Some people walk in the rain, others just get wet – Roger Miller

Well, it never rains but it pours and those words are certainly true around our house. We’ve come through a week of truly, tremendous downpours. And, as to managing the many hats of a self-published author, I am currently in a deluge.

All good things, all good things, as snowman Olaf from the Disney film, Frozen, would say.

One of my top priorities right now is the line-by-line editing of Chasing Down the Night. Exhilarating is how I would describe this process. When one has found a good editor, one has found treasure indeed.

The deluge feeling came about the other day when I received an email from the assisted self-publisher who handles distribution for Disappearing in Plain Sight. As stated in my contract – and I must have been aware of this because when I looked back at the contract, I had highlighted this bit – after two years the company will begin to charge a nominal fee in order to continue handling distribution. Well, those two years are nearly up. Despite my prior knowledge – as evidenced by that pesky highlighting – the whole thing came as a surprise. How the time flies when we are having fun.

Nominal fee is a subjective term. It amounts to  $30.00 per ISBN, per year and Disappearing in Plain Sight has three ISBNs. Since I always planned to take the first book in the Crater Lake Series back from the assisted self-publisher and republish it under the Huckleberry Haven Publishing imprint, the time quite suddenly became now.

The process has me going back to the final Word document and tuning it up for my e-formatter, redoing the cover – those of you who love the original, don’t worry, we plan to get as close as possible – and eventually formatting the softcover for loading up to CreateSpace. The softcover formatting is the biggest hurdle for me as I handle that work myself. Bruce may have another opinion as he wrestles with the cover design for Chasing Down the Night and redoing Disappearing in Plain Sight.

There is a possibility I will lose my Amazon reviews when I put up the new version of Disappearing in Plain Sight. The idea of that makes me want to weep. Feedback on this issue is mixed. Some people tell me they’ve gone through three different publishing imprints with different ISBNs and their reviews always followed them. Others say the reviews will be lost. We’ll see.

This whole experience leads me to a valuable insight and some words from the wise – or at least someone who is struggling down the path. It is a huge amount of work to put a book out on your own, the learning curve is steep and it’s easy to be lured by the assisted self-publishing route. If I had to do it all again, I would bite the bullet and climb that steep curve from the start.

When all is said and done, I know I will be glad I am forced now to get on with the work of taking back my first novel. In this updated version of Disappearing in Plain Sight, I’ll be able to make clearer the connection to the rest of the books in the Crater Lake series. I can add chapter one of The Light Never Lies at the end of the e-book as a sneak peak. I will have control of all distribution.

As I said earlier, all good things, all good things. It’s raining, it’s pouring and I am far from snoring.