You might have seen a flurry of excited posts from Australian authors whose books have been nominated for the annual ARRA (Australian Romance Readers Association) Awards.
My book, THE LAIRD’S BRIDE was also nominated, and I was also thrilled, but I didn’t post anywhere about it. Read on to see why.
As well as being thrilled to be a finalist, I was also a little worried, as I wasn’t sure it was eligible. You see that story started life as a 12,000 word short story in the Mammoth Book of Scottish romance. But it was really too short, and a lot of readers said so.
Then last year I expanded it to 40,000 words and self published it. The first third is pretty much unchanged, and the rest is new. Because it was so much longer, I registered a new copyright date — June 2023.
Because of that, I wasn’t sure it could be claimed as a new book.
So I wrote to the ARRA committee, explaining the situation, and they discussed it and have decided to withdraw the book. Which is what I expected.
So I’m still pleased at having been nominated, but also relieved as I would hate to be accused of cheating.
So thank you to the ARRA members who nominated my book — and the very best of good luck to all the other finalists. You can see the list here.
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