Your exclusive book previews & my first Substack: Publisher Divorce Edition! Vol 1
Grab your exclusive book previews!
This link was in the welcome email, but it bears repeating and keeping in the archives … as a Friend of the Flock, I'm delighted to offer you a preview of my award-winning true crime memoir Chained Birds: A Crimemoir, and my upcoming true crime book, The Jacklighter: Murder, Secrets, and the Hunt for Truth in Small-Town Pennsylvania, coming in 2026.
🔗 Download your free previews here.
I divorced my publisher!
As I've noted, this Substack promises not just true crime insights and exclusives for my books, but some indie publishing confessions, i.e., the nitty-gritty of going from a traditionally published author to flying solo as an indie-pubbed one under my own imprint, Crimemoir Press.
This summer, I got the rights back to my debut true crime memoir, Chained Birds, and left traditional publishing … and I couldn't be happier 🥳 It was surprisingly quick and easy: I asked my former publisher, WildBlue Press, for a rights reversion for Chained Birds and an exit plan, and they agreed. They did not have to. My contract contained no stipulation for this, and after a little bit of back-and-forth, they were willing. Neither one of us had been happy with Chained Birds' sales, and they weren't interested in boosting it further, so we had an amicable parting of the ways. I'll always be grateful to WildBlue for taking a chance on me and my book, and then giving it all back to me when I asked, less than a year from its first release.
More acclaim than sales
Some of the typical reasons authors try to get the rights back to their books applied to me: lack of marketing and support, less-than-stellar communication (primarily due to staffing issues), and poor sales. Just how poor, you might wonder? So poor, that right now, I can't even bear to type out the exact number of copies sold in all formats (eBook, hardcover, paperback, and the author-narrated/studio-produced audiobook.) Let's just say it's well south of 1,000 copies. As I processed my abysmal sales figures this spring, I figured that I could not possibly do any worse commercially by taking over stewardship of my book, and so I set my plan in motion to regain control.
I remained puzzled that there'd been no correlation to the many (almost obscene number, really) of book awards Chained Birds has won in the last year, and book sales. But as I matured from the starry-eyed debut to a jaded author with a better understanding of the publishing world, I realized this was not unusual. And with even more time and perspective, I understood there were a bunch of factors that resulted in my book's "meh" launch and performance.
How to tank a debut book
Release the book exactly one week after a hotly contentious presidential election.
(Yep, Chained Birds: A True Crime Memoir—I was okay with that subtitle, more on that in a minute—launched on Nov. 12, 2024. It had originally been set to release in September, but was pushed back. Super unfortunate.)Pull the book and all advertising 10 days after launch because not enough people are clicking on the Amazon ads, which must mean the cover and subtitle are not right to begin with, and blame the author for having too much influence over the bad cover.
Re-launch the book with a slightly better cover and subtitle that is so long that a.) the author can never remember it, and b.) it doesn't show up in thumbnail size due to the length, font size, and color. (For those who are curious, my blog is littered with cover and subtitle variations.)
Roll out that new cover weeks later and squander all Amazon "new release" boosts and category placements the book earned in its first 10 days, because a re-launched book doesn't count as a new release anymore.
Pull all Amazon advertising because the re-launch clearly isn't working.
Pull a Goodreads giveaway promotion because the re-launch clearly isn't working.
Rely solely on your publishing newsletter list, digital marketing reels, and free social media posts seen by a meager following to sell a digital and print-on-demand product with no distribution other than Amazon and Ingram.
Okay, I know this sounds bitter. But remember, I'm jaded now and I understand how publishing works, which means I also know these two industry truisms also factored in my book's "meh" performance:
There are too many goddamn books in the world because everyone is a flippin' publisher and we're all fighting for exposure. Reliable figures say upwards of 3 MILLION new books are published in the U.S. alone each year, most of which are self-published. Even books whose publishers invest in marketing and promotion and distribute their titles to book stores and libraries struggle.
Singular titles released by authors with no backlist or social media platform—and are not lead titles by a Big-5 publisher with a healthy marketing budget—suffer from a "screaming-into-the-void" syndrome. (I made up that syndrome, which is not copyrighted. You're welcome.)
Chained Birds re-launched
I have much to say about the arduous, shit-stormy process of releasing and promoting one's own books, but I'll save those details for future newsletters. I'll just state the obvious: I've re-launched Chained Birds: A Crimemoir (the subtitle I wanted all along) in August 2025, and as of this post, it is still not available on all planned platforms. Things are in progress, and it is a slog, but Chained Birds is going to be available "wide," as they say, at many more places than it once was.
I’m most excited for my author-narrated audiobook to appear on places like Spotify, Kobo, Chirp, and in libraries, in addition to Audible/Amazon. The audiobook is now being distributed through Voices by INaudio, and its availability on the new platforms is coming in the next couple of weeks (I am told).
🔗 I’m keeping tabs on all the Chained Birds’ purchase locations here.
There's still time to enter my August Goodreads Giveaway!
To celebrate the re-launch of Chained Birds, I'm giving away 100 eBook copies, so if that interests you, head on over to Goodreads to enter. The eBook version is the only edition that will show all the new images in COLOR 🎉👏 And if you haven't joined Goodreads yet, now's the perfect time—Goodreads is where you can discover your next favorite book, track your reading journey, and connect with a community of book lovers worldwide 📚👥👥👥
I hope to visit your inbox most Fridays!
I emphasize hope, because, let’s be real, I may not have something interesting to say every Friday … and also, this Substack is free, so let’s not get too excited about a regular schedule yet 🤣
What’s up for next time?
More Chained Birds bonus material … the freebies will just keep coming.
Moving on! My true crime work-in-progress is The Jacklighter, and I’ll share a little bit about this new journey.
Killer Nashville — I’m appearing this week on two true crime panels and one memoir panel at the 20th Killer Nashville writers’ conference. I’m particularly excited to be paneling with keynote speaker and best-selling true crime author Caitlin Rother! And I did find time to visit the Johnny Cash museum, and the artist, I learned, has a surprising connection to Chained Birds, which I’ll explain next time … 😱
That’s all for this week, folks! Until the next!
Ciao!
Carla