Last year, I released Hybrid, and based on my lack of time and funds, my sales were extremely low. To increase my subscriber base, I wrote a new chapter one night from a beloved secondary character's perspective and made it exclusive to all website subscribers. The feedback I'd received on it, was always positive, so I was extremely happy with providing it as the incentive. A few months into providing this chapter as an incentive, I decided to commission and illustration of one of my favorite scenes: Rowen & Gabriel's first kiss.
I wanted this illustration to become a high quality print I could offer as an add-on to purchase with the book on my website. I worked very closely with the illustrator, going back and forth with changes I wanted. She was more than willing to accommodate and I had a fantastic time working with her. If ever you need to commission a realistic illustration, go here. She's incredible and extremely professional, and also very sweet. And she's also proof that there is real talent on Fiverr, deserving of commissions and praise for their work. When the image was finished, I was so in love with how it turned out, I began experimenting making an alternative cover for Hybrid. For funsies. Now, this next part is important backstory for you to understand what the hell I was thinking--a critical view into my psyche. Like you asked for it. Insert smirk emoji here.
When I first realized that being a writer was my calling at the age of twelve, I envisioned my name, J. Lynn Toussaint on the cover of future books. Not understanding that people would call me Lynn--which I do not go by--until I was in my twenties, I changed my pen name to J.L. Toussaint. Well, I gave up my author dreams and didn't think about writing Hybrid for many years out of frustration and lack of confidence. It wasn't until I was close to forty, that decided to write again, and by then, I had gotten married. So, with my new last name, Buckley, I loved seeing J.L. Buckley on the cover. I loved my new last name. It was easy to pronounce, and recognizable thanks to Author William F. Buckley. No relation, of course. As it would later turn out, a major change in my personal life occurred only a few months before I released Hybrid. I ended my twelve-year marriage/twenty-three year relationship with my husband and father of my two children.
It has been a complicated yet amicable split, and I will not go into detail. I hadn't intended on changing my name back to Toussaint so that I would still have the same last name as my children, but after many months of contemplation, I decided to reclaim the last name I had thrown away so easily before. Further, I wanted to change my pen name to remove the name I associate with many happy, wonderful things that happened, but also the name I had as I endured the farthest from spirit, and myself, I had ever become.
Hybrid was published under J.L. Buckley, and upon futile attempts to make the switch to J.L. Toussaint, I discovered Amazon didn't allow for the primary author name to change on a published book. And when the consequences of making the change fully hit, it devastated me.
It meant that to have my new old author name, I would have to re-release Hybrid under it and lose the few reviews I had and my 4.6 star rating. It didn't seem worth it. Was I really going to start back at zero because I wanted to take back my name? What would that even look like? It would be silly to do that for so many reasons.
Changing my author name wasn't justifiable enough to lose what little progress I had made. So, I tabled the idea until I could figure out a viable solution that would allow me take back my maiden name as my pen name without losing anything.
A month or so later, the solution hadn't presented itself. I looked at everything I could to try to make it work, but it simply wouldn't. So I shifted gears and perspective. I would release Hybrid again, but I had to make sure re-releasing it would provide more than just a name change. Luckily, since the initial release, I had made many little edits here and there as I found errors, or discovered sentences or paragraphs that needed some slight rewording. The manuscript itself remained largely the same, but I had a better product overall. Between having a new chapter, the minor edits, and a beautiful illustration, I had enough to release it as a new edition. A special edition.
The next step was to look at the logistics of how that could be accomplished on Amazon KDP. Little did I know it would be a much more complicated process than before, and being me--someone who struggles to prioritize work over fun because my life is so damn chaotic and stressful--I chose to distract myself with the fun stuff while my brain did the heavy background logistics processing. This procrastination/avoidance method always worked well for me in the past. It's how I originally wrote Hybrid in the first place. Cover first, manuscript later.
Back to the cover designing I went!
Now, I wasn't sure I wanted to reveal my new, gorgeous illustration prior to offering the prints with the release of the new edition. I wanted to keep it secret, keep it safe, and if you got that reference, you're likely as old as I am and also awesome! Here's where you see a brief montage of cover designs. The first one being the illustration faded into the background with a very simple crossing of Rowen's sai, and the existing Hybrid title. I still wasn't sure I wanted to reveal this illustration though, so I moved on and stumbled upon the next design. As you can see, I returned one of the purple peonies from the original cover, adding it as a backdrop between the sai and the title. It was a callback to OG cover, an homage, and when I added the Polaris-like image behind it, well, I was onto something. Notice the author change at this point?
I played around with this cover for several weeks, tweaking the sizing of each component of the cover, but overall keeping the design the same. Then one day, I had the idea of bringing their illustration into the mix. Prior to Hybrid's official release in May of 2024, I had a completely different cover. The structure of the design had gone through many iterations as you can see from my previous blog post here, but then it stayed the same for quite some time: Rowen and Gabriel behind a pair of wings behind the title.
For shits and giggles, I tried it to see what it would look like with the new illustration. But I didn't want the wings. The wings would look "too religious" as one random person in a self-publishing facebook group told me. It looked okay, but it wasn't amazing. I needed amazing. So I kept going until I was finally onto something.
As beautiful as it was, it still lacked that wow factor. It needed a little more. In come the wings, and the sparkles, and BAM, I've got myself a special new cover for a special new edition of an incredibly special book. I swallowed my pride, used my transit wheel on my birth chart (IYKYK) and decided on a release date. It would release the same day I planned to release Part II.
Unfortunately, I had gotten so far behind on edits for Part II, that there was no way to meet the deadline, so I then put forth all my effort into releasing Hybrid for the second time. This blog is a testament to my faith that my new cover, and new manuscript content/design, will prove that my book is just as good, if not better and as deserving as traditionally published novels for thousands, if not millions of readers to find and love. To fall in love with. Not just with the story or characters, but with the idea that self-publishing is not only possible, but being a successful self-published author is as well. Going a step further, following your dreams is possible. If you have the passion and desire to do something you've always wanted to do, never EVER give up on it and yourself. Anything is possible if you trust in yourself and the universe. Yeah, it takes a lot of goddamn work and perseverance, but if you are doing what you are meant to do, the universe will give you a big hand by removing all the things that stand in your way and aligning all the things that will being you success.
Never give up.
Release day is less than ten days away at the time of this writing, and I am excited, but stoic. There's a sense of calm that comes with trusting that this project of mine is heading in the direction it was always meant to go in. From the day of conception twenty-five years ago, to now, I have always been on the right path. I simply couldn't see the path to trust it. But now, I don't have to "see" it at all. I feel it to my core and have had this feeling since I began writing it for the last time in 2021. Mark my words. One day, this blog will be a beautiful reminder of just how far I had come to get to this point, of everything I let go of, all the healing I've done, and it's only the beginning of where these books will take me.
💜
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