If you own a Kindle version of Stitch, you may have received an email from Amazon in the wee hours of the morning that went something a little like this:
An updated version of your past Kindle purchase of Stitch (Stitch Trilogy, Book 1) by Samantha Durante is now available. The updated version contains the following changes: – Typos have been corrected. – Significant editorial changes have been made.
Since that email is entirely cryptic and makes the changes I made sound completely overblown, I just wanted to post some clarification. To be clear: NO EDITORIAL CHANGES HAVE BEEN MADE TO STITCH.
In case you’re curious, these are the actual changes I made:
My reaction while reading Amazon’s email
1. Fixed two typos
In Ch 12 when Alessa is reflecting on how mortified she is about running away from Nikhil, one sentence had read, “She couldn’t imagine how she would face him tomorrow, or whenever she happened to see him next, if he even wanted to her see again.” I fixed it to read “see her” as was intended. (Shout out to reader Brianna for bringing this one to my attention!)
In the Acknowledgements, I somehow misspelled Stephenie Meyer’s name (used “Stephanie” with an “a” by accident), so I fixed it while I was in there.
2. Added a Note to Readers
Since publishing the book almost eight months ago, I’ve learned a lot about what it takes to succeed as an author, and the one thing I’ve relied on almost completely is help from my readers. Whether bloggers or just plain bibliophiles, you readers are the only reason Stitch has sold any copies, because you’ve all been SO supportive in posting reviews, telling friends on Goodreads and Facebook, blogging/tweeting/shouting from the rooftops about Stitch. So I wanted to take a moment to say, “Thank you!” and explain to readers just how much this really means to us authors, since as a reader, I never knew!
In case you’re interested and don’t feel like updating your Kindle, this is what the note says:
Dear Reader, Thank you, thank you, thank you for making time in your busy schedule to read Stitch. It is an absolute honor to share Alessa and Isaac’s story with you, and I’m thrilled that you chose this book out of the millions of incredible books at your disposal. Truly, I cannot thank you enough. You are a dream come true. If you enjoyed Stitch and are interested in reading the rest of the series, I encourage you to join the Stitch community at www.samanthadurante.com to sign up for notifications of future Stitch Trilogy releases and to keep up with the tons of exciting extra content that’s published on my blog, Facebook pages, Twitter account, and Goodreads page almost every day. I also wanted to take a moment to express my sincere gratitude to all of the fans who have so graciously spread the word about Stitch on their blogs and social media. This book could never have succeeded without your help, and I am utterly in your debt. You guys are amazing – I really can’t say it enough. I’ve been reading books since I can remember, but until I began writing professionally, I never understood how truly dependent authors are on their fans. As a reader, I always assumed that a good author would get picked up by an agent and publisher, and that those allies would use their arsenals of marketing and PR tools to ensure that the author’s books would reach their rightful audience. And perhaps things used to be like this, once upon a time, but the publishing industry is changing, and unfortunately this is no longer the case. The traditional publishing model just isn’t working anymore, and as a result, up-and-coming authors are often passed over altogether in favor of proven sellers. And even those authors lucky enough to find a publisher are not afforded the same amount of support in the marketing department that they once could expect. That means authors now have to know not only how to write but also how to market their work effectively. As an author, I’ve since learned that my number one ally in the challenging endeavor of finding an audience for my books is not the marketers and PR people I once thought, but the readers themselves. Every review on Amazon and Goodreads, every recommendation to a friend, every mention on a blog or Facebook post or tweet has been absolutely invaluable towards Stitch’s success. So thank you a million times over to everyone who has done this for Stitch, or for any book – you have no idea how important (and appreciated!) you truly are. As a reader, you hold so much power to aid the authors you love. If you enjoyed this book – or any book – I encourage you to write a review, tell someone about it, post about it online, and reach out to the author to let them know. Take whatever steps you can to share your love with the world, because your words really do matter. Thank you so much for all of your support! Samantha
Again, to be clear, this was the only “editorial change” made. I did NOT edit the story in any way, so PLEASE don’t go updating your Kindle and hoping for a “new and improved” version of Stitch, b/c it’s NOT THERE!
I wish Amazon had been more clear about this in their email, but alas, there is little transparency in their policies when it comes to these things, and even littler power allowed to us authors to control what happens with our book once we hit the “publish” button. I actually knew this was a possibility when I was considering publishing the changes, but after repeated emails to Amazon asking for clarification about what would happen came back with a form response that basically said “it depends,” I decided to just go for it. If I knew they were going to make it sound like I’d rewritten the ending or something, I might have reconsidered… But what’s done is done, I guess.
In case you’re wondering, there was a motivating factor behind these changes. With Shudder coming out in June – and therefore upcoming promotions for Stitch (details TBA!) to help get more readers into the series – I wanted to make these changes before a lot more people (hopefully) owned the book, on the off chance that Amazon ended up doing exactly what it did. So I apologize to those of you who currently own Stitch and who were the unwilling guinea pigs in this experiment, but I promise it was for the greater good. (Haha, now I’m starting to sound like the Engineers!)
Anyway, sorry for any confusion and I hope this helps clear things up!