Five years ago after taking a workshop on the subject, I tried something called “flash publishing.” All the books in a series (titled Self-Inflicted Wounds) published in rapid succession, in my case, three books in three months.

Get three books ready essentially simultaneously? How difficult could that be?

Well, a lot, but let’s not waste time bemoaning the fact.

The manuscripts were fully edited (more on that in a moment) and formatted. I’d already started marketing the flash release. Only one thing, well, three things, were missing.

Covers.

The first release date was fast approaching. I did have a concept for the first book (Welcome to Belgrade). I have this thing about eyes and spies, because spies use their eyes. A lot. So I came up with a cover featuring a woman’s eyes in black. The rest of the cover was red and white. Not the best in the world, but it worked.

Book 2 (Dangerous Truths) I came up with the same color red background with criss-crossing strands of barbed wire. Again, not terribly creative, but it also worked.

Finally, book 3 (And Justice for All) had a brighter, more optimistic color to imply that in the conclusion, justice had been achieved, along with a silhouette of a statue of Justice, a woman wielding a sword in one hand and a balance scale in the other, a common symbol for justice. Again, it worked.

However, I’m not a graphic artist, and where I can paint a picture with words, I can’t do fine art for s**t.

Recently, I came across an artist on social media and liked his samples, so I commissioned a cover for an upcoming series that won’t start publishing until late 2026. I liked it so much and the fact that he’d captured the image I had in my head, that I asked him to reboot the covers for Self-Inflicted Wounds.

With a certain amount of embarrassment, I sent him the old covers and the back cover copy for each book, and what he gave me was amazing.

He captured the drama and grittiness of Belgrade in the year 2000, and he’d included the eyes.

Much better!

I needed, of course, to give this artist credit, so I searched for the manuscript’s original Vellum file from formatting it. Nada.

Turns out when I bought a new iMac and transferred files from the old iMac, I lost files from 2021 and 2020. Self-Inflicted Wounds was published in 2020.

No problem, I’ll ask my editor to send me a copy of her final mark-up.

Turns out I left editing out of the process. I mean, it was edited several times by me, but that’s not the same as a fresh set of eyes. I mean, all three books had plenty of sales and good reviews, so there was that. But I though they could be better.

So, with my proof copy of Welcome to Belgrade at hand, I retyped the entire manuscript. The cover wasn’t the only thing rebooted. As I retyped, I made some minor edits myself, then sent it off to my editor. Better late than not at all.

Also, no more flash publishing. I hope to upload the rebooted Welcome to Belgrade by the end of October, and since I’m now retyping book 2 (to be followed by retyping book 3), it’ll take a few more months to get the whole series rebooted.

So, a lot of lessons learned from this: Even though you thought you’d backed-up everything in multiple places, add another layer; don’t forget the editor; and don’t do the covers yourself–hire someone who knows what they’re doing.