Carole Mortimer's ALPHA Series

The strangest thing happened to me in the middle of September this year—I woke up in the middle of the night with a whole series of books and their storylines buzzing about in my head. I had even designed the covers for the first four books in the series while I was asleep, too.

It was incredible. I’ve been writing for Harlequin Presents for 36 years, and also the Harlequin Historical line for the past 5 years too. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before.

The books I dreamt about that night have become the ALPHA ebook series, and the first novella in the series, Christmas Alpha, was published on November 8^th, and is currently available for download on Amazon, B&N, iTunes, Kobo, and Smashwords. The second full-length ebook, Dark Alpha, is also available for pre-order on the same retail sites, with a publication date of January 18^th 2015. The third and fourth books will be published in March and May of 2015. And there are more books to come!

The stories in the ALPHA series have sexier situations and language, than my other books, and after thinking about the storylines, and wanting to get the ebooks out to my readers as soon as possible, I made the decision to self-publish the series.

Which is when the adventure really began!

Never let anyone tell you that Indie publishing is easy, because it’s not—but what it is a barrel load of fun! It’s also hard work and dedication, and I have a whole lot of respect and admiration for all you Indie authors out there who have been doing this for several years.

I’ve always written fast, and having written the novella to launch the series in just three weeks, I needed to also have my ‘team’ if I was going to become a publisher myself.

My son Josh is my wing-man—he is truly amazing, and has worked so hard to help me launch this series, with ads and blogs, designing a newsletter, and he always, always has my back.

My editor was recommended to me by a close friend—and it has truly been a wonderful partnership. I can’t thank Megan Stevens enough to putting up with my English idiosyncrasies, and helping to make these stories better than I had even dreamt they would be.

I had a bit more of a problem finding a formatter who could do the work in time for a November 8^th publishing date, but luckily Julie Cupp, a Formatting fairy, proved invaluable. My son Matt is currently learning to format—so we are truly becoming a family ‘business’.

Having dreamt the covers, and then had those covers designed by my website lady, Jo, we then talked it over and decided to revamp my website page, to reflect this new ALPHA series as well as my Harlequin books. The result is stunning, thanks to Jo.

Along with writing the books, and finding the editor, formatter, cover designer, there is also the little matter of Copyright, and ISBN numbers to buy and register.

Are you having fun yet?

Because I was, and I still am. 

Indie publishing is not for everyone, I understand and respect that, but for those of you who want to publish yourself I can’t tell you how wonderful this whole process has been for me. I love everything about it, from writing the stories, editing, designing the covers, to choosing the publishing date. Christmas Alpha was written in September, and just 5 short weeks later it’s now published.

Now that’s have fun!

Carole Mortimer.

Website: www.carolemortimer.co.uk

Facebook: www.facebookCaroleMortimerAuthor

Email: contact@carolemortimer.co.uk

A link for signing up for my monthly newsletter, for news on Carole Mortimer and current and future publishing dates and titles of books, can be found on my website and also on my Facebook page.