NAKED ADDICTION-Caitlin Rother-The Tribulations of Publishing

After 17 years of trying to get my crime novel, NAKED ADDICTION, published—my first and only novel, and the first book I ever wrote—I was thrilled to finally hold the book in my hand in 2007.

But the joy was fleeting. Unfortunately, Dorchester, the original publisher, did nothing to promote the book and in the days before social media there wasn’t much opportunity for a newbie author like me to do so.

Based on the fast and furious sales of my first true crime book, POISONED LOVE, the true story behind the high profile Kristin Rossum murder case, Barnes & Noble ordered a bunch of copies of NAKED.

That was when I first learned of the harsh realities of the publishing world. Even though I’d worked relentlessly on my book for all those years, as a mass market paperback it had a literal shelf life of only a couple of months, maybe a little longer if I was lucky. So, many of these copies ended up getting returned after they didn’t sell themselves right off the shelf in those first few months.

The bookstores rip off the covers and throw away the rest of the book, which is how they get their money back from the publisher. But every one of those returns costs the author, because publishers offset revenues from sold books with the losses from these returns.

So my novel made a quiet debut, then went out of print without many people even knowing it existed. All those ripped covers, dead trees, lost hope, and wasted energy also cost me a second book deal with that same publisher.

Those who did read NAKED told me they enjoyed it very much and wished I’d write more fiction. But fiction doesn’t pay anywhere near as much as non-fiction, and I had to make a living where I could. As a result, I’ve spent my writing time churning out true crime books and memoirs I’ve co-authored, working my way onto the New York Times bestseller list with MY LIFE, DELETED.

Given that accomplishment and seven or eight books under my belt, Dorchester agreed to re-release this book with a new cover. I was very excited and hoped it would get the attention I’d hoped for the first time out.

But that was not to be either. Dorchester went into foreclosure on the eve of publication in early 2012 and it took me a year or two to get my rights back. My hope was to find a new home for NAKED, or even self-publish it.

I hope I’ve found something better, and that’s WildBlue Press, a new indie publisher I joined even before it launched this summer. We are a “consortium” of established authors who have published multiple books but can’t make a decent living on the money we earn from traditional publishers alone. Our goal is to be able to make enough to continue doing what we love.

So here we are, and I humbly present you with the revised and updated edition of NAKED ADDICTION, selling in ebook, audio book and print, which will save us all from that wasteful, costly and outdated model of returns. The book has a few improvements and modern technological references inserted here and there, but I wanted to preserve most of the original text so those of you who read my later books can see how I got started. After researching and writing POISONED LOVE, I was able to give the detectives in this novel more investigative techniques to work with, but mostly I focused on fleshing out the characters. I have since learned so much more about killers, homicide investigations, and the criminal justice system in general that I will be able to incorporate all that knowledge and experience into whatever sequels come next.

If this is your first time reading my work, you can see from my more recent titles how I’ve taken my fiction craft and applied it to my narrative non-fiction storytelling. I’ve got eight other books to choose from, with a couple more in the hopper.

I hope you enjoy it.