Last of Back Listed Books on Amazon; Noble Romance Closing Down

I just received e-mails about this last group of back listed books on Amazon. It’s taken all summer, since loveyoudivine.com closed up in June, to get them all re-released as .99 e-books. There were various issues in re-releasing books, as opposed to releasing originals, as an indie publisher. Verification had to be provided multiple times to prove I hold the rights because the books had already been listed for sale by the publisher. Covers had to be stripped of logos so there were no traces of the publisher. And even though the books were already edited and copy edited by a publisher, in some cases I had to go back and triple check everything just in case there were formatting issues.

I also wanted to change the covers of all the books completely, but decided against that because I didn’t want to confuse anyone who might have already read the books. People remember covers. It happened to me with a Fannie Flagg book once. I bought one of her novels without realizing that it was the same book but with an updated cover. No one mentioned that in the book description. But it’s Fannie Flagg, I love her work, and I kept the book anyway on my digital shelf.

Here is the last list, I think/hope, for now.

Doughy Joey Link

You Missed a Spot Big Guy Link

Whatever, Dude Link

Pumpkin Ravioli Boy Link

I also have in-depth descriptions and posts for all of these books, and more, here on the blog. So if you want to do a search, scroll to the top left corner and type in the title of the book. I try to tag well so I don’t get confused when I want to go back and link to something I’ve written.

As a side note, for authors who have ever wondered about what might happen if their small publisher shutters and closes, this is it. I could have shopped all these books to other publishers, but other publishers typically prefer original works. I honestly wouldn’t completely trust a publisher who was too eager to get too many back listed books. They would seem too desperate to me…unless those back listed books were from the likes of Stephen King. And, I also didn’t want to get stuck in the same situation in case other publishers closed up. So I decided to release the books on my own, where I know they will remain as long as I’m around. For those who think self-publishing is beneath them, you might want to reconsider next time you see a small e-publisher going out of business. It’s not something I ever thought would happen to me, at least not right now. But I think we’ll continue to see this happening now that more authors are self-pubbing and pricing lower, and also because there’s so much more competition. Business is business.

I’ve been told that Noble Romance is going out of business, recently. I have no connection to them, but I’ve been reading about them for a while and I wish their authors well and I hope they all find new homes for their books. If you check out this link you can read more about it. If you check out this link you can see that Noble Romance hasn’t even posted a closing notice on their web site, and the submission page is still up there for new authors who know nothing about them closing.

As a businessperson all my life, I think that’s very telling of how they ran their business. Loveyoudivine.com at least put up this notice as soon as possible so readers and authors knew what was happening. LYD put up with a lot of snark over the years from various reviewers who thought they were superior, however, LYD was run by good, decent businesspeople from the beginning and I have not one complaint to share about them. They also paid me monthly, always on time, and I’ll miss that monthly check in the mail.

But what is really scary to me is that everything I’ve read about Noble Romance says they are not going out of business because of lack of funds. They claim they are going out of business because they just want to get out of the publishing business. Really? Well, isn’t that nice for readers and authors. You get bored and close up shop. As a businessperson I also know that any profitable business can be sold, even e-presses. I’ve done it before with my own businesses. Instead of going out of business, I gave someone else the opportunity to buy and run my business so customers and employees didn’t have to suffer. I wanted to get out of the businesses (tanning salons), I didn’t have a lack of funds, but I also didn’t think it was fair to just shut my doors and walk away. But then I also had records from the day Tony and I started the business that it wasn’t a losing battle. We had profits that we could prove in writing, through credit card transactions and tax records. It took almost two years to find the right buyer. I cared about my business and my customers.

Once again, I wish all the Noble authors well in searching for new homes for their books. It’s not something I thought I would ever be doing, but I can’t say that it was completely negative either. Now my readers can buy these same books for .99 as opposed to the 2.99 – 4.99 the publisher was asking. And when it turns out good for the reader, that’s important.