Behind the words: The Night Dredes

The Night Dredes is kicking off my flagship horror series and a more serious foray into Self-Publishing, but it didn’t start out that way….

Sometimes I dream in High Definition, from start to finish stories and The Night Dredes, and it’s sequel, The Day Dredes were one of those situations. I don’t write every dream that pops into my head, otherwise I’d be writing stories about trying to find a toilet in a maze of closets.

Just because I had a clear, striking vision of the story, doesn’t mean the book ends up that way. If I’m honest, I didn’t have the technical capabilities to write the story in a way that an audience could navigate Sallows Island with Destiny and Daniel.

If I had to guess, I rewrote this story five or six times. While the characters were already pronounced in my mind, I couldn’t ask readers to follow over a dozen point of views. So while Sallows Island went through many renovations, the characters still resided on the island with their fate unchanged.

I did try to query it to agents initially, but I think even back then I understood this book was never meant for traditional publishing. In 2018, I was offered publication from a small press for another series and thought maybe The Night Dredes would do well with them.

Dear reader, I was so so wrong.

Firstly, if you do choose to sign with a small press, please oh please make sure to vet them in every way possible. While I had hired an agent to go over the contract, I was so afraid of losing the offer that I caved and signed. No one up until that moment had given me the time of day and it felt like a foot in the door.

That contract, while generic and bland, lacked a very important section: Reversion of Rights.

There was mention of rights reversal throughout the contract, but no actual definition of what could or would happen should an author wish to revert those rights. That would come to bite me in the ass later.

So I sold The Night Dredes and The Day Dredes to Sands Press, recently bought up by She Rises Studio. They provided little to no editing, colored pencil covers, and random publication dates. When The Day Dredes was surprise released, there was not only no ebook version available, the paperback version was out of stock. Despite many conversations, it remained that way until I got the books back.

Failure to edit, failure to fix book descriptions on Amazon, no version of ebooks, or paperbacks, being notified of a release the same month it comes out… These were all clear violations of the contract. However because there was no printed recourse for the writer in the contract, Sands Press could do whatever they wanted without repercussions.

After seeking out the higher powers (Victoria Strauss, Writer’s Guild) I kindly asked for my rights back. I stated my reasons and since neither of us were making money on the books, there was no reason for the publisher to keep the books.

This ended with the publisher attempting to extort me for unsubstantiated thousands of dollars for all they had “invested” in my books. By this time, I had been around long enough to know what was what, and while it wasn’t illegal, it certainly wasn’t acceptable.

The conversation ended with me telling them I’d be back in two years when the rights would naturally convert back to me anyway, or when they closed their doors, whichever came first. Ultimately I was correct. They sold to She Rises Studios.

At first I was excited. A women-owned business devoted to empowering women. So I was ready to be empowered with the fucking rights to my book only to encounter women with no experience in the publishing industry threatening legal action.

(And just an FYI for new writers, threatening legal action means they have no leg to stand on.)

She Rises Studios tried to make me buy my books back from them, to which they were told to pound sand. By sheer luck, another author with a Literary Agent called them and sorted it out on behalf of her client, but coincidently my behalf too.

After a year of She Rises Studios trying to figure out how to remove books from Amazon, it was finally done. Now, they gave me the rights back before they pulled the books, which means if anything was sold in that year, I didn’t receive those royalties, but I don’t care.

The Dredes is mine and it’s going to stay that way.

The Night Dredes (Shayna’s Version) is up for Pre-Order and available August 13th. AND because I can, I’m releasing The Day Dredes (Again, Shayna’s Version) two weeks after that, and the never before seen sequel, Tea Time for Monsters two weeks after that.

Three books released within six weeks may seem like overkill, but I have so many stories I’ve done nothing with for years. It’s time for people to see them. I have enough books to release every month well into the new year if I wanted.

And I might… I just might…