As an e-book author who’s been published since 1998, I’ve had several online publishers (all of them closed now). Thus, I have a lot of older works from my early days in publishing, works that could be re-published.

And that is what this blog is about — Once upon a time, I wrote a book titled Earth Awakened under my pen name Rae Morgan. As Rae, I wrote slightly more sexy romances than under my Monette pen name. My former publisher was known for erotic romance as were several other e-publishers during the 2000s.

In 2019 my rights to this book (and all my other Rae Morgan titles) reverted. I fully intended to re-release all those Rae Morgan books. So far I’ve only managed to release Evanescence as Monette Michaels writing as Rae Morgan.

That’s when I realized … re-releasing the seven-plus Rae Morgan titles was not going to be a quick edit and then slapping on a new/revised cover. In fact, re-releasing an older book is HARD, time-consuming work. Almost as hard as writing and publishing a new book.

Evanescence happened to be the easiest to revise and that’s why it was the first back out. I then began to revise another novella, Enchantress, and gave up when I realized it needed a total rewrite. I mean total, so I shelved it (and it’s really cool new cover — I love that new cover).

You might ask “What was the problem with the Rae Morgan books?”

Answer #1: Times and book tastes have changed. The age of really erotic romance, which was what I wrote under my Rae name back in the 2000s, had passed. To reach a new audience, the Rae Morgan books needed some tweaking as to explicitness.

Answer #2:  I couldn’t bring myself to re-release the books without at least a thorough re-reading and, at a minimum, a re-edit.

Issue underlying Answers 1 and 2:  I am A-type and I write better now. 🙂

Choices had to be made. I had already put Enchantress aside. I then turned to my Coven of the Wolf series (4 books), but felt I needed an objective eye that knew my current writing well. I approached my fabulous critique partner Cherise Sinclair and she kindly read the first book in my Coven of the Wolf series. She said Book 1 needed some serious rewriting. Since Cheri has never steered me wrong and because I was on deadline for an SSI book and a What A Witch novella at the time, I put the whole Coven series on the far back shelf.

After meeting my other deadlines, I had just picked up Enchantress again and had begun revising it when my buddy Terri Schaefer asked if we could re-release our Terran Realm books as a group. [Note: I created the Terran Realm world in the mid-2000s and several other authors also wrote in the world.] Terri writing as TL Schaefer [Redemption, Book 1] and Bonnie Dee [Measure of a Man (Book 2) and Fruits of Betrayal (Book 3)] were both on board (and another author is planning on coming on board). So, it was a go.

Terri and Bonnie have re-released their books. I wrote about that in my last blog.

My book was next in series order, so I was on deck. I’d thought this should be an easy re-release. After all, Earth Awakened had not only been edited the first time it was released, but a second time when we put out a volume containing all the Terran Realm books in one anthology.

Never Assume.  LOL 

Once I started re-reading Earth Awakened, I realized while the story was there — and it was good — the book still needed some serious cleaning up. Thus, I did a first edit in which I  eliminated some passive writing and repetition that just leapt off the pages. Then I did a second and decided that I needed a set of objective eyes on it. I then sent this second revision to my What A Witch editor Marci. She got it back to me and made some suggestions with which I agreed and so I sent it back to her for some excising by her. Then I did a third revision and sent it to two trusted beta-readers who will comment on it and answer some questions I still had about my book.

That is where I’m at now. Once my wonderful betas (Hi, Ezra and Valy) get back to me, I will “fix” anything they point out and send it back to Marci for yet another full edit.

And she will need to do a full re-edit because I changed a lot — A LOT a lot. I don’t think there was a page I didn’t tweak a word or delete/rewrite something. Under copyright registration rules, this book will need a whole new registration because of all the textual changes.

You might ask “What was so wrong with it? You said the story was still good.”

And my answer would be the one I always give when revisiting an older book — “Yes, the plot was good, but I’m better at my craft now.”

Any book I have re-released, to-date, I have revised. My earliest Monette Michaels’ books — Fatal Vision, Death Benefits, Vested Interests — have all been revised from their original versions. Green Fire has been partially revised (and has a gorgeous new cover), but is on the shelf with the Coven books for now. Only Fatal Vision and Death Benefits are currently available for sale (and only at Amazon). Even with these last two books and Vested Interests, I want to put new covers on them and re-release them “wide” through my distributor.

But that all takes time, and I’d rather use my time to write new books. So, I work these re-publications in between writing new books … when I can. In a perfect world, I would clone myself, and my clone could be my assistant and handle all the publishing and promo details.  LOL

Conclusion of this blog: Look for Earth Awakened sometime in January.

What about new books? 

Don’t worry, Before the Storm (SSI, Book 7) is half-written due to my successful NaNoWriMo writing month. I needed to take a few weeks off for continuing legal education, an early Christmas guest, and revising Earth Awakened. But after Christmas, I intend to hit the ground running on finishing SSI 7 and getting it to my editor. No publication date yet – but it will be in the first half of 2022. Then I will be writing another What a Witch Book for October 2022.

2022 is promising to be a busy year.

Wishing you all a Happy and Healthy New Year.