Wow. Starting off the 2018 Blog Challenge with bang, right? Asking me to choose between the 21 books, unfinished WIPS, and several unpublished poems is like asking which of my three kids I like best!
Do I pick the one I wrote first, or the one which wrote itself, or the one that has the most ‘fun’ character to write? Then there’s the dual pen name issue. Which pen name’s book do I choose?
*Clutches hair* Oh the dilemma I face!
Okay; to be fair, there are two stories which rank higher on my ‘Love’ list (yes, I said it….pick yourself up off the floor!)
But since I *love* one slightly better, let me tell you WHY before I reveal it.
I wrote this story as my very 1st NaNoWriMo project. (If you’ve read my regular blog, then you know which story I’m talking about, so bear with me….) I worked up the nerve to submit it in 2010, and it was finally published a year later. Sadly, when this publisher closed last year, I discovered the cover artist could not be found, and in order to get the logo removed from all four of the abandoned books, it was going to cost more than what I had on hand. (I’m not proficient at photoshop; no judging please!)
So I sat on it, hoping sales would miraculously skyrocket, and I could repub them myself.
No such luck.
Six months later, I learned a friend of mine who was a publisher was opening up his company to romance writers. I queried him, updated this story, and sent it off. Since it had already been edited, I didn’t have to re-edit it, and it was repubbed in Sept.
While updating it, I fell in love with the story and characters all over again. It’s amazing when you re-read your own work after 5 or 6 years, there’s either the ‘ugh, what-the-hell-was-I-thinking-when-I-wrote-this?’ reaction, or the ‘Wow-I-really-have-a-wonderful-story-here!’ kind. After I’d first written it, I ‘PG-ed’ it down for my mom, who objects to certain words, but I apparently didn’t do a very good job; she quit reading after the 3rd chapter. So with this new updated version, and since I now know my way around Create Space, plus the fact I love love LOVE my original cover and my new pub had to create a new one, the wheels decided to spin. (wow, was that a huge run-on sentence? Sorry; it’s how my mind works. Kudos to you if you had no problems following it!)
If I think my story is so amazing, and since there is an entire population of readers who won’t read anything with *gasp, I know* SEX in it, why don’t I take out ALL the graphic stuff and make the entire bedroom scenes more left to the imagination? Since I can’t have two stories with the same title, I’ll re-brand it.
So yes, the very first fully-explicit erotic romance I wrote under the Kenzie Michaels pen name is thus dubbed ‘Favored Child’. After all, it was my first ‘best seller’, the one which scored me double-figure royalty checks four times a year. Here are both covers, the original one with the new title. I still need to rewrite the blurb for ‘Winning Her Heart’, and pay for the cover wrap. What do you think?
Here’s the Teacher’s Pet Blurb:
What happens when you discover that the man you had mind-blowing sex with three months ago is your son’s teacher? Tammy Saunders is horrified when she finds out the man who set her heart racing is her son’s favorite teacher. After one bad relationship, can she trust her heart? What will her son Danny think?
Kevin Taylor has made some bad choices in his life. But sleeping with not only one, but two, of his students’ mothers has got to be the worst mistake he’s ever made. Especially when he’s lost his heart to one of them. When Danny begins to rebel in his classroom, will Kevin and Tammy’s relationship be in jeopardy?
Want to know if other authors had issues with picking their favorite child? Click here for the links to the others.
*Another Confession: I don’t have much experience with using my WordPress blog, and can’t seem to continue writing text under the pictures. I tried to click under them, but nothing happened. In Blogger, the cursor appears, and I can continue writing. Can someone help me out, should I decided to add pictures again in the future? Thanks*
Molly's Musings/Kenzie's Korner 
Kudos for getting your rights back and going for it again!
Thanks Trevann:) I’ve been very blessed to be able to get all my rights back w/o a fuss. I know there are other authors who have to jump through hoops to get theirs back.
Hi, there :::waving::: Great post and happy Friday.
Thanks Judy:) Looking forward to the rest of this year’s topics:)
Teacher’s Pet . . . I’m pretty sure I read this one of yours.
Oh thank you Ed! I hope you enjoyed it! Have you tried my sci-fi series, The Chosen? I’m working on #5 at the moment and hope to have it out by next year. Sooner, if I get a chance to sit down and write….
Thank heavens you were able to retain your rights! What a scare that must have been. Thanks for sharing!
I’ve been pretty blessed when it comes to getting my rights back. There wasn’t any drama, thank god! The one time I had to request my rights back before the publisher closed, it also went smoothly.
I won’t be much help with WordPress. I have an account mostly for doing comments on this blog because it kept giving me fits trying to comment other ways. I’m a blogger girl mostly.
How cool you got to rebrand the story to have it be more PG. 2 for the price of one. Awesome! Best of luck in 2018 and glad to see you around the hop again.
Thanks Meka….I’ll be playing around with the templates this week, to see if I can’t improve it a bit. Sorry it took so long to approve your comment; my son monopolized my phone all afternoon, plus I’m home again from the holidays and didn’t go near the computer until now.
I hope I can come up with an appropriate blurb for the ‘sweet’ version!
Glad you got your rights back. Good Luck!
Thanks Cathy:) If this proves successful, I may do the same to all of my KM books.
Glad to see you back! I’ve wondered about “rebranding” (less sex) some of my books, too – good luck with yours! RE: WordPress pics – in the Media Gallery (or in the document, if you’ve already inserted the image), click the picture you want to “write on”, It should pop up with Title, Caption, Alt Text,etc. You want to choose “Caption” – whatever you write in that field will show up under the image. Note: that caption will show up on that image everywhere you use it in WordPress. If you want a different caption for the same image, you have to upload the image again and write the new caption. I hope that makes sense!
Thanks Robin:) I don’t want to write on the picture; just continue the text under it. Maybe I need to write the post 1st, then insert the picture? On Blogger it was easier to insert the picture 1st, then write around it.