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In our last exciting chapter, I’d resorted to self-publishing The Hell You Say, the third book in the Adrien English mystery series. Reception to this third book was encouraging, but the self-publishing gig was not in itself a money-making proposition.

Partly that had to do with the fact that the first two books in the Adrien English series were out of print and mostly unavailable (first editions of Fatal Shadows were literally going for hundreds of dollars on Ebay and Amazon.com). The way it works is that you don’t really begin to see money from a series until books three – five. Granted this is a traditional publishing dynamic, it might be different in e-book publishing. So, gratifying as it was to see people shelling out big bucks for my earlier work, it’s not like it was doing me any good -- other than that heart-warming thing, which we writers do need to keep going, I admit.

But then a couple of things happened.

By taking part in discussion lists and chats, I happened to meet Laura Baumbach, a writer of erotic M/M romance. I have to tell you right here that I was so totally out-of-touch that I wasn’t exactly even sure what M/M erotica meant. Was it just another name for gay porn? Or was it something different? I had literally no clue. But Laura was so embarrassingly, ridiculously kind about my work – championing my stories everywhere – that I got curious and read her work too. And a little light went on.

Elementary, my dear Watson!

M/M erotic romance was gay genre fiction with a certain sensibility. It had to do with the choice of language and imagery, the emotional content, and the focus on romance and relationship. I liked it. I always liked writing relationships – character being my favorite element in any work – so when Laura told me that my work would find an audience in the M/M market, I listened. Closely. Because Laura was a sharp cookie, and knew a lot of people and had a lot of experience – not to mention imagination and vision. Plus she loved my work, so I knew she was a wonderful person.

Laura and I began to chat about writing in general – like, why I needed to stop closing the bedroom door on Adrien’s love life – and about e-books. She recommended a couple of e-book publishers, and nervously – very nervously – I approached them with the electronic rights to all three books in my Adrien English series.

The other thing that happened was at the nudging of Wayne Gunn, I submitted The Hell You Say to the Lambda Literary Awards in the Gay Mystery category. And, to my shock, I short-listed for the award.

Hello, credibility. Goodbye, heartache.

And, after a bit of discussion with publishers (and me nearly backing out twice in panic at what I was getting myself into), I had a contract with the highly respected electronic publisher Loose Id -- and my backlist was available once more – as e-books.

And then Laura approached me with the news that she was starting her own publishing company, MLR Press, and would love to put my backlist – and anything else I wanted to write – into print.

Presto, change-o! All at once I had a publishing career again.