If you look over there — there. In the sidebars …. You may see the covers of my historicals Scandal and Indiscreet. Those are the US covers done by Berkley Books, and they are lovely. That’s John Marron, by the way, on the cover of Indiscreet. ::waving:::
I’ve spent the last year being silent about that fact that the books were, until about last week, unavailable in the US or Canada. Berkley mistakenly took them off sale in the latter half of 2012.
Long story short, by February of 2013, I instructed my agent that we should stop our (fruitless) efforts to get them to fix the mistake and simply request a reversion after the next royalty statement. And that is what we did.
My reversions arrived last week. I have been working to get them on sale in the US and Canada with the covers I commissioned for my non-North American version of the books. By “version” I mean different covers, a couple of typos fixed, and a reformatted interior. Some of you may recall that the original eBook version of Indiscreet was unreadable. The corrected file, when it was finally produced, was … readable. I’ll leave it at that.
It’s odd. I loved writing for Berkley. I loved my editor, I’ve adored all my covers. The copy-editor for Scandal was amazing, and I did have regrets about declining the opportunity to do additional books for them. But the fact is that Scandal and Indiscreet mean more to me than they did to Berkley– the company. The economic harm during the nearly year and a half the books were not on sale was disproportionately mine.
Then there’s the harm to my writing career. When Dear Author had long threads about historicals with exotic locations, I know for a fact people tried to buy Indiscreet (because the book was mentioned in the threads) and could not. I know because a couple of them emailed me. How many didn’t? Not so long ago, Scandal was again reviewed on Dear Author. Not to sound too vain, but Scandal was a RITA finalist. It made a list of one of the 100 best Romances. My agent called it a tour-de-force. And a website that gets hundreds of thousands of hits from romance readers reviewed it again, nearly four years after its release. And nobody in North America could buy the book when it should have been available.
When those two books disappeared from sale, Berkley wasn’t motivated to fix the problem. I, on the other hand, was fielding emails from readers who’d heard about the books and could not get them, and there was nothing I could do. My agent and I had already made multiple requests to get the books back on sale.
To everyone in North America who wondered why there was no eBook and practically no print availability, this is why. I’m sorry for the long wait and the silence, but once I decided I was done with the situation, I was worried that Berkley would (at last) notice what had happened.
Scandal and Indiscreet are both good books. Really good books. If you like angsty books, then hey, I’m your gal. And at last, if you’re in North America, you can get the books for $4.99 US.
Here are the links I have so far for Scandal:
- Amazon.com
- Barnes&Noble
- Apple
- All Romance eBooks
- Kobo (waiting!)
Here are the links for Indiscreet:
- Amazon.com
- Barnes & Noble
- Apple
- All Romance eBooks
- Kobo (waiting!)
I’m not sure why Kobo hasn’t managed to get the books on sale yet. Hopefully soon. Google Play and Print versions will be coming shortly.
So fraking happy you got those rights back!
@Isobel Carr: Thank you!! Me. too.
Congratulations. I’m glad you got your rights reverted. I’m rather amazed at how little advantage publishers have taken of excellent backlist books.
Love your new covers!
Thanks, @Elena Greene! And by the way, thanks for updating my covers to the “new” ones!
Huzzah! I’m off to do some reading.
@Kat: I hope you enjoy the books!
Congratulations on getting the rights back ! I LOVED both of these books and I am certain many, many people in the US and Canada will be thrilled to have the opportunity to read them !!
What a tale, Carolyn. It is shocking sometimes what publishers WON’T do to keep their authors.
I hope the books sell LOTS.
Wooohooo!!! So happy for you, Carolyn, that that horrid situation has finally got resolved!!
Woo Hoo! Lucky me, I bought those in paperback when they were first released, and could FIND them in my house.
Lucky Carolyn, she got her rights back.
Lucky readers — if you haven’t read these yet, BUY THEM NOW. They are that good.