All is fair in love and magic
The decision to unpublish Lunaria in January 2020 hurt.
It still hurts.
It’s a phantom stone in my gut that won’t go away.
It’s the reason blood drains from my face whenever it comes to mind.
Unpublishing was heart-wrenching and the hardest decision I’ve ever made in my short career as an independent author.
It was also the best.
By the time I was nearing the end of writing Lunaria, my husband and I decided to go with a new editor. We’d grown frustrated with our editing service at the time due to inconsistencies in timeliness and services rendered. As such, the hunt for a new editing service began.
The search went on for several weeks with many promising leads left unrealized because of too high price tags (sad emoji) or calendars not lining up. C’est la vie.
When I found the editor for Lunaria, I was so relieved. Her timeline was realistic and to the point, and we got along well—so I pulled the trigger
It would be so easy for me to place all the blame on the freelance editor, because the work I paid for was not on par with the quality I received.
But I can’t. Blame rests on my shoulders too.
· I didn’t voice concerns when the promised timeline went undelivered
· I didn’t listen to my gut when I caught errors the editor missed and didn’t demand another read through
· I was committed to the wrong goal which was to get Lunaria out ASAP instead of getting out a quality version of Lunaria no matter how long it took
And my readers noticed.
I remember the numbness that came over me when the messages started to trickle in, politely and urgently letting me know about the quality issue. I was horrified, and the reviews coming in were echoing the same message (albeit not as politely). Though I had caught some errors left unnoticed by my editor I failed to catch them all.
After 10 days, quite a few shed tears, and some very serious talks with my husband, we made the decision to unpublish Lunaria. It was not the story my readers deserved, and we knew if we waited too long it would lead to even more heartbreak.
Sending the news out about Lunaria and hitting the ‘unpublish’ button lifted a weight off my shoulders, but not from my heart.
A weight will always remain in some amount, but at this point in time, I’m so damn happy to have pulled Lunaria.
Though we couldn’t afford another round of professional edits #indieauthorproblems
And we weren’t going back to the same editor because of the quality of her work #ugh
We spent 6 months combing through Lunaria together, along with a couple of trusted eyes and some phenomenal alpha readers. What we imagined (and hoped) would only be looking for grammatical or spelling errors turned into a pretty major revision. The tone of the book was shifted. Multiple scenes were cuts. New scenes were stitched together.
It was a lot more work (and stress) (and late nights) (and early mornings) than anticipated.
When I hit the publish button for the second time on July 31, 2020, I was filled with so much more bittersweet happiness and giddy joy than I had on January 15th. All of the extra attention we put on making Lunaria better felt right. I’m truly proud of what became of the finale. I love how the series ended, and I can only hope that my readers are left as satisfied as I am with my work.
As I move on to new writing projects, I’m armed with more than just knowledge of what not to do. I have thicker skin. I have confidence in myself and my work. And I know it’s okay to fail, because I will pick myself back up and make things right.
When I think unpublishing Lunaria, it hurts…
But when I think of the struggle, time, and effort put into re-publishing in it, I couldn’t be prouder.
#BestWorstMistake