Writing journeys are never linear…

they take twists and turns.

I received an email yesterday from the publisher who contracted DIRTY DAMSELS, the first book in my billionaire female romance series originally published under the DOTCOM girls series name, telling me that my contract had expired and they would not be renewing it for the future. All my rights reverted to me with this missive, and if you go look for the book now on Amazon, you will not find it.

What this means for me is that I can now rebrand it under my own publishing moniker and distribute it wide ( Amazon, B&N, kobo, etc) which I am going to do in the future, probably 2026. It will have a new cover because I can’t use the one they made for me, and I will be updating the text a bit, making a few simple changes to incorporate it into the NYC Socialites series world. I also have another book in the series plotted, titled PERFECTION that will release to coincide with DD coming back into the world.

For now, I still have print copies in my possession that I purchased as author copies and I am able to sell them through my webstore. So, if you want a print copy of the first edition, here’s where you can order it from me ( US only due to shipping costs.) DIRTY DAMSELS

So, a quick story to tell you about how this all came about.

I “wrote” DIRTY DAMSELS and the sequel IT’S A TRUST THING while I was coming home from NY. The car ride was four hours and I had an idea for a story about female CEOs and billionaires who’d had it rough, but survived. The books came to me as fully formed MOVIES in my mind, because I am a visual thinker. Once I got home, I started penning. DIRTY DAMSELS was a little sexier than what I had been writing, and I have to admit – I liked that!

I put out some queries, and Limitless Publishing said they wanted to buy it. Sold! YAY.

After it came out, I told them I had the second book ready to go, and they declined to represent it for their list. They never gave me a solid reason, but it wasn’t hard to figure out. This is no shade on them – publishing is a business and you need to make money to survive.

When the book released – to great reviews BTW -it sold, maybe, 100 copies initially. Despite all the publicity they, and I, did. So, they didn’t get any ROI for the contract. Because of that, they couldn’t see throwing more money at another book by the same author. ( That’s my assumption, anyway.) And I can’t blame them because, as I said, publishing is a business, and if you just throw money at projects that don’t get you any return, you will fail.

So…I published IT’S A TRUST THING myself. My very first indie book. Did I make mistakes? Tons. Did I learn from them? You betcha. The next three books in the series went a lot better than IATT did. But…live and learn.

Saying that, when I release DIRTY DAMSELS next year under the NYC SOCIALITES series, I know what needs to be done to make it an effective book in the market.

But…if you still want to get a first edition copy with the old cover, you can simply order DIRTY DAMSELS from me for now!

Be well kids, ~ Peg