Dear friends and fans,
If you’ve been keeping up with my recent news, you will already know that the two titles in my Galaxii Series as published by JEA will be coming down from Amazon soon, and that I have elected to go back to the self-publishing route I followed before in order to make all my works available again.
This decision has now culminated in the re-release of several titles as books in the brand new Quantum Series!
The publishing industry is not what people think it is. Not everyone who writes these days is fortunate enough to start out in this business like it was 30 years ago – in those days if you could write well and were good at telling stories and could make an impression on an agent or editor, you could make it big and get signed by a big international publisher with everything laid on. Cover design, editing, marketing and promotion – and even TV and movie deals were within reach.
These days, with the ease of access everyone has to a computer, information and media, anyone can (and a great multitude of people do) write and type their own manuscripts. As a result, publishing companies have been inundated with submissions ever since, and with a small staff only able to process and select only a fraction of the material sent to them – to weed out the great and good from the plethora of crap, most writers become frustrated early-on and give up.
I’ve been at this writing gig since I was old enough to hold a crayon and make up ‘news’ for primary school – and that is nigh on 40 years now! I haven’t given up because story telling is more than just a hobby or a way I might be able to make money. Writing stories is a passion – marketing the product of that passion is a way to share it with others. Expecting a little financial reward in return for the many hours of hard work is what makes it viable. One day, I would like to be able to concentrate on authoring full-time – but I’m sure any writer shares the same hope – a hope which is far more frequently dashed than realized.
To make a go of it these days as a writer, you can’t hold your breath for a traditional publisher to come along and sign you up anymore. You have to strike out and go it alone. Many publishers – even the big traditional publishers – these days only offer aspiring writers what is essentially self-publishing, and for a fee. You have to pay them to publish your work! It is rare that a writer will be approached by a traditional publisher wanting to give them money in exchange for publishing their work! If one comes along – well, great. If not, tough luck. In the meantime, I will be carrying on regardless 😉
But I digress~
‘Blachart‘ and ‘Demonspawn‘ which were released via JEA are already marked as ‘no longer available’ on Amazon. The third title, ‘Dead Beckoning‘, which was still in edits had never been released by that publisher, and as yet has never been published, not even by me. My sincere apologies to those readers who have been eagerly awaiting the third title in the Galaxii Series since reading ‘Demonspawn‘ in 2012! Hold on a little longer – it’s coming!
In the past week I have been working on getting some of my other titles out again. I am happy to announce that I now have several titles available via Lulu.com, and these went live on Wednesday and are now available. Some of these are titles that have not been available since 2014, when I took them down myself after being convinced by my new-found publisher that they would be quickly re-released through their ‘Hard Wired’ imprint.
Instead, I waited almost three years for just two of them to be eventually released. In retrospect, it’s probably best that this has transpired, because I prefer the independence and control over my own work offered by indie or self-publishing – and also, I really hate delays for no other reason at all, other than to await someone’s pleasure!
The Quantum Series is my new series, split off from the Galaxii Series. ‘Black Sunrise‘ is the first book in the series, and ‘The Time Saving Agency‘ is book two. ‘Dead Man’s Hammer‘ is book three, and book four is ‘Loderunner‘.
For those of you who may have read these books before, when they were still previously available before I signed with JEA and took them down, these are not quite the same as you may remember them! In the past two years, I’ve spent some time revising them extensively. They are longer, more complex, and they also have brand new covers!
‘Space Vacation’ is a new novella written in 2014 and never released as a standalone title. Not forming part of either the Galaxii or Quantum Series, but fitting into the same universe, ‘Space Vacation’ has been developed into an independent novella – and tells a story of which I am very proud!
Another new addition is ‘Space Sucks!‘ – a collection of my short stories. This is not the same as the previous collection called ‘Space Sux’, which contained some of the same short stories. Again, all the content has been revised, new stories added, and the project has a brand new cover!
All of these titles are available as paperbacks and in the epub format. Lulu is a stable publishing platform which has been around for over a decade, and over the next few weeks these titles should become listed with Nook (Barnes & Noble), Apple iBookstore (and Amazon again).
As soon as the Galaxii Series (and the rest of my titles) are up again, I will let you all know!
Cheers!
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All material copyright © Christina Engela, 2016.