When Something Finally Starts Working… Then What?

Posted on September 14, 2026 by Vania Margene Rheault

1,810 words
10 minutes read time

I almost stopped publishing.

Anyone following my blog knows that. I was doing too much work for too little in return, and for a really long time I was discouraged enough that I was thinking about walking away and not putting my books on Amazon anymore. I was still going to write–write for myself, write to give my books away–but I wasn’t going to write to publish. Ten years, 30+ books, and most days I wasn’t even making a dollar in royalties.

And the sad part was, it wasn’t because I wasn’t trying. I used Written Word Media newsletter promos, I tried ads. I tried a “real” newsletter (as opposed to my blog now), and I even gave away a full-length novel as a cookie. I did free book blasts and rapid released. I wrote the next book. Always wrote the next book because that book could be the one that changes everything. I did everything they tell you to do. No one could look back at the past ten years I’ve been publishing and say that I didn’t try.

Then I saw someone on Threads talking about Instagram Trial Reels, and I thought, meh, why not. I had already donated blood to TikTok so this wasn’t going to be much different. Eight weeks later, I’ve earned the equivalent of two of my paychecks.

Posting a Reel every day worked.

And now I’m in this strange place where after ten years I found something that moved the needle. After swearing up and down and sideways that there wasn’t a way to find traction or to level up.

It messes with your head.

I kept going back to thinking there was something I had done wrong, and when you produce books all alone, there’s plenty of room for error. Books that could have been edited better, covers that could have looked better. I’ve always edited to the best of my ability, and while your best at the time is always going to be your best at the time, it might not be the best there is, and that can hurt you. I’ve rushed releases and published covers that I didn’t like. Did any of that set me back? Maybe, but when I was advertising and pouring so much money into Facebook ads, quality is only half the problem. You have to get your books in front of readers first. Then they decide if your book is good enough to buy.

With this experiment, I’ve been really lucky. Really lucky and I’m not pretending that luck doesn’t play a huge part in this. I started doing snippets and hooks of my King’s Crossing serial. It’s darker than most of my other books, and the snippets where Zane is after Stella and he wants to kill her for betraying him do really well. I think that being on the fringes of “dark romance” has helped catch some of those readers, not to mention, the content is great for Reels. Especially since I don’t put sex in my snippets. I don’t want my account flagged, and posting ~~murder~~ danger and angst has worked so far. So, I feel like I had books that were geared for Reels and I have six in my serial, which is complete, so that’s another lucky thing to add to my list of lucky things. The covers are okay, most dark romance covers are object covers, but I like men and so far that hasn’t seemed to bother anyone.

I tried doing Reels of Twisted Alibis, the first book in my rockstar trilogy (mostly because I like the read-through concept), but even though I had a few Reels take off, those books didn’t sell, so I stopped. That’s another lucky thing, I guess. To know when to quit. I started doing snippets of Wicked Games instead, a standalone I call “King’s Crossing lite,” and after a couple of Reels that got really good views, that book started selling too.

But here’s an interesting thing: None of my backlist is moving. Which means readers aren’t exploring what else I’ve written. Obviously, no one has time to make videos for every book in their backlist and I have no desire to try to push a boulder up a mountain, either. I keep coming back to something Bryan Cohen said while I was doing one of his Amazon ad challenges so many years ago: advertise the books that sell. Not all of them will hit, so don’t waste your energy on the ones that don’t. And it’s true. I’ve done everything to get my Cedar Hill Duet to go, especially after I re-edited them and redid their covers. They’ve always had a lukewarm reception with anything I’ve tried to do with them and sometimes you just have to walk away.

It’s not hard to see that my King’s Crossing serial is going to be my bread and butter. The other books in my backlist don’t really compare to the fucked-up plot and those abused characters.

This leaves me in some kind of a strange limbo. I’ll keep doing Reels for those books, using the same hook and snippets (I try to mix up the b-roll and there’s plenty on Canva to choose from so it’s not too hard) over and over. I don’t do Reels for books four through six because I don’t want readers to like Gage and Zarah and then realize there are three books before them they have to read first. I’ve had readers ask if they can skip book one, and I’ve had to say no. I don’t know if that influences their buying choices or not. And I’ll keep doing Reels for Wicked Games, at least until I have another new release. I don’t know how well Bitter Love will do, and I’m hoping that if hockey is still trending next year (and I think it will be with the second season of Off Campus coming to Prime, HBO doing the second season of Heated Rivalry, and Netflix picking up Icebreaker) I’ll try Frozen Assets and Cold Mercy when they’re published.

Under all this, though, is the fear that one day this will stop giving me the results that I’ve already come to optimistically enjoy (trust me, it didn’t take long LOL). At some point, it will, right? I’m going to Florida this week and for the past three weeks, I’ve been making a “Reels stash” so I have them made to post while I’m gone. I don’t want to break the consistency that I’ve built. I started posting on July 25th and haven’t skipped a day. I know some of my “success” is posting consistently, and I see that in view bumps of older Reels when I post something new. I suppose that’s not a surprise, but I don’t think consistency is something authors take seriously enough. On the other hand, it’s difficult to consistently do something that consistently produces nothing. When I was running Amazon Ads, and to some extent, posting on TikTok and not being able to escape their 200 view prison, I saw that too.

And then you have the platform itself, and we learned that terrible lesson with TikTok. I saw creator careers crumble overnight. Over the years I have said similar things: Don’t plant your vegetables in someone else’s garden. And I still believe that, even if you can’t help it. I don’t have a “real” newsletter anymore and I haven’t gotten any new signups on my blog. I’ve gotten over 800 new followers on my Facebook Author Page, but that only gives Zuckerberg more slices of my pie. My views and visitors on my author website have gone up, though, and so has my follower count on my Amazon Author page, so that’s something at least.

A change will happen, at some point, and all you can do is hope for the best and be prepared for the worst.

To finally have an audience for (some) of my books is surreal to say the least. Interest in something I’ve written after ten years of struggling to be seen.

Where am I going to go from here? Keep doing what I’m doing. I actually like making Reels because I’m not stretching myself thin. I don’t use a service like Authorloom, and I’m not interested in posting 10-30 Reels a day. I post two every day: one for Wicked Games and one for King’s Crossing. At first I decided not to do Reels for Wicked Games while I was gone, but the bump in sales was too much to resist, so I spent most of the weekend making extras. I know how lucky I am that making Reels is easy: writing the hook, finding the snippet, and writing the caption takes time and practice if you want to snag a reader’s attention. I have the time to make them and I also know that not everyone does. There were a lot of things that came together to make this work, and I would never discount any of them.

But I think through all this, the biggest takeaway for me was that I wasn’t tired or bitter enough to try one more thing. If you’re discouraged, it’s easy to think that nothing will work so there’s no point in trying. I could have tried Reels a long time ago, but I was resentful that it was just another thing to put on my list of shit I had to do. Then after seeing so many authors say they worked, I was just like, Fuck it. I’ll try it too. There was no harm in it besides a couple of lost hours, so I wouldn’t be out much. It took me a few Reels to get into a groove that worked, now making them and posting them is part of my daily routine. Just like writing this blog on Fridays. You do it long enough and it’s a part of your business.

Things will change. They always do. I’ve seen a lot in the past ten years.

I could end with something pithy, but I’ve philosophized enough here in the past couple of years. But I can say this with all the honesty in the world. I will always keep writing. I love putting characters through hell so they reach their happily ever afters. Even if I’m the only one who will read them.

If you want to take a look at my Reels, you can find them here: https://www.instagram.com/vaniamargenerheault/reels/ Trial Reels are hidden, but I started putting the majority on my regular profile because I was getting more views there.

I will be out of office this week and I won’t have a blog post for Monday, September 21st. Behave, and I’ll tell you how my vacation went. 🐚🐬

Have a good week, everyone!

Preorders and Promises

Posted on September 7, 2026 by Vania Margene Rheault

1,422 words
8 minutes read time

Blog graphic with peach and cream flowers and watercolor accents framing the words “Preorders & Promises” in black script.

Kindle Direct Publishing created some buzz last week when they announced that they extended their preorder window to eighteen months instead of the twelve months that we were allowed previously, and let you push back a preorder date two times. Once without penalty and the second time suspending your preorder privileges for six months.

From what I can tell, there were a lot of happy people. One reason is because not many people think Amazon treats indie authors well, and when Amazon does do something positive, it’s cause for celebration. The other is, well, I guess indie authors are going to take advantage of the longer preorder period.

Preorders are a slippery slope. You want to create excitement for your book and announcing a preorder is a way to do that. You can have a link for your CTA and start posting on socials, tell your newsletter, and start running ads. But over the ten years I’ve been in the business, authors tend to get a little overzealous, maybe a little too industrious, and pretty soon they’re canceling their preorder because the book isn’t ready.

Let me tell you a story. An acquaintance of mine has been talking about her newest release since May, maybe even before that. She put her book up on preorder under a pen name, and I preordered it because, you know, I wanted to read it. Then she took it down. I asked her what happened and she said she didn’t know when she wanted to publish it or if she even would. I can understand that publishing is kind of grueling, especially right now, and I forgot about it. Then I saw on social media that she put the preorder up under her main author name, and I got excited and preordered it again. She has long preorder times, two months or so (I consider that long, LOL) but I was excited that I was finally going to be able to read it. Then she announced that she was pushing back her preorder date again. After waiting so long to read it, I gave up and canceled it. I felt like she had jerked me and any other hopeful reader who wanted to finally get the book into their hands around too much. She lost a reader, and maybe more than me. Preorders are promises and when you break them, you break a reader’s trust.

I was a little surprised when I heard that Amazon had relaxed their guidelines and gave indies more time. They are all about giving customers a positive experience, and pushing back or canceling a preorder is not doing that. I also don’t think that’s going to solve the issue I see: indies overpromising and under-delivering. Some indies use a deadline as a way to encourage their productivity, and I guess I can understand that if you’re the type of person who thrives under pressure. But a lot of indies crumble, and what they thought was an exciting announcement turns into a noose around their necks a year later.

How do you decide if using a preorder is right for you? Here are some tips:

Be honest with your own capabilities and limitations.
If you’ve never written a book in a year before, you probably won’t start now. There’s more to a preorder than just writing. You do have to get the book finished, but you also have to edit it, have it formatted, and have a cover made, which all takes a lot more time than it sounds. Eighteen months may seem like a lot of time, but if your editor rips your book apart, that time can disappear.

Ask yourself why you want to do a preorder.
Preorders are not magical. They take the same amount of time and effort to market as anything else. Sometimes more. Readers want the thing the second they want the thing and you’re asking them to wait however many months to have it. I mean, eighteen months might not sound long to you because you’re working on the book. But to a reader–that’s a year and a half. A reader can read a hundred books in that time. Unless you’re a well-known author with a loyal fanbase who’s willing to wait, chances are you’re not going to find many who will. So ask yourself why you want to do a preorder and what your plan is to put that link in front of readers who will click.

Figure out how long you really need, and be smart about it
I’ve seen a lot of authors panic because they’re locked out of their book’s content and they’re not able to change the placeholder file to the completed file. Then it goes out to their readers and I’ve seen plenty of authors get mad about it and blame Amazon for locking them out. It’s better to put a book on preorder when you have the book done, or at least almost done (whatever that means to you) and you have a cover that you can upload that won’t need to be swapped out. Just because Amazon is giving you eighteen months doesn’t mean you need the entire eighteen months. The length of your preorder should serve a purpose, and everyone’s purpose is going to be different. The longer you ask someone to wait, the more opportunities there are for them to lose interest, forget why they wanted it, cancel it, or simply tackle their TBR. Personally, I would prefer to finish my book without telling anyone than putting my book on preorder and having to add marketing to my schedule so people know it exists. (Because if you don’t, your preorder number will be 0 and there’s no fun in that.)

Putting your book on preorder eighteen months before release is potentially giving yourself eighteen months of marketing a book no one can read yet. That’s a long time to keep readers interested, especially when you’re competing with books that they can buy and read right away. Unless you have a specific reason for needing that much time, you may be creating more work for yourself without getting much in return. Finishing the book first and using a shorter preorder period gives you something concrete to market without asking readers to wait a year and a half for the payoff.

Don’t use your readers as an accountability tool.
I understand that authors can plan out their preorders and stick to the schedule. I watched a 20booksto50k talk with Elana Johnson, and if she hasn’t changed how she publishes, she plans to release three or four preorders a year. She also writes full-time and has for many years. She doesn’t need an accountability partner. Writing and publishing is her job. But if you need an accountability partner, perhaps there’s a better option than Amazon. Every day I see people hating on Amazon so I’m not sure why you would willingly turn one of the most unstable publishing partners out there into a tool that can actually interfere with your book business if you mess up.

I’ve also said this before and no one liked it: Break too many promises and all you are is a liar. Readers are not going to trust you if you back out of a preorder too many times. They just won’t. Maybe one day I’ll buy that book I canceled, or maybe I’ll forget about it after I get over being mad. I’m sure she had her reasons for doing what she did, but those reasons aren’t my business. All I wanted was to read her book. I don’t know if she’ll notice that I canceled my preorder. Maybe. She probably wants that number to go up and not down. But it’s an author’s job to follow through, not my job to give her unlimited understanding. There are better ways to hold yourself accountable. You don’t need to set up a preorder so far into the future we’ll get the next season of Bridgerton first.

Are KDP’s changes a good thing? Undoubtedly people think so. Especially since they changed how they’ll reprimand you if you have to change a preorder date. But I think these changes also come with drawbacks that may not be evident right now. We’ll see how it goes.

Good luck to you and your publishing schedule. And if you need an accountability buddy, I offer up Pim for her services. She’ll keep her eye on you!

tuxedo cat peeking over the edge of an amazon cardboard box

Have a great week ahead!

The Last Monday Author Update of the Summer!

Posted on August 31, 2026 by Vania Margene Rheault

1,393 words
7 minutes read time

Summer-themed blog graphic with a turquoise wooden background and vacation items along the left side, including seashells, a sun hat, camera, airplane, football, and travel accessories. Large black text reads, “The Last Monday Author Update of the Summer!”

Hello, hello! I hope you had an excellent summer! I know, summer isn’t technically over yet, but when September first rolls around, we all know what that means–🎃 🍂 ☕️–and after a truly lovely summer, I am ready for it.

First, I want to thank all the editors who stepped up and actually answered the questions when they volunteered to do the interviews. It kind of amazes me that so many editors said they wanted to fill out my interview questions for the blog and then just . . . didn’t. I don’t know how they think they are running their businesses, but it kind of made me give them side-eye. Anyway, it was really nice having that editing series going on the side, and I sincerely want to thank everyone who gave me their time.

Things here are going okay. I’m closing in on 70k words for Cold Mercy, and I have a feeling I have at least 20k more words to go until I’m done, if not more. I’m not sure how this plot got so involved, and it’s not a bad thing, but Frozen Assets finished at barely 80k words. When I go back over it, I’ll have to see if there are any areas that could use some plumping up. I wrote it pretty quickly, so chances are good that some scenes and chapters are thin.

But inspiration abounds, and I have quite a few standalones planned after these are done and I get Bitter Love ready to publish. I still don’t think I’m going to publish again this year. Editing and packaging always takes longer than I think it will, especially since I haven’t made a cover that I want to keep, and if you don’t have a holiday romance, November and December are pretty useless months to publish in. It’s better to wait until after the New Year and start fresh with a new book in the middle of January.

I haven’t given you numbers in a long time, and in July I did a free promo of both Captivated by Her and Addicted to Her. I didn’t do much for them except post on social media and send out newsletter. Though my open and click rates were surprisingly good with an open rate of 29% and 34 clicks (which is a 5% click rate). I haven’t had that many clicks in a long time.

Screenshot of analytics for the post “My Cedar Hill Duet is FREE for a li…” showing the numbers 289, 29.07%, 34, and 5.02%.

It’s humorous that each book got exactly the same number of downloads, though for a little bit Addicted was ahead, mostly I assume, by readers who had gotten Captivated for free at a different time. I wouldn’t call that promo a rousing success, but hopefully I got some fresh eyes on that duet at least. There has always been something not quite right with that duet, and I don’t think they’ll ever get the readers I want them to have. Even after deeply editing both books and giving them new covers.

Screenshot showing two book titles in a dashboard list. “Captivated by Her” appears beside its cover with the number 127, and “Addicted to Her” appears below with its cover and the number 127.

I also put Rescue Me in Zoe York’s book blast that took place in August, and gave away 1460 copies. I gave the bulk away on the day her blast went live, but I used my free days before and after it as well, and that was the total I ended up with. Because it’s a standalone, I can’t expect any kind of read-through tail but I’m hoping that readers put me on their list of authors they enjoy reading.

Screenshot showing the book “Rescue Me” in a dashboard list beside its cover, with the number 1,460 displayed on the right.

I still believe in the power of free, especially since I started doing reels and I’m ~~finally~~ finding readers after all this time. I’ve had a spike in website visitors and have given away a lot of copies of My Biggest Mistake. Of course, I have no idea if that does anything besides establish some goodwill toward readers since they don’t even have to give me their email address to have access to it. I’m not sure when I’ll do another free promo with any of my books. I could put A Heartache for Christmas on sale in November and December and see what that does, but I don’t like messing with my books after they’ve been published, and I’ve heard of authors getting their accounts terminated when they change their prices. Which is strange, but half the things Amazon does don’t make sense. Maybe I’ll just do another free promo, or maybe I’ll do nothing. It’s only a standalone so I’m not even sure if it matters. I do know I won’t pay to give it away. Getting a couple of trial reels to take off on Instagram would do more for it than paying for a spot in a Written Word Media newsletter.

My reels continue to do well, at least for me and what I know. I’ve seen some authors post views in the hundreds of thousands, and I have yet to crack above 100k in views. I did have one that got up to 90k which has been my best one yet, but I think anything above 5k is good and I’m content with the reach I’ve been able to find. Luckily, I have the time to keep making them and I haven’t skipped day since I started at the end of July. Mostly I’ve been doing my King’s Crossing serial, focusing on books one and two. I feel that if I go deeper into the serial that people will get annoyed they have so many books to read before they get to the part that was in the reel they liked. That might not make a difference, but I know I’m disappointed when I see a promo for a later book in a series. It’s just my way to need to start at the beginning, and it probably is for a lot of other people too. There’s plenty of material in books one and two, and so far, I’ve reused very little. Eventually I’ll have to because not every scene is reel-worthy, and at some point I’d probably go against KDP’s guidelines of not having the book be available anywhere else. Just kidding, though it seems like I’ve put a lot of my books up as it is.

I have to laugh because before I started doing reels, a friend and I were talking, and she said, it can’t be that easy, and yes, dear reader, it was that easy. If it had been TikTok-challenging, I probably would have quit. Not all my reels do well, but at least I’ve had some that pop as opposed to when I was on TikTok and every view felt like I was fighting for my life.

As for what I have going on right now, I’m just doing reels consistently and trying to finish Cold Mercy. I was skimming over Jordan and Jesse in Bitter Love, and I’m getting excited to work on them next. While I edit, I need to get on with the cover. I still might put it on my website for free for a bit, and then put it on Amazon with a different cover. I’d like to have paperbacks printed to sell and give away as well, but I’ll have to figure out the logistics of connecting a store to my author website. Then it seems like you can’t sell paperbacks direct to readers if you’re not offering swag, so I’d have to look into stickers and/or postcards featuring the small town they live in. All that sounds like a lot, but I wanted to do stuff that I’ve never done before, so doing it with that book would give me practice to give my hockey books a fun launch.

That’s really about all I have this week. I’m going to Florida from September 15th to the 22nd (flying out on the 15th and returning on the 22nd) so I may take the break that I’ve been hinting at. It will be enough to batch reels for the days I’ll be gone because I don’t want to lose the momentum I’ve been able to build. I can plan ahead, put them in drafts, and then post one every morning. You guys would get along without me for a couple of weeks, right? Hopefully. As long as I don’t take my Canva tutorial down. Just kidding! Kind of.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with that. Have a lovely week, and happy September! 🍁 🥮

Editor Q & A: Andrea Benson from Quirky Pen Editing

Posted on August 24, 2026 by Vania Margene Rheault

Graphic introducing Andrea Benson from Quirky Pen Editing for a fiction editing series. Pink and blue design features illustrated manuscript pages with editing marks and a pencil. Text explains that the series helps editors share their editing process and helps authors find the right editor for their manuscripts. Includes QuirkyPenEditing.com.

Introduce yourself! How did you get into editing and what are your qualifications? What genres do you enjoy editing most?
Hey everyone, I’m Andrea! I first got into editing for many reasons. But at the root, it was because I know what it’s like not to have a voice, and I wanted to help other people use theirs. I have a Certificate in Copyediting from UC San Diego, and I continue to do everything I can to improve my skills. I specialize in editing fantasy, science fiction, and horror, although I recently edited a crime fiction novel, and that was a fun departure.

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.)
Since I primarily edit at the sentence level, that’s how I think about the manuscripts I work on. At that level, the biggest (and most frequent) mistake I see is authors showing AND telling the same thing. So, for example, an author might do a great job at showing a character is nervous, and then end the paragraph by stating that they’re nervous. I totally understand the impulse to do this, but trust your readers! Removing those extra telling bits is an easy way to tighten up the manuscript and bring down the word count a bit.

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 was taught in my copyediting program to use as much of the author’s original wording as possible to preserve their voice, and to not add anything unless I absolutely have to. So a lot of my edits are things like removing a few unnecessary words or copy/pasting a phrase from one part of a sentence to another. If I think a sentence needs to be completely reworded, I’ll make a comment with a suggestion or two of how that might be done. The author is completely welcome to use my wording, or they can come up with something that fits their voice better.

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?
For copyeditors, this sometimes happens when an author wants a copyedit but hasn’t had a developmental edit first, and many copyeditors won’t take those manuscripts. In my experience, though, authors are already well aware of the types of editing available and are skipping a developmental edit because they can’t afford one. I’m happy to do what I can with whatever an author sends me. That said, I only have a certain amount of time to work on each edit, and I can go deeper with a manuscript that’s already in good shape.

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?
My rates are really low, so I’m often the editor who authors are coming to when they can’t afford anyone else. For authors who absolutely can’t pay or who want to do the work themselves, I recommend the book Editing Fiction at Sentence Level by Louise Harnby. It has really great tips with lots of examples, and it’s written in a very approachable way.

Have you noticed AI writing tools affecting the manuscripts you edit? What are your thoughts on authors using them in the writing process?
I haven’t “caught” anyone using AI in any of the manuscripts I’ve edited, but I lean toward giving authors the benefit of the doubt. Some authors’ writing style is similar to AI (it learned from us, after all!), so I don’t want to accuse anyone unfairly. My contract also has a clause stating that I won’t use AI to edit, and that the author won’t give me text that’s been generated by AI, so I trust my clients. I do have some clients who use AI in a more assistive way, like to generate ideas or to help with grammar and punctuation (never completely trust Grammarly, though!). I don’t support the use of AI to generate the text itself–I want to work with clients who have something to say, and who are saying it in their own voice.

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?
This was covered a lot in the editing courses I took. It’s honestly one of the most difficult parts of the job. Every artist puts something of themselves in their work, so when an editor gives feedback, that can feel very personal to the author. I do my best to remember that when I’m choosing how to word my suggestions. I also love to point out what an author is doing well.

Are there any other tips or thoughts you would like to add about editing or publishing?
The journey is hard, but keep going! I love seeing authors follow their dreams.

And lastly, where can readers find you online?
My website is quirkypenediting.com, and I’m on most socials as heyandreajay.
Threads: https://www.threads.com/@heyandreajay
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heyandreajay/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andrea.benson.311

PR, Advertising, and the Myth of Being Online

Posted on August 17, 2026 by Vania Margene Rheault

2,322 words
12 minutes read time

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

Posted on August 10, 2026 by Vania Margene Rheault

1,150 words
6 minutes read time

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 my regular Instagram Reels. You can see them here: https://www.instagram.com/vaniamargenerheault/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

Posted on August 3, 2026 by Vania Margene Rheault

1,473 words
8 minutes read time

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:

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

Posted on July 27, 2026 by Vania Margene Rheault

1,666 words
9 minutes read time

Dark floral image featuring delicate white wildflowers against a blurred woodland background with the words "Author Update" in elegant script.

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?

Posted on July 20, 2026 by Vania Margene Rheault

1,723 words
9 minutes read time

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

Posted on July 13, 2026 by Vania Margene Rheault

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

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