The journey to get to tomorrow's launch (a rant)

I have tried, oh so hard, to just let go of the past few years. Since the very moment that I got an email in approximately September of 2009, I've looked back and kicked myself in the ass!

It was a letter from a publisher who wanted me. Yes Me! She wanted to publish me and make all my dreams come true.

What happened was a nearly a 3 1/2 year anxiety attack!

The fact is, I was sitting--Literally sitting in the lawyer's office--writing up a letter to legally go after the publisher for never paying me royalties in 2012. That's right, an entire year! AND when she paid previous ones she paid them late, in a money order, after telling me she'd sent them to my father's business so it must be their fault I didn't get them. WHAT???  Anyway, what I was finding out was I had been bamboozled!  But, on this very lucky day...as I sat with the lawyer...an email came to my inbox releasing me from the contracts she held. HALLELUJAH!!! (I called the lawyer and told him damn you're good!) She'd held these contracts over me like a blackmail, though I'd never done anything but give her my books (7 in all...4 edited...yes she'd given the others back the first time I told her I was done with her not doing what she said she was going to do.) I was NEVER offered advances. I was called names. I  was threatened! She'd "alerted the appropriate authorities" because she accused me of lying! She even decided that I wished her family ill will because I was a cold person and didn't care that her family members had died and she had moved.

So...I got the rights back. I put a countdown calendar on the wall and I counted the days until those books were MINE!!! MINE!!!! Mine...as they should have been.  I found the letter she sent me was a form letter. Her company was gone and her authors were free. I made an alliance. And a blog was written as though this author had followed me around for the past 3 1/2 years feeling my pain, when in fact...many of us were in pain. Such pain.

I'm going to share with you the link for the blog. It will give you the overall desperation us authors were in for so long and what was asked/demanded of us. I'm sad I had to go through this and I'm sad others did too, but now we all know we weren't alone.

Tomorrow this book launches from my own publishing house with a cover I'm so proud of I could explode. All the book covers look great. (Not some stupid humming bird that doesn't even fit the story but it was "something she had". BLEH!) I had to share this because it is part of the journey to get this book out there to more people than the Amazon Kindle world (where it ultimately only ended up!)

After leaving this house and opening my own my books have gone bestseller! I have the title of being an #1 Amazon Bestselling Author. I did that! I did! I built a loyal following of readers who ask for more! Sales are in quantities of thousands per distributor a month, not as she had once told me, "You're my top in sales with 70 sales" WHAT???? (Of course I've never been paid for those "70 sales" last July...but)

This is a rant and for those of you who follow me I hope you don't think little of me for it. Sometimes you just have to get it off your chest...and now it is. Matchmakers is on the WORLD market as of tomorrow and I couldn't be happier!!!

What is the lesson in this? And there has to be a lesson or I wouldn't put it out here. Know that mistakes happen and they will come around. Karma is strong!!!  REALLY STRONG!!! Investigate hard! I did and the surface stuff looked good. But there was SO MUCH MORE!!!  Ask questions! ASK! ASK!!!  And in the end know that you'll learn a hell of a lot when you make a mistake, but maybe we can help you avoid this one!  Here is the link to the blog that pinpoints it all...written by another fellow author like myself...who has prevailed!!! http://caraoneill.com/3/post/2013/02/the-dying-publishing-industrys-attempt-to-take-me-down-with-it-part-1.html

In all fairness this is not to start any fights, I just needed to free myself from the burden of all this. I'm sure there will be comments...I'm expecting them. But in the end...I just needed to rant.