Do me a favor. Close your eyes and picture this: after nine grueling months, you’ve just given birth to a brand new baby. The labor was painstaking and arduous, but the moment the doctor lays that baby in your arms, it’s suddenly all worth it. You forget the work and the struggle and the bullshit you went through to get to this moment. All you can see right now is that beautiful little thing. A thing YOU created; that you saw in your mind from the moment it took root, dreamt about every day until the second you got to hold it in your hands.
That’s sort of what it’s like holding the paperback copy of your book for the very first time.
Of course, a book is nothing compared to human life. I’m not delusional enough to think that. But for the sake of the metaphor, just stay with me. Authors are like mothers. We toil and we tussle and put forth so much effort for months. There are moments when we doubt ourselves, but when we finally hold the fruits of our labor, shiny and new, we know the pain was worth it. They’re our book babies. And we love them so, so much.
And, like many new “mothers”, I had no idea WTF I was doing with my first new releases. It was a learning process. Writing it was the easy part. Now came the hard part – the delivery. Mistakes were made. I made choices with my heart instead of my head, and of course -- they’re my babies, after all. I did what I thought was best for them, but what I didn’t realize at the time, was that the Indie world is a tough place. If you don’t have the right look, the right packaging, the right attitude, you run the risk of being overlooked.
And that’s what happened.
The branding was all wrong. The Off Limits Duet appeared to be run of the mill, sweet contemporary romance, but hidden inside those saccharine covers was a set of deliciously hot, angst-filled stories. Bad boys and feisty ladies at their finest. If you’re familiar with my work, you already know I don’t pull punches. I hit hard, fast, and rough. And that’s what these books are.
It’s rare that an author goes back and re-reads their own work. Most of us have a love/hate relationship with our words and would rather put old ones behind us and new ones ahead, but I recently gave this duet a much-needed upgrade, and in doing so, I got to relive the lives of Jameson, Jillian, AJ, Austin, and Casey all over again. I LOVE these books – and not just because I made them. I’m not just trying to sell books here, people. These stories are great. Period.
Yesterday, over two years after their conception, I got to hold the new and improved paperbacks in my hand. It was thrilling, just as much as the day they were “born”, if not more. The new covers capture the leading men so perfectly. Jameson with his free spirit, AJ with his dark and broody ways. They’re lean, mean, and sexy as fuck. Now the covers finally match the delicious insides the way they were always meant to.
Drop a comment and let me know what you think. If you read the series, let us all know what you thought! For those of you new to the series, give it a shot. I love it SO much that I’m offering book 1, Secret Promises, FREE on all platforms. Snatch it up, devour it, savor the hard-rockin' goodness again and again.
👉 https://books2read.com/SecretPromises
👉 https://books2read.com/JAnthonyChasingCasey
