I had a choice of two birds and four different fonts, all of which looked fantastic.  It was great fun choosing the right one!
It’s hard to find a cover for an anthology, particularly one with a mixed-genre.  I wanted to highlight the title story and had originally imagined my heroine in her long black cloak and her long black hair, pointing imperiously at a stone tower, a crow on her shoulder and several more on a wintry tree behind her, all swathed in mist.  As this was a tall order (and needed the type of artist I can’t afford), I would have settled for a Goth-girl in a long black cloak in a forest with a crow.  And some magical sparkles to show the, well, magic.  Heh.  In time I realised that not only has this been done to death but is very YA.  NOT the right genre at all!
But at least I got my crow.  And a big spooky moon, delicious colours, some sparkles, and a weird glowy construction in the middle.  It isn’t a perfect match but the mood is right and somehow it manages to cover all bases.
Which is what you want, really!
 
Here’s the link to the ebook (the paperback comes out later this year):
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08Y5J4ZM5/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0
 
Here’s my Amazon Author Page:
https://www.amazon.com/~/e/B00AP4UY7K
 
You have TWELVE stories to read.  I hope at least ONE appeals to you!  If so, please leave a review.  My career has reach a make-break point and I need your help!
 

Who is the first agent you approach?  The best one, of course, whoever you think that may be.  In my mind, it’s the Curtis Brown agency.  So when the time came for me to start trotting my new novel around town, I headed to their website first.  They have an online form which, frankly, makes life a lot easier, both for the author and, no doubt, the agency as well.  I filled in all the required boxes, clicked send……and was told that I had already submitted that novel.
WHAT??
But I hadn’t!  It was the first time I’d submitted the novel to anyone.  Had someone stolen my title?  Yet I’d made sure I’d never mentioned it on any online platform, paranoically keeping it a secret for as long as possible.  Mystified, I sent an email to someone called “info” at Curtis Brown, then moved on and approached another agent instead, one I actually like rather just think are the best.
You should know, at this point, that while I do indeed have a landline, the sound is permanently switched off.  In fact, the only reason I have a landline is that I can’t get a good TV/broadband package without one.  And also, if you don’t want to put your mobile number on a website, you can just put your landline number instead.  When the phone does ring, a little red light flashes, something I absolutely never see.  In fact, I didn’t even know it did flash until I spotted it and thought, hmmm, I bet that’s just a nuisance call, but what-ho, I’m in the mood to be bothered, so I answered it.
Can you imagine my amazement when I discovered it was someone from Curtis Brown?  And can you imagine my sheer utter embarrassment when I discovered that I HAD submitted that novel before?  I don’t even remember doing it!  The phone call was lovely but I felt MORTIFIED.  It took a lot of hard thinking afterwards to remember that over two years ago, I decided I couldn’t stand working on the novel a moment longer, that it was finished, and that I really needed the help of an editor.  So I must have cobbled together a synopsis and the first three chapters and a cover letter and sent it off to them.
BUT WHERE ARE THEY?
I can’t anywhere on my computer find the cover letter and the synopsis I must have written.  Did I do this at work one bored afternoon?
Anyway, whatever happened, I had done something mad and stupid and now I couldn’t submit the VERY THOROUGHLY edited novel that was, hopefully, a much better prospect.  Unless I changed the title.  The title I had settled on originally was “Season of the Falling Sun”.  However, throughout the novel, I NEVER use the word “the” in front of “falling sun.”  So the title was actually incorrect anyway!  It seemed to me fate, or someone else, was trying to tell me to change the title.  So I did.  And it works.  And that’s what I used to submit my novel to Curtis Brown, which the online form accepted.
But after all this, do you think they are going to take any notice of it?  I’ve got everything going against me: 

• I’ve submitted it before
• I forgot I’d submitted it before
• It’s 160K words long
• I’m not anybody
• Competition is fierce

I’m thinking me and Curtis Brown weren’t meant to be.
 
But out of this fiasco, I got one thing right:  the title.  Hoorah.

Yes, definitely.  I could just leave it there!  There are so many reasons, not least of which is checking for errors.  I personally like updating my published books if I bring out a new book – I would definitely want to add a blurb for the new book at the back of the earlier books! 
When I realised I was two books behind, new editions became vital.  Not only did I want to add “Commences” to the “Also by ….” but also add its blurb to the Fleet Quintet novels at the back of the book.  I decided to go several steps further, though, and standardise the layout of every single edition.  For the paperbacks, this mean the same font, the same size font, the same layout, the same fancy font for the title page and chapter titles etc etc. For the ebooks, there’s slightly less work as the font type and size is the same throughout, but an ebook gives you the chance to add links.  And you have to make sure that every single one works.
This is a lot of work.
I have six published novels, one published novella and ten published short stories.  There are three different platforms:  KDP ebook, KDP paperback, and Smashwords.  This means that I may be working on three different editions of one single title. Once you start multiplying these numbers, you may understand why I felt a bit exhausted just contemplating so much work.  I mean, why bother. 
Pride comes into it.  As well as the desire to have a beautiful product to sell.  Quite a few of my books are going to be getting gorgeous new professional covers.  I want the inside to look professional as well!  Yes, I know – lots of people get OTHER people to do the work for them.  This is not how I work.  I know what I want and how I want it and I know I can do a good job.  Why pay for something that just requires time, patience and dedication?
I may be completely mad by the end of summer but I will also be able to move on from my beautiful new editions to other things.  All those other novels that are dying to be written!  As September always feels like a fresh start to the year, I aim to have my new editions out by the end of August.  Providing I don’t go completely cross-eyed checking all the font sizes of the return marks…….

Just uploaded my gorgeous new cover (from The Cover Collection) for THE EXODUS SEQUENCE!  It's considerably more noticeable than the cover I cobbled together, with really rich, bright colours and spacey enough to tell what genre it is.

I also shortened the very long and clunky subtitle:  "A Collection of Connection Science Fiction Novelettes".  There were two things wrong with this.  First, it wasn't accurate.  The collection contains fantasy, horror and experimental as well.  Secondly, the word "novelettes" is extremely dodgy.  Technically, it's entirely accurate.  A novelette is longer than a short story but shorter than a novella.  Most of the stories in this collection are quite long, so it seemed quite a good idea to call them novelettes.  

However, the word "novelette" has a derogatory meaning which I didn't know about.  Novelettes are usually lightweight romances, rather trivial and flimsy - at least, they used to be.  While this meaning is no longer in use, it was enough to tarnish the word for me and I decided to drop it from the subtitle.  It's kind of long and clumsy anyway - I thought my short story collection would do better if I called it just that:  "A Collection of Connected Short Stories."

All this is just great.  There's just one thing that has gone horrible wrong:  Amazon hates it.  Amazon won't change the subtitle.  It's a technical thing to do with ISBNs and such (so this affects the paperback, not the ebook) but however you look at it, I can't change it.  Or the website won't let me.  Amazon Bookshelf is perfectly aware that I've changed the subtitle as I've already uploaded the lovely new cover, but even so:  it won't give me access to changing the details.
Well, fuck, is about all I can say.  The only option I have is to unpublish the current edition of The Exodus Sequence and publish a whole new one.  Because, you know, I just don't have enough complications in my life and I've got SO much time.  Worse, the immense of work I do to get my books out there doesn't make a blind bit of difference.  The hours, the time, the blood, sweat and tears - the many, many tears - none of it has paid off in any way at all.  Who on God's earth is going to even notice that I have a whole new edition out there when no one even noticed the first edition.
It's all very sucky and I may just abandon the attempt in favour of lunch.

In the meantime, enjoy my lovely new cover.