REPUBLISHING ACHES AND PAINS

This week, my dear friend, Marilyn Meredith, writes about the republishing process. In the past several years, she has now republished almost all of her books as self-published.

It all began when my good friend, Lorna, urged me to self-publish the Rocky Bluff P.D. mystery series. She and her husband had already done the same for my Deputy Tempe Crabtree series when the publisher closed its doors. Lorna and I both re-edited every book in the series, and her husband, Larry, redid the new covers for publication. And of course, Lorna did the actual job of putting the books on Amazon as trade paperback and for Kindle.

When the publisher of the RBPD series passed away, another publisher picked up the authors’ books, including mine. However, I had so many, the republishing process was slow. I’d already experienced the advantage of the Crabtree series being self-published because of my ability to actually see what books were being purchased, and if the promotion of a particular book worked.

As with the other series, the process began with Lorna editing each book and then my going over it, too. This was an eye-opener. These books had first been heard and critiqued by my writers’ group, re-edited by me, edited by the first publisher, then the second publisher, but Lorna discovered many mistakes, and then, I went through them, too. Not only did I find more mistakes like simple typos, but also character’s name changes, and a few discrepancies. Despite all that work, I’m sure we still missed some errors.

Larry redid all the covers, each one in a different color, with a wonderful RBPD badge on each one. An entire set of the books creates a wonderful rainbow.

The whole series is now available on Amazon.

This may sound easy, but it was a lot of work. At times, I wondered if it would be worth it—and I’ll bet there were moments when Lorna wished she hadn’t urged me to switch to self-publishing.

I must say, I wasn’t up to doing this myself. I’m at a stage in life where I have trouble learning how to do new things. None of this would have happened without Lorna’s and Larry’s expertise, and I’m forever grateful.

If you’d like to start at the beginning of the series, here’s the link to Final Respects:

https://tinyurl.com/y8ggfa4r

However, each book is written as a stand-alone. There are continuing characters, but the crime or crimes are solved by the end of the book.

One of my favorites is Murder in the Worst Degree.

https://tinyurl.com/yagpv3hq  The Kindle version of this book will be FREE from today, July 24, through the 28th. If you downloaded the old version, you may want to try this one. See if you can find any differences.

Marilyn writes the RBPD series as F. M. Meredith. She is the author of over forty published books. She lived for over twenty years in a beach town with many similarities to Rocky Bluff. She’s a member of two chapters of Sisters in Crime, Public Safety Writers Association and other writers’ groups.

Webpage: http://fictionforyou.com

Blog: https://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com/