Bringing Child Eater Home
Reclaiming my first novel and rebuilding it under my own imprint.
Save file. That’s it. A simple press of the 💾 icon, and Child Eater is updated and ready for production. Well—almost.
Child Eater is special to me. That October was haunted by a nightmare I couldn’t escape. I’d wake up sweating in the middle of the night and swear there were eyeballs peeking at me from the dark. By the time November rolled around, it felt like there was only one choice left.
That’s the year I joined NaNoWriMo. In a manic rush of feverish typing, I finished writing my debut novel in time to prepare Thanksgiving dinner for my family on the 24th. I ended the month with a manuscript, a NaNoWriMo certificate, and a prize that gave me until the end of January to publish the book for free through CreateSpace.
I did what any brand-new indie author would do. I jumped into overdrive on the editing and polishing, barely breaking for the holiday festivities before diving in again. My husband, an artist since I’d known him, used my vision to create the cover. And in January 2012, my novel, Child Eater, debuted.
As 2026 opens, I’m so excited to announce that this favorite supernatural horror thriller that I released fourteen years ago has received a full upgrade—an interior reformatting and typesetting rebuild with minor copy corrections, along with a complete cover redesign—for the imprint rerelease.
I’m truly excited about what rereleasing Child Eater under my own imprint, Shldbwriting Publishing Company, will mean for its readers. With the control I now have over my own books, I can shrink it down to a mass-market paperback size, making it perfectly portable for the reader who never wants to be caught without a book nearby.
I don’t have a release date for Child Eater yet. I’m finalizing the budget for the Bowker 100-ISBN pack, which is the primary remaining expense before the launches can begin. In the meantime, I’m letting myself marvel at what reclaiming ownership of my own titles is becoming.