The Long Road to Indie
Once upon a time, I wrote a book titled The Tethering. I was a wide-eyed, hopeful young author who believed in the dream of traditional publishing...that was five closed publishing houses and an FBI investigation ago.
About eight years ago, jeez that's a really long time, while absolutely miserable in the show I was performing in, I began writing a book. It took about a year to finish, another six months to edit, and then I leapt into submissions.
A few short months later, I received the call. I had an offer for publication! Yes, this was back in the days when the publisher called you, and then mailed you a paper contract. Between getting the call and the paperwork arriving in the mail
a week later, the publishing house shut down.
Yep...just like that, no more contract.
I picked myself up, dusted The Tethering back off, and a month later I received another, even better offer for publication. I got my papers, went through edits with an awesome editor, and six weeks before the release date, I got the notification that the publishing house was closing.
The release date had already been announced, I'd had swag made, and then... nothing. I called my mother, and her response was "This is a catastrophe!" Not the most helpful response, but it was an apt description.
And it was infinitely worse for other authors who had been contracted with that publisher.
Turns out the person who owned the company didn't actually exist. It was an alias for...someone. And that someone had embezzled from the company and stolen the authors' hard earned royalties. The FBI became involved in the fraud case. It was a rough time for a lot of authors.
I got really lucky. I spoke to an author friend who had an in with a small press, and two weeks later, The Tethering was back under contract!
This time, we got through releasing the first two books in the series. Everything was going really well, until it came time to edit book three.
Things stalled for a bit. Emails didn't get returned. Deadlines passed with no word from my publisher.
When I pushed for a release date, I was told they were going to be taking at least a year off publishing. We could discuss the release of the third book in the series after that time.
I requested the rights for all my books back, and shortly thereafter the whole publishing house closed. In the meantime, I'd found a publisher for the Girl of Glass series, which was going really well. Then I found a new publisher for The Tethering. I honestly thought I had finally figured the whole darn thing out.
Then between Christmas and New Years this winter, I found out both of my current publishers were closing. (One still hasn't quite closed. But the ship was sinking, and I didn't want to reenact the Titanic with my books.)
So, with five publishers in the rearview mirror (yep, really and truly FIVE), I found myself without a single publishing contract.
After a bit of a break down that may have involved wine and eating an obscene amount of ice cream, I decided to stop counting on other people to make my dreams happen. I leapt feet first into Indie Author life.
So far this year, I've released six books. By the middle of fall, the number will be up to thirteen! And the best part? The Tethering is going back out into the world, and the FULL series will finally be released!
Eight years.
That's how many seasons Game of Thrones aired. That's enough time for a human to go from an infant to a child capable of basic math and reading.
Eight years.
That's how long I've waited for The Tethering series to finally be out in the world.
And now the time is almost here.
Cheers to The Tethering. The story that has been through so much! Quite frankly, I don't care if the zombie apocalypse starts. This time, the books are being released.
