2,289 words
12 minutes read time

Happy June!

Things are going pretty good here . . . I got the proof back for Loss and Damages, but I’m not going to dive into proofing it yet. Just a quick flip through made me realize I forgot to add the page that asks readers to sign up for my blog on my other website and reminds them I have a free book there. I’ll get that put in and I’m sure there will be more after I sit down to read it.

I’m not going to stress over typos anymore considering there’s backlash now if your book is too perfect. Apparently a typo-free book is a sign you’ve used AI to write, which is ridiculous, but so is the accusation by a clueless reader that if you’ve formatted using Vellum software that you’ve written your book with ChatGPT.

Of course, that reader didn’t know what Vellum even is (and it’s not her job to, but still, maybe she shouldn’t have been voicing her thoughts on something she didn’t understand), and the creators of Vellum have changed the language of the indication that it was used in the book’s formatting. It used to say created with Vellum on the copyright page if you checked the box, and I always did to give Brad Andalman and Brad West credit for creating the software in the first place. But if that’s the way readers are going to be, I’ll uncheck the box and give them credit on the copyright instead. It’s a shame really, because these AI witch hunts are doing more harm than good, but props to Brad and Brad for fixing the terminology after these accusations spread over the web. (Not that I’ll apply it anytime soon . . . I’m about five updates behind because it already does what I want it to do.)

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It seems every day there’s a new accusation and it’s getting to be so it’s really tiring to be online. I get why there’s pissy conflict about it, indies saying “Why should an AI book sell better and make more money than my book that I worked so hard on all by myself” and it’s valid . . . up to a point. People have said that about books that aren’t well-written as well, the same attitude being, “Why would a book that sounds like crap do better than mine?” and it’s a really toxic place for your mindset to be. Not only because competition is the thief of joy, but because quality is subjective, and not everyone reads at the same level. Calling someone stupid for liking a book you don’t feel is worthy of the time or sales is a choice. And maybe that’s not a thought spoken a loud, but it’s there whenever the topic comes up. (How could a reader like that?) There’s room for all books and all reading levels. Is this me defending AI? Not really. Mostly it’s me thinking authors can do what they want. I’m not getting involved like some busybody who can’t mind her own business. I have my own life to live and my own projects to work on. And honestly, all the BS people are posting just makes them look like jealous idiots.

Anyway, so I’ll get to Loss and Damages when I feel like it. Right now, for some reason, I was compelled to reread my rockstars (perhaps to remind myself that book two actually did have a plot), putting in some slight editing changes as I went along and fixing a few typos and stuff I didn’t see because I didn’t have great glasses back then–and I wrote those when I wasn’t feeling good so I was distracted by that. Things like commas that are supposed to be periods, or I found a place where I used a single quote mark to start a sentence but didn’t close it. Nothing major and not many, but since I was reading for fun, I thought I might as well not waste it and if I saw something that needed fixing, I did. I can upload the new files to KDP, but I don’t know if I’ll bother with IngramSpark. I haven’t sold a book through there in years, and it would cost $75 dollars for three books if I can’t find a promo code somewhere. But I don’t like the idea of my books being different on different platforms, so I’ll probably just swallow the cost and tell myself to stop reading my books over, even if I enjoy it, because at some point it’s going to cost me money.

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What I really wanted to talk about was my new summer project! You’ve heard me talk about my plans for the next little while–getting Wicked Games ready to go and getting back to work on a series that I started writing during COVID that’s 1/3 completed–but I was inspired by Alex Newton’s new K-Lytics report. If you’re interested, you can find it here and purchase the report for $47 USD. This is not an affiliate link: https://k-lytics.com/sports-romance/.

It really got me thinking about jumping on the hockey trend, though I don’t think it can be called a trend anymore. Hockey romance has been around for a long time and like Billionaires that started as a fluke when Fifty Shades of Grey came out almost fifteen years ago, it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. So there is definitely no rush to get it written and published, and well, putting out a hockey romance during hockey season would be good timing anyway.

I wouldn’t bother if I didn’t have plot, and I have no idea where it came from (no, Al didn’t give it to me). All I knew when I started thinking about it was that I had to make my MMC rich to tie him into the Billionaire brand I’ve got going for myself. My rockstars still did well even if they weren’t billionaires, but they’re rich, of course, which fits into that wealthy lifestyle my characters live. Hockey players can be millionaires too, if they’re valuable, skilled, and sign the right contracts with the right teams. They play hard and . . . play hard. But this isn’t going to be some fluffy hockey romcom. No, this book is going to be gritty and dirty because hockey’s a sport that’s rife with sexual assault and domestic violence, among other things. I like to mix up tropes, bend genre expectations, like my FMC not getting pregnant in Give &Take, my a-baby-for-the-billionaire novel, the first book in my Lost & Found trilogy, or my rockstars who never get up on stage to do a concert. I’m going to flip it. My MMC hasn’t put a skate on a rink in twenty years and when he gets pulled back into that world unwillingly, he is a very pissed off man. So yeah, I’m really looking forward to writing this standalone and I’ve already been doing some research, diving into watching documentaries like Faceoff: Inside the NHL on Amazon Prime. Here’s the hook I posted on my FB author page:

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I’ll need a lot of research because I know next to nothing about hockey and it’s going to turn into that kind of a joke where I have to watch six hours of documentary just to write one believable paragraph. But I’m wondering if this isn’t the kind of passion project I needed to boost some writerly morale, though my King’s Crossing serial suddenly selling is doing that too. With a passion project I’m excited to write and my King’s Crossing serial doing well, I’m actually in a good headspace about my writing right now. I’ve let go of the hopefulness, which I think did me a world of good. All I have going on for promo is some Amazon ads that aren’t bankrupting me. So, I can say (again) that not all my royalties are mine, but anyone who thinks books sell themselves needs to take a Business 101 class because that rarely happens. I knew it too, setting up some ads when I said I wouldn’t bother anymore. If you want numbers, I made $142.00 in May and spent $95 on Amazon ads. Since the beginning of the year, I’ve had some subscriptions renew, like Canva and my Office 365, so if I did all my numbers from January until now, I’m probably still in the red, but I’m not trying as hard as I did last year and the mental freedom is what counts.

To keep up with that mental freedom, I have to really try hard not to think about my publishing schedule. I have Loss and Damages set to be published on September 15th with ARCs going out in July. I’ve had that date set for many months, and there’s no reason to change it. I also have said I would publish Wicked Games in January of 2026, but I would absolutely love it if I could swap that out with Frozen Assets. If I can’t, for whatever reason, I can’t, but if that works out, it wouldn’t mess me up too much as I could schedule Wicked Games for Fall of 2026. I’d still have two books out next year while I finish up my series for 2027. I just hate thinking like that now because for one, I don’t have a business anymore, and that is such a business way to think. For two, it really makes my books sound like widgets on a conveyor belt, and I don’t want to think like that. I never really did, think of my books as products, that is, only when my books were published and I had to figure out a way to sell them, but trying to plan a publishing schedule makes me feel like that and I just want to focus on the writing and not what I have to do when they’re done. I mean, to be honest, I don’t have a business. I have a hobby, one I take very seriously, but it’s a hobby nonetheless. I tried to turn it into a business, but all I did was burn myself out.

There are some things I might never change in my process, like coming up with the cover concept as quickly as I can so I have time to look for stock (it’s easier to find a guy who fits when you have the background you like and the title font in place) or change my mind and start from scratch. So, with that being said, I think I might have my cover done. This will be my first “abs” cover because while I stayed away from skin so I could do Amazon ads, there are just some things that are nonnegotiable and abs on a hockey cover is one of them. I didn’t want an illustrated cover, just because there is so much crap said about Icebreaker, how cute the cover is, but then inside it’s all sex, and I don’t want to mislead anyone. I didn’t want an object cover either because I don’t feel like learning how to make one and I’m not in the mood to hire out. So, he’ll have abs, his head won’t be cut off, and even if he’s hockey, he’s going to blend in with the rest of my backlist.

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That’s about all I have. A German bot jacked up my views last week, which made me kind of mad. Messed up my stats for the week. I’m not 100% it was from a bot, but it was just looking at my home page, not a specific post that could have been shared. So, I’ll go with the bot theory and I enabled two-step verification and changed the password to my website. I had a chat with a WordPress happiness engineer who said my website looked fine, and the views died down after a couple of days.

My KC Crowne blogpost has still been getting hits, don’t know how that makes me look when I didn’t bulldoze over her. Someone on YouTube mentioned my post, or just referenced it, I’m not sure, and you can watch it here if you want:

I actually don’t like consuming content about myself, which makes it easy not to read reviews about my books. So if you watch, only tell me if she has nice things to say. Otherwise, I’m good with not knowing. Not everyone likes it when you’re Switzerland, but I just have a lot of sympathy for authors who get caught up in the grind. It’s really a mental health issue, turning to Al to ramp up your productivity because you’re scared of being left behind. That kind of panic hustle is real, and it will only get worse. Since KC Crowne, a couple more authors have been caught with prompts in their books, which is too bad. I really can’t emphasize enough to read your proofs when you order them to check the cover. Even if you don’t ask Al for help, you never know what kind of formatting errors you’ll find, pacing problems that could be corrected since you’re now reading a “book” as a “reader” and typos that you missed on screen. It’s also just a really good time to pull quotes for social media. Yeah, just please read your proofs. Mark them up. Then, if you don’t want to keep them, create a giveaway for your readers who are interested in your creative process.

I guess that’s it. I always go into writing these like I’ll just be quick, then you need half your day to read. Sorry about that!

I hope you have a good week ahead, and I will chat with you next week!