Thank you, Julie Glover!
I am under no illusions that some will take umbrage at the messages in the story - but - God intended it for someone when His Spirit nudged me and encouraged me in the face of a lot of discouraging situations and circumstances. Today, I can honestly say it has been worth the last 22 months of TORTURE to see this book as a true covered novel!

Thank you for your post!

It can feel good to "stick to your guns" when something is so important to you. Obviously, I was the same! I'm thrilled for you getting your story out the way you want and the great feedback you've received. Congrats!

I love this statement, Colleen: "I think it helps to trust that time will reveal why the original way wasn't the best way." It's a good one for us all to hold onto!

I'm glad you self-published too! Fantastic series. 🙂

Wow, you've done a lot of creative work in your life! Impressive. And I appreciate editorial comments and had adopted many changes in my books that made the story stronger, but the focus/theme part was just a step too far for me. Congrats on your success and your path!

There can be a lot of pressure in this business to do things on a certain timeline, but we need to have the flexibility to adopt a timeline that will actually work for us! Glad you've realized that and are moving forward in a way that works for you.

I'm so proud of you, Kathy!!

Like you, I didn't start with the dream of self-publishing my books when I was lucky enough to sign with a literary agent in 2010. I dreamed of being traditionally published. Self-pub? What was that? Wasn't even on my radar. Back then, self-pub had even worse associations than it does now, and folks likened it to a vanity publisher. You wouldn't believe the stuff people said to me once I was published. The mystery genre was very conservative (still is), and there aren't any awards for self-pubbed mystery authors, can't do signings at conventions, etc.

So you can see why I was reluctant at the time. But after two and a half years and a couple of "almosts" from publishing houses, we came to the conclusion that my cozy, literary-geeky, historical mystery was too niche-y for them and it wasn't going to see the light of day via traditional means. By then I'd already written the sequel and had ideas for more of them. I believed in my world of an 1890s New England women's college. How could I let that die? It became more important to me to get the series out there to readers and tolerate the stigma. I had very little guidance when I first started self-publishing (aka, plenty of mistakes were made), but I kept learning and the amazing, helpful writers I met along the way (you're one of them, sweetie!) were key to my continuing on. Now I have ten books between two series published, and I'm so glad I took this path.

Best of luck with your path, too!