2,097 words
11 minutes read time

Hello, and happy Monday! It’s not that happy as I am working, but I am a relieved puddle in my chair because I finished proofing Wicked Games’ proof, got all the changes put into my Vellum file, and ordered a new proof. For some reason, reading this proof and putting the changes in kicked my ass. It was a constant tug-of-war between keeping my style and my characters’ voices, yet keeping my writing conversational enough that it’s easy to read. Making changes like: “A yes or a no will suffice” to “A yes or a no will work” made my head pound and I really truly hope that I found a happy medium between how I wanted to sound and how I wanted to sound after edits, if you know what I mean.

It was also tedious because I was double-checking everything my characters said against the timeline, and I tore my book apart again day by day just to be sure things matched up with a character disappearing. This was one of those books where a beta probably would have made me feel a little better about the whole thing but people are busy and unfortunately, you don’t always get what you pay for either. I hope between giving time between my editing passes and the kind of editing that I do, screen, audio, then proofing the proof, that I caught all there is to catch. But let me tell you, this is going to be the last twisty book I write for a while. I didn’t even mean for it to be as twisty as it turned out. There was just a lot going on in a very short amount–the entire book takes place over two weeks–and when chapters and chapters can cover just one day, there’s a lot to keep track of. It was easier to do it with the paperback so I could flip back and forth to double-check details, but it was all time-consuming anyway. After all that, I am very much looking forward to my gritty hockey duet, even with all the research I’m going to have to go back over to write them.

Anyway, I am happy to say that I got it done, and I made a few changes to the cover like swapping out the tagline on the front and repositioning the blurb on the back–it was too close to the edges and didn’t look good. I also tinkered with the formatting inside since there were a few things like an interview and a blog post that looked better set apart from the normal text. Hopefully everything looks good as I’ve had some interest in the ARCs already, and I’d like to offer a few paperbacks this time around. This one isn’t as slow and as heavy as Loss and Damages, so maybe it will do a little better, meaning, people will actually read their copies and review. You never know.

I got my taxes done last week and I was able to bring my credit card balance back to zero. But I didn’t have any kids to claim this year, so I may be debt-free, but I wasn’t able to put any money into my book spending account. I’ll have to be more careful with what I spend on promotions, so I’ll probably skip the Goodreads giveaway for Wicked Games. It’s too bad, but not much came out of me giving away Loss and Damages either, so likely it’s just my FOMO coming out. I can always do Freebooksy and BargainBooksy, and Fussy Librarian, but there are so many author-led promos out there right now that it seems a little silly to even pay for a blast like that. I’ll have to keep better track of who is hosting them and when they are so I can decide if I want to participate and which book to put in. There’s still a lot of debate when it comes to giving books away, how useful it is, but I figure it can’t be your only way to market. Book sales are like the middle of a wheel, and like spokes, there are many ways to market that can lead to those sales. Book blasts are only one way, but they’re free besides a little time you have to spend helping push the blast out. We’ll see what I end up doing as I really don’t have too much energy for things like that and marketing right now just feels like swimming upstream in a river I don’t want to be in anyway.

People on Threads were talking about POV again because of the article I Before She that appeared in Slate last week. The POV conversation comes around every few months, and every few months there’s just another layer to add to the debate. In this article, they were talking about how first person is easier to read and readers prefer it because it lets them self-insert. I understand that, but it makes third person writers feel defensive. From what I’ve seen, third person authors have been, maybe not defensive, but wondering, at least, if not changing to first person would keep them from finding readers since, I don’t know, 2019 or so. In these times of market-saturation, we want to do everything we can to find readers, right? All the while not selling our soul to the Devil.

It was in 2019 that I wrote a blog post saying that first person in romance didn’t make any sense, that the “I” naturally followed one person. Or should, anyway. But romance authors were writing in dual first person POV which took care of the “I” argument I was ready to die for. I do see some authors still struggling with that–questioning if readers would read a book with no male point of view, or wondering if readers would DNF if there was more female point of view than male. (I DNF those books because the male POV is my favorite part and you can tell that reading my books.) Those conversations never came up when most adult fiction was written in third person because we assumed there was more than one character’s POV, or it didn’t matter depending on the genre, like Women’s Fiction. But now we get authors who market their books as “dual third person POV” which doesn’t sound quite right. I grew up reading third person past, and romance authors like Nora Roberts, Robyn Carr, Brenda Novak, and Susan Mallery never had to make declarations like that. It was just understood. I don’t think current third person writers need to do it either, simply put a couple on the cover and give the male POV space in the blurb.

I guess writers are always going to chase readers and hope what they’re writing is good enough. When I switched to first person present, it wasn’t to chase readers, per se, but the number one rule to writing to market is to fit in. When 75% of the top 100 in your genre is written a certain way, you want to be a part of that 75%, not behind in the 25%. I don’t think if I wouldn’t have come to enjoy writing in first person present I would have forced myself to keep writing it. Luckily, I never minded first person to begin with, reading books like The Hunger Games and Twilight without an issue.

So where does this leave writers and authors now? Is first person easier to read? Not necessarily. I’ve read boring third person and I’ve read boring first person. You can have crappy craft in either POV, and if you’re not leveling up, you’ll lose readers. That’s just a given and why I can’t compare my third person sales to my first person sales. My third person books weren’t great–I was still learning and finding my voice. Then my first person books weren’t written that great just because my prose wasn’t conversational enough to “disappear” and give the reader a good experience. It’s only been in the past two years that I’ve been going back through my backlist and re-editing those books with the knowledge I’ve gained over the years. I have re-edited some 3rd person, doing my Rocky Point series and The Years Between Us last year. I would like to do Wherever He Goes at some point, just because I took a look at the Look Inside not long ago and the beginning sounds awful. And you all know I’ve been slowly going through my first person books as well. So, I can’t say one way or the other which readers prefer, and honestly, I really think if the writing is good, readers don’t care.

One thing that did bother me about that Slate article, though, is the assumption that all third person has a “narrator” or is written in omniscient voice, and that’s not true (and that’s called “close” or “deep” 3rd person POV, if you didn’t know). Not all third person books have head-hopping in them, either. So if you’re going to write about POV and craft, then at least understand the fundamentals. If you want a couple of examples of third person omniscient, pick up any Stephen King book. If he’s not your jam, Nora Roberts, in some of her books, has gone from head-hopping to full omniscient voice, and you can try her Chronicles of The One trilogy for that.

There isn’t a war between third person and first person. There are readers for both. Maybe first person readers skew a little younger, and readers my age who grew up reading third person still prefer it. I’m not in any reader groups to know that for sure. But if it’s true, it does leave my books in a weird in-between. I write older characters and a lot of romantic suspense, and I have wondered more than once if I would have been better off staying in third person. It’s really difficult to know, but I think I made a mistake when I switched to first person. I should have written younger characters and chased those younger readers. Now my books are in first person and I have older characters–thirty-five and up. I can’t do much about it now. I enjoy writing in first person and don’t plan to stop. Or, you know, I could be over-thinking it, since Fifty Shades of Grey was read by all age groups, and maybe that was enough to convert older readers into reading first person. It would be an interesting study, but the only information I have about that pertaining to my books are the age groups that click on my Facebook ads, and interestingly enough, the top age groups that clicked on my last one were the 35-65+ age ranges. This is from the ad I ran last summer when I was giving away ARCs of Loss and Damages. The link went to my Bookfunnel download page:

Anyway, I’m kind of a writing craft nerd, and I like talking about writing and what’s selling. Especially these days when it seems like for every reader there are ten authors who have enormous backlists. It’s fun to speculate, but what it all boils down to is writing what you enjoy. If that’s third person, great, if not, write first until your little heart’s content. But always always keep learning. That’s the difference between a debut and your tenth book. You want to get better as you go along, or you might get stuck in habits that are killing your read-through. Readers want to pay for a good book. That’s it. They have a lot to choose from, so do your best, keep learning, and oh, I was going to say never give up, but that’s old Vania-speak. Give up if you want. Or at the very least, take a break. Read some books.

Or watch a show. Right now I’m watching The Hunting Party on Netflix and it’s really good. No wonder I like writing twisty books. There’s just something delicious about a man in a suit who isn’t what he appears to be.

Thanks for reading! Oh, and no one has said they want Joe’s book. Come on, guys. I know giveaways aren’t super fun anymore, but you could pop over to my last post and comment. Reviews are good. Joe tells you how to get them. Free books are good. I have one for you.

Have a great week, everyone, and I’ll see you next Monday!