What Fresh Hell is this?

Love at First Bite rises from the Grave.... again.

About a week and change ago, I learned a fun new fact.

Three Ravens Press is divesting itself of a lot of properties, trying to focus on their primary IPs—something called JTF13 and something else called Car Wars. If you don’t know what these things are, I’m not going to explain.

What does this matter to me worth a damn?

Fun fact: my original Love at First Bite trilogy came out through them…

Yes. This series has killed yet ANOTHER publisher.¹

For those of you keeping score at home, this is the fifth edition of the first book, and edition four for the rest.

In the beginning, Honor at Stake went through Damnation Press. Yes. Really. A technically “Christian book” series went through Damnation.

When Honor at Stake was nominated for the Dragons in the first year, I really wanted book two to come out in short order. Damnation Press was taking their time. They gave it back to me. It felt like they threw it at me.

In short order, I found out why:

I believe within the month of my publishing what is now Demons are Forever,² Damnation press folded like a house of cards. It was bought out and eaten by another publisher. Don’t ask me the name, I don’t recall.

I self-published Honor at Stake and the rest of the series between 2016 and 2017.

Book three, Live and Let Bite, was nominated for a Dragon in 2017.

2017? Yeah, it had to be 2017.

In 2018, Silver Empire Press, run by morgon and Russell Newquist, picked up the whole vampire series, my entire Pius series, and they pushed me to write Saint Tommy NYPD.

Then 2020 hit. Eventually, Covid and associated policies led to the death of Silver Empire in 2022, in a tale that they will get around to telling in their own good time.

With nothing else for it, I shopped it around. Love at First Bite was picked up by Three Ravens, and rereleased in 2023.

Three Ravens was also going to publish Honeymoon from Hell. But I wanted to give them four books at a time. (Yes, four. I would have self-published Cross Over.) By the time I wrapped up the series, their situation had changed, and Three Ravens wasn’t taking on any new series. If it was not their IP, it was not their problem.

Flash forward to now, and circumstances have changed. Again.

No, Three Ravens isn’t dying. I guess they’re ditching Love at First Bite before it kills them like it has the others. Heh.³

I’m just going back to straight up self-publishing the whole bloody thing. Like I said, Book one is on the fifth edition. No one wants to republish something that’s already come out repeatedly. I’ve even tried some of the usual suspects already, to no avail. Yes, that one. I know what you’re thinking.

So, I’m getting them all republished. Again. By the time you read this, the latest, self-published editions should be up and running at the usual links. I hope.

We’ll see what happens.

At this point, I just want my books available to everyone who might be interested. Self-publishing is just the most reliable way at the moment. You know, until Amazon just de-platforms me for no reason. I’m certain it’s coming eventually.

But yeah. I’ve been doing this dance for fifteen years. After 40 books (I recently counted), I’ve run out of patience. I have no Ducks left to give. All your ducks are belong to us. Quack.

No. I promise you I’m not losing my mind. Not so that anyone would notice a difference. But if you don’t get the reference, I’m not going to explain it.

Yes, I’m at the point where this feels just plain Sisyphean. I’m really hoping that Blaine likes my work, so I can keep writing novels for Land & Sea, maybe focus on them as my primary work from here on out, and do other novels and shorts in my down time. Maybe I can have down time. Maybe I can even force myself to go to conventions and do nothing by hang out and just …. interact with people. Wouldn’t that be odd?

Anyway, so the Love at First Bite books are being republished, by me, myself and I.

The funny thing is, Three Ravens told me about this change right before I had a new marketing campaign ready go to.

That’s probably a good thing. The marketing relied on reviews from JD Cowan (who reviewed the series when the books first came out), and he’s currently been kicked off of social media, for reasons no one is particularly certain of. It’s weird, but life is getting weirder in general. Or I could be coming down with something. Or both.

I should be coming out with a list of Dragon Award suggestions for you sometime soon. We’ll see. So far, I’m thinking Richard Paolinelli and Shami Stovall. I’m not sure who else, yet. Then again, I’ll have to double check the categories. They keep changing on me.

No, I’m not pushing On Tiber’s Edge for an award. I don’t think Wargate or Blaine care about awards. The Dragons no longer has a Military SF category. And I’ve burned months of my life just trying to host discussions on the topic, so I’m just working with other people to cultivate the next list. I work with a review site, so why not?

Again, feel free to ask me anything in the comments. If you get an email, you can ping me through the comment button at the top.

And please, feel free to buy a book, or leave a book review. Either would be greatly appreciated.

1. I must stress right now that Three Ravens isn’t actually dead yet. Keep reading.

2. The original title was Murphy’s Law of Vampires. A title that every publisher since then has thought was too bloody long to fit on a cover.

3. I feel obligated to stress that this is a joke, more about Love at First Bite than it is about Three Ravens.