As many of you know, my upcoming releases – the 4 books of the Svatura series – were originally self-published. My publisher, The Wild Rose Press, contracted them in January and we’ll be released all 4 in October. It’s now been 3 years since I released the first book (my first book ever). In that time I’ve written 8 more books and several short stories; I’ve worked with editors each with their own focus; and I’ve attended countless workshops.
As any writer can tell you, we are constantly growing and developing our craft. That means, despite how incredibly proud I am of the original versions of those 4 books, I now look at them with the critical eye of hindsight and experience since gained. Consequently, I’ve taken this opportunity to revise them.
This is a unique opportunity because it’s not just one book. I got to go through the entire series. This means looking for inconsistencies while each of the previous books is still fresh in my mind. It also means a more consistent writing style between them because they got revised all at the same time. I got to fix all the little things that no one else probably notices, but were bugging me. 🙂 I also got to incorporate some of the feedback received from helpful reviewers. And ALL of this was before my editor, Mary, got her talented editorial hands on them.
For my original series readers, I’m not changing anything major about any of the books. The bulk of the changes involves minor tweaks and adding more descriptions of the world. Blue Violet got a facelift for it’s beginning. Hyacinth got more Griffin. Crimson Dahlia got a sexier Ramsey (in terms of how he handles the romance). Honestly, very little changed about Black Orchid. Then again, it was the 5th book I wrote and my favorite of the series (sorry Blue Violet lovers), so more experience went into it the first time around.
Like I said, I have always been proud of these books–but now I am glowing. Part of me thinks maybe I should finish ALL series before I start publishing, but boy would that take a while. 😉
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