Holding Paradise – The Big Re-Issue

The other week, I talked to you about what inspired my first book, Holding Paradise, but today I want to talk about why I decided to re-issue it after 9 years.

Anyone who has ever had a book published can tell you, it’s one of the best experiences imaginable. I’m smiling as I write this because I remember the joy of seeing my name on the cover and holding the book in my hands. Years went into writing it, I lost sleep over it, I doubted myself, I gave up on myself, I told myself I was not a real writer. I researched the topics like crazy, I searched my very soul and dug deep. I had the book appraised, I took the advice and I re-wrote and re-wrote until I’d found the format that worked. For someone to offer me a publishing deal at the end of all of that was the ultimate prize.

The thing was, I had never set out with the intention of being published, only to write the book in the first place. And why do we write? Because we have a story that has to be told and it isn’t enough to sit around and talk about it, it must be on paper and someone has got to meet the people, visit the places and experience the situations of a group of characters who exist in only your head. Without you, their story wouldn’t exist and you owe it to them to write it. What naturally follows, when you become so involved in the plot and the motives of your characters, is the desire for more witnesses. Readers. Readers justify all the pain staking time it took for you to write the book, so why not let as many people as possible read it? In your heart and in your mind, because of the time you have devoted to the book, the more readers the better.

If you were a part of my writing journey from the start and followed the progress of Holding Paradise on its first publication, you’ll know that the publisher who offered me the deal was rather a small company. They didn’t have the kind of budget that could bring the book to a very big audience. In fact I was landed with having to do a lot of the marketing and promoting myself. Big mistake. Huge. I’m the last person in the world able to sell herself. I didn’t know anything about that side of publishing and I wasn’t really into social media the way many writers are now. I didn’t have a following, I didn’t know how to get one. So I Googled some stuff and tried my best.

So, there was no launch party, no fanfare, just me doing victory dances in my living room with no one to high five and pop champagne with. Close friends and loved ones bought the book and probably a few hundred more found out about it and bought it, too. Lots of people were kind enough to leave reviews on Amazon and I received royalty cheques for my book! That was very exciting. Making money also made me feel like a real writer. But in a few months, the amounts on my royalty cheques dwindled until there was nothing. A large ball of tumbleweed rolled across my author path and the big fantasy of as many people as possible reading my book began to fizzle and fade away.

Now, don’t worry, I’ve had lots of great author moments since this first publication and, as you know, I never gave up.

Now I have the Rights back for Holding Paradise, so I have a say in what happens to it now. My decision was to tighten up the manuscript, get a brand new book cover and do the whole thing again! Only this time I will self publish. That means that all the things I couldn’t do, ie market and promote my book and try to grow my readership is all up to me. That’s where panic sets in. I was so caught up in the idea that Holding Paradise deserved another chance and, so convinced that there are hundreds more readers out there who would love to know the story of Josephine, Angelica, James and Luke, and will buy the book, that I forgot to add marketing, promotions, PR, social media whizz and more, to my list of titles. So now I’m learning all of these things as I go along just so I can get the book to more readers.

It’s a challenge, but one that I willingly accept, although it’s mind boggling a lot of the time. And I’m sure, as I did as a writer, I will get better at the ‘selling’ part. I’m hopeful and optimistic about the future of Holding Paradise, Second Edition.

Three other stories spun off from Holding Paradise and I decided to make a 4 book series of them all. So watch this space for books 2, 3 and 4 in the series.

I won’t have the ‘first time’ experience of 9 years ago but I have all the desire to tell this story and believe that my readers are out there, even though I just haven’t meant them yet.