After
Baal was published, McCammon wrote
The Night Boat, and Avon accepted it for publication. But then an Avon executive heard about a movie that had something to do with Nazis living underwater. He assumed that the storyline of
The Night Boat was too similar to the movie, so he decided Avon would not publish McCammon's novel. McCammon scrambled for something else to sell and managed to write
Bethany's Sin in about 3 months. Meanwhile, someone else at Avon saw the Nazi movie (
Shock Waves, 1977), decided that
The Night Boat was nothing like the movie, and in the end, Avon bought both books.
Bethany's Sin was released in January 1980 and
The Night Boat followed in August 1980.