Republishing an Older Title

In yesterday's post I talked about re-reading my third novel, the purpose being to shape it up to publish as a paperback (for myself). I had no intention of re-editing it (did I even edit it the first time?), but as little as I remembered of it, I knew that the opening scene was subpar. I think starting a story with dialogue is the kiss of death. It has to be, because I did that with a couple of my novellas, and they barely sold. Of course, my books barely sell in the first place, but this theory is my current handy scapegoat.

All kidding (?) aside, I knew I wanted to redo the opening. Then along the way, I found some typos, which is embarrassing. I don't know what I was thinking when I published the book, but I obviously wasn't thinking too hard. By contrast, with Running From Herself I obsessed over catching any tiny mistake, even a dumb punctuation error, like using a semi-colon instead of a comma. The typos in this third novel were inexcusable. At one point I wrote "Bonny" for the main character's last name, instead of "Bonnay". A pretty blatant error, since the family name is used frequently throughout the book.

In my defense, I suppose, I was still getting the hang of this publishing business, and I had a lot of things to learn, such as how to find a cover, how to write the blurb, how to format. Maybe I was overwhelmed. (Spoiler Alert: I pretty much failed at all those things.)

So, I knew I needed to read the manuscript all the way through. What would be the point of this project otherwise?

As I remembered it, I'd written some cringey scenes, so I was fully prepared to be disheartened. But guess what--it's pretty damn good! I originally published "The Apple" or whatever I'm calling it now, in 2021; and with eight books written after it, my recall of the story was foggy. Thus, as I was re-reading, I was intrigued to find out what came next. "How does she get herself out of this mess?" I found myself asking. Seriously. I had a terminal case of amnesia.   

I only have the last couple of chapters to get through, and I'm fairly certain they're fine. (I do remember how the story ends.)

My overall conclusion? Well, it's long, but it is a novel, after all. I managed to get through almost all of it in two days, but they were a long two days. I'd become so used to writing novellas that it surprised me to find that, oh, another scene? What the hell? 

Being almost completely ignorant of the story, reading it allowed me to question some elements that were either confusing or, sadly, missing. A biggie was Aubrey's scheme to whisk her mom out of town without the police knowing, and her plan was foiled the first time she tried. Then a while later, her mom was finally out of town, but I never detailed how that was accomplished. I don't know if I need to create an additional scene or to simply let readers (hypothetical readers) just assume it got done--somehow. Doing any new writing was the exact opposite of my intentions; I'm done writing. And the damn manuscript is already too long from my perspective. 

I also noticed a lot of stage direction in one scene, which is probably bad enough, but the characters' movements didn't make any sense. First, Mom's in the kitchen, then suddenly she drops down on the sofa. How did she get there? Is the sofa in the kitchen? That scene is overall confusing, and much as I don't want to rewrite, I'll need to do it there.

As usual with the vast majority of my stories, I'm expecting a reader (a hypothetical reader) to wade through the not-so-exciting beginning to get to the exciting middle. That's a big ask. I understand why it happens--I don't outline! So, I find myself learning the story as I go. Creeping up to it.  

I'm not sure how to, or if to fix that beginning. Being a family saga, it's kind of important to get to know the members of the family. The current beginning accomplishes that.

All this being said, the novel deserves to be (re)published. In fact, it deserves a push. But how far do I want to go to "push" it? It's gone through various iterations of bad (free) covers, and even my newly-designed one looks homemade. I'm skeptical of GetCovers, which would be the cheap option. They did my anthology covers, and I'll freely accept half the blame for them, since the site required me to choose images from Shutterstock. The more I view the finished products, the less satisfied I am with them. Miblart is great, but $270.00 great? For a book that won't sell? Inflation is already wreaking havoc on my finances.

Then there's the title. As I said, it started out as The Apple (which doesn't fall far from the tree, except no one seemed to get it), so I changed it to What We Conceal--kind of so-so. I want to start over with a whole new title, rather than update the current published book, mostly because I want the publish date to read 2025, not 2021. Nobody wants a four-year-old book.  

Then what? Assuming I actually pay for a decent cover and fix what's wrong with the book, would I promote it? That's such a losing proposition. I think I got too excited by the good parts of my re-read, and jumped immediately to, "This needs to be out there in the world!" I need to simmer down. Running From Herself is an awesome novel, and no one's bought it. 

I think I'll go back to my original plan: update the cover with whatever crappy thing I've managed to come up with, do minimal fixes to the manuscript, rewrite the blurb, format it for paperback and buy a copy. This all began with simply wanting a physical representation of my work for myself, for my bookshelf. Like my protagonists, I'm far too impulsive for my own good.