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Sunday, June 15, 2014

Backlist Blues



AuthorHouse, who had my first five novels for sale became a Penguin/Random House subsidiary. I received a call from our Amazon rep, AH removed all of my books from Amazon in digital form. That was a shock, because they were selling pretty well as backlist books. I owned the rights to all of them, so I finally did what I had been postponing. I cancelled AH, warning them they were no longer allowed to sell anything of mine.

The bad news was I had to quit writing my new novel while making new covers, formatting, and line editing my backlist books. So far I have four finished and back on the market: PEACE, SOTELLO, CASSERINE, and AMERICAN MUTANT. I’m working on AMERICAN SURVIVAL now, and I’ll be able to work on Rick Cantelli P.I. Book III: Into the Darkness again. I had 40,000 words done in the new novel already, and it was a pain to leave it in order to republish my backlist under the RJ Parker Publishing, Inc. banner. I know RJ and I will do much better with them, but it was an endeavor I had not planned on doing right away. I’m nearly having to rewrite American Survival, but it’s great getting this monumental task behind me. Amazon is happy, because they’re all in the Prime program now. Anyway, that’s news this Fathers Day.  :)





 

6 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

Nice covers. Hopefully this won't cost you any serious momentum.

BernardL said...

If I can get American Survival line edited in the next few days, I'll play catch up on Rick Cantelli Book III, Charles. It'll sure be more fun than these line edits and formatting have been. :)

Vesper said...

That's also good news, Bernard, isn't it? :-)
You have complete control over them. Plus, with the experience you've accumulated, your older novels will emerge as better works. I hope it won't be too difficult to get back into Rick Cantelli mood... :-)

BernardL said...

It's great news, V. I should have done it long ago, but I didn't want to take time away from new novels to rework the old ones. This AuthorHouse blunder was the last straw though. Four of them are done, and the fifth will be done by the end of the week. Then it will be Cantelli-land exclusively. :)

raine said...

Ok, I'm feeling a little thick...
Knowing that you owned the rights, why would AH do such a thing?!

BernardL said...

I believe it had something to do with Penguin/Random House acquiring AH, Raine. I think they plan on taking an extra cut for offering the books on Amazon, because AH will be the vanity publishing wing for Penguin/Random House. They're mine now in digital and paperback, already listed again under my partner RJ's banner, with a facelift I knew they needed. I was procrastinating. :)