When you’ve been with me some time, you would possibly keep in mind my rave review of The Caged Graves by Dianne Ok. Salerni. My pal was gushing about it at work sooner or later and provided to let me borrow her library copy. I liked it! I’ve all the time liked Gothic tales that mix romance and thriller, and that’s what you’re getting in the event you select to choose this one up. It’s YA in nature and content material, however it reads like grownup historic fiction so it’s an awesome crossover story for all ages. I noticed The Caged Graves fall off the market a number of years in the past and all the time puzzled what occurred. I made a decision to write down to Dianne and see the place it went. To my delight, she determined to self publish it after getting her rights again when her previous writer was acquired and it went dwell on Amazon this month!
It’s my pleasure to welcome Dianne to the weblog at this time to share somewhat bit about her experiences with self publishing all through her profession. I like studying about how authors get began, and I had enjoyable to get to know Dianne somewhat higher!
Dianne Ok. Salerni’s Journey with Self Publishing
This month I used to be delighted to add The Caged Graves to Amazon Kindle. The Caged Graves was my second novel, initially revealed by Clarion Books in 2013. It went out of print a number of years in the past, and when the rights returned to me, I made a decision to self-publish it. What many individuals don’t know is that this isn’t my first foray into self-publishing.
My profession as an creator started with a self-published novel titled Excessive Spirits: A Story of Ghostly Rapping and Romance which launched in Might of 2007, a number of months earlier than Amazon launched their first Kindle. E-books weren’t but a factor when Excessive Spirits got here out. Self-publishing at the moment meant paying an organization to create print-on-demand copies of your manuscript. It was pricey, and it additionally meant accepting the black cloud that clung to self-publishing. We known as ourselves “Indie Authors,” however individuals nonetheless tended to again away slowly once they discovered how our works got here to exist.
Regardless of that stigma, my guide did nicely sufficient to be a magnet for Sourcebooks. They had been launching a brand new YA imprint, Sourcebooks Hearth, and so they provided a deal to re-publish Excessive Spirits with a brand new edit and a brand new title. Subsequently, We Hear the Useless launched in 2010. I grew to become a historically revealed creator, and more often than not I instructed individuals We Hear the Useless was my first guide as a result of self-publishing had such a nasty popularity.
These days, self-publishing is simple, free, and much more revered than it was once. It’s time to cease hiding my firstborn, Excessive Spirits. I do know now that it was too wordy, and the We Hear the Useless model is best because of the steerage of an expert editor. Nevertheless it existed, and I may not be an creator at this time with out it.
DIANNE Ok SALERNI is the creator of YA and center grade fiction, together with The Caged Graves, The Eighth Day, and The Carrefour Curse. She enjoys creepy cemeteries, ghost looking courses, climbing historic pyramids, and serving the feline overlords at her native animal shelter.
The Caged Graves by Dianne Ok. Salerni
Self-published on March 13, 2026 (initially revealed by Clarion Books on Might 14, 2013)
Genres: Historic Fiction, Thriller
Pages: 251
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“In Catawissa, typically the lifeless don’t keep the place you set them.”
The yr is 1867, and seventeen-year-old Verity Boone is returning to her birthplace in Catawissa, Pennsylvania after fifteen years away. She is worked up to satisfy her betrothed, a younger man she is aware of solely by means of his charming letters, and solely barely apprehensive about reuniting with a father she barely remembers. Verity expects the transition from town lifetime of Worcester, Massachusetts, the place she was raised by distant relations after the demise of her mom, to the agricultural farmlands of Catawissa can be a problem. However she didn’t anticipate simply how distant and aloof her father can be, how unwelcoming his home, and she or he didn’t anticipate her future husband, Nate, to be as bumbling in particular person as he was eloquent on paper. Did he even write the letters himself?
Even worse awaits her within the city cemetery the place Verity finds the graves of her mom and an aunt she by no means knew remoted from the remainder, in unsanctified floor, and surrounded by iron cages. Nobody, not even her father, will inform her the complete story behind this shameful interment, and everybody admonishes her to depart nicely sufficient alone and concentrate on her upcoming marriage. However Verity stubbornly pursues the reality, which leads her into troubling features of native historical past, together with a legendary treasure in gold cash and ugly “incidents” within the cemetery.
If Verity isn’t cautious, she would possibly find yourself in a grave of her personal.
