Two years ago I gave my novel Between the Sierra and the Sea to a vanity publishing house to publish.  They did not style themselves as vanity-publishers, rather they talked about co-operative publishing where the author and the publisher shared the costs - my share was exhorbitant.  Nevertheless, as I was having difficulties finding a regular publisher I decided to go for it.  At first it seemed to go well but then the royalties dropped and eventually dried up altogether. However by then I had discovered the world of self-publishing.  It was no longer as difficult as I had originally believed and I realised what potential was out there - the tools for self-publishing are cheap and easy to use.  I had also found that many of the things that I could do with my self-published books were not available to me to use on Between the Sierra and the Sea.  For example I could not reduce the price of the ebook version; I couldn't offer a free sample; I had no control over the translation rights.   I still had to try to market the book because the publisher wasn't interested in doing it, but without all the tools that were available to a self-published work,  It was frustrating so, using the lack of sales as a justification, I asked them to withdraw the book.  This they agreed to do - after all they had already been handsomely paid - and the book was back under my control.
After some editing I have now republished the same novel under the name of Spanish Lavender and it is available both as an ebook and in print.  I hope that the sales will now improve, at least of the ebooks.
Amazon Kindle
Smashwords
www.amazon.co.uk

I began to write THE ONLY BLUE DOOR about two years ago, after reading an article in a magazine about children who were sent to Australia by the British government as child migrants.  Many of these children were told that their parents were dead and were either placed with foster families or put into orphanages.  It wasn't revealed until 1986, when a Nottingham social worker called Margaret Humphreys was investigating the case of one of these children, then a grown woman, that many of the children were not orphans, they had families alive and well in England.   She set about tracing more families and eventually revealed the truth of what had taken place.  (You can read her story in her book Empty Cradles.)

I felt inspired by what she had done to write a novel based on the events of that time.   The protagonists are three young children who, through a series of events, are wrongly labelled as orphans and sent to Australia.  The novel follows their stories, their heartbreak and separation, their resilience and above all their belief that one day they will find their mother and return home. 

After over a year of sending my manuscript out to every publisher and agent imaginable, I have at last decided to self-publish this latest novel.  It wasn't that it was badly received by them, in fact there was quite a lot of interest in the book but, in the end, no-one wanted to take a chance on it .  One publisher was convinced it would make an excellent Young Adult book and persuaded me to make some substantial changes to suit a younger readership.  In the end her colleagues considered that, even after my adjustments, it was  still too adult for their readers so I had to revert to the original format.  I did more editing and more changes until at last I had it as I wanted.

I have done a lot of research into the topic of child migrants, something that still pops up in the news from time to time, and have tried to be faithful to the facts even though this is a work of fiction.  Looking back, from the perspective of life today, it is hard to believe that children were taken from their homes and families and sent half-way across the world.  To us it seems callous and unfeeling but I do not doubt that many people involved truly believed that they were doing the best for the children at the time.  There was also a political agenda then, in that Australia was desperate for immigrants and welcomed these children with open arms and not too much soul-searching.

Despite the serious theme of the book, I have endeavoured to make it an enjoyable story about three children who face a new life with resilience and courage.  My biggest problem with the novel was how to give it a positive/happy ending while still staying true to the story.  You will have to read it yourself to judge whether I have managed to achieve this.

It is available in a variety of ebook formats through Smashwords and Kindle and is due to be printed in paperback within a week or so.