I'm FREE!!!! Rights returned!!

Hi all. This is Francesca Hawley. I've been quiet for a while and part of the reason for that was that I've been waiting for the rights to my books to revert to me so I had control over my works again.

Some of you may have noticed that when I had Rae Monet redesign my web site, we left my EC titles off the Books page. There was a reason for that. The last royalties I was paid for by Ellora's Cave was for June 2015. It's not that I was making a lot of money anyway. I wasn't, but it is the principle of the thing. For years they had faithfully paid me SOMETHING every single month. But then the checks stopped and I had no recourse. That's well over a year of being paid no royalties.

This was especially upsetting to me because I'd always felt I had a good working relationship with the staff and owners of EC. I couldn't understand why this was happening.

Although, I received no money, I wasn't given the rights to my books back either because I was told that my books sold over the minimum amount so my rights weren't returned to me.

Please note - this is solely MY experience. I make no claims about EC's business dealings with any other author.  
 
I took those titles off my new web site because I wanted my sales to drop enough that my rights would revert to me. That was beginning to work, but they still had two of my books - Alpha vs. Alpha and Cupid Rocks - and there seemed to be no end in site.

AvA is the first book in a series and I wanted it back, so I contacted EC to arrange a buy back. I'm especially happy about this because Ellora's Cave recently announced they will be closing their doors at the end of the year. Because of the buy back, I'm out well ahead of that time. I admit, I'm not thrilled that I had to pay to get my stuff back, but I'm incredibly relieved that we were able to come to an agreement. I can't go into details about the deal itself, but I can live with what I agreed to.

As of October 10, 2016, Alpha vs. Alpha and Cupid Rocks officially reverted back to me. That's all of my books. Finally. I'm making my shapeshifter books available to my readers again. I'm editing the books, arranging to get new covers made (by the fabulous, multi-talented Dar Albert of Wicked Smart designs), and putting them online for sale again.

Alpha vs. Alpha has been released and Dar is already at work on additional covers. Cupid Rocks is returning to its original concept as a Christmas release. The title will be Rockin' Little Christmas and is currently on preorder. Leader of the Pack will be available in December 2016 and in January or February, I'll rerelease Protect and Defend.

Is it all just rereleases? Nope. I'm going to be working on new stories as well. I've had several stories that I started but didn't finish them because I didn't want them to drive sales to my back list. NOW - I'm ready to move forward again. I'm super excited.

Do you have a favorite character from my shapeshifter books who you think deserves his/her own story? If so, let me know. I want to write stories to make my readers happy!!