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!

Editor Q & A: Natalie from Purple Moon Editing

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Promotional graphic for the Fiction Editing Series featuring Natalie from Purple Moon Editing. Pink headline text reads “Natalie from Purple Moon Editing,” with illustrated marked-up manuscript pages and a pencil. Additional text says the series helps editors share their process and helps writers find a good editor match. Website listed: msha.ke/purplemoonediting.

Introduce yourself! How did you get into editing and what are your qualifications? What genres do you enjoy editing most?
Hi! I’m Natalie. In 2024, my husband put the idea into my head to become an editor. I’d already self-published a book and was getting ready for the second one, so I acutely felt the need for quality, but affordable editors for indie authors. Since I love English and have often been dubbed a Grammar Nazi, he told me I should pursue not only writing, but editing as well. In 2025, I began Purple Moon Editing with offering beta reading while I obtained certification for proofreading and editing through the Virtued Academy International online. In the beginning of this year, I opened for all edits, and I have already been loving the work I get to do.

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.)
I think one of the main things I often have to point out is characterization. Characters need to be clear from the beginning. This is a tricky one, especially for writers who are “pantsters”, but it’s important for them to know their characters well. It can really jar the reader when characters fluctuate between motivations or when they say or do something totally out of personality. This is also one of my favorite things to address because I love finding out how to tighten and strengthen characters in the story, so it’s still a win for me. 😊

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?
Even when I begin reading a new book (for leisure), it can take a while to get used to the cadence and style of the author. I like to just read a lot of the manuscript first before I even begin to edit so I can get the feel of that author’s personal style/voice. Then I go ahead with normal edits, which are usually quite typical. If something is considered “wrong”, but it seems to be part of the author’s style, I’ll mention it to them and let them decide how they want to proceed. For example, I delete the word “that” quite often because it is a filler word that clutters the flow of the story, but recently I noticed one author using it in her character’s dialogue. It seemed to fit the more formal, stilted style of their speaking, so I left it in the dialogue, though I did mention it to the author.

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?
I don’t think I’ve personally come across a manuscript that is too much work yet, but I think if I did, I’d suggest they back up and get the right type of edit first. Editing progresses as it goes, so the messiest draft needs to start with a basic beta read, which is a light edit, mostly dealing with development, but sometimes points out common mistakes too. I do offer beta reading, but authors can often ask friends to beta read as well. I think the hardest manuscript I’ve seen has come from an author whose first language is not English, so her grammar is understandably more challenging than normal. I admire her desire to write in English, and even though it takes me longer than most manuscripts, that’s what editors are for! It’s all part of the job.

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?
I completely understand the financial strain of hiring professional editors. I’ve self-published twice, and that has been my biggest expense. That’s one of the reasons I began Purple Moon Editing, because I think indie authors desperately need more affordable resources. I encourage learning all you can about your craft, both the story-telling and the editing aspects, but I do not think authors make good editors for their own stories. I recently posted about this. Even as an editor, I will never completely self-edit my own books. The reason is that an author can see all the scenes in their heads, making it difficult to realize when information is missing or unclear. They also often see the same sentences so many times their minds become numb to the mistakes. They also already know what they’re trying to say, adding another layer of difficulty in picking out errors. If finances are very tight, I recommend gathering a team of beta readers (many friends or avid readers enjoy doing this for free) and using their feedback as developmental edits. Then make the manuscript as perfect as you know how and hire an editor for just a final proofread. Proofreading is often the cheapest type of edit, but it does help with spelling and punctuation and capitalization. Addressing just those issues can help so much. Too many indie authors try to skimp on editing, pushing out books that have so much potential, but they’re just hard to read. And that reflects badly on all indie authors, giving us the stereotype of being sub-par artists or amateurs.

Have you noticed AI writing tools affecting the manuscripts you edit? What are your thoughts on authors using them in the writing process?
Thankfully, most indie authors I know or work with have strong feelings against using AI in their process. As artists who rely totally on themselves from start to finish and beyond (indie authors even have to do their own marketing), the idea that generalized artificial intelligence can imitate us and easily belittle our efforts hurts to the core. I haven’t noticed AI tools affecting the manuscripts I edit in a negative way. I believe AI is a tool which can be used intentionally and responsibly for some things, but I don’t think it has a place in creativity.

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?
That’s truly a balance I’d like to obtain! I try not to focus just on the mistakes or changes that need to be made, but also on all the good as well. I leave a lot of encouraging comments. I let authors know if I love a certain line, or if a scene was really strong. I even leave emoji reactions along the way. I think that helps soften the harder comments. I also try to be careful of my wording. It can be easy to get lazy and just leave the barest comments, such as, “Delete this. She already said this. This doesn’t make sense,” but if I’m addressing a bigger issue or a wording choice, I’ll offer the comment as a suggestion. “Maybe you could find a different word here. It could use a stronger verb,” or “I feel like this would be clearer if you deleted the first line.” I want to be helpful and supportive, and I want to sound conversational, not like an officer.

Are there any other tips or thoughts you would like to add about editing or publishing?
I love stories. I believe they have power. I believe every story is needed in the world. Writing, editing, and publishing can seem scary and overwhelming, but they don’t have to be. Get a good support system, get help when you need it, and go for the dream. There are a lot of resources out there to help with every step of the way. I like to say, “To be a writer, you don’t have to be good at spelling or grammar or have a huge following or be agented. All you need is a story.”

And lastly, where can readers find you online?
You can find me on Instagram ( https://www.instagram.com/purplemoonediting/) and Threads: (https://www.threads.com/@purplemoonediting). My website is: msha.ke/purplemoonediting

Thank you so much for the thoughtful questions, Vania. I hope, if you’re a writer, these thoughts can help you.

Author Update: Mid-Year Check In

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Flat lay blog header image featuring a pink-and-gold workspace. A spiral notebook in the center reads “Mid-Year Author Update 2026” in elegant script. Surrounding the notebook are a pink computer mouse, keyboard, gold pen, paper clips, decorative tape, flowers, earbuds, and a fuzzy pink pouch, creating a feminine and organized writing-themed aesthetic.

It’s that time of time of week when I say I don’t have anything to talk about but then end up writing 2,000 words on how much I love to write while pretending I don’t care about my sales dashboard. I still love to write, and I’m trying to care less about my dashboard. I need to find my inner Gen X, stop giving a fuck, and go drink some water out of a garden hose.

Last week we had a heat wave and spent five consecutive days sunny and in the nineties. I didn’t mind this so much–because of my mother I’m a Floridian at heart–but Thursday night I had a terrible time sleeping and spent Friday in a heat-induced zombie state. That broke with a weekend of cloudy days and rain, but my car battery decided to lose charge and that was just a stress I didn’t need in the middle of it all. Luckily, it was under warranty from when I had it replaced in January, so it didn’t cost anything except some worry and time.

Friday morning Pim decided to chew on a sticker she peeled off the bottom of one of the dining room chairs, and I was lucky that years ago we had a cat who had what amounted to feline pica and knew right away she was trying to eat something she shouldn’t. I pulled two inches of paper out of her throat and she sauntered away like nothing happened while I laid down on the kitchen floor and peeled all the rest of the stickers off the chairs before I even had a cup of coffee. Picture of Pim for the cat tax:

Picture of tuxedo cat sitting on counter near the sink and strainer
Pim doing whatever she wants. Not thankful at all.

All that to say I had an eventful week last week.

I didn’t realize when I was thinking of post for this week that it would land on June first, and that’s perfect because now I can do a mid-year check in. Things have been pretty quiet around here. Wicked Games‘s launch did poorly, even with Amazon ads, hardly anyone reviewed out of the fifty or so ARC copies I gave away, and it’s just going to be another book added to a backlist that nobody’s reading. And that’s fine. It really is. I’m going to take a different route publishing Bitter Love next year, and for the rest of this year, I’m going to focus on writing my hockey duet. Since this is a check-in, let’s talk numbers. I’ll keep to my author side this time.

Number of words written this month
I’m really happy to say I’m 46,000 words into the first book of my hockey duet, Frozen Assets. I jumped the gun and announced it last summer, but then I decided to re-edit a couple of books and wrote Bitter Love instead. So I’ve been thinking about these books for a long time and have them mostly plotted out. I hate that it’s gotten to the point where authors have to defend their word count so they’re not accused of using AI to write, even though 46k in a month (I created the Word file and started writing on May 3rd) isn’t terribly fast. It’s not even NaNoWriMo standards fast. I’m not trying to get this book done as quickly as I can like I have in the past . . . I’m just having a lot of fun writing Beckett and Sloane and write whenever I have free time, which, even with the shenanigans my work is having with my schedule, is still a lot. I’m not going to speculate when this book will be done, or when I can start Cold Mercy or when those books will be published. I will put them up somehow and eventually they’ll get to Amazon, but I have very little caring about anything right now except watching hockey documentaries in the evening and writing Beckett falling in love with his fake wife.

Author Website Numbers
I still keep seeing authors ask if having a website is something they should do, because of cost or time or whatever, and even for as quiet as my hobby has become, I think it is. This year so far I’ve had 707 views of blog posts and 540 visitors. Maybe I still have the sun shining in my face, but I take that as a good thing. That’s 707 people who know who I am. Does it make a difference? Maybe not. But that’s more than I would have had without a website at all. My blog is connected to my old list of MailerLite newsletter subscribers, but I don’t send them every post because I don’t get the open rates to justify it. I’ve actually been tempted to delete my whole list, but the email addresses can sit there. I’m not going to bother to send if no one opens, but I like posting updates on my blog, and doing cover reveals and snippets and all the rest keeps me excited about my projects. I pay about 100 dollars a year (I pay for two years at a time for the discount) and if we’re talking measurable ROI, it might not be worth the cost to some, but I can afford it and I’ll keep it going.

Bar chart showing website traffic from January–May 2026. The site received 707 views and 540 visitors during the period, up 21% and 36% respectively compared to the previous period. Engagement also increased, with 20 likes (up 233%) and 7 comments (up 100%). April had the highest traffic month.
Screenshot of my WordPress Author Site Dashboard

My Biggest Mistake
Not like the biggest mistake I’ve made in publishing this year, but my reader magnet is still getting downloads. I don’t check the stats that often, but someone on Threads the other day was saying how discouraged she was because books sales weren’t there and she wasn’t getting any traction with the free stuff she was giving away on her website, either. My website page (vmrheault.com/subcribe) where my reader magnet lives, is in all my back matter and in all my bios across social media, like IG, Goodreads, and BookBub. In May I gave away 34 copies. There was a spike at one point, and the link must have been shared somewhere because I usually give away around 15 month. That’s still pretty good for a free book that’s just sitting on my website without much active promo. I think it helps that it’s a standalone and that I’m not asking for an email in return. I re-edited it not long ago, but it could probably use another sweep since I’ve been making my books sound more conversational and I re-edited that one before I started doing that intentionally. I have Rescue Me in the back matter for readers who like standalones, but I haven’t gotten many sales of that so I don’t think the link is doing anything. Still, I’m proud of My Biggest Mistake, and sometimes I wish I could give it a new cover, but the cover is in all my back matter as well and that’s too much work to change it when the cover I have on it now is just fine. I’m locked into giving it away for the rest of my life because I’m not editing back matter for 20+ books. If I ever feel like I’m missing out and need another book, I’ll just write one.

Wicked Games launch
I published Wicked Games on May 15th, 2026, and I am sorry to say the launch did even more poorly than Loss and Damages back in September. I feel like every book I publish does less than the book before it. Only 11 people out of the 18 who took copies on Booksprout have reviewed, and I have the same number of reviews on Goodreads, which is pretty sad considering I gave away 35 copies to people on IG and my website. I wasn’t going to do Booksprout this time, but I caved. I won’t be doing it again. Because out of the 11 who have reviewed, not even half wrote a review a potential reader could use to decide to read my book. I’d rather have zero reviews than ten that say, “Good book. Would recommend.” That’s not a review. To me it’s just someone phoning it in because I asked them not to use AI. Harsh, maybe, but I’m also paying for the service, and readers are willingly downloading a copy of my book to read and review. Anyway, Wicked Games has made less than twenty dollars this month, 8.28 in sales, and 10.59 in KU page reads. I spent 11.81 on Amazon ads before I turned them off because lately my ads have been doing really good impressions- and click-wise but the clicks don’t turn into sales and I can’t let them get out of control like they did last month. I don’t have any plans to do anything else with it. I’m terribly proud of Seth and Avery, and the “real” reviews I’ve gotten have said it’s good and makes sense (which was one of my worries because no beta readers and no editor besides Pim and me) so like Rose dropping her necklace in the ocean, I’m just going to let it go and move on. Though, I’m not going to go to my stateroom and pass away. I don’t plan on going on any boats anytime soon.

Backlist Sales
I don’t check yearly sales unless I’m writing a post like this, but across all my books this year, I’ve made $306.00. With Canva, WordPress, etc, I’m not ahead or even breaking even, and I don’t expect to ever again. I got really excited when I finished editing my Cedar Hill Duet and gave them new covers, and I spent $85.52 on Amazon ads trying to promote them. The ads went gangbusters, resulting in 436,861 impressions and 91 clicks while I had them running, but even at a lower click-rate, I couldn’t keep them going. Those books didn’t take off with their new covers like I thought they would, and maybe I’ll give them away later this month during a free promo. This year they’ve only made me 35 dollars together, and unfortunately, they aren’t worth spending money on.

Screenshot of Amazon Ads statistics for the Cedar Hill Duet campaign. The campaign spent $37.49 and generated 436,861 impressions and 91 clicks. Readers borrowed 255 Kindle Unlimited pages. The campaign is still delivering and has no budget cap.

It’s been a while now since my King’s Crossing Serial has been published and out in the world. Since I’m only doing a recap of 2026 so far, I’ll just give you those numbers. All six books together have sold in royalties $172.86, but I was running Amazon ads to those as well. Those ads also went crazy and I turned them off. I spent over 200 dollars on ads to that serial this year, resulting in a small loss.

Screenshot of Amazon Ads statistics for the King's Crossing campaign. The campaign spent $209.05 and generated 853,610 impressions and 514 clicks. Readers borrowed 10,492 Kindle Unlimited pages. The campaign is still delivering and has no budget cap.

This just circles back to what I’ve been having problems with for the past couple of years. I can get ads to work, but I operate on a small loss or break even. I can never get them to do more than that, and it requires me to keep a constant watch on them so I don’t wake up hundreds of dollars in the red.

Right now I don’t have any ads going to any of my books, and I don’t have any promos planned. I always think I should do this or I should do that, but then I think I’d rather write my book or something else and never do anything beyond the thought.

What’s ahead for the rest of 2026
What’s ahead is just writing Beckett and Sloane and Sloane’s sister Celina and her love interest who has yet to be named. All my research has been paying off and I can drop cap talk and contracts into dialogue like nobody’s business. It’s also helpful to know that most of a hockey team’s management is still paid out their contract fees even if you fire them, and sometimes no matter how much a player sucks, you can’t cut them. A lot of what I know I learned from watching Faceoff: Inside the NHL on Amazon Prime and reading sports articles (who knew free agents could be so interesting!). I’m lucky I love watching documentaries and right now I’m watching NHL Hall of Fame stuff on Prime to get a feel for the career Beckett lost walking away from the sport. The worst is coming up with team names that haven’t been used before by an “important” or “real” team, but you still want the name to be powerful and befitting of a hockey team. So you can get silly, like the Idaho Gum Chewers, but it’s just in fun until you can think of something passable.

I have Bitter Love in reserve until I feel like editing and publishing it, which I doubt will be this year, to be honest because while I love Jesse and Jordan, I’m just not feeling it, and maybe next year I’ll re-edit my rockstar trilogy. I love the characters and their stories, so it won’t be a chore like Faking Forever was (I never want to read that book again), but I’ll do it when my hockey duet needs to breathe, and I can settle in and enjoy a couple months of that. They don’t need new covers, I’m very happy with how they look, but those books are a couple of years old now and could use a proofread.

I have things on the table to keep me busy, and summer is just starting. My sister, daughter, and I have a couple of roadtrips planned, and I think we’re postponing Florida until September when school starts and fewer families will be traveling to Disney. I’m feeling okay, every once in a while a bad day will knock me over, usually when the night before I didn’t get much sleep. I’d still like to lose a little weight, but I’d have to get off my butt a lot more than what I have been. I’ll be getting new author pictures done too, since the ones on social media are a good five years old now. I need some new clothes before that happens, and my sister and I will just drive to a city park near my apartment. I might even sit in the same place. The flowers the city plants make a nice background.

That’s it from me this week. Next week is another editor Q & A. I hope you’ve been enjoying them! I don’t have many left to post.

Take care, and have a great summer! See you next week! ☀️ 🌸

Monday Musings: Publishing Whiplash

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Graphic for a blog post titled “Publishing Whiplash,” featuring a snowy mountain road and a lone car driving through a winter forest at dusk.

I’ve only had whiplash once in my life. When I was thirteen or so, I was taking the van home from church. I did this a lot even when my parents had also gone to church, because it was fun and one of my friends didn’t live that far from me and we rode the whole way together. The roads were slippery, and at an intersection, a school bus hit us from behind. I didn’t feel it for a couple of days, but when I did, I was miserable for weeks. Luckily, I have never been in a car accident where I have suffered like that again, but being online these days gives me a different kind of whiplash.

Everyone is talking about sales, KDP reporting, and what you can or can’t do to sell books.

On the one hand, there are people who say there’s nothing you can do. Good books are buried every day, and it doesn’t matter how well your book is written or how wonderful your cover is. The algorithms are against you, and it does feel like that. You publish a book and it joins the ranks of the thousand other books that are published that day. There is no organic discovery, it feels like Amazon no longer pushes your books (is the 30-day cliff even a thing anymore?), and word of mouth is bestowed among a fortunate few.

But on the other hand, I am seeing a lot of, If your books aren’t selling have you…?

started a newsletter
posted on socials consistently?
asked beged for reviews?
optimized metadata?
picked the right tropes?
run ads?
rapid released?
made or bought the right cover?
written the perfect blurb?
built an ARC team?

And anyone who has been publishing for a while will say they’ve done all those things, and it can get annoying and frustrating hearing that same chorus over and over again.

Because we can dissect that list and find many reasons why they don’t work anymore. It’s harder than ever to entice, persuade, or cajole someone to sign up for your newsletter, and when they do, good luck getting them to regularly open it and engage with what’s inside. Social media is a time suck and you’re fighting a different kind of algorithm war. Reviews can be hit or miss, but my experience with BookSprout, PenPinery, and giving ARCs away on my FB author page and through my newsletter has been less than stellar. Optimizing metadata isn’t a secret anymore and everyone knows how important categories and keywords are. Running ads is a gamble, especially with Facebook making it increasingly harder with their AI and interest targeting changes. Not having the right cover is so 2016 and it’s easier than ever to make something yourself in Canva or buy a premade, and maybe people still struggle with blurbs, but they’re doing their best. We know how important it is to build an ARC team, but everyone is trying to build one, and while publishing is a marathon, you may die before you reach that finish line.

So, what’s left?

I know this post sounds like a lot of what I’ve been talking about for the past six months, maybe even the past year, but it’s only lately that I’ve been seeing the tug of war online . . . or maybe it’s always been there and I haven’t been sensitive to it until now.

Perhaps one thing that made me go, “Hey….” is Becca Syme’s recent Substack article. In it, she says to stop worrying about saturation and start writing better books. In a lot of areas, I agree with her. For the past fifteen years we’ve been swept up in the culture that faster is better and that more books will earn you more money. She mentions authors publishing their Minimum Viable Products, and that truly did used to be a thing–just get it done and out. I think authors still think faster is better, just for the sake of feeding the algorithm and building a backlist, or if not that, then they publish the second their book is done because they’re excited. I mean, I just saw someone post on Threads that they put the first two books of a new series on preorder, but now they have writer’s block and were panicking because they barely had anything written. I get being excited, I even understand needing a deadline to work toward to keep motivation up, but that sounded like unnecessary sabotage to me.

So, in some ways, Becca is absolutely right. Stop thinking you’re going to fade away into obscurity if you’re not publishing three times a year, focus on enjoying the process, and give your readers an experience that they won’t regret paying for.

But I also disagreed with her. Not because I think authors shouldn’t focus on craft–we should all be trying to level up every time we write a new book–but because the authors who write good books have the same problem that everyone else has: discoverability. In fact, some could argue that poorly-written books seem to do better, but that’s a discussion that leads to nowhere so we probably shouldn’t do that here.

The truth is both sides are right, and that’s what gives me whiplash. Yes, authors should focus on craft and giving a reader something they’ll love to read. Yes, we should package our books professionally, write the best blurbs we can, and understand the basics of marketing. But there comes a point where “Have you tried…?” stops being helpful and starts sounding rather accusatory and condescending, like if you had just posted one more reel or spent five more dollars on ads, you would have made it.

And you know the people who keep telling you to keep writing, those are the people who have made it, and they have the “Just Do It” mentality because it worked for them. That doesn’t make them wrong (maybe annoying, though), but people who have found success sometimes wear rose-colored glasses, and it’s difficult for them to take them off.

So we can look at publishing and focus on what we can control. We can level up our craft in a way that our time and expenses allow, we can put good covers on our books and write good blurbs. But I also think we need to be honest about what control actually looks like. Not everyone has the money for developmental edits, professional copywriting, or custom covers. Not everyone has an army of beta readers, honest author friends who will tell you the truth if your cover sucks, or an ARC team that will actually read and leave a coherent review. A lot of publishing advice assumes access to resources that a person working two jobs, parenting, and running a household may simply not have.

Over the past ten years I’ve learned a lot. I’ve leveled up my craft, and I know I have. I never could have written Wicked Games five years ago, and I have said in the past that I tabled A Heartache for Christmas because I didn’t have the skill to write the book I wanted to write. I’ve learned a lot about covers, not just making nice ones in Canva, but making ones that specifically fit the genre and vibe of the book. And yeah, I do it alone. But even though I do it alone, I don’t stagnate because I love doing what I do, and getting better is a part of having a passion.

In my last blog post, I said that this post would be about finding discoverability if you don’t like posting on socials and if ads don’t work for you. I’m not sure what I thought I was going to offer, since my books’ discoverability is pretty much nonexistent. I make pennies a day, even with nineteen books in my backlist. And because of that, I decided to stop writing to publish and write because I love it. I don’t know when I’ll publish again and that’s okay. I’ve done everything on that list and it’s time to move on.

I’m tired of thinking I could have done more, and I’m tired of being told I could have done more.

I don’t have whiplash anymore. I don’t go to church anymore, either, and the friend I used to sit with, she’s been in my past for a long time.

But five months out of the year the roads are still slippery, so I’ve learned to slow down and enjoy the view.

Editor Q & A: Megan Harris

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Promotional graphic for Megan Harris Fiction Editing Series. Pink text reads “Megan Harris” on the left. A teal banner says “Fiction Editing Series.” Below, text explains the series helps editors share their editing process and helps authors find an editor who is a perfect match for their manuscripts. Website listed as www.mharriseditor.com. On the right are illustrated manuscript pages with red editing marks and a pink pencil.

Introduce yourself! How did you get into editing and what are your qualifications? What genres do you enjoy editing most?
My name is Megan Harris and I’ve been editing books for 14 years! I got my start as an apprentice under a small press, Evolved Publishing, that still operates today! Over time my services have expanded from only offering line edits to adding developmental editing services and helping with pitch materials including synopsis, book blurb, and query letter writing/revisions.

The genres I love to edit most are all in fiction and include horror, mystery, romance, and fantasy.

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.)
One recommendation I often make to indie authors is to trust their reader to draw their own conclusions. This can be a struggle when you’re first starting out (which is why we edit) because what may seem like something that needs explanation from the writer’s side may be intuitive once the reader is embedded in the world building the author has set up. For example, conversations between two people may mean fewer dialogue tags needed and more physical action than the writer initially describes. It takes some effort to thread that needle but is so worth it in the end!

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 make it clear from the beginning of my author relationships that what I’m suggesting is not something they must agree with each time. When I’m making edits I explain the changes and why they are occurring, and it’s up to them to decide if the changes mesh with what they are trying to say. This partnership helps us both see each other’s perspectives while aiming for the same goal: a well-edited manuscript that readers will enjoy and that the authors is proud to publish.

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?
Yes, this has happened from time to time but can be avoided when an author and editor take time to work through a sample edit together. I offer 1,000-word line edit sample edits as well as a 3,000-word developmental edit for those looking for those services. For both, I request authors send over a sample from the middle of a manuscript so there is a better baseline to work from since most authors have a well-edited start to their story.

If it seems like the book needs more work than the agreed upon scope, I give a few different options such as changing the service (which can come with a change in the cost) or referring the work out to someone else that may be a better fit if they agree to it. This is often avoidable, however, if the vetting process that comes from working on a sample is followed.

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?
Cost is often a barrier but that shouldn’t prevent an author to do the best they can with the resources they have. I recommend that authors who can’t afford a professional edit seek out critique partners that can help them improve their writing. You can find others to trade services with or barter skills. Maybe you’re great at making graphics and can trade manuscripts with someone who needs help in that area.

You can also see if an editor is willing to work with your smaller budget or if they have discounts. I offer them oftentimes and currently have a year-long discount for services to give authors a break during these challenging times. Not every editor is able to do this, but you won’t know until you ask!

Following a thorough self-editing process is also a great way to save on costs. For instance, if you’ve been able to self edit your book well and an editor determines from your sample that you only need proofreading, you’ve just saved yourself a lot of money because you’ve taken the time to carefully review your work. I recommend authors become familiar with study guides and books on craft to sharpen their self-editing skills. It can also help to ask others when you’re stuck for advice on word usage, either in writing communities or on social media.

Have you noticed AI writing tools affecting the manuscripts you edit? What are your thoughts on authors using them in the writing process?
I don’t accept manuscripts which have been created with generative AI. It’s in my contract and personal credo to only work on projects written by humans. Other writing tools that assist with writing, such as spellcheck, are okay in my book so long as the author is putting in the work to write and revise.

This may be controversial, but it saddens me when authors lean too much into using AI to write. If you haven’t bothered to write your book, why should others bother to read it?

Our reliance on technology has led to people believing that they can cut corners and it shows up in creative spaces too often. Readers can tell when an author has put their original work out there and are more likely to want stories written by human authors, so I urge authors not to rely on generative AI tools to create their stories.

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?
No matter an author’s experience, I find it’s helpful to find what is working in a manuscript as often as I find what can be improved. My clients appreciate this candor and honest reactions to their stories which humanizes the experience and doesn’t look like I’m just checking boxes. For developmental edits, my writeup includes a section called “story strengths,” for instance, and in line edits I share with authors comments at times that tell them where something is working well.

When it comes to critical, actionable feedback, I ask a lot of questions in emails to get a sense of what they may have wanted to achieve in specific areas and then guide them gently through my thought process on changes that may improve what they have written. Sometimes there is pushback, but approaching their project in good faith helps authors know I’m on their side and rooting for them the entire time.

Are there any other tips or thoughts you would like to add about editing or publishing?
It’s probably said often, but taking a break between writing and editing is such a crucial step in the process. If you write your story and put it away for a while, you’ll come back to it with a fresh perspective and a better idea of how to make improvements. I also encourage writers to think about tropes along the way or have a friend read their work to determine what may be most helpful to know. Using tropes in marketing has become a common tactic and even if this trend dies off, it’s helpful when you’re pitching your book to others to know what kinds of themes they can expect to encounter.

Lastly, it’s a good idea to have thoughts about how to market your book before you finish the editing process. Clients of mine usually plan their release date and work backwards, giving themselves plenty of time to hit the major milestones they need, such as completing edits and having the cover ready, before the release date. Creating a plan can help you build up the hype about the book so that when the release date comes you can feel satisfied that you did everything you could to make it a success.

And lastly, where can readers find you online?
Authors can find me at my website, www.mharriseditor.com, where they can read blog posts with author tips and sign up for my quarterly newsletter. My username on most social media platforms is the same as my website: MHarrisEditor. Instagram | Threads | Facebook

Thanks for the opportunity to connect with your readers and answer these questions!

Author Update: Where are all the May Flowers? 🌸

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Decorative blog header featuring pale blue baby’s breath flowers along the left side against a white background, with blue script text reading: “Author Update: Where are all the May flowers?”

Don’t get me wrong. The title of this post is a little deceiving. There are some flowers here and there and the grass of our apartment complex is dotted with yellow dandelions that look cheerful. But, sparing you the Minnesota weather forecast, it’s still cold outside, and well, after dealing with the doom and gloom, it would just be nice to be able to go outside without a coat on.

Wicked Games will be out this Friday, May 15th, and I’m not really doing anything extra for it. The book has just kind of slipped out of my brain, and it will be a struggle to shove it back in, so maybe I won’t. I’m not running ads and I feel like I’ve exhausted how much people on social media care (even if the truth is no one has seen the posts in order to get tired of them). It used to be that releasing a book was a big deal, and it still is, in some ways. I’ve gotten good feedback about it, some nice reviewers posting on Instagram, but going through the publishing motions isn’t as exciting as it used to be. I don’t want to be a killjoy, and I’ve been trying very hard not to be on this blog because you don’t come here to listen to me whine.

But I think it’s safe to say that I don’t have the time, energy, or money to do what it takes to move books, and I’m not alone. I’m willing to do a lot of things, or, I was. Like sending out a newsletter, a real one, not just on my author blog, consistently releasing three to four books a year, and posting on socials. It used to be fun, and that’s the crux of it. The hustle isn’t fun anymore, and at fifty-one, I’m understanding what my limits are and don’t want to waste energy on things that consistently produce very little in return.

What still is fun? The writing, of course. I’d walk away completely if that stopped being fun. Cover design. Scrolling through stock photos is tedious and getting up there with being not fun, but for now, putting together a cover I can be proud of that accurately depicts the story is fun. Formatting, to some extent, is fun. I like deciding how pretty I want to get with the insides, but a lot of the time I think simple is best and at the last minute throw out any plans to get fancy/complicated and just do a clean formatting job instead.

Uploading files and entering metadata is not fun, and having to do it over and over again on different platforms is really not fun. Bookfunnel, Booksprout, Amazon, IngramSpark when the timing is right. It’s tedious, really, especially when you pair that with the stress of hoping that what you’re doing will help just a little bit and you might actually sell a few copies during your launch.

So, I think any sane person would say, just do the fun stuff then, and forget the rest. And honestly, I’m really close to doing that. I’ve been thinking about what I want publishing to be going forward, and with my personality in general, having fun means trying new things. That means doing something I haven’t done before, like only making my book available on my site for a while, or going wide with it instead (I know those are completely opposite ideas LOL). But publishing the way I always have is getting stale, and I’m hoping for different results doing the same thing every time. Because when I look at what I’ve done over the past couple of years, doing promos, book blasts, and running ads, I don’t get different results, and I don’t get different feelings either. So, I’m not thinking about things the way I used to. We’ll see. The easiest thing I can think of would be to do something like, put Bitter Love on Bookfunnel and give it away as a freebie for a couple of months. No thinking about sales, no hoping for reviews, just giving it away and seeing what happens. I wouldn’t even bother to collect email addresses because I would have to change my Bookfunnel plan and I don’t want to do that. It’s interesting to think about. I’m not selling much now, so giving away a book wouldn’t cannibalize any sales, and I doubt that will change within the next year or so because I’m not convinced the publishing landscape will get easier anytime soon.

In other news, I got a preorder reminder today, and it’s interesting that KDP is now locking your book down five days before your publishing date, not 72 hours. So, with that change I would suggest that you have your final files uploaded and ready for your preorder/scheduled date at least a week in advance. The warning doesn’t bother me at all because I never put my book on preorder until my book is 100% ready to go, but I know a lot of authors edit right up until the last minute, so I would keep this in mind if you like to live dangerously. I have both the print and the ebook scheduled, so this could only apply to the paperback, but it never hurts to be safe and just have both of them ready at the same time.

Screenshot of a Kindle Direct Publishing email reminding the author that Wicked Games, scheduled for release on May 15, 2026, will be locked for updates beginning May 10.

As of this writing, I’m 12,000 words into Frozen Assets, and I’m really liking my progress so far. Of course, you know I get the “This book is going to be so short!” fear while I’m writing, but then I look over my outline and think there is no way this book will be under 80k words. All the research I’m doing seems to be paying off, and my characters can talk about hockey naturally without sounding like I’m injecting facts just for the sake of sounding like a sports romance. I’ll still have to research as I go along because when we get to team dynamics, player positions, and contracts, I don’t know much about those things and I want to sound realistic and believable. Just in case a hardcore hockey fan happens to read my books. There are things you can fudge in the name of artistic freedom, but I want the important aspects correct at least.

Alex Newton of K-Lytics just came out with his annual sports report, and in the email, he says:

Romance > Sports is currently the #2 highest-ranking bestseller list out of 69 main Romance sub-categories on Kindle.

Even more striking: 11 out of the Top 100 highest-selling Kindle books of 2026 thus far are sports or hockey romance titles. Eleven!

Google search interest in sports romance and hockey romance surged to an all-time high at the end of 2025, just as the TV adaptation of Rachel Reid’s hockey romance Heated Rivalry became the biggest original series debut on record for Canada’s streaming platform Crave.

And the next publicity boost is already around the corner: Elle Kennedy’s Off Campus will premiere on Prime Video next week, on May 13.

if Alex’s numbers are anything to go by, hockey romance is an extremely popular subgenre right now and if you were thinking of sliding onto the ice, there’s probably never been a better time. If you want to purchase the report (that also covers football and other sports), I’ll give you the link (not an affiliate link). I used to buy them every once in a while, but I can’t afford to now. I’m sad, too, because his reports are very informative and I miss his data (and sense of humor). There’s a little more information about his seminar, and you can buy it here: https://k-lytics.com/sports-romance

That’s all I have for you this week. Next week I have an editor Q & A from the lovely Megan Harris, and after that, I’m going to talk about discoverability if you hate social media and ads don’t work.

Have a good week, everyone, and take time to smell the flowers! 🌺

20booksto50k: Then vs. Now

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Black and white “20BooksTo50K” logo with a small sailboat icon and the tagline “A rising tide lifts all boats,” followed by the title “20booksto50k: Then vs. Now.”
Logo taken from https://indieauthormagazine.com/

Back in 2015, Michael Anderle had an epiphany. He did the math and came up with the idea that if an author had a backlist of twenty books, they could make a living wage–$50,000 dollars a year. If memory serves, he was sitting on a beach somewhere.

It seems simple enough. Write twenty books that each make $208.00 dollars a month.

That revelation turned into a phenomenon, and plenty of authors rose to the challenge. And not only rose to the challenge, but smashed that ball right out of the park.

In 2015, I wasn’t published yet. I was active on Twitter while I was writing a high fantasy series that I’d end up not publishing, but if you were in the #writingcommunity, you knew about the Facebook group and were likely a member. It turned into a hub of hope. You learned how to make covers-to-market, write-to-market, to write a series and give the first book away to earn royalties through read-through. But it was more than just advice. Authors were actually doing those things and showing snapshots of their sales dashboard proving that those tactics made money.

We drank the Kool-Aid because it made us feel good. I guess it was more like spiked punch at that point, which makes sense because when I get tipsy, I want to do ALL THE THINGS. And more than that. I think ALL THE THINGS are possible. Anyway, yeah, that group gave us a buzz that was hard to push back. So we wrote our novels and packaged them with good covers and wrote long series that had open plot arcs so a reader had to read all the books to know how the story ends. We were in it together.

A rising tide lifts all boats.

Unless your boat has a hole in it.

Over the past year or so, I’ve talked a lot about letting the dream go. Wicked Games will be out May 15th, and it will be the 19th book I’ve published since starting my pen name and changing to first person present POV romance. I wrote and stockpiled books during the pandemic and published my first books in 2022 (the duet I recently re-covered and re-edited).

I don’t make $44,928 a year off the books I have out now (that total is adjusted to the 18 books I have published, not 20). There are days I’m lucky if I make pennies from all my books combined.

Last week I had to turn off my Amazon ads. All of them. And it made me sick inside because ads are the only exposure my books have. I don’t like posting on social media and don’t do it nearly as often as I should, and my newsletter/blog brings in not very much interest. But my ads were getting a lot of clicks and no sales to show for it. I even checked my rank for the books I was advertising and their ranks were actually falling, not going up. So people were clicking but not borrowing in KU. With that proof, I had to turn them off.

There are a lot of reasons why books don’t sell, and I don’t mean mine specifically. Probably the biggest culprit is saturation. Back in March, an article in Publisher’s Weekly said that in 2025, four million books were published between people self-publishing and authors who had trad deals. Four million books in one year alone. And those four million books don’t make the books published in 2024, 2023, 2022, etc, disappear. All those books just stack on top of each other into a seemingly endless abyss of novels that give readers so much to choose from they may not be choosing anything at all (doomscrolling, anyone?).

One thing the 20booksto50k group did was turn the indie mindset from writing books as a hobby into writing books as a business. We started thinking about covers and blurbs and marketing strategies and what readers wanted, and today, it’s easier than ever to produce a book written-to-market that looks professional. Unfortunately, publishing a professional book is only the start, when before it’s what got you halfway there.

The other day, a friend of mine said something that stuck with me. Publishing is no longer a distribution channel or a discovery tool. All publishing is now is uploading a file. That really resonated with me because ten years ago, there was organic discovery. Simply being part of the KU ecosystem ensured visibility, borrows, and royalties. I think that’s why when Draft2Digital put their $12.00 a year maintenance fee in place there was such an uproar and why I’m seeing such a disdain toward Kobo lately. Authors want help selling their books and believe the distribution service of their choice should be the ones helping them. Nobody likes paying for nothing, and when you’re not selling books, that’s what you get. Dead weight, indeed.

Do any of the philosophies of the 20booksto50k group still hold true? I mean, a book with a good cover and a good blurb will always sell better than a book with a DIY cover and a blurb so vague a reader can’t tell what the book is even about. But some of their biggest fundamentals like rapid releasing and having a large backlist don’t seem to move the needle much, if at all, anymore.

Because of some personal reasons, I left that group a couple of years ago and haven’t looked back. When I was a member, yes, making money was a goal, but so was building a readership of fans and giving them a good product on which to spend their time and money. From what people have been saying now, the group is focused more on quantity than quality and adopting AI as a way to make that happen. The group also has a new vibe now that it’s called Author Nation, run by Joe Solaris instead of Michael Anderle and Craig Martelle, and I’m a little disappointed I never made it Las Vegas for their yearly convention when the group was still under their leadership. I missed their golden era, when everyone was helping each other and you could ride the high of a good conference with good speakers for months.

These days I don’t know what any group could really offer an author to help them get ahead, besides just “emotional support.” All the information is out there and you can follow it to a T and still end up with zeros on your dashboard.

Why am I talking about this now? I guess because I’m closing in on the twenty books part of the idea, and I’m not even close to making the 50k part. It’s an idea that was perpetuated a long time ago, and it was perpetuated because some authors managed to do it. And that too, is like driving wood splinters under your fingernails. You can have perfectly fine books. Cover, title, blurb, tropes, and have it professionally edited, and no one will buy it or borrow it in KU. You start to wonder if there is something wrong with you, especially when other authors around you are able to do it, and with fewer books than you.

While I was scrolling Threads the other day, there was an author who was saying a first book in her series wasn’t doing well, and she was wondering if she should even bother publishing book two. I looked up her profile, and in one post she said when her book was on preorder she had over 100. To me that sounded pretty good, so on Publisher Rocket, I looked up how well she was doing. Her books were earning her thousands a month. She was literally living the 50k part of that dream, and I was so angry I almost started crying. To have what so many of us wanted, and she was complaining about it. I’m happy for her, but it’s really difficult to be happy for someone who doesn’t seem to be grateful for their own success.

I don’t know when I’m going to publish next. I told myself that I would start Frozen Assets at the beginning of May, and it’s the beginning of May. I’ve been enjoying the time off, getting things done around my apartment, going for walks, and watching TV in the evenings guilt-free. I like not feeling pressured to get words down. I like not having a publishing plan.

I learned some valuable lessons while I was part of the 20booksto50k group, but they instilled a dream that many of us will never reach and a mindset that’s hard to turn off. The publishing landscape is too different from what it was ten years ago and we need to make adjustments in our own businesses and hobbies to protect our mental health.

I’ll keep writing because I love it, but publishing is something else and I’ll see how that feels next year. Wicked Games comes out on the 15th of this month and it will be my only book this year. The few readers I have already know this, and they also know I’ll be working on my hockey duet for the foreseeable future. With the changes at my work, I don’t know how fast I can write a book now, and that really isn’t the point anymore anyway. I’ve been looking forward to my hockey duet for the past year, and I’m excited to write them. But publishing might mean something else. I’m not sure yet.

20booksto50k wasn’t a crazy idea. It was achievable to some. But now it feels like an outdated map that leads to riches that have already been found. Like Craig Martelle and Michael Anderle, it’s time to go out on my own. Who knows what’s out there.

Next week I’ll write up an author update, and then on May 18th, I have another installment of my editor series, so bookmark this site or subscribe! I’d love to see you again!

As always, thanks for your time, and I hope you have a great week!

Author Update: Spring Reset

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Pink flat-lay graphic with a clock, notebook, glasses, pens, and desk accessories surrounding white text that reads: “Author Update: Spring Reset.”

Hello, hello, from the frozen north where it actually got to 85F the other day and it made us all think that summer might once again be possible!

I have been very busy for the past few days, and I got a lot done. I finally finished edits for my Cedar Hill Duet, and got all the files uploaded to KDP and IngramSpark with their new covers. This will be the last time I edit them or redo their covers. What will be with them will be, but I was very excited to get that off my plate once and for all. If you want to see how the covers have changed since I published them four years ago, I dredged them up on Canva:

Graphic comparing cover evolution for the Cedar Hill duet. Top row shows three versions of Captivated by Her from 2022 release cover, 2023 redesign, and 2026 final cover featuring a lighthouse background. Bottom row shows three versions of Addicted to Her from 2022 release cover, 2023 redesign, and 2026 final cover featuring a city skyline background.

I don’t think my skill necessarily changed that much, but my taste did. The covers I just changed them to are more indicative of what’s inside, Rick with his lighthouse and Beau with the city behind him, rather than the generic background that a lot of billionaire novels have even today. I did end up changing the model for Addicted to Her, just because the guy didn’t match the vibe I had in mind for the character. I had to find a different pose for the other model because his arms were cropped and I needed all of him so I could show more of the city buildings. I really like how they turned out, and since I edited these within an inch of their lives, there’s no reason to revisit them ever again. It’s a good feeling. After KDP approved the paperbacks, I started some low cost-per-click Amazon ads and I’ll be thinking about what I can do for the “relaunch party” I want to have. I’d like to use my free days and run a Facebook ad to them or something because I think with the new covers they’ll sell better. Anyway, I’ll let you know what I decide and what the outcome is. If anything, it’s more content for social media because I always have trouble coming up with things to post.

While I was messing around in IngramSpark, I updated all of my prices (something they told us to do months ago), and I upped all my paperbacks to $16.99 which just seems so high considering I had some of my older books priced at $9.99. I don’t sell many paperback off there anyway–I only have my books listed in case a miracle happens and suddenly bookstores need access. So I adjusted my prices, made sure the discount was the same across the board, and turned off returns on the books that still had that on. Getting that pricing maintenance out of the way was a nice thing to check off my list, as was catching up and publishing my King’s Crossing serial, A Heartache for Christmas, and Loss and Damages. I was behind because I don’t like having to tweak the covers, but it will be a while before I have to do any more. I won’t be able to publish Wicked Games there until that title and ISBN “settle” on Amazon so I’ll get around to it this summer. It’s just a lot of busy work what with the covers and filling out all the meta data and uploading files.

I was going to wait to put Wicked Games on preorder since I had been messing around so much with my KDP account, but I ended up submitting the ebook for preorder anyway, and that went through just fine. I’m not sure what I was expecting, them to flag my account for unusual activity, I guess, but they didn’t bother me. I had an ARC reader message me on IG and told me about a typo that I fixed, but it will be there in all the ARC copies that were claimed and in the nine author copies that I have. It’s fine. I had typed “here” instead of “her” but honestly, if that’s all she caught because that’s all there is, I’m pretty happy. And I got this review on BookSprout and it makes me happy that this book has the potential to be a good read. That sounds doomsday, but you really don’t know how a book is going to hit until people start reading it.

A great suspense story that includes finding love at a difficult time and all that it involves.
What a lovely personality Avery has. Considering the pain she has gone through she is very generous to Seth when he is so cruel with his words to her. I know Seth has his demons too but I felt that didn’t give him the right to be so vicious early on in the story.
He redeems himself though and Avery gives him a second chance. What comes across is two people who have both suffered immense losses and whilst grieving are trying to find a way to live their lives.
There’s lots of intrigue and suspense throughout the whole story. I felt it was well written and it was intriguing with so many avenues to go down. Seth’s long standing friendship with his business partner Violet was an added dimension that Avery quickly understood.
Definitely worth reading, even if I did end up with a tear in my eye.

–BookSprout Reviewer

Eighteen out of twenty-five copies went on that site, and most of them were familiar usernames, meaning, they’ve stuck with me for several books. I was going to mention in the “Note to Readers” section that this would the last book, but I didn’t. I won’t be publishing anything else for a while, so I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. I suppose it will depend on what kind of reviews I get this time. Not good or bad, I mean, quality. For Loss and Damages, I got one that was written with AI, and a lot of plot summaries. So, even though I don’t pay much, those aren’t the kind of reviews I want attached to my books anyway. If the reviews are better this time, I’ll reevaluate next year.

I gave away 35 out of the 50 I made available on Bookfunnel, I think mostly through Instagram since I boosted a post over there for a week. Here are my open stats for my “newsletter”–the subscribers I have from when I was building a list on MailerLite.

Screenshot titled “Email opens” showing campaign metrics: 594 total emails sent, 180 unique opens, 275 total opens, and a 30% open rate.
Latest emails Opens Clicks Wicked Games ARCs are now available! 30.3% 1.85%

Out of a decent open percentage, only 1.85% clicked, which ends up being about 11 people. Of those, all of them could have downloaded, I’m not sure, but between BookSprout and my Bookfunnel link, I’m hoping Wicked Games can go live with around 50 reviews. Not because I think it’s a magical or number or anything, I just think the more reviews your book has, the better it looks and the better it will sell.

I said I was going to try a site called PenPinery for book reviews, and I’m glad I only paid ten dollars because that bombed. I don’t know if it’s still too new and they don’t have readers, or if I did something wrong. According to the site, I had one person apply, but I never got an email and when I tried to click on the notification to approve them, it didn’t do anything. That was after the campaign closed, because again, I didn’t get an email to know anyone applied, so I’m not sure if that had anything to do with it. Because it could have been an operator error and not the machine, I’m not going to ask for a refund, but it will be the only time I try them. Because if was my fault, then it shouldn’t be that hard to list a book, as I’m a fairly educated and intelligent person. Either way, my experience is what you come here for so I would find a better, perhaps a more straightforward, way to get reviews, and where maybe ten dollars will get you something more than confusion and disappointment.

I don’t have much more to do on my list, which I am really grateful for. I was getting really burnt out and I needed the break. Not that doing ten hours of admin is a break, but uploading files while listening to music and drinking lime Perrier is a lot different than editing two books that are five years old. If I wanted to, I could upload all my books into Draft2Digital and put them into libraries, but it would take a lot of work and I’m not sure if it’s worth it. Like every other place that has books, libraries are saturated. People finding any of my books and borrowing one are slim so I’m not sure if it’s worth the time. I’m not concerned about the fees they implemented. Twelve dollars a year for distribution services and account maintenance sounds pretty fair to me, and I’m not going to say much beyond that because anything that could be said already has been . . . last week. I will leave this hypothesis here that someone left in a comment on James Blatch’s Substack article about the subject. You can read what he has to say here: https://jamesrblatch.substack.com/p/the-reaction-to-the-draft2digital

screenshot of comment. text reads: John Irby 10:23 AM If D2D is able to successfully pull off charging authors up-front, expect KDP to do likewise in the near future. The days of Big Tech handing out freebies is over. I'm a musician and Apple recently switched my digital audio workstation software, Logic Pro, to be part of a "creator's bundle" subscription costing $13 a month, even though I already paid them $200 for the basic software years ago. But I digress.

I think in the next few years, John is going to be right. Everything will be going to paid eventually, and what remains free will be so pared back it won’t be usable in any long-term way. So if you were one of the people who had a problem with how Draft2Digital decided to combat AI books and scammer accounts, I would ask that you look at your business and consider where you’re going to be in five years. You’ll always get back what you put into something, so it’s worth thinking about.

Now that I’m done with most of my admin list, I’ve been watching Faceoff: Inside the NHL on Prime and just mulling over plots and characters for my hockey duet. I think I’ll give myself another week of rest and then jump in at the beginning of next month. I haven’t decided what or when I’ll publish next, and it’s kind of freeing just to be writing to write. I finally got around to watching the new season of Bridgerton, and that was fine. I don’t think Benedict’s story is my favorite–that honor might always belong to Anthony unless Eloise’s story blows me away–but it was fine. I also watched Heated Rivalry to see what all the fuss was about–it was hockey so I considered it research–and that was okay. I didn’t freak out over it like most of Romancelandia, but I can at least say I watched it now so my FOMO can STFU, LOL.

Anyway, I think that’s all I have for this week. I’m in a really good place mental health-wise with my writing. I’m excited to start writing my hockey books and just have fun with the world- and team-building. It will be a lot of work, but I’m looking forward to it. 🏒

Enjoy the last week of the month!

Editor Q & A: Lennon K Riley

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Graphic for Lennon K. Riley’s Fiction Editing Series, featuring illustrated marked-up manuscript pages and a pink pen, with text describing a series that helps writers understand editing and find the right editor for their manuscripts.

Introduce yourself! How did you get into editing and what are your qualifications? What genres do you enjoy editing most?
Hi! I’m Lennon. I’ve been editing for 10 years, covering a variety of genres and author working styles. I began professional developmental editing during a workshop for the literary organization in Portland called Literary Arts. Before that, I copyedited for online magazines. I enjoy editing fantasy, romance, and mystery most – in YA and adult.

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.)
Lately, I’ve seen structural issues, such as a whole book basically being Act I, either delaying the adventure (Act II) and resolution (Act III) too long or forgetting them completely. I’ve also seen a lot of dialogue that could use improvement. Dialogue that doesn’t sound realistic or consistent with the character.

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?
When I make a recommendation, I always include “I recommend…” and an explanation for my recommendation. For example, it could be I recommended a change because something with a character was inconsistent, something came off to the reader in a way that the author didn’t intend and I want the author’s intentions to come through on the page, or something was unclear and difficult to follow and I want to help the author clear it up. I ensure the author knows this is a partnership and I only want to help make their work better. I am their biggest fan and none of my edits come from a place of “I think this is bad.” All my edits come from a place of “I love this and I know we can make it the best it can be.”

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?
I just had an author hire me for scene and line edits, but they really needed a developmental edit. I did complete the job for the manuscript, and I included some dev editing suggestions to help them get started on their own – at no extra charge. I also gave them resources on outlining, pacing, character development, how to raise stakes, etc. to help them work on their self-developmental editing.

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?
Pinterest is a great place to go for free editing resources. Writing blogs have a lot of great information to help authors self-edit, and Pinterest is a centralized location for all of the blog posts out there to be found in one place.

I also offer affordable editing services and payment plans, for those who can’t afford to pay a full sum when they hire me. I recommend getting an editor for at least one round of edits, as there are things that a second pair of eyes will see that no author will be able to. I’m a self-published author and a professional editor, and even I hire an editor for my completed manuscripts. There are just some things I know I won’t see because I am too close to it.

Have you noticed AI writing tools affecting the manuscripts you edit? What are your thoughts on authors using them in the writing process?
I don’t take on any clients who have used AI in their work.

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?
I never say “I don’t like this” or “This doesn’t work” or leave any comments that don’t have an explanation and a recommendation. My feedback is always kind, justified, and labeled as a Recommendation. All my edits are simply suggestions. The author has the right to ignore my edits if they disagree, and I don’t take that personally either.

Are there any other tips or thoughts you would like to add about editing or publishing?
Publishing is a rough world right now. If you’re struggling, just know that it isn’t you. If you’ve gotten feedback from professional editors, writing groups, and others in the industry that your story and your writing are good, listen to those voices. It’s really difficult to get published these days as a debut or indie author looking to break into traditional publishing. Things have changed a lot in the last six years. It’s the industry, it’s not you.

And lastly, where can readers find you online?
Readers can go to my website at lennonkriley.com for information on my books, other writings, and my blog giving writing advice and reading recommendations to visitors. They can also find me on Instagram, Threads, and YouTube at @lennonkriley.