What happened to Friendshipped?
I’m so glad you asked.
In Dec 2021, I published my first romcom: Friendshipped.
It’s the story of Lexi & Trevor, best friends who literally grew up next door to one another in the small town of Bordeaux (Bored-Ox) Ohio and who now live next door to one another in a duplex in their hometown and work at the same newspaper.
I had been writing non-fiction and sweet romance for a few years, but I had the itch to write humor. And I was petrified of the challenge.
To my delight, readers LOVED this sweet, small-town, friends-to-lovers story.
And a series was born. The Getting Shipped series became a best seller and readers continued to ask for more of my romcoms, so I kept writing them. And, as with all things we practice regularly, my skills improved. I got better and better at my craft.
So, as we approached the three-year anniversary of Friendshipped being published, I started thinking about that story. Early reviews were mostly glowing, but there were some that said, “I was waiting for them to just talk to one another!” or “Why didn’t one of them just take the risk to step out of the friend zone?” And while those are normal thoughts for readers during a friends-to-lovers story, you don’t want that to be the flavor they leave the story remembering.
I also knew I had grown a lot in my craft as an author since the writing of that first story.
Friendshipped is a welcome mat of sorts. It’s the first thing a reader sees when they are approaching this series. I wanted to “brush off the front porch” so that readers would feel more compelled to “enter the house” and stay a while in the rest of that beloved and precious series of six other stories and a prequel novella.
So, I took it upon myself to revise Friendshipped in 2024. And I published those changes along with new covers for the whole series, a map of Bordeaux I had done by a commissioned artist (in the front of each paperback), and bonus content for each of the books. It was a massive three-year celebration.
And Friendshipped, the second edition went up on the series page on Amazon in both ebook and paperback formats.
But, then there was a problem. One my team and I had not foreseen.
People who had purchased the first edition of the ebook on Amazon were not given access to the second edition when it was on the main series page. NEW readers could get the second edition. Readers who had only BORROWED the ebook could too. And of course, everyone could buy the paperback. But those people who had PURCHASED the first edition could not get the second, revised edition in ebook.
WHY?
(Why won’t Amazon give people access to the second edition after they bought the first edition of the ebook, if the second edition is uploaded by the author as a replacement file?)
Well, it’s simple. Amazon assumes the thousands of people who purchased the first edition of this book want THAT edition. That first edition is what those people bought. And Amason isn’t about to give a customer another product if the customer didn’t ask for it. So, their policy is to just show you a message “You purchased this item on …. (date).” And they leave it at that. It’s for your protection that they do this.
So, I originally “fixed” that issue (so that older readers could access the second edition on ebook) by making a separate page just for that second edition ebook. And I put the first edition back on the sales page with the series (in ebook format). The paperback of Friendshipped is still the second edition.
And that fixed one thing. Older readers could go to the new webpage and get the second edition. New readers could too … if they could find that sales page. The way Amazon works things, that new, second edition, sitting on its own page, wasn’t linked to the series except by being called “related content.” It couldn’t be linked in the series as Book #1 because of how Amazon sets up their system. That meant the second edition, on a related page, was sort of buried in the Amazon system, hidden away from readers unless they went on a hunt through a bunch of links. That’s not what I wanted to have happen to the version I worked so hard to revise!
And, I realized that was a problem.
Readers who didn’t know about the changes and revisions, in other words, NEW READERS, the ones I mainly had in mind when making these changes, could not find that second edition unless they knew to go hunting for it. So, the whole reason I had updated the story–to make a better welcome mat for new readers–was moot.
So, we’ve implemented a change effective Feb 1st, 2025. The second edition of Friendshipped in ebook is now the one at the beginning of the series–on the connected sales page to the rest of the series. I put that second edition manuscript in both ebook and paperback formats at the start of the series and I removed the dangling, buried page completely. This change means all previous readers who PURCHASED the first edition through Amazon will only have access to the first edition, the one they paid for and have on their e-readers.
But, the good news is that the series will now contain the “brushed up” and improved welcome mat. The entry to this sweet small town will be even more welcoming and well-done so that readers will choose to join the rest of us and fall in love with Bordeaux, Ohio and the group of friends we follow along in the Getting Shipped series.
Readers who purchased the first edition AS AN EBOOK won’t get the second edition (unless they read it while it was available on Amazon on its own separate page). Anyone can purchase the paperback of the second edition, and that has the bonus “Dress Shopping” chapter and the illustrated map of Bordeaux as bonus content.
A box set is coming!
Bear with me here. I found another workaround! I will be putting together a box set of stories 1-3 in the series and that will be for the NEW, REVISED editions. Sometime early spring 2025 a box set will release and all readers can access that–including the second edition of Friendshipped.
So many stories have spun off from this original series.
The Love Trippin’ series starts with Are We There Yet … The four second-generation young adults leave Bordeaux to travel down Route 66 to start their life in California.
The Firemen of Waterford Tennessee (coming in 2025) have their roots in two places: Marbella Island and the Cataloochee Coffee Series. (All connected to Bordeaux and the Getting Shipped series one way or another).
- The holiday novellas in the Have Yourself a Merry Little Romance trilogy are set in Waterford, TN.
- The younger brother in the last book in the Love Trippin’ series is the rookie firefighter in the first book of the Firefighters of Waterford TN.
- And you will see cameos of the characters from Getting Shipped in that Waterford series … Ella Mae, Brooks, and maybe more!
I love tying my stories together. And it all started in Bordeaux–with Friendshipped.
Thank you for reading and for loving me and my stories so well.
