A Sad Day For Publishing

This is not “new” news, but Samhain Publishing is closing its doors.

I had two releases with Samhain – The Initiation Of Isabella and the Binding Ties anthology. In fact, Samhain was the first publisher of a Jenna Ives title.


I loved working with Samhain – my editor was great, the royalties were always on time, and everyone in the company was super professional. I am very sad to see them shut down operations.

With Samhain’s closing, two out of the three publishers I write for have gone under. It’s a challenging time to be an author, and even more challenging to be a successful one. I believe that’s why so many of us writers have eagerly embraced self-publishing.

My first attempt at self-publishing was the sexy fairy tale Snow White And Her Seven Lovers.




This story sold wildly well, possibly because I timed it to come out when Kristen Stewart and Liam Hemsworth and Charlize Theron released “Snow White and the Huntsman” in theaters. In fact, I just did another blast of publicity for the release of “The Huntsman: Winter’s War” (Liam Hemsworth, Charlize Theron and Emily Blunt) and got another nice uptick in sales.

My next self-pub release was Programmed To Please, a slightly-futuristic romance featuring a police agent who goes undercover as a sex robot in order to bring down the planet’s most notorious arms manufacturer.



This story has also sold very well, and I’m hoping the two sequels, Programmed To Protect and Programmed For Power do as well.

                        


But self-publishing is a lot of work! You have to be your own editor, cover artist, formatter, marketer and social media guru. Gone are the days when a writer could just write a good story and a publisher would do the rest. Frankly, this new world order can be exhausting.

But… it is what it is. We adapt. A writer writes. I would never stop writing, not even if only my friends and family read what I write.

I’m just sad today, because five minutes ago I sent Samhain an email asking for rights reversion for The Initiation of Isabella and Binding Ties. And, professionals that they are, I got an immediate response from Samhain’s Amanda Brashear saying they will get right on it.

Why does a company like that have to go out of business?

Sigh,

Jenna



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