Sunday, July 17, 2016

The Magiste Chronicles: Coming Soon - Again!



I've spoken briefly about the fact that the rights to "The Bayou Magiste Chronicles," my erotic paranormal romance series, have reverted back to me. I'm very excited about this because, although I haven't hit NY Times best-selling financial status yet, self-publishing has turned out very well for me, at least so far – knock wood! Having these books back in my hands to re-release is, well, thrilling!

I've learned a lot since I first started on this venture last year, and, no question, still have tons more to learn. One of the reasons I'm so excited about having this series back in my hands is that I am applying what I've learned so far, and the process is becoming much easier with each book I release.

I'm making some changes to the series. These changes include the actual series name, as well as the titles for each of the books. I decided on one of those changes almost immediately – the series is now called simply "The Magiste Chronicles."

Featuring a race of people with magical abilities, The Magiste Chronicles were heavily inspired by my love of the Harry Potter series. In fact, part of these books, particularly Book 1, are drawn heavily on a Harry Potter fan fiction I wrote many years ago. That story came to me on a whim, and bugged me until I finally started writing it. It took on a life of its own – what was meant to be a five or six chapter experiment turned into a 300K word, 39 chapter saga, with about as many different sub-plots as you can imagine. When I finally wrote the last chapter, I realized what a wealth of plot, characters and love scenes I had to work with. I busted my ass rewriting it to fit the new world and society I created, but it was truly a labor of love. And now I am doing it all over again, though the process of rewriting is much easier this time around.

Technically. this will be the third release for Books 1 and 2, and as mentioned, I am reworking them. In fact, both books are being extensively rewritten and revised. I'm fixing a few things that have always bugged me and making other corrections and revisions that are desperately needed. Book 1 was first released way back in 2010, by a now-thankfully-defunct publisher, with Book 2 released in March of 2011 by the same publisher. Dealing with that company was a learning experience in itself, and while it was torture at the time, now I'm glad for it. What I learned in that experience has worked well in my favor.

I've always been very fond of the original title for Book 1, but felt that in order to distance the books from that nightmare, the titles needed to be changed. "In the Devil's Arms" became "Claimed by the Devil" and Book 2, "Healing the Mage," became "Claimed by the Mage." The third book, released for the first time in 2013, was "Claimed by the Enchanter."

In mulling over the possibilities at my disposal with this latest reversion, I thought back to how much I loved Book 1's original title. Once again, "In the Devil's Arms" is now the title of Book 1. The other titles fell perfectly into place – Book 2 is now "In the Mage's Arms," and Book 3 is "In the Enchanter's Arms."

I have also hired a fantastic cover artist, Winter Bayne, to do the new covers for these books. While we are still tweaking and such, I am so excited by what she's done so far and can hardly wait to share these beauties. They are simply gorgeous – for now you'll just have to take my word for it.  ;-)

Stay tuned, I will have more information as we get closer to the re-launch of the series – that should be sometime this fall, and I'm also planning some exciting giveaways and other fun ways to celebrate.

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