As of today, a second edition of Erin's Ring and a revised and edited final version of Marguerite's Diary have been published at bookemon.com. My husband and I decided to buy the special Creative Author's Package this time to publish the books, so that they would both have ISBN #'s and would also be available in the much more reasonably priced eBook version (as well as being available for sale on Amazon).
Before the end of 2023, a paperback copy of Marguerite's Diary sold for $19.91 on Bookemon. Today, I'm seeing that Amazon has it listed at $31.68. That is just prohibitively (ridiculously!) expensive, and if it costs that much because I chose to get the CAP deal in order to get the ISBN # and have it available on Amazon, I kind of regret my decision to do it that way. But actually, at Bookemon, a paperback copy sells for $20.91--which is still very expensive, but at least a better deal than you'll find on Amazon. And now Bookemon also has the eBook version available for $7.99, which is a bonus for people who like to read books on Kindle.
I want to thank my sweet and supportive reader, Donna, for ordering a copy of Marguerite's Diary from Bookemon in December--and also to apologize for the cost, and for the fact that it contains errors that I have since corrected! I was in such a hurry to get copies made for my four oldest granddaughters for Christmas that I didn't go over it with as fine-toothed a comb as I should have before I pushed the "publish" button. The four girls and their mom read the book while we were out visiting them in WI at the end of December/beginning of January, and they found some boo-boos and typos that my husband and I had missed. (I even mistakenly used the name O'Brien, which is from the previous novel, Erin's Ring, a couple of times when I meant to say O'Keefe!) I have been working hard to clean it up and make it as perfect as I can, and finally felt I was ready to re-publish it today.
Donna, I'm sorry you got the not-so-great version; email me (there is a "contact me" button on my other blog, String 'o Pearls), and I can gift you a PDF version of the revised copy, if you're interested.
While I was out in WI, I was joking with my granddaughters about the next adventure Molly and Theresa could go on, the next piece of history they could learn about. But I don't know, dear readers...I think this might be it for me. This recent post by an old eFriend of mine, a sweet and talented Catholic novelist with whom I've corresponded over the years, definitely hit home. Writing is hard, and publishing/marketing books is even harder. I really write for my kids and grandkids, not for the public at large, so I'm trying not to put any pressure on myself about these books. The only reason I made an updated version of Erin's Ring was because the original (which contained a few errors that always bothered me) was out of print, and I wanted to make a nice matching set for my girls (and I thought if anyone hadn't read Erin's Ring yet and wanted to read that before Marguerite's Diary, this way it would be available).
Anyhoo--
That's it from here. For the foreseeable future, I'm going to be reading more than writing!! So if you have any good book recommendations for me, leave me a comment. Thanks!
**This post was originally published on January 16, but I came back to update it on February 5, with new book links added from the Bookemon site. Since the 16th, the books are now available on Amazon--but I don't recommend buying them there because they are prohibitively expensive. It's better to buy them through bookemon.com.
Also, I have decided to revise the books (there was a slight formatting error on one page in MD and a small spacing error in ER), and now the new links to the books at Bookemon are here and here.
