As I mentioned in a previous post, I finished writing The Sweetest Burn, book two in the Broken Destiny series, about two weeks ago. Then, I went on vacation, hence the silence on the blog. I’m back now, and on the move again with the RWA (Romance Writers of America) convention in New York next week. Before I pack that suitcase, however, I wanted to give everyone a head’s up about a question that I get asked a lot: what happened to the deleted scenes from the Night Huntress books that you used to have on your website?
First, an explanation to those of you who don’t already know the story. The first four Night Huntress books were the first books I had ever written, and I never thought they’d be published because, well, I hadn’t even started trying to get published at that point. I wrote them for me, which meant that I took more page time to explore the characters through alternate scenarios, multiple side plots, additional backstory, additional love scenes, and increased personal revelations.
At some point while I was writing book four, my husband suggested that I should see if I could get the first novel published before I kept writing more in the same series. I agreed, albeit reluctantly because again, I didn’t expect that these books would sell. I’d always been told that writers never sell the first book they wrote, and since no publisher would start at the second, third, or fourth book in a series, I figured that writing these would be nothing more than an enjoyable learning experience. Still, pursuing publication would pacify my husband, so I began looking for a literary agent. This was back in 2004, and I knew nothing about publishing nor did I know anyone in the industry. The digital market didn’t exist at this point, so self-publishing wasn’t a viable option. My chances were limited to having a literary agent sign me so that a publisher might take a chance on me, or never being published at all.
I revised my first book many times while shopping for an agent, and it was during those years that I learned to be ruthless about paring my story down to only the scenes that kept the pacing taut and advanced the main plot. This meant that later, I ended up taking out a lot of material from the original versions of my second, third, and fourth novels. This wasn’t easy because I loved those versions, but to quote Stephen King, sometimes, you have to kill your darlings. However, I saved all that extra material instead of outright deleting it. Over the years, I posted a scene or two to show readers some of what didn’t make it into the published novels, and I was surprised and delighted when readers requested more. Last year, I posted a large, alternate “middle” version of Destined For An Early Grave, Night Huntress book four, and when I asked readers if they wanted to see more alternate versions, the answer was a resounding yes.
That’s why I decided to compile my deleted scenes and alternate versions into one single file, so that readers could see the full version of Cat and Bones’s story in addition to the official, published novels. This has been a big task. Because of my many revisions, I had several different versions of each of the first four novels spread out onto old disks, CD’s, emails, and/or backup files on my hard drive. For added complication, some of the files were password-protected, and in the decade-plus since I wrote them, I forgot what the passwords were. That meant I had to comb through over ten years of “sent” files on my email to see if I’d emailed the story to any friends for feedback (I had, thank God!) Then, once I had versions I could actually open, I read through everything to pull out only the best scenes and alternate versions. I also wanted to include commentary as to why a particular scene or version didn’t make it into the published books so that readers could get a glimpse into my thought process. After that, I’m going to send the entire compilation to be professionally proofread and copy-edited. Needless to say, in their original versions, there were grammatical errors galore.
The result will be Outtakes From The Grave, a sort of pseudo-companion anthology which will contain all of the deleted scenes I previously posted, plus lots of never-before-posted scenes and three alternate versions from sections of three different books, all with added commentary. I’m still not done compiling everything, and already, it’s well over a hundred thousand words, so it will be longer than the length of a regular novel. I expect it to take another month before I have everything compiled and laid out in linear series timeline, then it will be off to copyediting and proofreading. All in all, I expect to self-publish Outtakes From The Grave in ebook toward the end of this year.
Sorry for the delay on this, but I hope this explanation clears up why it’s taken so long. Thank you for your patience, and I hope that once Outtakes From The Grave is available, you will enjoy revisiting Cat, Bones, and the rest of the Night Huntress gang as much as I enjoyed writing about them :).
For clarification, all of these deleted scenes and alternate versions are from the first four books of the Night Huntress series only.
I love outtakes and deleted scenes. What a great idea!
I hope you had a fabulous vacation. 🙂
I can not wait! Love all your books. But Cat and Bones will always be my favorites. I’ve read their book many times. Again and again. So anything new is eagerly anticipated.
I love your books
Omg can wait at least i get to have a bit of bones and cat for a bit.
Why not the other books ?
Love this series is all time favorite.
Readying my novels for publication taught me to only stick to the main plot, and my back-to-back deadlines meant that I could no longer write extra scenes or alternate versions just for my own enjoyment.
Will you be releasing a book version of outtakes from the grave? I love my books in paper form.
THAT’S SO EXCITING!!!! I can’t WAIT!!!!
That is awesome! I love everything about these books and can’t wait to read the out takes. Thanks for taking the time to do this for your fans. 🙂
Sbould I assume the outtakes won’t be in audio version.. 🙁
I’m so sorry, but I will have to see. For a project of this size, an audio narrator would cost me several thousands of dollars up front, and I intend to price this ebook cheaply so that it isn’t cost-prohibitive for my readers. Because of this, I might not even recoup the money I will spend to have this professionally copy-edited and proofread. Pricing it lower means that I will only make 35% royalty on each sale, and 15% of that 35% goes right to my agent for her part in producing the ebook. If the ebook is priced at $.99, let’s say, then I will only make a little over a quarter per sale once all is said and done, and I still have to pay taxes on that whopping quarter, so what I actually get to keep will be even less. So, unless this sells in incredible numbers, the additional cost of hiring an audio narrator and producing an audio book will not be feasible. If things change, however, I would love to make this available in audio, too. It’s just too soon to tell right now.
Like Jack Canfield, from Chicken Soup for the Soul, said, it only takes 400,000 readers to make $100,000.00 🙂 You will get my dollar for sure.
Can not wait. Night Huntress is right there with Kate Daniels as my favorite UF series!
Love love the series and the deleted scenes that help us get more involved with the characters om this wonderful series
Thank you so much can’t wait
Can’t wait. I have read some of them and they were brilliant!
I am jumping for joy over this news!!! I’m talking seriously stoked! It will be like a visit with old friends. So glad you’re doing this. 😀
Love your books can’t wait for new books
Is there a way you would ever possibly publish this to paperback? I’m kind of old fashioned and love to have a physical book in hand.
I will look into print-on-demand for this once everything is finished. More to come :).
I would love to see it in paperback. I prefer to “hold” my books. I love this series and would certainly buy it in paperback.
Bones is my first book boyfriend. I love reading ANYTHING that has him. I can’t wait.
Love Cat and Bones.. The first time around wasn’t enough. Glad ther is more to come.
I’m so excited! My roommate introduced me to the books sometime around 2009 or 2010 and I’ve been hooked! I’ve loved everything 🙂 Can’t wait to read more!
Looking forward to the “Outtakes from the Grave” I have thoroughly enjoyed the series along with Night Prince, Night Huntress World and now Broken Destiny. I just like the way you write. Thank you!!
Amazing!!! I am very excited for the release of Outakes from the Grave. I can’t get enough of Cat & Bones.
I started reading your books years ago and have never regretted it! I met you at a book convention in VA a few years ago and you were just as amazing in person as I imagined. I am SO excited for this anthology!!!
This is probably the best news I’ve heard in months. I found this series a little less than a year ago and immediately proceeded to run through the books back to back in my every free minute until I finished the series in just a few days. I couldn’t wait to find out the next thing to happen at the end of each book and to see more of their lives. When I got to the last book and realised there were not going to be any more, I was beside myself. So, naturally, I proceeded to re-read them all and make all my friends read them as well so I could talk about them. This series and the characters you created are so addictive and well written that I felt as though I knew them and experienced the ups and downs of their lives with them. I can’t wait to get more peaks into their world and their wonderful story. I just want to say a heartfelt thanks for you taking the time out to do something like this for your fans. We all sincerely appreciate it.
So is this still planned for the end 2015? I sure hope so. The alternate middle story posted last summer was definitely interesting. I can’t wait to see what else turned out different.
Still planning to release it at the end of 2015, yes. Not giving a definite date because I found more files, so I’m incorporating them into the antho. Then, it’s a matter of seeing how long the copyeditor takes to clean up the files. Since some were very old first drafts, this needs a LOT of cleaning ;).
I can’t access the link to the alternate middle version of Destined for an Early Grave. It says the page is not found. Can I get it some other way or was it purposefully deleted?
It was purposefully deleted. I said in my original posting of it that it would only be up for a limited time. I actually left it up about 6 months longer than my stated take-down date. It does appear in Outtakes From The Grave, though.
Hi Jeaniene,
Firstly id like to thank you for your clever writing, it is such a joy. Every time I pick up a book it is like watching a movie as your descriptions give such a clear visual and I can switch off from the day to day.
I’m about to reread (again) Cat & Bones series & have tried a few different sites to purchase the Outtakes Anthology in paperback form. This time i would like to read all stories in order. I know its a few years later but Im hoping there is a paper version of Night Huntress Outtakes collection?
Just wanted to say I loved Vlad too but have to say Mencheres is still my top fav.
Also Im hoping that you might have a collection of all your short E-bk stories in one or two books?
I’m a bit old school where I love reading a good book hidden away in some corner going off to visit my fav family.
Thank you