Book Status

Yesterday the plan was for all four re-issued books to go live in both print and e-book editions. So did that happen? Here's the report.

Well, we got close. Kobo and iBooks have all four available. No hassles whatsoever. Loaded up the books on their sites and BAM! Well done!

Amazon has books 2-4 on their site. Book 1 (Forsaken) remains in limbo as we repeatedly send them the same legal document (it's called a Rights Reversion Letter) that proves we have the right to publish this book. Should have been a slam dunk, but that's not the case. Instead it's been a giant PITA. We're past the four-week mark on trying to get this resolved. Honestly, buying a house and moving in the middle of this really didn't improve our chances.

Emails have been sent, multiple official documents submitted, and then we were told that what we submitted wasn't valid (and the reasons for that changed with each correspondence.) My favorite was because the reversion letter isn't actually SIGNED it wasn't valid.

It was Docu-Signed with a registration number by the senior vice president of finance for St. Martin's, on their letterhead. The electronic signature is is what you would expect in January 2021 in NYC during the height of the pandemic. Everyone was working remote at that point.

The book's title change confused them, so did the fact that my former publisher is still selling their remaining print stock on Amazon's site, which they have the right to do per our contract.

We finally took to sending Amazon not only the reversion letter, but the copyright registration and my trademark registration for the series. Still not live yet, but we're getting closer. It'll happen, but I swear it's made me old before my time.

And as for Google Play. Well, let's just say that we'll only be offering books 5 and on (Grave Matters, etc.) on that site. I won't bore you with all the back-and-forth over three full weeks, but they lost their chance to sell the books because of their sheer lack of customer service. So if you buy through them, Books 1-4 are not available. I am truly sorry about that.

On a positive note, beginning next week sample chapters for the next book in the series will be posted. LOST SOULS is already up for pre-order (e-book) on all the sites. The print edition will go live a little before the e-book (December 7). Since it's never been published before there should be zero hassles with its launch. I, for one, will rejoice when that happens. 

That's the latest. I'll be writing more about our new home in the mountains soon. But for now, here's a photo as a teaser. It's the view from the terrace down in the valley on a very cloudy morning. Absolute heaven.