Revising a Revised Edition

 

Cover design by Christy Aldridge of Grim Poppy Design

One thing on my agenda for the year is to get books currently out of print back into print. This is why I have been saying “And it’s still in print!” when sharing about books that really are still in print! I have had over 15 books go out of print after two publishers shut down, so I spent some time deciding just HOW to get those books back out there.

 

Fortunately, I know of some publishers who DO publish previously published books (and Twisted Dreams Press is among them), so I set aside certain titles to submit to them at certain times. (Yeah, I’m not submitting all of them all at once.)

 

Some authors I know who have also had this experience chose to self-publish their books in order to get them back out there. Part of the goal of Dreamweaver Press, an imprint I manage through Twisted Dream Press, is to publish books that went out of print. I let these authors know and I am working with some of them to get their books back into print.

 

Meanwhile, I created a schedule for when I submit manuscripts and when I’ll be self-publishing my own books in order to get them back into print.

 

One of those books is my collection of confessional poetry, 3 A.M. Poetry.

 

This book is my collection of poems that further explore some bad things I experienced in my past. However, when I was looking it over again in order to prepare the manuscript for self-publishing this month, I realized that some revision was in order.

 

But then I wondered, should I revise a manuscript that was previously published? Why not give readers the same kind of material that appeared in the first edition, as happened with my deaf poetry book Noiseless? The second edition was published by Alien Buddha Press and it’s the exact same book that was out there the first time.

 

However, readers will not get that experience when they pick up my other poetry book, Other, which I self-published after the publisher shut down.

 

And they won’t get that experience when they pick up the new edition of 3 A.M. Poetry either, which just released as an ebook!

 

Still, before it was published, I struggled with the decision of whether or not to revise it.

 

When I decided to proceed with publishing this poetry book in 2025, I started out with the original collection of poetry that I wrote many years ago that was titled 3 A.M. Poetry. However, that manuscript was too short, so I revised it. I threw in another short collection of poetry that I wrote, and added a few other poems. It all worked out because all of the poems were on the same topics: Abuse, addiction, alcoholism, depression, mental health disorders (I have anxiety, depression, and panic disorder), rape, self-harm, suicidal ideation, and suicide.

 

Then came the task of whether or not I should revise the revised edition after the book went out of print!

 

When faced with this situation, the author can look at the manuscript and make the personal decision of whether or not they want to, or should, revise it before attempting to get it back into print.

 

In my case, though, I had one issue: What if revising the book changed it so much that readers wouldn’t be able to relate to or appreciate the poems in it anymore? Should I even touch it, or just let it go out there the way it originally was?

 

But after reviewing the manuscript, I decided that, yes, it could use some revision. One poem was too similar to another. Another poem didn’t capture what it was about very clearly. Still another poem had no place in a collection of confessional poetry. (Yes, I realize that people might appreciate the break from all of that confessional poetry with something different, but there are other poems in the book to serve that purpose.)

 

So, yes, I decided to proceed with revising it. I took poems out, rewrote some others, added new ones, and ensured there were no duplicates (this can happen sometimes, especially with long collections of poetry). I also added an author’s note that included the number for the crisis and suicide hotline, as well as trigger warnings. Now I feel this revised edition, which is truly a REVISED edition, is so much better than the original book.

 

And that’s exactly what we should give to readers when we are trying to get books back into print. We should give them books that are bigger and better than the original one. That’s what I did with Other, that’s what I have done with 3 A.M. Poetry, and that’s what I’m doing with another one of my out-of-print books, 365 Tips for Writers.

 

Just because a book has gone out of print, it doesn’t mean it will stay out of print. It WILL get back out there in the world, and in some cases, the new revised edition will be even better than the last edition.

 

If you’re interested in this poetry book, which released on Kindle today, you can get your copy here.

 

The print edition is coming soon!

 

Here is the book’s blurb:

 

Survivors of an abusive childhood know just how hard it can be to break free from their past. Memories linger. The anger lingers. The poems in this book reflect battles the author has had to fight, then and now. Some of these battles are an ongoing torment that could make the dangers of mental health disorders seem like a welcoming reprieve. The last two poems in this book reflect how the author broke free from the darkness and found the strength to keep going.

Warning: The poems in this book explore topics of abuse, addiction, alcoholism, depression, rape, self-harm, suicidal ideation and suicide.

Draft2Digital is Going to Start Penalizing Indie Authors with Low Sales

 

Photo Credit: Gustavo Fring on Pexels

 

Self-published authors and independent publishers who have used Draft2Digital (D2D) for publishing books were given unfortunate news this week: Anyone who did not earn $100 in sales in a year would have to pay an annual fee of $12. That may not seem like much, but for a lot of self-published authors using Draft2Digital – myself, included – annual sales of books typically did not reach that magical amount of money. Never mind that Draft2Digital already takes a large cut of sales of each book sold through their services. Now they wanted their clients to pay a fee if they don’t earn $100 in sales in a year.

This penalty for failing to earn a minimum of $100 a year in book sales feels like a punishment for not being successful in selling our books. It’s basically penalizing an author for being poor.

 

As an author and a publisher, I have to say that the one thing we do not have any control over are book sales. Believe me, I know. I once spent three months doing ALL THE THINGS to promote and market a new book, but there was not a single sale of this book in that time period. That’s right; I worked my ass off to promote my book, only to earn ZERO sales for my efforts.

 

Because of this fee that Draft2Digital will begin charging, a lot of authors and independent publishers I know who have used them have reacted by canceling their Draft2Digital accounts and taking their business elsewhere. 

 

Until I started using Draft2Digital as well as Smashwords (which is now in partnership with Draft2Digital), I used Kindle Direct Publishing, which is a service offered by Amazon. I started out using CreateSpace before it became Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). But after I ran into a host of problems in trying to get books and covers formatted, I switched to Draft2Digital.

 

That worked until it didn’t.

 

I was planning to once again start using Draft2Digital when I resume self-publishing books in June, but in light of this recent turn of events, I am not so sure.

 

One problem with using KDP is that a lot of people boycott Amazon. They refuse to buy ANYTHING from Amazon, or even get a free ebook. (Not everyone has a Kindle Unlimited account.) You would think that Amazon’s Expanded Distribution program, which allows for books to be available through other sites such as Walmart and Books-A-Million, would solve this problem, but unfortunately, it’s not a very broad reach. What Draft2Digital offered was making ebooks AND print books available through more sites, such as Kobo, Thalia, Apple Books, and more. An author really wants to have their book EVERYWHERE in order to increase their chances of more sales and visibility – AND especially to appease the crowd who refuse to buy anything from Amazon!

 

Another thing that Draft2Digital did for authors who published through them was eliminate the tedious work of formatting ebooks for various sites, such as Kobo, Smashwords and Apple Books. This was another thing that appealed to me, since I don’t have formatting software like Atticus, so formatting is a nightmare for me.

 

And those perks were great, but now they are ones many of us have been forced to go without once we choose to leave Draft2Digital over this very unfair annual fee.

 

This whole situation has brought up a lot of discussion over whether authors should pay to publish, as well as sparking controversy over the ones who choose to leave Draft2Digital because of this fee.

 

In an email by Ricardo Fayet, one of the founders of Reedsy, he takes a stab at trying to justify just why D2D is now charging an annual fee:

 

“In the AI age, this doesn’t seem sustainable anymore. Distributors like Draft2Digital have a responsibility to the retailers they work with, and part of that responsibility is to make sure that the books they send to them don’t infringe on copyrights, don’t contain plagiarism, and aren’t full of AI-generated nonsense.

 

Running these checks has a cost — and not running them would have a much higher cost, as retailers would just start treating all D2D books (and all indie books in general) as spam.

 

So what’s the solution? We just saw it: introducing fees high enough to prohibit scammers, but low enough to keep publishing accessible.”

 

First of all, it would seem that us authors who DO NOT use AI and are not plagiarizing content in our books are going to carry the brunt of those who refuse to follow the rules. We have to pay just to prove that we are honest.

 

Second, while the fee may seem small, that is not at issue here. What is at issue is the principle of the matter. We should not have to be forced to pay an annual fee just because we failed to earn $100 in a year, which would make The Powers That Be at Draft2Digital very happy because that would mean more money for them. And since we won’t be bringing in more money for them, we will have to pay a fee, which is equivalent to being taxed.

 

And contrary to what Fayet states in his email, I will NOT use this fee as an incentive to work harder to promote my books published through Draft2Digital. Been there, done that. Won’t do it again. (I DO promote my books, but I don’t put an insane amount of energy into it. I don’t have that kind of time!)

 

Yes, we could just ignore this whole mess and explore other options to self-publish our books, but most of those other options do not look good.

 

In Fayet’s email, he notes that B&N Press will no longer list any book on their site which is less than $14.99. I publish a lot of poetry chapbooks, and none of them are for sale for that amount of money (and they never will be; it’s an outrageous price to pay for a book that is only 25 pages).

 

As far as Lulu is concerned, while I have heard good things about them, I have also heard that they usually take longer to publish a book or ebook.

 

IngramSpark is another option. They do charge a fee to “go wide” (which means to have your book available on more retailer sites), but so does KDP (the charge is a higher cut of royalties). IngramSpark also charges a fee for their clients who want to get one-on-one support from customer service. Actually, this article breaks down the fees one can expect to see when using IngramSpark.

 

Kobo Writing Life is another option. They do not charge fees and authors receive a higher percentage of royalties. Read their FAQ here. Additionally, they allow for books to have a price as low as $2.99, something that is desirable for ebook publishers.

 

So, while many indie authors and publishers are expressing their displeasure over Draft2Digital’s recent installment of fees, keep in mind that there are other options. As for me, using D2D was nice while it lasted, but because of this annual fee, it looks like I won’t be using them anymore.   

The SPARREW Newsletter Now Has Its Own Site!

 

 

When I started the SPARREW Newsletter in 2022, I had no idea or expectation that it would grow as large as it has today. I thought it would just be a simple little monthly newsletter that would exist only in a subscriber’s inbox.

 

But now, almost four years later, the SPARREW Newsletter has grown so big that not only did I need to set up an archive of past issues somewhere (which you can read here), but I realized that this mighty newsletter needed its own website.

 

In fact, I have known this for several months.

 

Lots of other newsletters have their own website. FundsforWriters. WritersWeekly. Authors Publish.

 

I realized the SPARREW Newsletter needed one too. But how was I going to make that happen?

 

I spent those months mulling over my options. I also reached out to the Tricky Edits contributor, Carolyn Howard-Johnson, to see if she had any ideas.

 

I thought about using Substack, because of the ease of organization, but I didn’t like the idea of my newsletter being posted on a site that I didn’t own.

 

No, I had to put it on a site that I owned. So I just stuck to the “dmcwriter” site I already had set up.

 

But even on there, the newsletter was growing too! It became part newsletter site, part writing portfolio site.

 

Meanwhile, I wasn’t sure how everyone I interviewed on there felt about that. Mostly, how they felt about the domain name not matching the newsletter’s name.

 

And ever since someone turned down being interviewed for the newsletter after I showed him the site the newsletter is posted on, I have always wondered if it’s because of that. (Or because my little newsletter is not so popular.)

 

That idea lingered in my brain. While I understood that the newsletter should be on a site with a matching domain name, I couldn’t figure out how to separate the newsletter from the writer.

 

Well, Life figured that out for me! It’s like Life said, “For goodness sake, if you can’t figure out how to do it, I’ll show you!”

 

So, recently, something messed up the DNS connection I had between the dmcwriter domain name and the site I had set up on another hosting platform. I am not very tech savvy, so I had a hard time figuring out what was going on AND how to fix it. And because I was using two different sites for the domain name and the hosting, I kept going back and forth between Customer Support for both sites, as well as the help guide links they sent to me, as I attempted to fix this problem and get the site I created back online. It went on for several days and I was increasingly frustrated that I kept running into dead ends, that I decided, screw it, I’ll just purchase a domain name on the hosting site and connect it with the site I created on there.

 

Plus, it was getting confusing going back and forth between two different websites just to fix ONE website!

 

So I purchased a domain name that I felt was a good fit for not only the SPARREW Newsletter but all things SPARREW, since there’s going to be some merch as well: SPARREW Site.

 

And at first, I was thinking of removing ALL of my credits as both a freelance writer and as a book reviewer, but then I realized something: What if visitors to the site want to know just who this Dawn Colclasure person is? I say on the About page that I started the newsletter in 2022. Okay, who am I to be publishing such a newsletter? I talk the talk, but do I walk the walk?

 

I certainly do!

 

I took a break from self-publishing books for a while there, but now I self-publish a title every once in a while.

 

I am an author, and the link to my books is on the About page.

 

I am certainly a reader (booklover), as my friends and followers on Facebook and BlueSky have seen when I have shared pages from my reading log.

 

I am a book reviewer, and the link to my book reviews can be found on that site, in the navigation bar.

 

I have experience working as an editor, and I share this information on the About page.

 

And, of course, I’m a writer. Proof is on the portfolio page that is also included on the navigation bar.

 

So, if people want to know if I’m the right person to be publishing a newsletter for self-published authors, authors, readers, reviewers, editors and writers, the proof is all there.

 

And you know what? I am going to leave it all there, too.

 

I don’t know what I’ll do with the dmcwriter domain name in the meantime. As it stands, while I own it, I can’t do anything with it. I tried, but so far, no luck. And that’s the next problem that I have to fix! At least I can work on it in my free time.

 

UPDATE:

New dmcwriter site just dropped!