Second Edition Fever

It’s been an interesting week, and since I like the Sunday check-in habit whether I’m in the midst of a ROW80 round or not, I’m going to share some of my recent facepalm moments.

After six months of chasing my own tail, finally finding a contact point, and hearing nothing… I officially received a contract from the rights-holder to a song one of my characters mangled in book 2 of my Red Slaves series. I get to pay them to be able to change the acknowledgement slightly to say it’s official, so nobody can come after me to claim I’m infringing on anybody else’s copyrights. That means I’m looking at other details of the book and considering some feedback I received after the publication process had wound through several beta readers and an editor.

The upshot was: I wrote a new chapter. It’s something I hadn’t ever done before for a published work–once it’s out the door, I’m satisfied that it’s the best I could do at the time. In fact, I just commented on Kait Nolan’s blog to that effect, claiming I would never subject my readers to a variable story.

This is me eating my words. Less than two weeks later.

😛

The problem is: The story was GOOD the way it was… I just… left out a closing chapter that brings the conflict full-circle and sets up book 3 in a more satisfying way. Now, the story is better.

I’m justifying the addition of this extra chapter in my mind because this is not feedback I’ve received from people who’ve bought the book–and that group of people has been smaller than one hopes for with a new release. So I will content myself with just adding a 2nd edition tag to the work and leave it at that.

And, I’ll remind myself from here on out that I cannot speak in absolutes about what I might or might not do in relation to stories that I’ve already hit the publish button on; I aim to continuously improve my craft. If that means someday I do something even more drastic… so be it. Time and circumstances must dictate my response to trusted feedback.

Meantime, don’t forget the Sci-Fi Romance Brigade’s blog hop, which includes my two sci-fi stories as part of the (very large!) prize package. Final entries close 6/25, so you only have 46 hours to get yours in.