Mine Again

I'm not really here, I'm still hammering away at the deadline. At least, tell my editor that if she asks.

What I stopped in to post is some interesting news: the rights for my three Gena Hale romance novels (Paradise Island, Dream Mountain, and Sun Valley) have reverted back to me. This means the publisher no longer owns the rights to them -- they're mine again -- so I can pretty much do whatever I like with them.



These three novels were my first published romances (I'd classify them as old school contemporary/romantic suspense) and have been out of print for at least seven years. I've heard it's difficult if not impossible to find used print copies of them. Aside from possible bootlegs, there are no electronic copies of the books.

Lately a lot of authors have been self-publishing OOP or backlist titles with rights that have reverted back to them via Amazon or services like Scribd.com's new online store.* I thought about doing that, and it's still an option, but I don't know. I'm not convinced that's the way to go. Maybe it's the thundering of the herd in that direction that is scaring me off. *Note 9/3/10: Since Scribd.com instituted an access fee scam to charge people for downloading e-books, including those I have provided for free for the last ten years, I have removed my free library from their site, and no longer use or recommend using their service. My free reads may be read online or downloaded for free from Google Docs; go to my freebies and free reads page for the links. See my post about this scam here.

I could see if I could publish these again in some sort of limited edition via a small press (or do it myself via Lulu or what have you) but that's going to make them expensive to purchase -- another thing I'm not crazy about.

I also thought about posting at least one of them for free on the internet (Paradise Island, the first one, was the most popular, so that would be my choice.) That would be cool, and a way for me to give something back to the romance readers who followed me as Jessica Hall (before I went all Darkyn on them.)

Not sure what I'm going to do, so I thought I'd ask you guys for some opinions. If you were walking this mile in my moccasins, what would you do with these three books?

Stuff Happens

While transferring hard copy files from the dinky cabinet to the new, shiny monster occupying the corner of my office, I came across a draft pitch sheet with some old novel ideas, like this one:

Hell on Wheels

Paraplegic Mike Anderson becomes stranded during a vacation rafting expedition for the handicapped on the American River. His only help is a newly-blind woman, former neurosurgeon Rebecca Stark. [Stuff happens, they survive.] Back in Florida Keys, Mike helps Becca accept the disability that ended her career, while she secretly arranges for an operation that may restore the use of Mike's legs [twist: Becca's eyesight is restored, Mike remains in the chair.] ECD: mid-2002

In those days I always took a pitch sheet with me to any publisher event (something I made a habit of after being cornered by Gina Centrello at a national conference and going completely blank-headed.) At the bottom of this particular sheet I wrote: "Polish, keep in purse." That came in handy later, when my editor took me out to dinner and asked me what else I was thinking about writing next. I made her laugh when I took the polished version out of my purse and simply handed it to her.

Hell on Wheels was my favorite of the eight premises I pitched to her that night. I had wanted to do a book featuring Mike Anderson, a wheelchair-bound secondary character from my first romance, Paradise Island. I was advised by a RWA friend that the idea it would not fly because both of the main characters were not beautiful, perfect, abled people. I figured that was its strong point.

But my friend was right -- my editor didn't like handicapped heroes or heroines, or the idea that the ending was (in her view) less than happy for one of them. She nixed all seven of the other premises, too. Some were better (as in more mainstream, less risky) than Mike's story, so it puzzled me.

I found out why when the editor told me the publisher only wanted me to continue the storyline from the trilogy I'd just wrapped up that June. Wrapped up as in finished, done, over, no more stories. Being the cooperative soul that I am, I went home, filed away all my new ideas in my unwritten archives and wrote up what they wanted. Those books became the Jessica Hall novels, which made my publisher happy and added greatly to the savings account.

Stuff happens. You adapt, you compromise, you keep working. Or you don't. Those are the choices we sometimes have to make between creating art and making a living.

What's in your unwritten archives?