1,020 words,
5 minutes read time

Hello, and happy October! I hope September treated you well! Time is going by so fast, it seems crazy that we only have three months left of the year, and of course, those months are packed.

My trip to Florida was fun! Of course there are things we would have done differently now, but all in all, we had a good time and I don’t regret going. We haven’t tallied up how much it all cost yet–I’m scared to open my Discover bill–but with my health, I have no idea if or when I’ll ever get to do something like that again, so it was worth the experience. I felt okay for the most part, though I had some iffy moments here and there. I could have felt a lot worse, so I’ll take what I can get. But I can say that my days of doing something like that and not worrying about how I feel are gone.

I had all my reels created and saved in my drafts folder on Instagram, and I didn’t miss posting once. I’m pretty proud of that, considering how much work it took to make sure I had enough to last me the entire trip. I made reels for both Wicked Games and King’s Crossing because I was reluctant to lose the traction I’d gained for both my standalone and the serial. I posted reels from places like the parking lot at Epcot, the parking lot at a Cracker Barrel, to a beach in the Florida Keys. May Zuckerberg reward me for my tenacity. Just kidding. My sister only got annoyed once, but it was toward the tail-end of the trip when tempers were getting a bit short and we were all about ready to go home anyway. All told, the trip might have been a day or two too long, but when you spend that kind of money and go through that kind of hassle, you want to make it worth it. There weren’t any issues with our flights, and I thought we might have consequences winging our plans, but my sister managed to get us reservations at the DoubleTree Resort in Key West two hours before we drove onto the island. I think it helped we were there toward what would be the off-season, and I’m thankful not planning ahead didn’t cause any problems.

Since I’ve been back, I started editing Bitter Love, and I’ve been working on the cover. While I was in Naples, Florida, I announced on Instagram that my publishing date for that book would be January 26th, 2027. For a while now, I’ve been hinting at giving it away, and I don’t want to lie to my followers, so I will. But it will be for shorter than I originally thought. My attitude has changed since reels started helping me sell books, and I don’t want to throw away a book that I’m proud of. Giving it away isn’t throwing it away, I know that. I’ve had My Biggest Mistake for free on my website for years now and have given away over 2,000 copies. But I want to give Bitter Love a chance to make a little money, especially since it will be in KU.

I’m still playing with the cover, and I found a couple that works beautifully with a background that I was super lucky to find. It will definitely be a change from the all-male cast that I have on my covers now, but I really like the look of them and no one is keeping track of the choices I’ve made since I started my pen name. I’d like to put a “special” cover on the books I’m giving away, and I could do the single guy for the giveaway and the couple for the published cover, or I could flip it. I’m not sure yet. It depends on how brave I am to do something different with the backlist I’ve tried so hard to curate.

So that’s what I’ll be doing for the rest of the year. I’m almost done doing the final edit, then I’ll listen to it (I don’t think I’ll ever be able to cut that step out of my process) and proof the paperback proof. I make a lot of changes when I proof the paperback, then I order a new one to make sure all the changes didn’t mess something up. It takes time, but I have plenty, and I won’t have an ARC period to work around. BookSprout is completely on my shitlist (no offense to the reviewers who actually tried) and I won’t ever pay to use them again. PenPinery was a disaster, so there’s no point in trying them again. Books can sell without a lot of reviews. Since I started pushing it with Reels, Wicked Games has sold 30 ebook copies and the equivalent of 210 books in Kindle Unlimited page reads. It only has 18 reviews on Amazon and only 21 reviews on Goodreads. So if you have a book with a low number of reviews, don’t let it deter you from promoting it. If your ad copy, cover, blurb, and price catch a reader, that reader will take a chance.

After that, I’m going to write the rough draft of my Alpine Divorce idea. I really really really wanted to write a book around that concept, and I plotted something out a few months ago. I’m itching to get to it, and that cover may also have a couple on it. We’ll see. I like the idea of branching out, but it’s a little scary too. Doing my own covers makes it especially nerve-wracking since a lot goes into the background and finding the right couple. Finding a couple that will work is a lot harder than finding a single man in a suit, I can tell you that.

I think that’s all I have for this week. Next we’ll I’ll do an indie news roundup. There’s some things going on that I’d like to talk about.

Have a great week, everyone!