PR, Advertising, and the Myth of Being Online

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A woman in profile speaks into a yellow megaphone against a pale pink background. A large yellow starburst beside her reads, “PR, Advertising, and the Myth of Being Online.”

Last Wednesday I had to do my errands alone and that means having to put everything away by myself when I get home. It’s not so bad, but it’s tedious if I don’t have my son’s help, so I decided to see if my favorite podcast had any new episodes.

I love listening to Print Run, and I’ve talked about them in the past. The podcast is hosted by two agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and I listen for industry news. I don’t ever plan to query, but I like keeping up-to-date on what’s going on since indie publishing is a part of that. Anyway, so I started listening to their April episode, Mahjong on the Telephone. In it, they talk about Helen DeWitt winning, and then losing, the Windham-Campbell Prize ($175,000!!) after her reluctance to be online and participate in promotional activities resulted in the prize’s board yanking the cash away from her. Erik and Laura speculated that the era of the eccentric author only surfacing when they’ve published a new book is gone and that authors are now required to be online all the time.

They were frustrated because from their standpoint, being on social media doesn’t sell books. In fact, Erik said, and I’m borrowing from the transcript here, “You have to like be pretty on Instagram. Which is crazy because it also, that doesn’t move books. Like that’s the thing. It’s like the same like digital media pivot to video. I don’t think it’s making irony of it all. It’s like, this shit doesn’t even work. It doesn’t.”

And this is where I laughed because being pretty on Instagram might not sell books, but posting snippets of your books sure does, and I have proof of that from the Reels experiment I’ve been doing for the past couple of weeks. I’m kind of mystified that as a romance agent (among other genres) Laura agreed with him. If anyone should know what sells romance books on social media, it should be her. But we’re talking about two different kinds of being online, and after the past ten years of being online as an author, I know the kind of activity they’re talking about definitely does not sell books.

PR and advertising aren’t the same thing.
A long time ago, I heard someone say that public relations is for the author as a person and advertising is for the book, and until someone explains that, it doesn’t make much sense. You are the author. You are the book.

PR can be chopped into activities like interviews, podcast appearances, author photos, personal social-media posts, Q&As, appearances, “day in my life” content, posts about the writing process, and lifestyle content (pets, kids, vacations, etc). Most advertising consists of hooks, snippets, tropes, emotional premises, covers with sales copy and reader reviews, and anything else specifically designed to make a reader want this book. There can be some overlap, especially once you build a loyal readership, but simply being visible online isn’t necessarily advertising. And you can test it yourself by asking this: Do your readers care if you ate breakfast outside this morning or do they want the juiciest snippet from your newest release? Do your readers care that you went for a walk then wrote two hours, or do they care about the first time your FMC and your MMC kissed, and you let them read some of that scene? There’s marketing yourself as an author and there’s marketing your book and what it has inside that will appeal to your audience. Nobody cares if I ate a Clif bar for breakfast, but they want to know why Stella thinks Zane isn’t going to love her anymore.

Being online isn’t the same as posting content to sell books. That’s why the statement “Instagram doesn’t sell books” is too broad. It can. And it does. Thousands of indies know that and use it every day.

But the “pretty on Instagram” problem is real, and I’ve seen on Threads people talking about “pretty privilege” and how conventionally attractive authors have more followers, get more traction online–especially on BookTok–and presumably sell more books. I saw a good example of that just the other day when I was scrolling Instagram and came across Melanie Harlow’s post:

Author Melanie Harlow poses in front of bookshelves and a bright blue floral background, wearing a strapless green top and jeans. Large pink and white text reads, “Kinda Chic To… Melanie Harlow Edition.”
screenshot taken from her IG account. You can see her posts here: https://www.instagram.com/melanie_harlow/

This is not giving shade to Melanie at all. Obviously, she’s gorgeous, but she’s also kind and gives back to the indie community. I watched a romance talk with her on the Writer’s Atelier a couple of years ago, and she’s so nice and smart. She’s just the perfect example of what people mean when they talk about pretty privilege. But we also know, even if we don’t want to admit it, that it takes more than blonde hair and a size six figure to keep readers. Your books have to be good, and hers must be for her to keep the kind of success she has and has been able to build. It wouldn’t be fair not to say that she has an advantage that some of us don’t–being charismatic and photogenic has benefits outside the book industry too–but showing your face isn’t the only way to use Instagram. Keeping the book the content instead of turning yourself into the product works just as well or even better. It’s the lucky few who can market both ways.

When Social Media Started Selling Books
I’ve been on social media for many many years as an author, and it was a humbling experience to realize that social media/followers don’t sell books. You’ll get your friends to buy a few copies, but just simply posting on social media will not sell books in the number that most authors would like. It’s a pipe dream to hope that if you have 14,000 followers somewhere like Twitter, that when you publish a book you’ll sell 14,000 copies (or even 7,000 copies if we’re being “realistic.”) And that’s usually because when you’re an author you get sucked into the #writingcommunity, where it’s well known that while writers read, they don’t read enough to make their friends bestsellers. So a lot of being online as an author is posting word counts, the weird way your cat sleeps, and the cup of coffee you drank before bed. I have posted all of that, and it didn’t sell books. When BookTok came about, or really, TikTok in general, I didn’t hop on the bandwagon because I thought I already had evidence that posting all those things, but now in video form, wouldn’t sell books and I didn’t want to waste my time. But then readers started talking about books in a different way. Books they couldn’t put down. Scenes that wrecked them. Male characters that made them swoon. Even books that were published many years earlier started taking off.

Authors noticed. They started posting snippets and POV hooks of their own, and with a few viral videos, some of their careers took off. Authors started advertising emotion, and book marketing as we know it has never been the same.

Doing My Own Instagram Experiment
I’m pretty stubborn. When I say I don’t want to do something, I mean it. And if you try to get me to do it, you’ll usually get a big “fuck off.” So, it does take a lot for me to come around to something people are doing, even with a lot of evidence. Last month, I came upon this Threads post by Jessica Gadziala, and I just said “fuck it” in a different way and decided what the hell. I was going to give Reels a try.

You can find the Thread here along with more tips from Jessica in the comments: https://www.threads.com/@jessicagadziala/post/Da9J5bQji2S

I had already done some form of this last year when I was on TikTok briefly before they starting accusing me of using AI to make my carousels. I hadn’t seen much benefit to being on there before that (as in, boost in readers/sales), so it wasn’t a big loss to me to delete my account in a fit of rage. I missed making carousels and videos though, and seeing Jessica’s post gave me the kick I didn’t know I was looking for to try Reels on Instagram. I’m glad I did. Copying Jessica’s style, I found snippets and wrote hooks, and when one of my first videos went viral, you can see that sales suddenly moved too. I posted the video in my Trial Reels on Instagram on July 26th.

Black-and-white Instagram Reel featuring a rainy window and record player, with a highlighted excerpt from Cruel Fate. Text above reads, “Zane made one mistake and it cost him the only thing he ever wanted. Stella.” The reel has 63.5K views.

You can literally see the impact on my sales dashboard:

Bar chart of estimated book royalties from July 1 through August 15, 2026. Royalties remain near zero through most of July, begin rising sharply around July 28, peak above $100 on August 1, and remain elevated afterward, with another spike to about $50 on August 15.
Screenshot taken on August 15th, when the author wrote this post

Admittedly, it takes more than one viral reel to keep royalties up, and since the one I posted on July 26th, I’ve had a quite a few do normal numbers (anywhere from 200 views to the thousands). The aggravating thing is you don’t know why a reel takes off and because you don’t know why, you can’t dependably replicate it. Unlike Jessica, I haven’t reused any content, and I’ve made each reel with fresh content every time. I’m afraid that if I do reuse snippets and hooks that my account will be dinged for duplicate content, but I have enough juicy scenes that I haven’t needed to recycle snippets anyway.

You might say that correlation doesn’t equal causation and you’d be right, but I also wasn’t doing anything else marketing-wise, like ads. My sales before the reels are pretty clear from the graph.

So does Instagram sell books? It did for me, but I wasn’t posting pictures of my new pedicure either.

When You Don’t Want to Advertise This Way
It’s perfectly fine not to want to advertise this way. There’s a learning curve to finding a snippet, thinking of a hook, and writing a description that ties everything together. Then you have to learn how to put the reel together inside Instagram’s app, and it took me watching a tutorial on YouTube to figure out how to place the snippet and be able to move it around. And on top of that, you have to learn how to make the snippet with the highlights and I just told someone on Threads how I do it in Canva, and I might have saved her life. (Just kidding, kind of.) All of that is what kept me from trying. I had put time into TikTok and I was resentful I had to learn another app.

You might have other reasons too, like you don’t want to show off your work or you think the blurb is enough. Maybe you’re worried about theft and don’t want your prose floating around online. Those are all valid choices, but keep in mind not wanting to advertise this way isn’t the same thing as believing this way won’t work. I didn’t want it to work because I didn’t want to try it. But I saw Jessica’s post and decided to see for myself if it would work or not. With what I was throwing out there, it did. And I’m grateful I have a low-stress, even fun, way to spread the word around about my books.

It’s Not About Being Online–It’s What You Put There
In a way, Erik was right. Being online doesn’t sell books. I lived that for many many years. I had Twitter, I had Instagram, and I had my Facebook author page. I’ve been blogging since before I should have been. None of that sold books, but I enjoyed myself anyway. I made lots of friends. I’ve helped people with this blog. I got really good at making graphics. I know the things I know (like making paperback covers in Canva) because I dove into the indie community with both feet. And I have no regrets. I love living the indie life. He’s also right in that authors shouldn’t have to turn themselves into personalities or influencers to get attention online. We’re entitled to keep some things private, or for goodness’ sakes, just work on our books, and if you want to know the hard truth, most readers aren’t going to care about a lot of what you think they want to know. They’re looking for something good to read, and if you’re the one who can provide that, all the better.

It’s rather embarrassing that after ten years in the business I’m still stumbling around the internet looking for ways to sell books that actually work. And posting a snippet and a hook on Reels has produced results for me, for now. That doesn’t mean it always will and it also means that not everyone is going to get it to work for them. For every success story on Threads, I see five people who say they can’t find traction, for whatever reason. They aren’t the magic bullet to sales.

But after typing all of this, I think the real takeaway is this:

PR = Here I am.
Advertising = Here’s my book.

And advertising might be the preferable way to go for a lot of people.

Here’s Pim sleeping weird for the cat tax. And also, buy my book. Cruel Fate is on sale for .99.

Fluffy black-and-white cat lies upside down with paws curled in the air, lounging partly inside a large open cardboard box and partly on crumpled packing paper.

Thanks for reading this monster of a post today. I’m not sure if listening to podcasts is good or bad, but I love Print Run and the topics they cover. You can find them wherever you listen to podcasts.

I have one last editor Q&A that I’ll post next week because it’s been a while since she got back to me and I don’t want her to think I forgot about her. I enjoyed reading them and I appreciate the time everyone gave me. I hope you enjoyed them too and that you picked up something along the way.

Take care this week, and I will chat with you soon!

Author Transparency (again) and Author Update

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Blog header graphic featuring a light wood desktop with coffee, flowers, a pen, glasses, and earbuds. Text reads, “Author Transparency (Again) & Author Update.”

A week ago or so, I was scrolling Threads as I do while I’m waiting for my daughter to get out of work or something, and there was an author who posted a screenshot of her KDP author dashboard in the name of “author transparency.” It showed she had made $13,000 in one month. I didn’t save it, and I wish I would have because along with the usual “Congratulations” posts, she said that she was getting nasty emails from throwaway email addresses accusing her of bragging.

This made me wonder how much good author transparency posts actually do. To be honest, I don’t think they accomplish much without context—and that context rarely fits in a Threads post. Because those numbers don’t always inspire hope. They evoke defensiveness, anxiety, and sometimes, hostility.

It’s worth taking a look at why that is, and I can tell you why because when I see posts like that, I feel it.

It’s annoying and frustrating because you don’t know how they got there, and unless they blog about it or write a lengthy post in an author group like 20Booksto50k, you’re not going to know. You could do a little snooping (if they aren’t making that money with a pen name you’re not aware of) and see how many books they have out and how many books they consistently publish in a year. You can look at their Facebook ad library and see if they’re running ads or if you scroll through their author page maybe you can ferret out if they run regular promotions. But even if you do all that, you’re still not seeing the whole picture. They could have gone viral on TikTok or an influencer could have hyped them up. They could be paying a PR company. Every algorithm out there could love them. Maybe it’s all of the above.

Ironically, there are people who ask for this kind of transparency, and they accuse authors of gatekeeping if they don’t want to share their numbers. What I don’t think they realize is those numbers don’t mean a whole heck of a lot if you don’t have the why and how behind them. And you and I know the why and how can be anything from the genre they write in to how quickly they publish.

Do I think authors need to stop sharing? I don’t post my numbers on places like Threads because I know how useless it really is. I mean, you don’t need to have the why and how if you’re posting zeroes, but on the flip side, those zeroes come with their own story that you should be prepared to tell. When I talk about my numbers here, that gives me space to explain what I’m doing or not doing and I believe that’s more helpful than posting a screenshot of your dashboard and saying, “If I can do it, you can too!”

In this current industry climate, I think authors who share their large numbers are going to be on the receiving end of some bad feelings. The publishing industry isn’t in the best place right now, AI is taking over, and it feels like there are even more real authors out there writing and publishing books than ever before. Someone who manages to cut through all that and say that they’re making a living wage isn’t going to be viewed as helpful when they post their dashboard screenshots because they’re sharing a destination that doesn’t feel reachable. I mean, let’s be real. If it was easy, more people would be doing it.

What do you think about author transparency? Do big numbers get you down or are they inspirational? Let me know in the comments.

In the name of author transparency [insert smirking emoji here] I do have some semi-positive thoughts to share about my own numbers. Lately I’ve been trying Trial Reels on Instagram that I talked about in my last blog post, and for a little while they worked. I had a couple take off, one even getting 62.1k views. I have never posted anything in my life (that’s not true, on Threads I posted a picture of some turkeys I saw on my way home from dropping off recycling that got over 64k views but I don’t count that) that has gotten that much attention. And then I had some smaller ones that took off (44.6k and 47.3k) and then had one that I forgot to make a trial reel and it was just a normal one on my profile that got up to 11.2k before dying. I hate to admit that those reels did result in a bump in sales. You can tell they worked too, because looking at my dashboard, it’s just obvious:

Amazon KDP royalties bar chart for the last 30 days. Royalties were very low through most of July, then rose sharply beginning July 28, peaking at just over $100 on August 1 before gradually declining again through August 8.

But you can also see that I haven’t been able to keep it up, and the reels I’ve been posting now are more like what I was getting when I was on TikTok, barely making it past 300 views. I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to keep that up long-term, but it was still a downer when it happened, and I wish that kind of luck hadn’t happened so quickly. Trying to keep your expectations at a reasonable level is really hard. But it does tell me that I have marketable books that people want to read, so I’ll keep feeding the machine because you never know what will hit just right that will cause another bump.

Screenshot of an Instagram Reels grid showing several book promotion reels. Most feature highlighted excerpts from romance and romantic suspense novels over dark or blurred video backgrounds, with short hook text above the excerpts. Reel view counts range from a few dozen to over 11,000.
Screenshot of my regular Instagram Reels. You can see them here: https://www.instagram.com/vaniamargenerheault/reels/
Screenshot of my Instagram Trial Reels grid showing nine book promotion reels. Several received tens of thousands of views, including reels with 16,000, 44,600, 47,300, and 62,100 views, while others received fewer than 2,000.
Screenshot of Trial Reels

As for what I’m doing now, it feels like my free time is being sucked away minute by minute, and I just haven’t been finding the time to write like I have in the past. I’m only 40k words into Cold Mercy, which, I guess is a milestone since I don’t plan for it to get past 80k, keeping in range with Frozen Assets, but I just kind of thought that since I have the whole book plotted out that I’d be further along. Still, I’m having fun with the characters, and when it’s done, I’ll let them both breathe for a while and flip back over to Bitter Love to get that ready for whenever I want to put it up. Despite my recent “success” such as it is, I’m still going to give that away for a while before publishing it, and I probably won’t do ARCs for it either. The results for Wicked Games weren’t worth the hassle, and it feels like the ARC environment is changing into something that I don’t want to be a part of anymore. If readers bump into the book and want to leave a review when it’s possible, that’s fine, but I’m going to stop asking and hoping.

I think that’s all I have for this week!

Have a great Monday!

August Activities and AI Accusations

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Title graphic for a blog post with a textured dark gray background. Across the center is a torn paper effect revealing the words "Hello August" in black script. Large cream-colored text at the top reads "August Activities," and matching text at the bottom reads "& AI Accusations."

(Yes, I did choose the title for the alliteration. I’m not doing anything this month except trying to sleep in this heat.)

Happy Monday! And hello to the last month of summer. Not that it’s truly the last month of warm weather. I remember taking the kids to many a Fall Festival in September and always overdressing because in my mind, a Fall Festival was associated with hot apple cider, leaves crunching, and woodsmoke in the air. What we got was sweating while picking out pumpkins and everyone being crabby by the time we got home. But, every year I did it, and every year was the same result. Until the kids got old enough to say they didn’t want to go, and I started buying my pumpkins at Walmart. Nothing stays the same.

There’s not a lot going on with me since the last time we spoke. I’ve been dipping my toes into the Trial Reels waters on Instagram, and it’s been fun. A couple of my reels have taken off, and I’ve gotten quite a few new followers on my Facebook author page–something I hadn’t counted on. I’ve always treated my author page as something I had to keep going because I’ve had that page for close to ten years and God only knows where that link has been. I can’t stand broken links, so I never took the page down and only post proof-of-life posts in case someone lands there. I want them to see I was at least still writing and publishing. So those new followers had somewhat of an updated page to scroll through when they followed me, but I’m not sure how much I’m going to enjoy posting on there now. That’s not to say I don’t want to talk to my readers, but social interaction as a whole is kind of hmmm, and you can see that by how often I post, or don’t, on my personal Facebook page and Threads. Still, I’m having a good time making reels and not worrying about the BS TikTok was known for. Their 200 views dungeon scarred me, but it taught me to keep expectations low. If that’s anything positive to say.

I’ve stalled with writing Cold Mercy and I’m not any further than where I was last week. It’s not that I don’t know what’s going on, it’s just that, I think the past two weeks wore me out and it’s been so hot that I haven’t been sleeping well. I hope the busy weeks are behind me, though my daughter’s post-op for her wisdom teeth surgery was rescheduled and I have to deal with that this week. But as long as nothing happens to my car, we all keep our health, and we all have jobs so we can pay our bills, I’m happy to keep chipping away at my book around my day job and playing with Pim.

Here she is lying on my bookshelf for the cat tax:

Tuxedo cat lying on top of bookshelf

Online is more of the same, and if you haven’t heard, two new AI accusations popped up in the book community. The first is The Atlantic doing a piece and accusing Daggermouth author H. M. Wolfe of using AI to write it. If you haven’t read the article, you can do it here (and thank you to Kathleen Matthews Schmidt for the gift link): https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/07/daggermouth-novel-bestseller-ai/688067/?gift=w7ky0MD12Y05SCUcPahfUFIgmW1iKSF0jMFVzUzKiIE

The other is author Jerry Falade, who lost out on a 2.5 million dollar book deal for the book Call Me, I’ll Hide the Body and its sequel. If you haven’t heard about this newest AI accusation, you can read it here: https://deadline.com/2026/07/ai-questions-debut-novel-book-film-buzz-1237013254/

There’s a lot we can say about things like this, but on the other hand, nothing at all. This is going to keep happening, that’s pretty clear. Someone who doesn’t like the way a metaphor is written is going to automatically jump to the AI conclusion. Someone who doesn’t like the way a book’s prose is written is going to jump to the AI conclusion. Someone who doesn’t like an author’s vocabulary is going to jump to the AI conclusion. Five years ago, if you didn’t like a book, you set it aside and started reading something else. Nowadays, if someone doesn’t like it, it’s almost natural to say, “Well, they probably used AI to write it.”

What was interesting to me was this quote by Sandy Hodgman, Jerry Falade’s UK agent who pulled back its submission of the novel to international publishers:

screenshot of Sandy Hodgman's quote: [The author] produced an incredible manuscript that dazzled us and the top publishing professionals around the world. Unfortunately, we are no longer able to authenticate how the manuscript fully evolved from origin to completion. During the submission process we vetted the manuscript with [the author] for AI and felt trusting in his reassurance that it was written without utilizing AI as a resource in the writing or editorial process. We can no longer substantiate that, and we are withdrawing the book. This raises so many questions about authorship and what AI means for this industry but those are questions for another day. We regret that our enthusiasm led to this outcome and we apologize to our publishing partners.
Screenshot taken from this article: https://deadline.com/2026/07/ai-questions-debut-novel-book-film-buzz-1237013254/

It’s curious how she included the “editorial process” when she vetted the manuscript with the author because given all the “purists” online and what they classify as AI, assistive AI like ProWriting Aid and Grammarly is still okay to use. If that’s changing, then where do we draw the line? No spellcheck and grammar check in Word? It’s infuriating when companies like Microsoft (CoPilot) shove AI down your throat to the point where it’s almost impossible to turn off those features, then later, you’re penalized for using them. (I’m looking at you Canva and Instagram respectively.)

But even if you go old school and write your book by hand and type it up with no AI whatsoever, the burden is still on the author to prove it. I’m Gen X and love me a good notebook and a brand new pen. In fact, even after writing and publishing for ten years, that’s still how I start all my books–writing in longhand. I create a character bible and write out their plots and character arcs. Sometimes if I’m stuck and can’t get into a scene, I’ll muse longhand until I can get into their heads again, so I do have bits and pieces tucked away. But I don’t know if that would be enough to fight AI allegations if any where to come my way. Writing is hard, and I’ve said more than once that I would just stop writing rather than turn to AI to write books for me. Publishing isn’t a moneymaker and there’s no guarantee that you’ll make a dime after you publish a book. After a decade of writing and publishing, I don’t see any benefit to using AI because at the end of the day, when your dashboard is zero, you better love the process because that’s all you have.

We’re treading into a new era of book publishing, and it will be interesting to see what the trad industry does in the future. Maybe they’ll stop paying advances all together because it sure seems odd to win a 2.5 million dollar bidding war only to yank it back when someone in a meeting says, “This sounds like AI.” Once that seed is planted, by anyone, for any book, you can never take it back. Which means maybe people need to stop assuming an author used AI when they don’t like something, and decide they don’t like it long before an offer is made. To read a down-to-earth take by Kathleen Schmidt, you can here: https://substack.com/home/post/p-209258189

That’s about all I have for this week. I have to admit, creating reels and posting them has pushed me out of my groove and I haven’t gotten as much writing done as I’d like. It’s not difficult to create reel, but I can say that now because I know how. Like anything, figuring out how to make parts in Canva and make parts in the Instagram app then putting them together was a small learning curve. Once I knew that Instagram wants you to make as much as possible in the app, things clicked for me. There are things that are impossible to make, like the B-roll and snippet because even if you make your snippet the “real” way by taking a screenshot of your book on your Kindle, that screenshot still has to be uploaded from your photos. But I don’t make the whole thing in Canva, like typing out the hook and putting the snippet graphic on top of the video, and I think that helps a lot with Instagram willing to push your video out. I never quite got a hang of doing the editing in TikTok which (besides them tagging my videos as AI) might have held me back. So to be able to create a reel and not have it take all day helps the motivation to keep posting and possibly make reels a small only part of my marketing plan.

As for other Mondays on the blog, I’ll just wing it. I have one more editor Q & A to post, then I’ll be on my own again. We’ll see what happens.

I hope you all have a good week! Enjoy the dog days of summer. I know I have been!

Until next time!

End-of-July Author Update

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It’s the end of July, which means the summer is two-thirds over. It’s going by so fast, but I’ve done a couple of things like take a road trip to Bismarck, North Dakota with my sister and daughter, and we drove to a town forty-five minutes from here to go to their zoo. We have a couple of other things we’d like to do, like go to another town forty-five minutes away in a different direction and play lake tourist there, and possibly go to the zoo here in Fargo, ND, though it’s smaller and more expensive. We didn’t go last summer, so that’s on our maybe list, and if it works out, it works out.

This week is terrible with things to do, like my daughter’s follow-appointment for her wisdom teeth surgery she had done last week, and my own dentist appointment for a cleaning Thursday afternoon. My son has a dermatology appointment that same day and adding all that to the normal grind of life, maybe you shouldn’t try to get a hold of me until Sunday because there’s a high possibility I’ll be a quivering lump of jelly on the floor come Friday morning. Which is too bad because I have to work.

But, sometimes stuff is just crammed together and there’s nothing you can do. The good news is August should be slower, and my main goal is to finish Cold Mercy. Only because my sister, daughter, and I are planning to go to Florida for a week in September, and it would be nice to get it done so I can put it aside mentally and enjoy the first vacation I’ve had in over seven years. My daughter hasn’t been on a plane since she was about ten (she’s twenty now) so she’s also looking forward to it.

Cold Mercy is coming along, and I’m happy about that. I’m enjoying writing Trevor and Celina, but as I’ve said, I don’t have any plans to publish my hockey duet (that I’ve decided to call Black Ice) as of yet. I’ve actually been hunting down couples on DepositPhotos for Bitter Love, just because I think a couple would fit better than a single guy since it’s a small town second chance. So, I’m doing a little bit of everything, and I have a hockey standalone planned after Cold Mercy because I didn’t want to let all that hockey research go to waste.

After bumping into a Threads post about trial reels on Instagram and the easy videos she was making, I decided to give it a try. After posting a few, I can tell you that I like how simple they are to put together and that there isn’t a 200 view dungeon like there is on TikTok (as far as I can tell). That alone is a motivation and confidence booster, because back when I was on TikTok, it really sucked to put an hour into a carousel for it only to get 130 views or whatever. The only thing that tripped me up was figuring out the editing tools, but watching a quick tutorial on YouTube took care of my biggest annoyance. Because I still have a lot of TikTok hooks and Kindle screenshot slides, I’m going to try to post a reel every day and see how it works.

Do I think I’ll go viral and sell lots of books? No. Do I think I’ll go viral at all? Probably not, but I’m not focusing on numbers either. Do I think I’ll sell books? That’s another “probably not” but I was a little sad when I had to get rid of my TikTok account–I felt like I was actually reaching readers with the likes and saves–and this is an easier alternative. Like TikTok, they want you to do as much in-app as possible, so I’m not assembling the whole video in Canva. Here are my quick steps if you want to try it:

Film or find a b-roll. I didn’t even know what that was last year, haha. I filmed my bookshelf and my laptop with a cup of coffee, but so far I haven’t used them. Right now I just go to Canva, choose an Instagram Reel canvas, and find a video that kind of has the snippet vibe. Like the one I posted today–it’s a snippet of Rick finding Devyn at his construction site zip-tied to a support beam. So I found a video of a snowy, city street at night. That’s all you really need. I have no plans to show my face right now, but that could change. I don’t really care either way as long as I do my hair and makeup first.

Make a Kindle screenshot of your snippet. I fake those. I use an Instagram post-sized canvas and just copy and paste the text over from an ePub. To make a “highlight” I use a Square in Elements, change the color and size, and make it transparent. I don’t have all my books on a real Kindle, so this works for me.

Book excerpt from a romantic suspense novel. After finding Devyn unconscious, the hero calls 911, struggles with not being able to carry her to safety himself, and holds her hand the entire ambulance ride to the hospital.

I still have a fear thing left over from TikTok, and I mark out the naughty words. I don’t know how Instagram likes swear words and sex, but I’ve always gone more angsty in my snippets anyway so I don’t think I need to worry too much about that.

Write your two sentence hook that will go above your snippet. I still see some authors using the X, but Y, formula, like “When he falls first, but she’s off limits” kind of thing, so you’ll have to play around with what works for you.

Write your description. I write a quick couple paragraphs that I put in my Mac’s notes app, then I can copy and paste it over on my iPhone. Don’t forget the title and where they can find the book. I use keywords instead of hashtags, since that seems to be the trend right now.

Put it all together. I go into Reels on my phone, and use the b-roll I chose from Canva, add my snippet, add the hook with their text tool, copy and paste the description, add music, and I’m done. Some authors will add a “cover” to their reel, but honestly, the woman who showed us her views in that Threads post didn’t have covers for hers, and I’m inclined to just leave it and see how a simple reel without a cover works first. I’m still in the “experimenting and having fun” stage, so I’m not going to complicate it unless I have to.

Instagram Reel showing a dark, snowy street at night with a page from a romance novel overlaid. The text reads, "She disappeared without a trace. He was terrified he'd find her too late." The excerpt shows the hero calling 911 after finding Devyn unconscious and holding her hand in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

I was missing posting on TikTok, so thanks to Jessica for the motivation!

Another thing I did was revamp my FB author page banner and my website header. Since I no longer consider myself strictly a billionaire romance author, I thought it was time to change it up. I also have never made myself an author logo, so I played around in Canva and came up with something that might be a little too pink, but I like for it now.

Soft pink watercolor background with blush flowers framing the author name "VM Rheault" inside a geometric outline. The graphic includes the tagline: "Billionaire romance, small-town love, and everything in between."

That takes care of my backlist, my small town, second chance that I’ll be publishing next year sometime, and the hockey romances that I’m writing now. Those banners can just stay there for however long since I won’t be changing it anywhere to announce a new release.

Last month I teased I would put my Cedar Hill Duet for free, and I did that. Both of them are free until Wednesday, and if you were wanting to grab them or just download them to support me (thank you!) here’s the link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B1PV65WD

Dark gray promotional graphic with subtle floral accents displaying the romance novels Captivated by Her and Addicted to Her by VM Rheault. Large text announces: "Free for a Limited Time!" with the dates "July 24–28."

I didn’t do much for them except boost a post on Instagram and send a real newsletter to the few subscribers I still have. These are older books, but since they have new covers and they’ve been re-edited, I thought I’d promote them and see how they do. They’re free until Wednesday, July 28th, so if you know of anyone who would want a billionaire romantic suspense duet, you can point them that way.

I’m also putting Rescue Me in a romance book blast next month. I’m to the point where I just want people to see my books, download them if they think they sound good, and maybe read them if they ever get around to it. That’s not me being meh–I know how long people’s TBR lists are. Mine is the same, as I’ve been downloading free hockey books lately if I see them pop up in my Freebooksy newsletters, so I understand that someone downloading one of my books might not read it for months or years, if ever. I’ve stopped thinking about sales, really, and I might do a free blast of one of my trilogies next. Do a special one-day sale of all of them and see how many downloads I get. I think it’s nice to give them all away instead of just a book one. It’s just how I’ve been feeling, at least.

That’s about all I have going on. When I have a second in the evening and I’m too tired to write but it’s too early to go to bed, I’ve been watching the new season of The House of the Dragon. If you like small-town romance shows, a new season of Ransom Canyon just released on the 23rd on Netflix, and I’m wondering if I should rewatch the first season again before diving into the second. We’ll see. There are some evenings when the day hasn’t beat the shit out of me and I still have the energy to write, so I don’t watch too much TV, but it’s nice to have something to look forward to when my brain is mush.

I hope your summer has been going well so far. Do you have anything you want to get done before spooky season starts? Let me know!

Until next time, have a great week ahead!

What’s Worth the Cost?

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Promotional graphic for a blog post titled "What's Worth the Cost?" featuring a black marble background, gold accents, and a credit card image, symbolizing spending and financial decisions.

Two years ago I used to believe that you had to spend money to make money. It’s a common quote that holds some truth and I bought into it like the true business owner I wanted to be. For most of the time I’ve been writing and publishing, I’ve had more money going out than coming in, and every year I tried to do better, thinking if I tried hard enough and spent enough money, I could turn my books into a career.

The latest price increase news circulating Threads is Squarespace’s announcement that they were upping their prices by 26% (Business/Core plans increased to $348/year from $276) and not adding any extra features to make the price hike worth it. If you don’t know what it is, Squarespace is a website platform, and it sounds like a lot of authors and other creatives were using it. This coming right after MailerLite’s decision to cut their free plan down to 250 subscribers, Draft2Digital’s maintenance fee, and Bookfunnel’s price increases has made it a bad year for indie authors so far.

I think, from what I’m seeing online and what I’ve concluded during my own thought processes about all this, is that we need to separate the idea that if we’re spending money we have to make that back, and if we aren’t making money from our hobby, business, books, or however you view your writing, that it’s still okay to spend a little if you want.

The difference for me is intent. Do I want to spend that money or do I feel like I have to? I downgraded how I think about my books considerably and no longer think about what I’m doing as a business. I don’t even really want to think of my writing as a hobby. Labeling it anything has taken the fun out of doing it, and as of right now, I’m going to stop writing for anything other than the joy of creating.

I tried the ad route, as I have mentioned before, and 2024 was my highest spending year since I started publishing, investing $5,000 in Facebook ads. I know that might not sound like a lot to some authors who spend that much or more per month, but five thousand dollars is 15% of my yearly income and I didn’t spend it lightly. I earned that money back, but the stress of making sure I did so wore me out, and in 2025 I scaled back considerably to the point that right now, in 2026, I rarely run ads anymore. It didn’t help that in April of this year I spent $80.00 on Amazon ads to only make thirty dollars of that back.

When my Amazon ads didn’t even break even, it taught me a lesson that up until then I hadn’t needed to learn: ads aren’t guaranteed to make you money. It used to be that if you ran ads, you stood a really good chance of boosting your discoverability and selling some books. There were always exceptions, those with the bad covers or the bland blurbs, or the authors who priced their books too high, but if you had a commercially viable product, you could sell books if you ran a few low cost-per-click ads. That’s not true anymore, not for everyone, and you can blame it on the algorithms or saturation or AI being put in charge, but running ads no longer works well enough for me to justify the stress and expense.

I have the same opinion of Written Word Media’s promo newsletters like Freebooksy and BargainBooksy. I haven’t earned my fee back in a couple of years now and to be honest, with the number of AI covers I see in those newsletters, I don’t want my books to be in them anymore anyway. It’s not worth the money for me and the kinds of books I’m writing, and I have finally realized that. Same with the Goodreads giveaways. I used to not mind paying for exposure, but I stopped doing that. Life is too expensive to hand money over to something that has no measurable ROI.

But you need some kind of presence online which is why authors struggle with increased prices from their service providers. After a while it just feels like they’re price gouging the small folk, and it can make you bitter. So you have to decide where can you go that still gives you what you want at a price you can afford, and that answer, unfortunately, may be nowhere. Then you take the downgrade and make do with it because there’s no justification in paying more.

It’s the same with your newsletter. You can hunt around and find something that might work that doesn’t make you jump through too many hoops at a cost that you’re willing to pay, or maybe you decide that sending out a newsletter isn’t something you want to do anymore because your open rates are crap and no one is reading it anyway. I decided to stop sending my newsletter out unless I have big announcement like a free book blast or a new release and just put updates on my author site. Especially since for the most part, I don’t know when I’m going to publish again. No one wants to read, “Good morning! I’m 20k into Cold Mercy, but I have no plans to publish it yet. I’m having fun though. Have a great day! ♥️🥰♥️🥰” There’s nothing in that for them, and my open rates will get worse than they already are. So for me, there’s definitely no reason to spend money on an aggregator that doesn’t fit what I’m doing with my writing or the dead end publishing has turned into for me.

Maybe this is how it is for you too, but you have to understand that if you decide to go that route, you’re consciously making the choice to stop trying to sell books and that can be really hard. I’ve tried for many years, doing everything I was supposed to do, and it didn’t work. So dropping everything, like a kid not wanting to play with a deflated ball, was a very conscious choice, even though it hurt like hell.

That’s not to say that I stopped paying for everything. Otherwise I’d be scaling back in a way that I didn’t want to. My backlist is available for purchase, and though I don’t have plans to publish any more books this year, I’ll probably put out a book next year just because I don’t like books piling up in my computer (I know. What a terrible problem to have!).

So, I’ll always pay for Canva because I have a lot of IP in my account, and actually, a lot of other authors’, too. If I ever wanted to close my account, making sure everyone had everything I’ve made for them over the years would be a lot of work, and something I’d like to avoid. Even if I don’t publish to make money, I’ll eventually put my books up on my website and Amazon, and they’ll need covers and the occasional graphic for Instagram. I also make all my graphics for this blog in Canva, so I’ll be locked into paying for it until I completely stop doing this due to health or death. That’s fine. Canva, or some way to make graphics, is practically a must, but if you don’t post on social media that much and you hire out for your covers, you may not need it or can make do with their free plan, and that’s valid too. I’ll keep paying for it because it’s one of those websites where I always have a tab or three open at all times.

Bookfunnel I’ll keep, because I need to have a way to distribute my books from my website, and as I’ve said before, I’m locked into giving My Biggest Mistake away since it’s in all my back matter. I’m paying for their cheapest plan, so I don’t mind the cost for a service I need.

The last thing are my websites, but I pay for two years at a time and get a discount. I pay for two websites for two years and it costs about as much as Squarespace wants to charge for one year. My websites aren’t fancy but they do what I want them to do. I’ve been with WordPress.com for ten years and the only issues I’ve had were the ones I created myself–that their tech support was able to help me with, which is more than I can say for MailerLite when I had trouble there. To be fair, the fee isn’t cheap when you’re not writing for sales, and I still pay for my Google Workspace email from when I did have a real newsletter. I kept it because I attached that to my pen name’s Goodreads account, and well, I guess it’s just professional to have an email that’s not gmail in case I ever need it. Then I pay $20/year for my two domain names. All that comes to about $275.00 a year.

That might add up to a lot more than anyone wants to pay for an activity that you don’t even call a hobby, but my websites are important to me and worth the cost.

That’s the whole point of this post. If it’s not worth it to you, don’t pay it, and either find a workaround or be okay with going without it. That’s not a philosophy I’ve always had, and I’ll be honest, I used to kind of . . . disapprove of people who didn’t want to spend money on their business. But I’ve come full circle. I did pay and it didn’t help, so I’m done judging others for their choices. Maybe they knew something I didn’t and I had to figure it out for myself. Who knows. That’s just going to be another thing I’ll add to my list of things I’ve learned over the past ten years.

If you take anything away from this post today, it’s this: save money where you can. Stay professional where you can because your readers—the ones you had, have, and will have—deserve that.

Beyond that, only spend money on things that still make sense for your goals.

As for me, I’m done paying for things that have stopped working or never started.

And I don’t think I’m the only one.

Editor Q & A: April Lynn from April Editorial

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Promotional graphic for April Lynn of April Editorial. Large pink text reads “April Lynn from April Editorial.” A banner below says “Fiction Editing Series.” The graphic includes an illustration of edited manuscript pages with red markup and a pink pencil. Text reads: “This series is designed to help editors shine a light on their editing process and hopefully help you find an editor who is a perfect match for you and your manuscripts!” Website: www.april-editorial.com.

Introduce yourself! How did you get into editing and what are your qualifications? What genres do you enjoy editing most?
My name is Hannah, but I also respond to April. Or as some of my authors like to call me—April Hannah. Editing was always a dream job of mine, but after getting my bachelor’s in English Linguistics, I got sidetracked and became a flight attendant instead. Now that I’ve been flying for about nine years, I have some seniority and a lot more flexibility with my schedule. I went from flying 18-20 days a month to about 12 days. I also panicked during COVID and realized I needed to have another income stream in case the world falls apart. So I went back to my love of reading and editing, took some courses online through ACES & the Editorial Freelancers Association, and dove right in. I edit primarily romance novels, but have dipped my toes into fantasy and am editing a horror novella right now which is a fun change of pace.

What is the biggest mistake you see indie writers making right now? (For example, info dumps at the beginning of their book, not enough conflict, too much tell vs. show, etc.)
If you’ve worked with me before, you’ll know one of the first things I do is delete as many instances of ‘that’ from your book as possible. I have a personal vendetta against the word now. When it comes to the story though, the biggest pitfall I think a lot of authors struggle with is making each character unique. Dual POV is so popular, but I don’t think people realize how hard it is to write from two different points of view. Each character should have their own mannerisms: if one person plays with the ends of their hair all the time, it’s better to not have other characters doing that. Maybe he sighs a lot, but she rolls her eyes. Their dialogue should also stand out. I always suggest authors assign words and phrases to each character to help with this, and building good character profiles before you start writing is so helpful.

How do you keep the author’s voice intact while also guiding them with suggestions on how to make their book the best it can be?
I always start out my feedback by saying all the edits and comments are suggestions, take what you want and leave the rest behind. At the end of the day, it’s their book and not mine. If I make big changes, I always explain why or leave multiple suggestions for rephrasing. I don’t want to cross over into ghostwriting. My goal is to use what they’ve given me and make small tweaks here and there to ensure everything flows together and remains consistent.

Is there ever a time when a book requires too much work? What do you tell a writer whose manuscript isn’t ready for a professional edit? What resources do you refer them to?
Since I’m getting paid for the size of a manuscript (my rates are per word) instead of the time it takes to edit, I simply can’t help an author with every single issue within their manuscript. During my first read through, I start to notice trends and the major elements I believe they should focus on. I also don’t want their revisions to be too overwhelming, so narrowing things down helps us both out. I also have a section in the editorial feedback where I provide resources to help them improve their writing and premade cheat sheets I’ve made to help them with things I may have not had the time to fix or that aren’t part of the style of editing I was hired for. I love getting to work with authors for multiple books because each book improves more and more. As long as they have taken in the feedback for each one, we can move on to focus on other issues.

What advice can you offer an author who can’t afford a professional edit? Are there things they can do to sharpen their own self-editing skills?
There are tons of resources out there for authors, and tools I’ve used to help myself become a better editor. I have a list of recommended reading on my website but “Romancing the Beat” by Gwen Hayes & “Self-Editing for Fiction Writers” by Renni Browne and Dave King are great places to start. I am also working on some self-editing courses geared toward authors who are unable to hire an editor. So stay tuned for those!

Have you noticed AI writing tools affecting the manuscripts you edit? What are your thoughts on authors using them in the writing process?
I have a clause in my contract for this and will not work with authors who use genAI in their writing. So far, I have not noticed anything funky in the books I’ve worked on but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before someone sneaks through the cracks. I think using AI eliminates the heart and soul from a novel, the creativity and uniqueness. I want no part of a romance written by a robot.

As an editor, it’s important you’re honest and give critical and actionable feedback. How do you offer this feedback so a writer doesn’t take it personally?
With any edit, I always start off by telling an author what they’re doing right and what their strengths are. I think starting on a positive note makes it easier to take in feedback. It’s also helpful to let them know they’re not alone, and a lot of this feedback is common. I also provide lots of examples and resources to back things up and never tell an author they can’t do something or it’s wrong. A great benefit of working with indie authors is they can write the book how they want and don’t have to adhere to style guides and story structures.

Are there any other tips or thoughts you would like to add about editing or publishing?
Don’t let self-doubt take you out. Nobody’s first draft is a bestseller. And find your community. It can get lonely, but I can guarantee there are others out there struggling with the same things you are or wanting to celebrate the same wins both big and small.

And lastly, where can readers find you online?
You can find me on IG or Threads @april.editorial or via my website www.april-editorial.com

Before You Sign with a Small Press

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Graphic for a blog post titled "Before You Sign with a Small Press." An illustration of a contract and pen appears beside a checklist that includes covers, editing, formatting, distribution, and contract terms.

I saw something sad yesterday, and no it wasn’t my sales dashboard. Just kidding. I stopped looking at that.

No, even though I talk like I’m not a part of the writing community anymore, I’m still a member of a lot of writing and publishing groups on Facebook. It’s pretty much all that’s in my feed right now which works because I’m not really interested in much else besides the occasional spoiler for House of the Dragon. Anyway, so a woman that I have actually met in person when I tried to join a local writing group posted that her debut had just been published by a “small-press–” I use the term loosely–and her cover was . . . not great. It kind of looked like the romance covers that were coming out in 2016 when authors were doing it themselves and didn’t know how to blend or add a filter so the couple fit into the background. It made me curious about the publisher, and I went on their website. Unfortunately, nothing I saw boosted my confidence that this author would have a good experience with this small press.

I understand the appeal of wanting to publish with a small press, and I’ve known other people who have made the same choices. You can’t afford an editor, you don’t know cover design, and you wouldn’t begin to know where you’d get your book formatted. So a small press sounds like an answer to a desperate prayer. They take on your book and promise you editing, formatting, and a genre-appropriate cover. If they’re being honest, maybe they say that marketing efforts will be weak and that you’ll have to do the bulk of it, and you think that’s a fair trade in exchange for the services they’re going to provide.

Deciding to go with a small press presents the same challenges that an indie author faces having to hire out every step. When you’re looking at a small press and you’re thinking about submitting your work, there are a few things you should do first:

Look at what they’ve already published.
This is huge because if you don’t like the covers on some, or most, of the books in their library, chances are really good that you aren’t going to like the one they do for you. Small presses tend to have one designer on their staff, and that one designer is going to have a certain way of doing things. If you don’t like their style, you may take that as a warning that what they come up with for your book won’t match what you had in mind. And what you want may not even be that crazy. Just a nice, normal cover that meets genre expectations and that looks professional. When I looked up the designer on the copyright page of my acquaintance’s book, the designer’s website looked sketchy as hell. So please click around the internet and look at what they’ve published, peek at the designer they use, and decide if you think they’re going to give you a cover that will actually sell your book.

Look at who the founders are.
I don’t think judging someone by their looks is that great in most cases–we all have our bad hair days–but on the other hand, if you’re running a business, you should look professional in your picture. A founder of a small press who is wearing pajamas doesn’t inspire much confidence even if they work from home and wear pajamas for most of their day. Also, what are his or her credentials? What makes them a good fit for your book? Do they have previous publishing knowledge? What can they offer that you don’t have access to yourself? I can edit, format with Vellum, and make you a decent cover in Canva. But that doesn’t mean I know how to run a small press. I have no distribution channels besides knowing how to upload a book to KDP and IngramSpark. I can’t get your book into bookstores. I don’t have the connections or warehouse space for storage to do that. I have absolutely no money to hire someone to help me. Think about what your goals for your book are going to be once it’s published. Can the small press you’re considering do those things? Also look to see if they’ve published their own books. If their finished products don’t look professional, chances are good they won’t be able to do any better for yours.

What kind of editing do they do?
It’s really important that you skim, if not read, a few of the books that the small press you are considering has published. If you find typos on the very first page, or if there are grammar or punctuation errors throughout, their editor may not be very good. When you’re going with a small press and giving them your rights, the least they can do is edit your book properly. Do they have an editing certification? Do they have testimonials saying that they’re good at what they do? If they’ve published their own books, do they sound good? How long will it take them to edit your book? Do they use AI tools, or will they do it themselves?

What kind of formatting do they do?
Granted, formatting is probably the least of your worries if you’re finding red flags elsewhere. And from what I can tell, small indie presses just use Vellum. But you should still check out whether their books look nice on the insides. Do they add chapter headers? Ornamental scene breaks? I don’t pretty my books up too much, because I think story is king, and I have actually seen readers complain that gooped-up pages take away from the reading experience, but still. A nice chapter header can make a paperback look professional. Like, you know, someone actually cared. And if you can, make sure that they’ve taken a little time with an author’s front and back matter. You might not get all that with Amazon’s 10% sample pages, but look at what you can. Formatting, from my experience, is the simplest step. If they aren’t doing that, your editing and cover chances don’t look great.

What are they doing for distribution and visibility?
To be fair, this was probably one of the only things that the small press that I referenced earlier was doing. Or looked like they were doing. Their website listed the book fairs they attended or were planning to attend. Whether they actually did, I guess no one knows, and what they did there would be a mystery unless you were present to see it. Since both the founder and the editor of that small press had published books, they could have been there to only represent themselves. Hard to know. If they aren’t going to show up on your behalf, will they pay for author copies or other swag so you can attend your own book fairs and signings? How are they investing in your books besides basic services? Zero investment may be more common than you hope, and maybe you think that’s asking too much anyway since author copies are expensive, but if they aren’t going to do anything, it’s better to know before you sign your life away.

And then after you’ve taken a look at all that and think it isn’t so bad, take a look at what they’re asking for.
How long do they hold your rights? When can you get them back if you decide to? What happens if the press closes? Do you automatically get your rights back? Are your rights folded into a new small press? You might say this should be the first bullet point, and you might be right. If you don’t like the contract terms, none of the rest matters. But I also know some authors will accept contract terms that aren’t exactly awesome if it means they’ll have their editing, formatting, and cover taken care of. Is it a good trade? It really depends on what you’re comfortable with. You’re essentially giving your book away and may never get it back. Some small presses can be really nasty to their authors, never giving rights back or asking exorbitant amounts of money to break a contract. A mediocre cover is annoying. Being locked into a mediocre cover for seven years is a disaster.

I’m not sure what’s going to happen with my acquaintance and her book. Her cover broke my heart, but she could be happy with it and that would be okay too. It’s her debut, and maybe she’s not really aware that her cover doesn’t fit in with what contemporary romance covers look like now. If she’s happy, then I’m happy for her. But competition is so fierce–not in an author-eat-author way, but we’re at an all-time high for how many books are available to choose from–that a poor cover can kill a book before it’s even had a chance. If she would have posted in the group that she wanted to self-publish and needed help, I would have helped her and she could have kept her rights. Not everyone knows that I would do that, and maybe that’s for the best, haha, or if she didn’t trust me, I could have at least pointed her in the right direction so she could have hired out dependable people.

Wanting to go with a small press is an understandable choice, but if you have to ask, “If the publisher’s version isn’t better than what I could have reasonably done alone what exactly am I getting in exchange for my rights?” then maybe that small press isn’t for you.

Not all small presses are bad. Some do excellent work and provide opportunities that would be difficult for an author to access alone. The point isn’t to avoid small presses. The point is to investigate them with the same care you’d use when hiring an editor, cover designer, or formatter. Because the old adage, “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself” may be truer than you want to admit and you could save yourself a lot of pain and heartache along the way.

If you want to read more about small presses, Writer Beware is a great source of information, and you can find it here: https://writerbeware.blog/2011/11/11/introducing-writer-bewares-small-presses-page/

Thanks for stopping in this week! Next week I’ll have another editor Q & A to post, and after that possibly an author update. By then summer will be half over. Do you have any goals you’re keeping an eye on that you’d like to finish up before the kids go back to school? Let me know so I can cheer you on!

I hope you all had a lovely 4th of July holiday!

Until next time!

Monday Musings: Indie News, AI Accusations, & What’s Next

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Graphic for a Monday Musings blog post featuring a stack of white papers clipped together with a blue paperclip on a soft blue background. White daisies decorate the image, and gold text reads: "Monday Musings: Indie News, AI Accusations, & What's Next."

Good morning to everyone except the people who hate Amazon and won’t shut up about it. Here’s your monthly reminder that if you hate them that much, you don’t have to publish with them! Ta-da! If that’s not you, I hope that wherever you are the skies are sunny and your coffee is hot!

There have been a couple things in the indie industry that caught my eye over the past couple of weeks and I thought I’d touch on them since I like keeping up with changes and then maybe I’ll mention quick what I’ve been doing at the end.

One of the biggest pieces of news that floated by me last week was that MailerLite is going down to only 250 subscribers in their free plan. I feel like this is in line with what I’ve been speculating since Draft2Digital launched a 12 dollar per year service fee for active accounts and everyone went crazy because of it. Free services are slowly being phased out, or the services are being so pared back that they’re almost useless. An author who is starting a newsletter with the intention of actually growing it isn’t going to begin with a platform that cuts you off at such a low number. That means if they’re going to hustle for signups, they could be looking at a platform change just months after starting or they’ve made the decision that they’re going to pay so they can stay.

I’ve always been of the mind to begin as you wish to continue–since it’s just easier that way all around–and I’d look for a different provider. If you’re looking to move or start a newsletter and want a bigger number, Kit seems to have the biggest number of free subscribers that I’ve seen in their free plan at 10,000 (that isn’t a typo). Use the slider to adjust to the 10k number and you’ll see that the free plan stays free for that number. I have never used Kit before, but I know people who have, and you need to get your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC in order and also use a professional email (like hello@pennymaxwellauthor.com) or your emails will go to people’s spam/junk folders. Gmail has tightened up how they deliver emails, and that’s just the way it is now. As they say, nothing in this life is free. Still, my email attached to this site is $84.00 a year, which doesn’t seem so bad if your newsletter aggregator is free. Kit will also integrate with BookFunnel if you pay for the Mid-List Author tier, though BookFunnel’s prices went up this year too, so you’re going to be paying for something if you want to offer a newsletter to your readers.

Whatever you do, export your list regularly! Don’t lose your list. Then you’re free to move to whatever aggregator you want, even if that means just blogging on your own website like I’ve started doing.

Another big news item that everyone lost their minds over is that KDP is now offering groundwood paper as a page color choice. I didn’t think this was a big deal really. Cream has always been fine for me, but there are a couple of things worth noting. For one, KDP will allow you to change already published titles to groundwood, which is interesting because page color used to be tied to your ISBN number. That appears to no longer be the case. I buy all my ISBNs from Bowker and KDP has offered me the choice to switch, though like putting my ebooks in libraries, I’m not going to bother.

Screenshot of the Amazon KDP Bookshelf page for Wicked Games by VM Rheault. The Kindle eBook and paperback editions are live. The Kindle edition is enrolled in KDP Select and priced at $4.99 USD, while the paperback is priced at $14.99 USD. The page also displays options to promote and advertise the book, order author copies, create a hardcover edition, and add an Audible audiobook using a virtual voice. Also groundwood option is shown

The other thing to keep in mind is that your spine width might change. KDP encourages you to double check by using the Print Previewer and/or ordering a proof before you publish with the changes. Be sure to read their guidelines so your book will print properly if you make the change.

Amazon was on a roll with changes this month and sent out an email notifying authors that if they were using a Payment Service Provider that is not a participant in Amazon’s Payment Service Provider Program, you would need to change where your royalties are deposited. I didn’t get the email because I have my royalties deposited into a local bank, but there were plenty of authors who did, and of course, because it’s Amazon, everyone was unhappy.

Screenshot of an Amazon KDP email notifying publishers about an update to the Payment Service Provider (PSP) Program. The message states that bank accounts linked to KDP must participate in Amazon's PSP program and complete know-your-customer (KYC) verification. Publishers are instructed to update their bank account information by August 1, 2026, or royalty payments will be placed on hold until the account is updated.
h/t to Emma Hamm for showing us her email on Threads.

In other news that’s equally disheartening, is this article in The Independent. Three out of five winners of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize were accused of writing their stories with AI. Upon an investigation, those writers were cleared. Unfortunately, I think we are going to be seeing more and more of this as time goes on. What really bothers me is that there doesn’t seem to be any repercussions for the people doing the accusing. Accusations like that can destroy careers and reputations, but there doesn’t seem to be any consequences. Another thing that bothers me is that when they investigated the claims, they went over evidence including “working drafts, time-stamped documents, and notes.” What if we don’t have any of that? I write in one Word file and edit in that file. I have some notes in a notebook and I also have bits and pieces of prose since writing in a notebook is how I get unstuck, but that may not be enough evidence if I am ever accused of using AI to write my books.

I don’t know how anyone can protect themselves, and stuff like this is part of what makes me feel so defeated. Accusers get away with it while the authors have to prove their innocence. It’s not right, but I don’t see anything changing. Burden of proof shouldn’t be on the author, but here we are. If you’d like to read it, you can read it here: https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/books/news/commonwealth-prize-clears-winners-ai-allegations-review-b3001994.html. Thanks to my friend Chris for the article, and if you’d like to read what he’s been working on, you can find it here: https://www.shadeofthemorningsun.com/

Life has been kind of busy lately so I haven’t gotten much done on Frozen Assets. I’m 74,722 into it with maybe around 10k more to finish it up. I was a little concerned that it’s going to be shorter than my usual, but then I thought that gives me some leeway when I start writing Cold Mercy. I don’t have all of Celina and Trevor’s story plotted out yet, and it will make things easier if I don’t feel like I have to compete with a 110k word book. I’ve been thinking about Cold Mercy off and on and I’ll take a break after I’m done with Frozen Assets to watch more hockey documentaries and read We Breed Lions by Rick Westhead. The research has been half the fun of writing a hockey romance and I think I might have said in a different blog post that rather than using it for only two books, I’ve been thinking about a standalone after my duet is done. Though I was reading about an “Alpine Divorce” situation on Threads that gave me an idea, but that will have to get in the queue.

As of right now, I’m not sure when I’ll publish again, as I’m leaning toward saving up some books for the next couple of years or just putting them on my website for free when I feel like it. I have come to the sad conclusion there is no point in publishing anymore, not in the way that I have been with cover reveals, blurb reveals, ARC copies, trying to have a big launch, and paying for ads and buying promos. I’ve done all there is to do, and like I told a friend earlier, I’m taking my hands off the wheel.

I have two more editor Q & As to post, then I will be done with the people who were kind enough to give me their time. I hope you’ve been enjoying them. I know it’s been fun for me to see the different ways editors work.

This is all from me this week. Enjoy the rest of June, and if you have plans over the 4th of July, be careful and stay safe!

Until next time!

Pivoting Backward: Starting from the Beginning

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A sheet of paper in an old-fashioned typewriter displaying the words "Starting from the beginning," with the ruler and type bars visible at the top and bottom of the image.

When I was an indie author back in 2016, branding and marketing weren’t really “big things” yet. Amazon had been letting authors publish since 2007 and it geared up around 2010 when they rebranded into what we know now as Kindle Direct Publishing. That set the foundation for the Kindle Gold Rush that took place between 2011 and 2013 when, as legend says, you could just publish a book and print your own money. I missed that by a couple of years and things were harder. There was more competition and the authors who had been publishing all that time understood things like putting good covers on your books and writing in a series and did things differently than us newbies to keep their readers and find new ones. They were on K-Boards sharing best practices while everyone else fumbled around in the dark.

I was staggering around on Twitter like a drunk along with thousands of other authors and we were divided into two camps: those of us who wanted to improve and do things the “right” way and those who chose indie to do things their way and only their way.

You can guess which camp I spread out my sleeping bag in. (Just kidding. I don’t camp. My idea of camping is staying at a hotel that doesn’t offer 24/7 coffee access.) I wanted to succeed, and after doing what I wanted when I wrote On the Corner of 1700 Hamilton and my Summer Secrets erotica novellas, that meant starting to follow the “rules.” Write to market, cover to market, make your book’s insides look their best. Even following best practices on what to put on your copyright page. I was the ultimate “Do it right or don’t do it at all” preacher, and if you look back at my blog posts from around that time, I was pretty nauseating. This isn’t the exact blog post I was thinking of, it’s old and I can’t find it now, but I have many that sound similar: https://vaniamargene.com/2021/10/18/you-dont-have-to-do-it-if-you-dont-want-to-how-true-is-that-statement/ And after a while they all said the same thing. Follow the rules or you won’t sell books. Or you’ll sell books but you won’t make your readers happy.

When things go to shit, one of the first things you’ll hear authors who have weathered the storms say, “You have to be able to pivot,” and then you get all the authors who have been at this a while say, “Yes! Pivoting saved my career.” With the way things are in publishing presently, I’ve been hearing a little bit of this now. Be flexible, mix things up. Take a chance. Evolve. It’s the only way to stay relevant.

They aren’t wrong, and I’ve done some pivoting myself. Did it make me money? No. Did it keep me relevant? Well, I wasn’t relevant when I pivoted. I was hoping that starting a pen name and doing everything intentionally would help put me on the map. Choose a genre and stick to it (billionaire). Follow the trends (writing in first person present). Fit in with other books in your genre (putting sexy men in suits on the covers). Create your brand (billionaires in sexy suits). For many many books, I did that and only slipped up once when I wrote my rockstars. (Still sexy, still rich, so I told myself I’d allow it).

It didn’t put me on the map. It . . . didn’t do anything. Pivoting was like walking down a street I had never been on before in a town that I lived in all my life. It was new but didn’t bring me anywhere that I hadn’t been before.

So, this is year ten of publishing and I’m where I was when I published my first book. That’s not totally true–the knowledge I’ve gained would probably be enough to teach a class on self-publishing and I know a lot about marketing now. But I’m making the same amount of money I did then, which to say not very much, and with nineteen books under this pen name and ten under the other, going to bed with zeroes on my dashboard would seem almost impossible, but I do it.

Given all of that, I’m thinking about pivoting again.

The thing is, I’m not going to pivot into something that’s even tighter than what I’m doing, if that makes sense. When I was writing in third person, I thought I couldn’t get anywhere writing contemporary romance. Romance is so narrowed into subgenres that “contemporary romance” is just too wide of an umbrella for any traction. When I pivoted, I niched down hoping that tightening up what I was doing (subgenre and covers) would help, so rather than twist the screw again, I’m going to loosen it up and maybe even toss it aside.

One of the biggest changes I think will be just putting whatever I want on the covers of my books and saying to hell with how they look. I’m tired of the guy in the suit. When I publish Bitter Love, maybe I’ll put a couple on the cover. It’s a small town romance, and I think a couple would be a good fit anyway. And I’m exploring what I want to put on my hockey duet. I was looking at hockey arenas and hot guys and none of that looks appealing anymore. All my covers, all my hot guys in suits, they look like they could be on any billionaire book, and maybe that isn’t a compliment. Branding is one thing. Boring is another. Maybe I’ll do an object cover. I’m still not sure if an illustrated cover would work, especially since my hockey duet is a bit unconventional. (Beckett retired at 21 because of a family tragedy and at 40 inherited the team his grandpa owned.)

I don’t want to be held prisoner by my own backlist, but that means I have to let go of the fear that if I veer off or pivot away from what I’ve been doing since 2020 that I’m not suddenly going to miss my chance to be a bestselling author. I’ve been doing the same thing for many years now and it has always been met with the same result.

I get needing to know what the package is going to look like, and I get that romance is tropey. I like tropes and I’m not talking about throwing away the things that make a romance work. I want to go back to when I was creating for me first and readers second, but marketing and the “rules” have sunk their teeth into me and it won’t be so easy to let them go. I’m going to try though, because things aren’t working and when things aren’t working, there’s no point in doing them anymore.

I’m scared of change, only because I’ve had FOMO since I started publishing and that probably won’t lighten up anytime soon. But these days I might be more afraid of what I’m going to miss if I don’t try something new rather than the opportunities I’ll miss if I keep doing the same thing. I’ve done the same thing since 2020, and I have to get over the idea that “one more book” will change things for me.

I want to be 2015 me, with a good cup of coffee, my cat, and two hours of writing time. Because what I’ve learned over the past ten years along with Canva and Vellum and WordPress and Bookfunnel and KDP and IngramSpark is that everything else is just noise.

And noise doesn’t write books.

If you want to read more about why I first pivoted, you can read it here: https://vaniamargene.com/2022/02/21/knowing-when-to-pivot-what-does-that-mean/

Along with pivoting with my fiction, I may be pivoting with my blog and cutting back to only twice a month. After ten years, there’s not a lot to say about writing and publishing anymore and I’m really reluctant to keep writing weekly if I don’t have anything to contribute. I won’t shut down though–I’m paid up for a couple of years and people are still loving and needing that paperback cover Canva tutorial–so follow me and you’ll get notified when I have a new post up!

Thanks for reading and enjoy your week!

Nancy Drew and You: The Rise of the Reader Detective

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Cartoon illustration of a woman holding a magnifying glass and investigating a cluster of floating "AI" labels. The image humorously represents readers searching for signs of AI-generated writing.

Lately I have come to realize that there is a certain subset of readers who are no longer reading for pleasure.

Before Al became a household name (I like to call him Al because in some fonts AI looks like Al… You know what, never mind), readers picked up a book to either be entertained or to find out information. There wasn’t really a reason to read a book otherwise. Maybe in the indie community someone slogged through a book they didn’t like in the name of “support,” and if you do your own detective work, sometimes you can still spot it every now and then, but these days there’s another reason readers read.

They’re searching to see if you used AI to write your book.

I don’t have concrete evidence for this of course, except that every post I see on Threads now leaves no room for writerly error.

Didn’t vibe with the style? AI

Too many inconsistencies? AI

Too many clichés? AI

Too many em-dashes, semicolons, any other punctuation that particular reader decided to dislike that day? AI

Too much echoing/too many filler words? AI

It’s never-ending, and I have a theory that those certain readers don’t sit down to just enjoy a story anymore. They’re reading to find AI tells, and when they think they’ve spotted something, they shout it to the whole world.

And I don’t mean they’re telling people to warn other readers not to read an AI-written book. They want to feel validated, vindicated, and smug they “caught” you.

When, in reality, unless an author leaves a prompt or a prompt answer in their book, no one is going to truly be able to tell. Because, and this is the sad part, a newer writer, or an author who couldn’t afford an editor, might have poured years of their life into a book that has all those things wrong with it. I’ve edited for people for many, many years, and we forget how raw a new author’s writing can be.

I think the existence of AI has changed how a lot of us, or even most of us, have started consuming content. A very vocal section of the internet does not want to consume any content that’s even partially AI, and for the most part, I agree. There isn’t much, if anything, that I would prefer to hear from Al instead of a human being, and I do get kind of disgusted with people when they can’t put in the work to write their own blog posts, Substack articles, and Threads posts (like the ones that need 5-20 posts to tell a story or recount an event). If you can’t put in that work, then don’t try to offer that content to people. There is so much noise online there’s nothing in it for you anyway.

I’ve noticed this particularly recently when the newest accusation popped up that if you don’t credit your cover designer or your editor on your copyright page, you used AI to create your cover and to write your book. A long time ago I started crediting the stock photo contributors on my copyright page, and I say that I make my own covers in Canva. It never occurred to me to add that I edit my own books, mostly because that sounds like an invitation to read my poorly edited books. It’s not anyone’s business, I don’t think, if I edit my own books or not, as long as they sound good and make sense. I’ve edited my own books for many years now simply because I can’t afford to hire out, especially at the speed I produce and with how little I make after publishing. And in an ironic twist, now days I don’t want to be scammed by an editor who will only drop my book into ChatGPT and ask him to find typos. I can do that myself . . . for free.

All of this has made readers wary, and I get it, but that doesn’t explain the vindictiveness I see toward books that aren’t to a reader’s liking. I feel bad for newer authors who are putting their first book out right now. Maybe they haven’t gotten their voice and style down yet, or they haven’t controlled their echoing, or they fall into clichés because they’re easy to write. Maybe they have terrible memories and hired basement-bargain editors. Then you get someone talking about you online and giving it the biggest insult there is: this was written by AI.

There are only three ways, that I know of, that you can potentially avoid having a bookstagrammer accuse you of writing your book with AI. You’d think the simple answer would be just not use AI, but unfortunately, it’s not that easy.

Don’t use an AI cover
Almost everyone who is on writer/reader social media will assume your book was written by AI. Is it fair, no. But you’ll undoubtedly get people making the leap, like people in this thread on Threads:

Screenshot of a Threads discussion about AI-generated book covers. The original post asks: “If an author uses an AI-generated cover, what are the chances they also use AI to write (partially or fully) the book too?” Responses include: “Very likely. That’s why we don’t allow anyone with an AI cover to submit to us.” Another commenter jokes, “High. Shame them and throw rocks at their computer.” Other replies say they would not take the risk of reading the book and believe authors using AI covers are likely using AI for writing as well.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t use Midjourney to make your cover, but you do have to realize that you are not giving your book its best start if you do. You’re going to be posting your cover on social media–I don’t think there’s any way around that even if you’re not actively marketing–and loud and proud anti-AI people are going to see it. If they make the assumption that your book was written by AI because Al made your cover, then unfortunately, you’re going to lose a lot of people right off.

DepositPhotos has a lot of stock, even if you filter out the AI offerings, and you can make a decent cover with a legit stock photo and good font. I would very much rather do that because I work really hard on my insides, and I’m sure you do too.

Do the best you can editing
This sounds stupid, because I’m going to assume everyone does do the best they can while they’re editing. You can try to clean up your book as much as possible during editing by avoiding:

*Echoing the same words repeatedly (over time you can make a list of crutch words and search for them using the search feature of your writing program)
*Reusing sentence structures (altering sentence length and structure just makes for a good reading experience anyway)
*Characters saying similar things (each character should sound like their own person and have their own distinct personality)
*Illogical situations (if you have a two year old in your book, don’t let her sound like an adult when she speaks or if you’re leaving her home alone, make sure she has a babysitter)
*Plot holes (give your book a break for a couple of months to read with fresh eyes)
*Inconsistencies (keep a character sheet for each character and write down eye color, hair color, careers, etc for easy reference)

I’m not going to tell you senseless fixes like avoiding em dashes or leaving typos in your book to prove that AI didn’t write it, or avoiding the rule of three. Some people are just not going to vibe with your voice, and that’s okay. Your writing was never meant to be for everyone and if the first conclusion they jump to is that AI wrote it, that’s on them, not you.

Credit your cover designer and editor
You don’t have to do this on your copyright page, though that is probably the best place to do it. You can also add a link to your website on your copyright page and give your designer and editor attribution there if you have an About Me page or something. But also be prepared for people not to believe you. Once these particular people get a bee in their bonnet about your book, there isn’t going to be much that changes their minds, especially since people can lie. Anyone can say anything, and people will.

I think it’s pretty sad that we’ve come to this. That we can’t post our daily word counts because people will accuse you of using AI if you’re a fast writer. I just saw someone on Threads accuse Freida McFadden of using AI, when you know she can write full time and probably actually uses her time to write, like other heavy hitters such as Nora Roberts and Marie Force.

The readers who have turned Nancy Drew have stopped reading for pleasure and now read to investigate. That’s a real tragedy that doesn’t seem to have a happy ending.

Books are supposed to be an escape, not a crime scene.

And if you read thrillers, then you know that some mysteries are never solved.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time! Have a great week ahead!