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Author Life . . . is the only life for me. (Just kidding, and no, I wasn’t tipsy writing this blog post.)
Happy Monday, if it is for you. I don’t mind Mondays, they’re a break after working four ten-hour shifts at my job. They usually entail some chores and couple of errands since I don’t have time for much while I’m working. Today I’ll be doing some of that and hopefully listening to more Loss and Damages. I’m halfway done . . . my trip to the Mall of America and the Minnesota State Zoo took up a large portion of last week and I didn’t get anything book-related done, though it was a nice break. I’m not really in any rush to finish it, but after having a heart to heart with a friend, I decided to work on my next series which will be called The Husband List just to get that off my plate. I have no idea how long it will take me to write four books and package them all. I’ve decided to write the four instead of rewriting book one to have only two left because I think it will just be easier to write four more plus it will be a nice addition to my backlist. But the minute I’m done with Loss and Damages and Wicked Games, I’ll be looking through stock photos for men for the covers. Six covers, six men, figuring out the series concept . . . that will take me just as long as writing the remaining four books. I like the idea of it though, so I’m going to jump in and see if I can turn that series into something special.
Besides that, it’s the same old, same old. Summer is coming and the days are getting warmer and longer. I don’t have anything planned for the next three months besides relaxing, writing, and going on a couple of day trips with my sister and daughter. We usually go to the zoo that’s in a town 45 minutes away and to Bismarck, ND, for my sister’s birthday in June. Last year it was raining and we couldn’t go to the zoo there, but we’ll try again this year. I’m kind of a zoo junkie, though I know how sad and inhumane it is for those animals be locked up.
This is me bonding with a tired old bear. I know how he feels.
It was free, now it’s not, and isn’t that the way life goes?
As far as anything in the indie publishing industry is concerned, Bryan Cohen is doing his famous Amazon Ads Challenge again, but it’s disappointing because he decided to charge this time around. It’s not like anything that hasn’t been done before. There are quite a few indie publishing services that have started off as free and then as soon as they had customers who relied on their services, they changed to paid tiers only. The two that come to mind right off the top of my head are StoryOrigin and Booksprout. So, what Bryan is doing isn’t new, but it makes me wonder if he’s going to be subjected to any backlash or if the new authors who were planning to take his challenge will just pay the $9.00. For the information he gives you, that’s still a bargain, but I won’t be able to recommend his challenge as freely as I used to because if you’re an indie strapped for cash, even $9.00 can feel out of reach. I’m fluent in “poor” and $9.00 to me is three gallons of milk. Nothing to take lightly if you’re struggling paycheck to paycheck.
I also wonder what Amazon will think of Bryan suddenly charging for his challenge. For the past couple of years they’ve backed him and recommended his challenge to authors, and it makes me wonder if they’ll still encourage authors to participate or if they’ll be salty Bryan’s making money off them (or trying to. Who will actually pay remains to be seen). He wouldn’t be the first one to do that, either, so maybe it’s not a big deal. There are plenty of Amazon ads resources out there, including books from Janet Margo who is a former Amazon employee. Bryan’s been under fire in other ads groups on Facebook, some members saying that his approach is just flinging spaghetti noodles at the wall, but his challenge does more than just tell you how much to bid. Probably the most valuable part of his challenge is that he goes through what will actually make your book marketable. I’ve seen some pretty gnarly covers and read some very confusing blurbs during his challenges, and if anything, it makes authors open their eyes and choose covers that will sell, not only covers that they like. He also explains ad copy, page reads, and read-through. But if you’re looking for a book that does the same, Nicholas Erik has updated his book on book marketing, and I found it extremely useful. Also, you can keep his book, whereas Bryan’s course has a time limit even though you paid.
I won’t be paying to participate in his challenge. I’ve already taken it a couple of times and I feel I’ve been in this business long enough to understand what makes your book sell:
1. Good cover. It’s the first thing a reader sees, especially using Amazon ads where you don’t choose your own graphic.
2. Good blurb
3. A title that’s not confusing
3. Strong look inside (first 10% of your book)
4. Strong keywords (the seven fields you fill in when you set up your book to publish)
5. Categories that actually match your book’s genre
6. A list of comp authors and comp book titles if you choose to do keyword ads
7. A short hook if you want to add text to your ad
8. Competitive price
Those are pretty non-negotiable before you even set up your ads account. Once you do that, Amazon will know whom to show your ad to, and that can make or break your ads. Then bid .50 cents or so per click (it’s gone up over time due to market saturation, but NEVER go with their recommended), and you’re pretty much all set. I don’t think I revealed any super-secret information. Most of that stuff is no-brainer material anyway but can be difficult to come up with once you need it. Like the keywords you should choose while you’re setting up your book in the KDP dashboard. The number of reviews can affect sales, so can your book being first in a series but your series isn’t done. You need to take a lot of things into account for ads to work. And well, Bryan tells you that stuff whether you want to hear it or not. I’ll be interested to see how his challenge does now that it’s paid. Nothing in life is free, baby. Except this blog. You’re welcome.
Never kill the dog (unless you want John Wick to come after you).
There was some emotional discussion last week on Threads over an author who defended killing a dog in her book.
This is a bad take. A bad take. A bad bad bad take. Especially after all the crap we had to read and hear about Kristi Noem killing her own pup last year. It’s kind of amazing how something can go viral (chances are good I could write the exact same thing and get the obligatory 10 views Threads seems to think I deserve), and I hope she got what she was looking for putting her nasty thoughts out in public. It does bring into question what should be listed on content warnings or if animal death is considered “normal” in the genre you’re writing in. Horror, I would imagine, can get away with a few things Romance can’t, for example. I killed a cow once, and it was very much needed for character trait evidence, but I don’t have it listed on any content warnings anywhere. Fortunately, the feedback I’ve gotten for that book has been nothing but positive. I told ARC readers on Booksprout there was an animal death, but no one mentioned it in their reviews. I don’t go out of my way to kill things, even people. When they die, it’s surprising to me and never planned. It just happens, much like real life. Though, when I was putting together the content warnings for my King’s Crossing page on my website, I included this:
Baby, actually, plays a pivotal role in the books where Gage is the MMC, and I considered her a main character in her own right. Anyway, nothing quite shakes up the internet like talking about dogs dying, so be careful what you say. Erin ended up taking her book down and now she has quite a few one-star reviews on her product page. What she thought was “any press is good press” didn’t turn out to be true. Wanna peek at the book she will now have to rebrand and publish under a pen name to hide? Look here: https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Aware-Erin-Lee/dp/B0CRZJDZJZ
Everyone complains, but no one says thanks.
Everyone complained when it wasn’t possible to buy books off the Kindle app on an iPhone or iPad because of Apple’s fees and restrictions on external purchases, but no one mentioned when a recent court ruling prevented Apple from doing so. Apple is appealing, but for right now, if you use the Kindle app on your iPhone or iPad you no longer have to go to the browser to buy a book. I read on my Kindle Fire anyway, and I’ve always purchased books on my laptop because for me, it’s easier to look around the product page. But this is a big win for authors right now and we can only hope it lasts. If you want to read more about that, you can here: https://www.theverge.com/news/661719/amazon-app-ios-apple-iphone-ipad-kindle-buy-books
That’s about all I have for this week. My schedule is back to normal and I’ll work on Loss and Damages on my days off work. It’s going to be hot, the highs in the 90s until Thursday, so I will also be lying on my balcony enjoying the heat and sun.
If you’re looking for something to listen to while you, too, are flirting with heat stroke, I’m going to be digging into this podcast episode with Jane Friedman. She’s got a new updated version of her book, The Business of Being a Writer, and she’s been promoting that. I love listening to her talk about the industry. If you’re interested, you can find it here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-make-a-living-as-a-writer/id472152554?i=1000705377607
A new Craftwork conversation about the business of being a writer with Jane Friedman. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, is now available in an updated second edition from the University of Chicago Press.
Friedman has spent 25+ years working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World. Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC.
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Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
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Vania Margene Rheault 
There is an author I was excited to read in the horror genre. NYT bestseller, the works.
I can’t stand it. I’ve read 2 books. The second especially had what to me is unnecessary animal deaths. I could see a hundred ways to drive the story forward without those, especially since they were given in gruesome detail, and ultimately were not necessary at all for the story. Like, the story would not have suffered without them in any way, and they gave nothing to it. I won’t pick up that author’s work again due to this.
Opinions are fine, but put them out there, and you get to know everyone else’s. And if the backlash means someone has to republish under a different name, then that’s consequences. Sometimes things should be left in the dark.
I don’t expect trigger warnings on all my books; I do appreciate them but I don’t expect them. I love it when “the cat will be fine; the dog lives; the hamster survives” type things are listed. But I go in blind tons of times on a book.
My own things I write? I try to avoid any kind of animal death if possible. My stories don’t need it. The one I’m working on now the dog is vital to the story and killing him would do nothing for it. Another character’s death was a surprise to me when it came out as I wrote it.
Everyone writes their own way. That’s the beauty of writing – we can go any direction we want. No one has to read it. But certain things are going to piss off readers; I will never understand the idea of “no press is worse than bad press.”
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I think that’s what a lot of authors don’t understand… less can definitely be more. They think violence like killing an animal or detailing a rape gives their story depth, when in reality, it’s how a character processes that event that bring emotions and feelings out in the reader. I see that in new authors who mistake shock value for deepening plot and creating well-rounded characters. In romance I read heroines who spit on their love interests, stomping their feet when they don’t get their way, or other petty actions and I check out. I beta read for someone a long time ago and I told her, “Making her a brat doesn’t make her deep. It just makes her a brat.” But, those are lessons and craft issues that some authors learn and fix and some don’t. It’s up to their readership to tolerate it or not.
Thank you for reading and responding! I hope you have a great day!
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