Takeshita Demons has a long history for me…

The books helped me get a start in publishing, introduced me to thousands of fabulous people, gave me the opportunity to present at local and international writing festivals, and encouraged me to keep writing.

From Takeshita Demons 1, 2 and 3…

Takeshita Demons 4 was never meant to happen.

After I won the Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Children’s Book Award, I pitched Takeshita Demons as a trilogy, and my new publisher, Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, accepted.

Woo hoo! My journey into book publishing began.

“Any chance of a book 4?”

When Book 1 came out, great things happened, more than I could ever have expected.

Book 2 and Book 3 followed in successive years and my publishers wanted more: “Any chance of a book 4?”

Under the sea!

Well, after years of writing about Miku Takeshita and her pals, I was thrilled to join them on another adventure.

Japan, being an island, has a lot of awesome aquatic monsters, I decided my heroes would journey under the sea.

After researching and writing the book for a year, I sent it off, hoping my publishers loved it as much as I did… The response was quick and positive…They did love it! Hooray! All systems were go to see Takeshita Demons 4 out in shops.

Then, disaster!

Frances Lincoln were bought out by a larger printing house, and a few months later their entire middle grade and YA lines were cut. Mer-Monster was left without a home. (But I got to keep the advance…YAY!)

What to do?

Here I had a great manuscript just sitting on my computer. What to do? I figured the answer was to self-publish, as simply as possible, to make the story available, as cheaply as possible.

Tanoshinde kudasai: Please enjoy

Takeshita Demons 4 doesn’t have the great cover design of the first three books (the first three were done by Siku), and you can’t buy it in shops, but you can grab it for cheap-as-chips off Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk so you can read it on your computer, or phone, or download a free Kindle-reader app and read it on your laptop, or print it out, colour it in and call it a book. It’s up to you.

Happy reading!

I really hope you enjoy MerMonster. If even one fan gets a kick out of reading it, I’ll be happy. 🙂