Publishing and Republishing

As I posted a couple of weeks ago, I accidentally deleted my Amazon account–which resulted in my Kindle Direct Publishing account and all books disappearing from Amazon. (Two stories, Snow on Christmas Eve and Hooch and Howls, are available through other retailers, but the rest were Amazon exclusive.)

As of yesterday, I’ve created a new KDP account, as advised by their support team, and have republished books 1-5 of the Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat series. All five are available through Kindle Unlimited until August or September, but at that time I *might* be pulling them from KU so I can publish them through other retailers as well. (So if something like this ever happens again, at least my books will still be out there somewhere!) Next up will be Hooch and Howls, which is part of the Real Werewolves universe but not a direct part of the series and which has a connection to RWDEM 6, Take Some Tahini, which will be released in a few weeks.

Previously, I’d thought that in October, I would rerelease Dawn Over Dayfield, a previously-published suspense with romantic elements novel originally released in 2016. After thinking about it and looking at the in-universe timeline of Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat, I’ve decided to move Dawn Over Dayfield to April 2025. In October, I will be releasing Ebb and Flow, a new novel that connects to Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat and also to Hooch and Howls.

Meanwhile, I’ve been working on RWDEM 7, Bring On the Broccoli… but it isn’t going quite as well as I’d hoped. I keep running into roadblocks with the story, and having to go back and change things I’ve already written. I’m hoping to finish it within the next week or so and have it ready to release in January 2025, but those plans might change if Kyle (who is the narrator of this one) doesn’t start cooperating a little better with me.

Progress…Steady Progress…

As I posted previously, on May 19, due to a combination of factors I won’t get into again, my Kindle Direct Publishing account and all books I’d published (22, across my three pen names) were deleted. KDP support was unable to restore the account or books, so I was told to set up a new account and republish everything.

I’ve been working on it. I republished Salad on the Side (Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat 1), which went live on May 25 after being uploaded on May 22. I spent a few days trying to get the formatting right on Veggie Burgers to Go (RWDEM 2) and uploaded that on May 27, figuring it would take a couple-few days to publish the way Salad had… only to have it go live three hours later. (I had to do some tweaking to the paperback format, though; the final paperback version went live on May 31.)

I’ve spent a few days formatting Hummus on Rye (RWDEM 3), and uploaded that for publishing today, June 1. We’ll see how long it takes Amazon to let this one go through.

Today, I’ll be checking the formatting on Try the Tofu (RWDEM 4). The good thing is that because Veggie Burgers published faster than I thought it would, I’m ahead on republishing the books that were lost, and *might* have all of them live again before I release Take Some Tahini (RWDEM 6), which will be available for preorder on June 27 and will release July 11. Though now that I think about it, I might hold back on A Fighting Chance, which was only out for 10 days before I lost the account; that book didn’t get much promotion or attention because there simply wasn’t time, so I might hold off on it and do a rerelease in August or September. I’ll ponder that…

I’ve also been working on Bring On the Broccoli (RWDEM 7). That book has lagged a bit, partly because of the traveling I’ve done (two trips to Canada in the space of two weeks, one to see my kid graduate veterinary school and help them get things underway to move back to the US, the other for the actual move because the planned moving assistance wasn’t available) and partly because I got stuck and had to go back to the beginning to do some tweaking and editing so I could unstick myself. I hope to have the first draft of this book finished within the next week or two, and it’s planned for publication in January 2025.

Meanwhile, my kid has now moved back to the US and is living with me and my husband, so we’re in the process of unpacking, fitting kid’s household stuff into our house, and figuring out how to coexist since they (the kid) haven’t lived with us full time since they were in high school–8 years ago. So things are a bit jumbled, but progress is being made.

Since Veggie Burgers to Go is available now, here’s the cover as a refresher. Fun fact: The background of this cover is a photo taken by my aforementioned kid.

So…I Screwed Up. Bigtime.

I spent the week of May 12-18 in Canada, watching my younger kid graduate from veterinary school and be officially granted the title of Doctor! This was exciting, and I’m very thankful to have been able to not only witness it, but be a part of the ceremony presenting my kid with their white coat, the symbol that they have moved from student to professional. We also did some packing and planning for their move back to the US, which will be happening within the next few days.

On May 19, I sat down and said to myself, “I should close my Canadian Amazon Prime account, There’s no point in paying for it when I only had it so I could send things to my kid in Canada.”

What wound up happening, through a combination of unclear instructions and me not taking enough time to think things through (I own *most* of the responsibility here, but don’t take *all* of it since some was due to Amazon’s phrasing), was that I completely deleted my Canadian Amazon account, not just the Prime part. Which would have been fine… except that it ALSO deleted my US Amazon account. Which was connected to my Kindle Direct Publishing account. Which meant *that* account also vanished–along with all of my books. (As of today, some of the *paperbacks* still show up on Amazon if you search, but they’re listed as “out of print.” The Kindle versions are gone completely.)

I spent May 19 and 20 calling and emailing Amazon customer service and KDP Support. The final answer was “You deleted the account, and when the customer deletes it, we can’t restore it.” KDP Support tried everything they were able to do but couldn’t bring back the books, so a higher-up told me to create a new KDP account and republish the books. This unfortunately means the ratings and reviews are gone entirely, which I am sad about, but at least the books can exist again.

In order to avoid tripping Amazon’s “scammer/bot” button, I am republishing the books week-by-week. I discovered with Salad on the Side that it can take longer than I thought for the books to appear, so the dates below are Thursdays but the books might take until Friday or Saturday of that week to actually go live on Amazon. (I uploaded Salad on the Side on Wednesday evening; the paperback was available Friday evening, and the Kindle showed up sometime during Friday night. I’ll be uploading the rest of the books earlier in the week to try to actually hit the Thursdays listed below.)

My planned schedule for the Karenna Colcroft books:

Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat series:

Salad on the Side                       May 23

Veggie Burgers to Go             May 27

Hummus on Rye                       June 3

Try the Tofu                                June 7

Tempeh for Two                      June 10

TAKE SOME TAHINI        Preorder June 27; release July 11

Since Take Some Tahini is a new release, and is the first brand-new Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat novel since 2014, I will be focusing on releasing and promoting that book from June 27 until the end of July.

Non RWDEM books:

Fill the Empty Spaces        June 14

Hooch and Howls               June 17 (NOTE: This book was published “wide,” which means it is still available through retailers other than Amazon. The date here is *only* for Amazon; you can still buy this book elsewhere before this)

Chance Met                          June 21

A Fighting Chance           June 24

 

Currently, I do not plan to republish Alpha Receptor and Beta Test, the two heterosexual werewolf romances connected to Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat. Under the Karenna Colcroft name, at this point I’m focusing on male/male romance, and those books were not selling. (Also, Beta Test was heavily pirated as soon as it was released, which to be honest pisses me off.) If any readers would like copies of those two books, please feel free to email me at karennacolcroft @ karennacolcroft .com (remove the spaces) to request either an EPUB or PDF of them. I also have a very few paperback versions, which I would be happy to sign and send for the cost of postage (we can discuss it via email).

Salad on the Side is now available again! And since I had to republish it anyway, I chose to give it a new cover.

This Week Is Hectic!

This is a hectic week, but hectic in a good way.

Thursday is the official release day for A Fighting Chance! I put this book up for Kindle preorder on April 26, and on May 9 it will release for Kindle and paperback.

I’ve been making some tweaks to my release schedule going forward. Take Some Tahini (Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat 6) will release in July as scheduled; after that, my next release will be in October of this year. I’ve discovered, in trying to do 6 releases this year, that that pace isn’t exactly sustainable for me, especially since I’ll also be releasing some young adult fiction (under my Jo Ramsey pen name) starting in 2025. So I’m lowering that plan by one book for 2024, and will be releasing five books instead of six, and for 2025 I’m planning four releases. There might be an extra short story or two released over those couple of years, but I’m not currently *planning* those. So another part of the hecticness of this week is rearranging my release schedule and, by extension, my writing and editing schedule.

And I’m getting ready to take a trip to watch my younger kid graduate from veterinary school next week! Packing and coordinating travel plans with the others who are going is one of the most hectic things, but it is so amazingly worth it to watch my kid’s dream–almost literally a lifelong dream, they’ve wanted to be a veterinarian since they were about three years old–come true.

So that’s where I’m at this week. I’m also continuing to plan “wide” releases of my books (making them available through retailers in addition to Amazon) but have hit a minor snag with some of the existing books that is delaying getting those put out through other vendors. I am continuing to work on it.

Available for Preorder!

A Fighting Chance (Chance Met 2) is now available for Kindle preorder! The book will release on May 9 in Kindle and paperback formats, and will be available through Kindle Unlimited.

This is a sequel to Chance Met, which was released in March 2023. I had hoped to have A Fighting Chance out in March of this year, but chose to spend additional time having it beta read and proofed, and then did some rewrites. But it is ready now, and you can preorder your Kindle copy on Amazon.

New Project Underway

After going back and forth with myself about it, last Tuesday I started a new book.

Bring On the Broccoli (Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat 7) picks up about three months after Tempeh for Two and Take Some Tahini (both of those books take place in the same month). It’s in Kyle Slidell’s point of view and involves discovering that some alphas, including a Massachusetts one, are even less ethical and invested in their packs’ best interests than previously realized.

I haven’t gotten very far into the story yet, so there isn’t much to share at this point, but I’ll add updates here weekly until the book is done. Bring On the Broccoli is planned to release in January 2025.

A Fighting Chance Cover Reveal

Now that my newsletter subscribers have had the first look, I wanted to share the cover of A Fighting Chance with y’all. A Fighting Chance is the sequel to last year’s Chance Met, continuing the story of werewolf single father Trey Damone, psychic human Jeremiah Crawford, and Trey’s seven-year-old son Michael. A Fighting Chance will be available for Kindle preorder on April 25 and will release for Kindle and in paperback on May 9; I have plans to release it and Chance Met wide later this year.

Um… Oops… Lost Track of Time…

A few weeks ago, I posted that I would be moving to a new apartment. That was happening in the middle of my husband and me both having and recovering from norovirus, me recovering from minor surgery, and me trying to release and promote Hooch and Howls.

Dang, March was a long month!

We are now mostly settled in our new apartment. I’m still waiting for hubby to purchase the kitchen island/cart/counter/whatever he promised, which he says might happen tomorrow. I also need to buy a new chair or two for the living room, which will happen… um, eventually.

But meanwhile, we’re here. A much quieter, larger, brighter apartment, with pretty much everything that’s here so far in its place. We have our own washer and dryer, which is incredible luxury after almost seven years of sharing two washing machines with 6 other units, and sharing a dryer with two of those other units. I recovered from norovirus only to have a reaction to a new antidepressant I was on (which I’ve since been weaned off), followed by catching a bad cold which, at least, was only a cold.

But on the plus side, in addition to getting through the move, I released Hooch and Howls on schedule, and it’s gotten a 4-star review! I’m feeling much better physically now, and hoping that I’ve gotten all of my illnesses for 2024 out of the way already so I can have a peaceful, healthy remainder of the year. We had a snowstorm on Wednesday and Thursday, but the snow from that has melted.

I hope y’all are doing well. Here’s a picture of part of the living room of the new place:

May be an image of grandfather clock and indoors

I’m Moving!

In three days, I’m moving to a new apartment. This is a good thing; the new place is larger, quieter, and in a much safer area than where I’m currently living.

But it is putting a bit of a cramp in my writing and promoting. Especially since in TWO days, Hooch and Howls officially releases!

I’m looking forward to being in the new apartment and having quiet, sunlit space to write and create. Moving is stressful, but it ultimately ends up being a good thing. I’ll share pictures of the new space once we’re settled a bit!

Meanwhile, Hooch and Howls is available for preorder through various retailers, and will release on Thursday (the 14th) in digital and paperback formats. https://books2read.com/hoochandhowls