Author Archives: Vania Margene Rheault

Unknown's avatar

About Vania Margene Rheault

Vania enjoys reading and writing. She's lived in Minnesota all her life, and with a cup of coffee in hand, enjoys the seasons with her two children.

Romance Covers: Finding the right stock photo

Posted on by
3

Words: 1507
Time to read: 8 minutes

You know when you buy a new (or new to you) car? You’ve never seen it on the road before, but once you drive yours off the lot, it’s everywhere? That actually has a name and it’s called the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. That happened to me when I bought my Ford Escape a few years ago. I never noticed one in my life, but after I bought mine, they were everywhere. Not just the make and model, either, but the color.

the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon Or you're thinking about buying a particular car, and you begin noticing the same make and model seemingly everywhere. Second take: Seeing the same car everywhere is one example of the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon at work. It is known as the Frequency Illusion or Bias and, more informally, the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. photo of an arial view of yellow cars that all look the same.
Screenshot taken from the first results page of a Google search

I think that can happen when we look for stock photos when we create covers for our books. You’re searching for the perfect man (haha, aren’t we all) who will accurately depict what your character looks like. He’s got the vibe, the dangerous glint in his eyes, and you think, Yes! He’s the one! And like what happens in real life, maybe he’s not the one after all.

A lot of romance authors and cover designers use DepositPhotos for stock images for our covers. Not only because I’ve heard Amazon will accept their copyright contract if KDP asks you for proof you own the licensing to use the photo without argument, but because with deals like AppSumo around Black Friday and one or two other times during the year, you can get a package of 100 photos for $39.00. It’s a cost-effective way to buy images safe to use.

But it also limits the selection, and as more and more authors publish books, we’re going to see the same models on romance covers. I, of course, haven’t been immune to the selection (as you will see below). And I can’t even call it a meagre selection because DepositPhotos offers hundreds of thousands of photos.

But what I do wonder is if using a stock photo that’s been used a hundred times before confuses readers, lowers discoverability, and maybe, in terms of Amazon since they only use your cover photo for their ads, suppresses the ad lowering impressions and clicks.

Covers found in a Google search, graphic made in Canva

I’m not posting these book covers to shame the authors–in fact, I have used the same stock photos many do, so I’m in the same situation. The male model I used for Rescue Me is everywhere, and I honestly didn’t even know he was everywhere until after I published.

Images found on Google and Amazon, made with Canva

It’s even to the point where similar backgrounds are being used by some authors. I saw this one by Nicole Snow first, and now different variations are used by other authors. Maybe not all the time, but we know as trends heat up, indie publishing is quick enough to follow them before they fizzle.

Images found on Google and Amazon, made with Canva

You can find your own by doing a search for business city window backgrounds.

https://depositphotos.com/314780774/stock-photo-beautiful-sunlight-on-modern-office.html

When I did my covers for my Lost & Found Trilogy, one of the reasons I took so long was because didn’t, DID NOT want to use the same models other authors and book cover designers have. I wanted to be original but still fit in–the secret sauce for selling books. Of course, that didn’t work so well. I scrolled through pages and pages and pages of men. It didn’t help I write a bit older, and the good-looking models are in their 20s and 30s. I got so frustrated I finally just closed my eyes, said whatever, and poked at my screen with the DepositPhotos website up. That’s not exactly what I did, but it felt like it. I’m still not happy with the covers, but I’m getting reads and sales. The models have been on other books, but they aren’t the best. The first guy is too smarmy, the second is fine, and the third has an odd look about him that I ignored.

I chose a darker background because everyone at the time was going light (like the city window backgrounds above) and I wanted something different. Does it work? Probably not. I tried really hard though to get the covers, the titles, the trilogy name, and the backgrounds as tight as I could so marketing them would be easy. There is no mistake they are a trilogy, but I still think that I could do better with the models if I had time and wherewithal to hunt. Time is relative, and I do have it, at the cost of something else. Like this blog post, or my Christmas novel. It it worth it to go back? That’s where the energy part comes in, and I don’t know. Maybe if I had a different place to source photos it wouldn’t be so difficult.

My rockstar trilogy was easier, but the models have still been used before.

I am really really happy with these though, so the few covers I have seen with the same models don’t bother me.

When it comes to covers and models that have been used relentlessly, I don’t know if staying away from them is helpful. There’s not a lot written on the subject, and from what I can see in groups, not a lot of reader feedback, either. There was talk a couple of years ago that some authors were choosing to do the illustrated covers for something different, but that had consequences. The cutsie covers don’t depict the right level of spice in some of the steamier books and either readers don’t pick up those books because they want sexytimes, or they picked up those books because they didn’t and got a nasty surprise with the open-door sex scenes.

It’s difficult too, finding sexy guys who are dressed because Amazon ads won’t let you advertise manchest covers. That was hard because when I was doing my rockstar romances, I found several shirtless models who would have looked great. Unfortunately, I need ads to sell my books and using a model that would get me suspended wouldn’t work.

I’m not sure what the solution is, but I plan to try to stay away from the men who come up first when you search for “handsome man in a suit.” Which really is funny, because when I search for it, the first guy that comes up is the one I chose when I redid my covers for my duet.

the same male model wearing a tux on different book covers written by different authors
covers found in a Google search, mine, and the DP search results
https://depositphotos.com/stock-photos/handsome-man-in-suit.html?filter=all

You can try your best to give them a different background or flip them so they appear different, but that’s not always going to work.

When I was looking for my man for the Christmas novel I’m going to publish in November, I was really excited to find a guy I had never seen on a cover before. My novel is kind of a romantic suspense that takes place over the Christmas holiday, and I needed someone who looks dangerous but protective. I starred him so I wouldn’t lose him and downloaded the composite the second I scrolled into him:

https://depositphotos.com/photo/strict-male-portrait-guy-classic-black-suit-half-face-light-560566482.html

But, you know, nothing can be easy, and while I was scrolling Instagram, I came across this book cover on an account that posts new releases. If you’re on Instagram, you should follow them. I love looking at their new book release compilations. https://www.instagram.com/sebrero_sisters/

Anyway, so this is my working book cover, and this is the cover I saw on IG:

I like the guy and finding him on a different cover won’t deter me for keeping him. He looks different enough that I had doubts it was even him, but the tiny spot under his lower lip without any whiskers gives him away. This is the only cover I’ve seen him on so far, but now that I spotted him, that will probably change.

I like studying covers and looking out for the trends. Illustrated covers seem here to stay–I could barely find any real models on romance Christmas books when I was doing research for my own. I’m not interested in those and wouldn’t fit the story I’m writing anyway. Since I’ve done my own covers since I started publishing and probably will never stop, researching and taking note of the models and font choices is fun homework.

Are there repercussions for using the same models over and over again? I don’t know. I have noticed that there are levels of professionalism that doesn’t always coincide with sales. Some of the drabbest covers I’ve seen on Amazon have reviews in the thousands, so I wouldn’t always discount a middle-class cover. It gives me hope as I’ve often wondered if my books would sell better if my covers were more professional, but at this point, I really don’t know. That would have to be an experiment that I’m not quite ready to run. At any rate, tell me what you think! If you read romance does a recognizable model turn you off or doesn’t it matter?

Until next time!

All photos screenshot from DepositPhotos.com. Compilation made with Canva

Mid-Year Check In and Author News

Posted on by
3

Words: 1901
Time to read: 10 minutes

open journal with rose petals and pencil. text says midyear check in and author news

It’s not exactly mid-year–we’re two months past that, but I thought I would write a check in, look back and what I’ve accomplished this year, and try to drag myself out of the self-pitying hole I fell into these past few weeks due to circumstance beyond my control.

January started with a bang, as that is the month I published my Lost & Found Trilogy. By no means did I have a strong launch, and while Give & Take, the first book in the trilogy, has sold better than a lot of my books, the trilogy in total has earned less than a thousand dollars since release. Depending on where you are in your career, that may sound pretty good to you, but I’ve put money into ads and promos and actual take-home from that total is less than five hundred dollars. Still though, despite my ongoing doubt about the covers, readers seemed to have liked them so far, and I’m going to put the first one in a promo in September and see how it does.

February, March, and April were slow months, only because I was busy writing my rockstar trilogy. I thought the first book was going to be a standalone but it turned out, like most side characters do, they wanted their own stories told, and I spent December of 2022 to May of this year writing them. Editing took some time, more adding and rewriting than I’ve done in the past to make them cohesive since the two others weren’t planned until I was almost done writing book one. I did the usual Amazon ads for my backlist, struggled with if I wanted to be on Twitter anymore, helped a friend edit and format one of her books, and mostly kept my head down.

In May, I published Faking Forever, a fake fiancée standalone I wasn’t sure about. I haven’t checked the reviews to see if anyone liked it or not. The reviews from Booksprout were favorable, but it’s not often, in my experience, people will really tell you what they think. Since I published it, it’s made less than a hundred dollars, and I really don’t know what to do about it. My other standalone, Rescue Me, has made around five hundred since I published it in October of 2022, but that’s also been on sale for a while now and I ran Facebook ads to it. That five hundred is not take-home, but if I look at how much I spent on ads to push that book, I just get depressed, so I won’t do that here. I’ve been thinking about pulling it off sale and putting Faking Forever at .99 to see what that does. I have a hooky hook for the ad copy, so I may do that at the end of the month and see what happens. I won’t do that until my SNAFU with KDP and the last book in my rockstar trilogy has worked itself out, but more on that later.

June and July were for getting my rockstar trilogy ready to release. Lost a beta reader and a friend, so that was disheartening, not only because I was counting on her feedback, but you know, it’s tough when people move out of your life for whatever reason. My other beta/friend/co-worker is still plodding along even though my books are (kind of) up. I told her I need to get them going for marketing purposes and if she finds anything I didn’t, I can change out the files later. She found only a couple things in book one, nothing major, so I’m confident that books two and three are just as clean. It’s not like I haven’t released books without feedback before, but I was trying something different that didn’t end up working completely in my favor. Such is life.

This month, August, I had a free book promotion opportunity fall into my lap. I had passed it by and then it opened up again, so I decided to take that as an omen and enter my book. I put Captivated by Her for free from August 4-6, and I’ve been moving some books–528 at the time of this writing, but we’re only half way through the promotion. Not a lot of people read free books, though, and so far that movement hasn’t gone on to the other books in my backlist. I guess we’ll see in the coming weeks if anyone reads it and goes on to buy/borrow Addicted to Her. I think the cover changed helped, but that duet has earned only a little over three hundred dollars since I published them in June of 2022.

I also lost a cat this month. Blaze was sick when we got her (we didn’t know that though), and we’ve had nothing but ongoing medical issues with her for the past five years. It was a relief to make the decision after some bloodwork, but I miss her dearly and it’s been such a blow to my mental health as this is the first time in over twenty years we haven’t had a cat in our apartment. We can’t get another unless my financial situation changes because we were grandfathered in when this property management took over our apartment building. We’ll be starting from scratch with them, and I can’t afford the pet deposit or pet rent they’ll charge us if we wanted another. I’m still missing Harley, too, so I’m just not going down that path right now, and maybe never will again.

So to recap the year so far:

Books published: 6.5-7
Royalties: $1,711.49 as of this writing. (I write my posts in advance so add, oh, I don’t know, ten bucks to that total unless for some reason I got extremely lucky.)
Ad spend: I don’t feel like doing the math, but I’ve spent $569.00 on Amazon ads, ran an FB ad to Rescue Me off and on for a couple of months and bought a Freebooksy promo through Written Word Media for Give & Take at $120.00. So obviously, the total royalties are not all take-home, but rarely is any author’s.

I haven’t found a way to get “sticky” with Amazon, struggling to “level up.” Each book I write has the “will this be the golden ticket?” feel about it, and then each book has a lackluster turn. I cleaned out my newsletter subscriber list–I got rid of 103 inactive email accounts. MailerLite is making me move over to their new platform so once my trilogy is out and I’m done sending newsletters for that for a bit, I’ll do the migration. Apparently it’s not smooth, and I’m worried about the setup I have with BookFunnel. I learned just enough to put in place what I needed for them to collect email addresses for me when I give out the link to my reader magnet. If that gets messed up, I’ll have to learn it all over again, and that will be painful since, for the most part, I’ve given up drinking for my physical health.

Ghost Town’s Fate:

So, I was able to publish book one and two without an issue, but I was one of the (un)lucky ones and KDP asked me for copyright proof for the cover images for book three. I sent them what I had from DepositPhotos–screenshots of the licensing agreement that they give you when you download/purchase. I also gave them a screenshot of my DepositPhoto’s account profile. I’m lucky that my email address and my physical/mailing address match what I use for KDP as well, so they know it’s me. The first rep approved my proof and told me to go into my account and resubmit the books for publication. I did that, but then got another email from their content team and was asked for proof again. So I sent what I had before, plus the screenshot of the first rep’s email that said my books were okay. It didn’t take them long to get back to me and say my books were approved and would take up to 48 hours to publish. So, that is where I am now–this morning when I got up, they were still in review, but while I was writing this, I checked my dashboard and they have moved into “Publishing.”

So I’m going to assume that the third book is going to go through after all, and maybe by the time you read this, it will be live. (At the time of this writing, it’s only been 15 hours since the last email correspondence.)

As far as reviews, I put the books on Booksprout, and this trilogy is the slowest to get picked up since I started offering books. Only 16 of 35 copies have been claimed for each book, and either it’s because they’re long (I did warn readers of that in my note to readers section) or because no one cares about aging, depressed rockstars. Maybe both. Whatever the case may be, I hope this isn’t going to be more of the same when the books move out of preorder and are live. Once the third book is actually published and accessible, I can start ads to the trilogy, but I hope these do better than my gut is telling me they will.

I have to be honest, all this put me in a real downward spiral last night, and just an FYI, crying in the grocery store is not a good look. It also gave me a really queasy feeling for the past two days and I have not felt well. You’re probably thinking I sound burnt out, and I probably am. When that book goes through I’ll have published 7 this year, 8 if I get my Christmas novel done and published by November like I hope. I haven’t made much progress on it, as I went through my Ghost Town paperback proofs myself (glad I did) but that took an extra little bit of time. When I finish the first draft, I need to put it aside and take a real break while it breathes. Watch the shows I want to watch, read through some of the books on my Kindle (I still need to read the Hunger Games sequel before November). Network with some authors in my FB groups, experiment with making videos for TikTok. I need to find my joy because it has been sucked right out of me, and never did I want to throw my laptop over my balcony as much I did last night.

I don’t have any books planned for the next little while. I have that King’s Crossing 6-book series I need to polish up and publish starting in January. I’m having second thoughts about the covers, and my proofer/coworker went through them some time ago, and I haven’t looked at her feedback yet. That will be a project and I will love to get those off my plate. I also haven’t read them myself in a long time, so it will be fun to read them one last time before I publish.

Anyway, so stats here show that this blog post will take 10 minutes to read, so I’m going to wrap it up for now and get going on my Christmas novel. Have a great week, everyone, and thanks for listening!

Author News and Short Update

Posted on by
5

I’m not really in the mood to blog today. We put our kitty, Blaze, to sleep last week. After some testing, it was determined there was more wrong with her than just the bladder stones we were going to have removed. It was a really tough choice because we didn’t want to keep her alive for us. Her quality of life has been declining since we got her, and mentally I just couldn’t see her suffer anymore. The tests, euthanasia, and then the cremation still took a huge bite out of my finances, and my GoFundMe is still active. Any little bit would help, but at this point, I’m just glad her suffering is over and I can let my heart heal. After losing Harley not so long ago, not having any pets is a shock, and a situation that will take some getting used to.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/blazes-bladder-surgery

In other news, Captivated by Her is in a promo August 4th through the 6th and will be free on Amazon. This event will have over 200 free books available, and if you want to keep on the lookout for this promo for your own reading device, or if you want to share the link with your readers, you can direct them to https://naleighnakai.com/. They can sign up for the newsletter before the weekend, or they can look there starting on Friday the 4th. I’ll send this out in my newsletter, and I’ll probably be pretty annoying on social media this week. I need to do better promoting my books and more active when I’m joining in promotions like this. We all have to do our part to drive traffic to the site, but it’s a real change in mindset to post and be active. I don’t want to have a reputation in romance circles that I’m not a team player. There’s no better way to kill your career than for other authors to think you won’t put in your share of the work. So I’m going to put on some music and enjoy myself. I love my books and I want people to read them. They can’t do that if they don’t know they exist. I just gotta put on my pretty big-girl panties and get it done.

I’ve been reading through the proofs of my rockstar trilogy and I haven’t found much. My proofer is still working on them too, but I’ll be putting them up on Booksprout in the next week or so. I’ve only found a couple of true typos, the rest are just nit-picky things I don’t need to change but will because that’s how authors are. A reader wouldn’t care, but this will be the final time I read these. If my proofer finds anything wrong that I didn’t, I can change the files one last time before they go live, but I did a really good job listening to these, and I don’t think it’s likely she’s going to find anything I haven’t.

Anyway, so that’s all my news, and I’m going to try to keep pushing forward though Blaze’s toys scattered around still makes me sad, and my daughter was crying because she accidentally gave her fresh water the other night before we went to bed. It will be an adjustment–we’ve had cats for the past 20 years. But I need a break. My mind and heart are so tired of being worried about animals. As much as I miss them, I just need to breathe. I have a lot going on with my books in the next few weeks, and my daughter is getting ready for her last year of high school. Things will be okay. We move on.

I hope you all have a great week, and don’t forget to share that promo with your readers–not just even because my book is included–there’s a lot of good books of all genres in there.

Until next time!

Author Update and Personal Organization

Posted on by
Reply

Words: 928
Time to read: 5 minutes

My Christmas WIP is coming along. I’m 45k into it, and I’m actually kind of surprised I’m as far as I am. It could be it’s because in some way, this plot has been rolling around in my brain for years, or it could be I’m having a lot of fun writing the two. I don’t know, but I started writing Sawyer and Evianna on July 6th with a deadline of August 31st. I’ll be done before then, and I’ll have a few extra days to let it breathe. Last night I went back to the beginning, read from the first page, and made notes of all the breadcrumbs. This isn’t my first twisty book, and I’m getting better at writing them, but it’s helpful for me to keep track so I know what scenes I need going forward.

My proofer is plodding along with my rockstar trilogy, but I just bought my own set of proofs today. Unfortunately, giving up any kind of control just isn’t going to be in the cards for me, so I’ll proof them too, and together I hope we can spot all the typos. Listening to them is the best way to fix missing words, syntax issues, and misspellings (the voice sounds funny if you misspell a word) but it doesn’t catch everything. I always find stuff to fix when my books look like books, So that will be my main priority once they come in the mail.

I’ve been thinking of ways to set a schedule for some social media posts, and I would like to get into TikTok. Not even just because I think it’s a sure-fire way to sell books (like the Kindle Gold Rush, I think the TikTok Gold Rush has passed for everyone but a lucky few) but because creating content is fun, can be used multiple ways, and does eventually find readers. It wasn’t so much what to create (though pulling quotes and writing copy is an arduous task), but focusing on which books. I posted my question in a group on FB and one mistook my scheduling as a want to get an edge over the TikTok algorithms, which is not my intent, and impossible to do anyway. No, when I say schedule, what I basically mean is organization for my own mind (her question prompted the word ‘organization’ which was the correct word I was looking for). I have a duet, two standalones, a trilogy, a forthcoming trilogy, and soon, a holiday novel. I don’t want to create videos and post all crazy, but focus on one book for a week or so, then focus on a different book, etc. I know you can’t push a book for too long or readers will get tired of the same old same old. When you only have one book out, that gets dicey. You run the risk of people saying, “That book again? Doesn’t she have something new coming out?” So I was thinking a month at a time, but that’s too long. Especially if you’re posting multiple times every day. Maybe even go down to a week for each book before starting the cycle over again. Someone in the group did say not to be scared of recycling content–if a video gets few views, post it again. And that’s great advice–especially if you post at different times of the day.

One of the biggest reasons that gave me pause isn’t the idea of showing my face, but something a little sillier: The kind of music to attach to the videos. I’m not on TikTok yet, but I’m under the assumption there are a lot of different artists and songs to choose from. I did a reel on Instagram, and IG gives you a lot of choices too. I’m not a music connoisseur at all. I have certain songs I like and play them over and over again. I don’t listen to Taylor Swift and she seems to be a top choice. Like a book you want to sell, you have to look at the title, the cover, the blurb. I guess for a video to hit, you have to look at the content (the actual video) the tagline/ad copy, and then the song/music you choose. I’m getting better at ad copy, writing one sentence hooks, etc, and a lot of the reels and TikToks I’ve seen aren’t made with complicated videos. The packaging, I guess you can call it, will be important, and eventually the kinds of videos I create will build a brand.

Some people say to jump right in, don’t overthink it. I’ve never overthought anything a day in my life. I’m lazy and overthinking is too much work. But I’m a planster, and with any project, I would like to have an idea of what I’m doing before I start. I grew up around lakes, and I never jumped in feet first. I hate the mud at the bottom.

That’s about all I have for today. Summer is two-thirds over, and I hope you’re getting to relax, get some things done, and enjoy the weather. My sister and I are going to see Oppenheimer on Tuesday, so that will be fun, and in August, my daughter wants to see Barbie. Later in August, I’ll be busy launching my trilogy, and when I start up my TikTok account, I’ll blog about it. Now that I’m not on Twitter anymore, I have a little bit of time to spend on that platform.

Anyway, I hope you all have a great week!

Author Update, Monday Musings, and Why I’m Not Joining Threads

Posted on by
4

Happy Monday to you all! That looks a lot chirpier than I feel, but that’s nothing new. Actually, I’m in decent spirits despite having to pretty much swear off social media for my mental health. Not tweeting anymore has been nice, though after a three day break I went on to see if I was missing anything. Apparently a querying writer made waves when she tweeted her disappointment and disgust that an agent would reject her manuscript because she already had a client working on something similar. I don’t know why that writer thought she should blast that agent on social media (no names were given, but still) when it seemed perfectly reasonable to me. If I had an agent, I would want them to protect my interests first. Then there was more discourse when an agent said she had to love a story and know it would sell before she signed that author. Also, seems like a no-brainer to me, but apparently that almost started the next world war. Honestly, it’s not a great time to be an agent, and if I were one, I wouldn’t be on Twitter. My mental health couldn’t take it, not that I really can these days anyway, and it’s a relief to push that aside and accept I don’t fit in there, never have and I never will. Wouldn’t want to fit in there anyway with the behavior people are displaying. Maybe I’m just not angry, I don’t know, but I definitely don’t have the rage simmering under my skin a lot of people seem to have.

That’s why I’m not joining Threads, the new social media platform by Mark Zuckerberg. I just don’t see it being an answer to the social media void that I’m experiencing right now. People are downright hostile, and in this climate of fewer books being published, how difficult it is to find an agent, how difficult it is to self-publish and find an ounce of discoverability, it’s just another place for people to spew their annoyance, frustration, and sometimes downright hate. I don’t have a thick enough skin to handle it and I would rather just write my books, pay for ads, nurture my newsletter and forget social media all together.

I’ve been spending a little more time in my author Facebook groups, and I helped a couple of people with their covers, troubleshot Amazon Ads for one author who couldn’t understand why they were rejecting her ads (her book covers had blood on them and that’s against their guidelines) and that felt good. Got jumped in a romance group for giving my opinion on a plot because all he really wanted was validation (my mistake), and I suppose you’re never going to get away from people who only want to be agreed with. People can’t seem to scroll by if they disagree, but my tolerance for being bullied has reached an all-time low and I left that group. For now I hang out in the 20booksto50k group where if you disagree, that can actually turn into a thoughtful discussion amongst authors, and two other romance groups I’ve been apart of for years. Mark Dawson’s SPF group is okay, but there tends to be a lot of rumors that circulate there and even though Mark is a huge Amazon supporter, people like to dump on Amazon and I don’t have the patience for that.

So, as much as I know a reader should be able to find me online somewhere, I struggle. I was trying to make Instagram my “hub,” so to speak (I even posted a reel!), but deciding on the kind of content I want to post there keeps me from posting anything. I could/should start posting more on my Facebook Author page. There are several successful authors who keep up their Facebook pages, and considering my ads are clicked on the most by women ages 65+, Facebook is where a lot of my readers are. But I still can’t get past the “people know me there” dread because of the 100 some followers I have, mostly they’re my friends and family. I have a lot easier time posting about my books to strangers, but the only way I’m going to attract strangers readers to my page is if I post, so there’s a conundrum I’m not ready to figure out yet.

In other news, my proofs for my trilogy came, and they are so gorgeous. These are probably the prettiest books I’ve made, and the spines and covers are perfect. Here’s the video I made for IG. It shows the front cover of book one, and the beautiful formatting inside. The video isn’t the best (I need practice!) and I put it on YouTube since it would be easier sharing.

And here are the three of them together:

They are all with my proofer now and I gave her a gift card to her favorite grocery store for her time.

While she’s doing that, I’m 25k in to a Christmas novel I’m going to release hopefully in November, if things go right. I have most of the story plotted out and I know how things are supposed to go, so I don’t think it will take me any longer than it normally does to write 80k words. Standalones are fun, and there won’t be any surprise sequels to this book. All the secondary characters are already matched up or unattached for a reason, and I did that on purpose. It seems my downfall is when my characters have single friends, so I made sure I didn’t tempt myself.

Things are going okay, personally, too, though I do have to fight off the writer lonelies every once in a while. I have very few friends anymore to talk writing with, one of the sad outcomes about my split with my ex-fiancé. We would constantly talk books, marketing, publishing, and the silly things we’d see online. A year later and that’s still a hole I just haven’t managed to fill, and probably never will. Now if I see something outrageous or I have a comment on something, I keep it to myself or sometimes message a friend. But I can’t tell her every little thing and being that our lives are different, she probably doesn’t care, either, haha. It’s not really a secret that I live and breathe writing, publishing, and marketing because I don’t have much of a life beyond that, my kids, and my job. Finding somewhere to fit in is difficult for a lot of people, so I’m not embarrassed sharing my struggles.

That’s all I have this week. Bryan Cohen is hosting his 5 Day Amazon Ads Profit Challenge starting on Wednesday the 19th. He taught me all I know about Amazon Ads and besides my newsletter, it’s the only way I sell books. There are days where I don’t make much– a sale and a handful of page reads, but it’s better than having an empty sales dashboard. 2023 is the first year I’ve had zero no-sale or no-page read days. Zero, and I attribute that to niching down to billionaire romance, being more serious about my covers, and knowing how to run ads. I’m not saying I’ve never lost money, but that’s pretty much a given when you’re experimenting and testing. BUT Bryan helps you control that, so if you’ve been meaning to learn Amazon Ads, this a great free way to do it. Here are the links, and they are not affiliates. I don’t get anything when you sign up–I just share the info because I think his free class is a great place to start if you want to learn.

Sign up: https://learn.bestpageforward.net/jul23/

Facebook group for the challenge: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2230194167089012

Have a great week!

Monday Author Update

Posted on by
4

Happy Monday! As much as it pains me to admit, summer is a third over. I wouldn’t say our weather has been particularly great–not a lot of warm days and lots of rain–but I appreciate the slower feel to the days even if my job hasn’t gotten the memo and my work hours are just as busy as any other time of the year.

I finished with my rockstar trilogy. I formatted them with Vellum, assigned the ISBNs in Bowker (I live in the States), finished my covers, and ordered the proofs. Once they come, I’ll hand them over to my proofreader and hopefully get them up on Booksprout for reviews by the middle of August. It was a lot of work, but I’m happy with how they turned out. I tried something new with the formatting since I updated Vellum and I wanted to see how easy it was. I added a chapter header graphic that I found on DepositPhotos. Finding it was surprisingly fast, but I did have to use GIMP to flip it and crop the white out. Here is the original, the cropped version, and how it looks inside the book:

abstract musical background with notes–original from DepositPhotos
flipped and cropped
Screenshot taken from Vellum

This is will be for the paperbacks only. Ereaders don’t support chapter headers so I’ll do the simple chapter images like I have in the past. It’s a little more work, but not much, and I think the paperbacks will be worth it, even if I don’t sell many. I had to up my prices too, because these are so long, and they’re going to be 14.99 instead of 12.99. I try to keep my prices low, and they’re 12.99 in countries like the UK and France, 14.99 in Canada, and 17.99 in Australia. I didn’t want to put them that high there, but considering I only make .50 off each purchase, it’s as low as I could go. My ebooks are still 4.99, and I think that’s the way they will stay. Rescue Me is still .99 and I might take that off sale soon. It’s been on sale for a few months now, so it might be fun to run a sale on Faking Forever.

I feel more confident about the covers, too, than for the ones I did for my Lost & Found Trilogy. I like the models better, even if they still don’t quite look 50. That’s okay. I found a background that I liked and added smoke to the bottom to help the title and my name pop. I didn’t workshop these, though I asked a friend what she thought. I looked through a lot of rockstar romance covers, and there wasn’t one set way authors were doing them. A few had an audience at the bottom with male model blended into the top, but I think the stage in the background suits, and I want to thank one of the members in the Indie Cover Project for her recommendation of the title font. I workshopped Rescue Me, and she suggested it. I didn’t end up using it, but I kept it in mind and it works here.

Maybe it’s a little premature to post them here, since I want to do a cover reveal to my newsletter subscribers later this week, but I wanted to show you how they look like they belong together. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in my years of indie publishing is to make your series look like they belong. It’s especially important as you build your backlist and your series will be listed on your Amazon author page. You want them easily identifiable at a quick glance–and I see authors struggling with this in some of my author groups. Sometimes I think it’s because they publish as they go–they are thinking about one book and one book only. Since I wait and publish together, I think of my trilogies and series as one large project, not each book on an individual basis. That might spill over into how I write them, too, as I have a review on Safe & Sound, the third book in my Lost & Found trilogy, that said she didn’t consider these books standalones within the series. When I write them, I think of them as one long, continual story, even if they are centered around different couples. I can’t start a series without reading them in order, and I guess I think most readers are like me.

I want to do better promoting these on social media–and I’ll start posting on IG and FB soon. I don’t think my proofreader is going to find anything serious–no large, gaping plot holes that will take days to fix–but I don’t want to post dates until I know for sure. While I do that, I’m going to dive into writing the Christmas novel I wanted to write. I need something quick and easy to put together after releasing two trilogies this year. I found the notes of the novel I want to write–but after skimming them, it’s no wonder I couldn’t put the pieces together. I have an idea and nothing more, so I’ll have to figure out what I was trying to do. I have a few notebook pages of story, and I don’t like what I where I was going with her, so I’ll need to rethink that character. Still, it has potential, and most times that can be enough to write something good. I just need to sit with a pen and notebook and brainstorm.

That’s about all I have for this week. It’s odd being between projects. I may never get used to the feeling of not actively writing something, but I’m trying to enjoy the short break. I should use the time to make up some social media graphics in Canva, too, and once again, after seeing a fellow romance author who went viral on TikTok post in a group she bought a car with her royalties, circling around to that platform, too.

For now, I’ve dumped Twitter. I’m not going to tweet much of anything and won’t post my new releases on there. I pared down my bio and put up a generic header. If I do post, it will be through sharing and I won’t check notifications. I want to focus what energy I wasted there on IG where I think I may get a better return on investment. I’m also trying to participate more in my romance FB groups. Like I said in my last blog post, I’ve been networking with the wrong people, and that is one of the mistakes I need to rectify. The friends I have made on Twitter know where to find me elsewhere, and can say adios without remorse.

I hope you had a good holiday if you were in Canada or the US, and find little ways to enjoy the rest of your summer.

How “Self” is Self-Publishing?

Posted on by
5

This has been on my mind a little since there’s not a day that goes by when i see something online putting down authors who publish their own work. We aren’t included in some award competitions, people say readers don’t read self-published books (though I still don’t understand how readers know), and just a common misconception everywhere that self-published books are “less than” books that are gate-kept.

The problem is, not many, if any, books are truly self-published. What do I mean by that? Let’s take a look at book creation, design, and publishing.

Content: If you’re a writer, chances are 100% that you’ve brainstormed with someone. You’ve hit a plot hole and need help, or you can’t parse out your characters’ backstories to align with their present story. You bounce ideas off someone, more than likely another writer, who lights that creative spark that helps you figure out A to Z. Maybe you plot and use a plotting software like Plottr, or you use a plot generator or trope generator. Writing is a solitary endeavor, to be sure, but we rarely do it alone.

Content Part 2: After you’ve written your book, there are very few people who publish that book without a second set of eyes, be it a beta reader, editor, or proofer. Even though my editing routine is pretty hardcore (I mean, I listen to each and every book I publish, and that takes several days) I still miss things that a proofer picks up. I haven’t always used a beta reader or proofer, and with this pen name, I’m trying to get better with that. A second opinion (other than your own) can go a long way. While betas and editors can be expensive, there are ways around it–trading for services or asking a friend who isn’t in the indie community to help you in exchange for lunch. It could very well be by the time an author’s book is ready to publish, that book has been read by an editor, a proofer, and several beta readers.

Interior: Vellum makes it easy to format your own books. I’m lucky and my ex-fiancé bought me a Mac and the software. I format all my books with it, and to pay his kindness forward, I format for others for free. If you don’t have the resources to format your own book or don’t want to take the time to learn how using free software from places like Reedsy and Draft2Digital, an author is going to pay for their books to be formatted. Word does an okay job, but the PDF for the paperback can get a little complicated. I offered a lot of resources for formatting in a different blog post and you can look at them here.

Blurbs: Blurbs are probably one of the most difficult parts of publishing your book. You need one that’s hooky, that will draw a reader in, and if there is one thing out of any part of self-publishing that I make sure I do, it’s get help with my blurb. A bad blurb will turn away a potential reader just as quickly as a bad cover. A great-sounding blurb is your biggest marketing asset next to your cover. You have no idea how convoluted or confusing your blurb sounds until you workshop it. Especially with people who haven’t read your book before. Don’t put your blurb up on your book’s buy-page without feedback. No matter how good you think your blurb sounds, it can be better. Your book will thank you for it.

Covers: Considering my blog post on how to create your own cover in Canva has been viewed over five thousand times, more authors than ever are doing their own covers. It isn’t any wonder since cover designers can be a sketchy bunch, and costly, too, even the designers who are just starting their businesses because they have to recoup stock photo and font fees. You may do your own cover, but if you do, get feedback. I’ll post my covers on the Indie Cover Project on Facebook (find it here https://www.facebook.com/groups/582724778598761) and grab some tips. Often, people will see things you don’t. It’s tough though, because sometimes they’ll suggest improvements you don’t know how to do if you have limited skills, or they’ll suggest things that don’t go along with your genre. I’ve gotten some good feedback, but if you post your cover there, thicken your skin up first.

Marketing/Advertising: There are a lot of resources for indies on learning advertising platforms and marketing tips. Bryan Cohen, who offers a free Amazon Ad Profit Challenge every three months, runs a Facebook group, and that group has over twenty-seven thousand members in it. That is a lot of people to help you if you do the challenge with Bryan. Author Unleashed, another Facebook group hosted by Robert J. Ryan, has almost six thousand members in it. Authors Optimizing Amazon and Facebook Ads – Support Group, also on Facebook, has almost seven thousand members in it. That is a lot of support if you’re running ads and have questions. There are a ton of books, Facebook groups, webinars, and classes that will teach you what you need to do to market your books effectively.

Publishing: There are a lot of Facebook groups, podcasts, blogs, and books that talk about publishing. You can also join Facebook groups for authors in your genre. I’m in several for romance authors. Members are more than happy to answer ISBN, wide vs. KU, and other questions that constantly pop up. Right now there’s a big conversation about the Adult/Explicit Content and 18+ readership that KDP has started. If you have a publishing question, the 20booksto50k group is great for it. You can even tweet your question, but I’ve read some convoluted and not entirely true information over there, so it would be worth it to get a second opinion if you ask there.

Considering all the steps indies take while they’re writing, packaging their books, and publishing indies rarely do this alone, and if you truly do, I encourage you to find a group or create your own. I spent the better part of the past 7 years I’ve been publishing networking and getting to know the wrong people. Find authors who have the same goals as you do. I’ve run into some issues online lately and with writing acquaintances because we don’t have the same goals. I want my books to sell and will do what it takes to make that happen. Not everyone thinks like that–unable to separate the art from the business. I take my writing seriously. It’s not a hobby. I consider it a second job. If you feel like that too, hang out with authors who feel the same. It will save you a lot of hurt down the road.

I’m sorry this blog post was late! I was so busy formatting over the weekend, this post completely slipped my mind. I don’t want to start slacking as that is the easiest way for me to fall out of the habit of writing at all. After I post, I’m going to work on my covers. I’ll have a trilogy update for you next Monday.

Enjoy the 4th if you’re in the States, and have a great week!

When do you know when your book is done?

Posted on by
Reply
books and flowers with quote: “A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.” --Samuel Johnson, Works of Samuel Johnson

Since I’ve been listening to my trilogy, that’s a question that has been on my mind the last few days. Listening to my books to find typos, missing words, extra words, and syntax issues is the last editing step I will never skip. In an FB group someone said they paid a proofer (an exorbitant amount, in my opinion) who missed too many errors for the price she was charging. Listening to your manuscript can help you find and fix all those issues, and from the feedback the reviewers give me on Booksprout, I catch 99.9% of mistakes. (One reviewer found only one typo in Faking Forever, and I was so proud of that!)

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a second set of eyes on your books if you can find a set that doesn’t cost and arm and a leg, but like I wrote in my last blog post, finding people you can trust is impossible at worst and difficult at best.

So, when do I know when my book is done?

I honestly don’t spend a lot of time on my books and you can take that however you want to. Product quality will always be subjective, and I see that all the time online. People who can write quickly are judged and accused of putting out crap, as if spending more time on your manuscript means you’ve got the next great American Novel on your hands, ah, laptop. Not everyone wants to spend the next five years writing their next book. In fact, if someone told me I had to spend five years writing my next book, I wouldn’t even start. Some writers don’t bother to even finish a WIP before it’s on to the next shiny thing, but I can’t have projects overlapping in my brain. I need to finish one and then go on to the next. It’s just how I am.

books and flowers with quote: It’s being ready to accept rejection. You can work on a book for two years and get it published, and it’s like you may as well have thrown it down a well. It’s not all champagne and doing interviews with The New York Times. George R. R. Martin

When I write a first draft, it’s pretty clean. I don’t like to edit, though I’m getting better, and I never rewrite unless I find an inconsistency and I have no choice. There’s nothing I love more than reading my own books, but knowing I have things to fix makes me crabby and I try to avoid it. I edit as I go along, especially inconsistencies I know are there. Everyone will have their own process, but if you hate editing, plotting your books to avoid plot holes and knowing your grammar and punctuation to avoid errors can give you a cleaner first draft.

Standalones are easier than duets or trilogies just because you’re not dealing with so many words. The trilogy I’m working on now wasn’t supposed to be one, and I’m thankful I don’t publish as I go. I would have been in a world of hurt when it came to details that link all the books together. I had no choice, anyway, once I decided there was going to be a book two and three because there was so much foreshadowing to book one I needed to add.

books and flowers with quote: If you're going to publish a book, you probably are going to make a fool of yourself. --Annie Dillard

Once I get them all written, I immediately reread them all and make notes of character details like eye and hair color, and who knows what. That was a big one for this trilogy as this has a twisty murder in it, and I needed to keep track of what information each character had. Even at the end of the trilogy, not everyone knows everything, and I had a few pages of notes to keep everything straight.

I read book one more times than the others, but books two and three got their share. The story is set in stone by the time I listen to them. In a perfect world, I would have a beta read them before I listen, but the more productive you are, the harder it is to find someone to help you. Especially if you can’t afford the help and are looking for free or are trading services. I had a free beta lined up for book one, before I knew it was going to be a trilogy, but after I decided to add books two and three I didn’t ask her. I know I write fast, I know I produce a lot of books, and that is just too much for someone to take on. Not many people agree with the idea you should edit your own work, but sometimes that’s just how it has to be.

I have a pretty decent memory and usually know when I’ve messed up with consistency. It’s difficult when a character says one thing at the beginning and near the end says something else. That usually happens because they’ve grown in the middle, but you have to make sure that growth is on the page and not in your head or the character’s head. If you’re having trouble picking that stuff out for yourself, you probably need a manuscript critique or a developmental edit if you can afford it.

In book two of my trilogy, Eddie wants to keep his relationship with Clarissa a secret. Well, he says he does, but every little thing he does negates what he says. He moves in with her, tells his best friend he’s living with her, is in love with her, and was having an affair with her while she was married to his bandmate. Parks in the driveway instead of hiding his car in the garage. Doesn’t mind when other people find out he’s seeing her. Little things add up to the fact that while he said he wanted to keep their relationship a secret, he really didn’t want to. He was doing his best to out himself even if he didn’t realize it. It even took me a while to realize that’s what he was doing, but after that clicked, it made total sense. He was tired of hiding her, and I hope my readers understand that. It’s funny when things like that make it into your writing, almost like a subliminal message. I only mention this because I thought I had a big problem with consistency. He was continually saying one thing but doing another. It wasn’t intentional, but it was, and I’m actually really proud of that. (And super glad I didn’t have a ton or rewriting ahead of me!)

flowers and books with quote: The process of writing a book is so removed in my mind from the process of publishing it that I often forget for great stretches that I eventually hope to do the latter. --Karen Joy Fowler

I have to be pretty sure my books are how I want them before I start listening to them. How do I get to that point? I don’t get tired of my books, per se, but there is an eagerness to get them done and move on to the next thing. I don’t have a problem with perfection, and anyone reading in their genre and who can be honest knows some of the best selling books aren’t perfect either. I’m proud of my books, but doesn’t mean I’m going to reread them 120 times and haggle with myself over comma placement. If you don’t know about a comma, listen to the sentence both ways. You’ll right away if it belongs or not. For me, there’s only so much you can do for a book after it’s written. I’ve done my best by it and it’s time to nudge it out of the nest to see if it can fly.

Of course, you don’t want to publish too soon. I’ve seen this happen and the results can be… not good. You really don’t want readers to pay for a subpar product, and if my proofer finds stuff in the paperback proofs, of course I’m going to fix them. I wouldn’t ignore her findings because I’m in a hurry. That’s what she’s there for.

I’m not sure if I answered the question, “How do I know my books are ready to publish?” It’s more of a feeling, a proud sense of accomplishment that they’re done and ready to go out into the world. They sound good, the plot is solid. I had reservations about Faking Forever. I didn’t like Fox, and I was worried other readers wouldn’t like him either. But I wasn’t going to rewrite it or scrap the book. There actually was nothing I could rewrite. The story was what it was. The only thing I could have done was not publish it at all, but it was already there, already done, and I took a chance. That was a book that didn’t have a proofer or a beta reader. I put it out 100% on my own. Maybe had I had feedback first I wouldn’t have felt like I did. Or I might have felt worse. Who knows. I’m not looking at the reviews. You can do that if you want to see how readers like it.

Books with flowers and quotes Self publishing is not as easy as it is portrayed! When you think you have finished your book, proof read, proof read again, and again, and again. Don't believe it is ready until you have a hard copy proofed! --Phil Simpkin

You have to listen to your instincts and be honest about what your plans are. There are some writers who don’t ever plan to publish. They are in love with their characters and completing and publishing would mean they aren’t able to spend time with them anymore. That’s okay. I like publishing and I like knowing readers are reading my books. But I also like moving on to the next project. I’m trying to savor the process more–writing the blurbs, doing the covers, even uploading them on KDP. But trying not to be so quick is hard. Not really because I’m tired of working on that particular project, but because I’m excited to publish. It’s a lot of fun to put my books on Booksprout and send my newsletter ARC copies.

Probably the best advice I can give you is to not chase perfection. You’re not going to find it. I’ll reread books I’ve written and of course I find things I could change. That only means I’ve grown as a writer between writing it and that reread, but that doesn’t mean a reader won’t enjoy the book that exists. Kristine Kathryn Rusch has a talk about chasing perfection, and I post it every now and then. I think it’s a great. We’re our own worst critics and you can’t let that keep you from moving forward.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next week!

Author Update: Knowing your limits and what I’m working on now.

Posted on by
2
flat desk. mac laptop, paperclips. pink flowers. text: author update: knowing your limits and what I'm working on now.

Happy Monday! This week holds the first day of Summer, though we have felt the hotter temperatures for a while now. I don’t mind, and I frequently lie out on my apartment’s balcony with a podcast and soak up all the sun. This week is my sister’s birthday and we’re taking a road trip to Bismarck, North Dakota to eat at Cracker Barrel, bum around, and look at a different boring city with nothing to do there, either. But there are plenty of fields and plenty of cows, and I need a break.

I’ve been giving my trilogy a rest (to the best of my ability) and reading The Hunger Games books because I promised my daughter I would read the prequel before the movie comes out in November. Soon I’ll start listening to them (my books, not Suzanne’s), and I’ll have to divide my time or else I won’t them read and my books won’t get done for my proofer. I want to give her most of July so I have time to enter in the typo fixes and any cover changes I need. I only set an August deadline because if I don’t, I won’t work on my books in any meaningful timeline. But once I do set a deadline, and I announce to my newsletter that I have books coming out on a certain date, I’ll honor that. My publishing schedule is important to me; my integrity is important to me. Readers won’t trust you if you tell them one thing and then do another, and that’s why I got ticked off when one of my betas backed out of reading for me. (In the back of my mind I must not have trusted her because I still worked on them while she had them. I would have been even angrier had I waited thinking she was going to honor our agreement. It’s sad, but my lack of trust in people has served me well, and I don’t think I’ll ever change.)

Every week that passes, I see behavior like this in the writing community, and I don’t question why people are doing more and more on their own. If you want something done (and done right) you have to do yourself, and that’s evident in the uprising of sneaky AI covers, scammers charging for services they don’t have the right or experience to provide, and people unwilling or unable to keep their end of any bargain or contract they enter into. I’m always amazed when I look up the stats for my blog post on how to do a paperback wrap in Canva:

stats: 5.4k views, 13 likes, and 21 comments

I really shouldn’t be though because book cover designers aren’t cheap and with AI and scammers creating their own book cover design businesses who don’t understand you need to find your stock photos from a reputable (read: Amazon accepted) source, authors are just needing clear instructions on how to do it themselves because they’re the only ones they can trust to do it correctly.

I’m at the point where I have one online friend who will help me with blurbs and some shorter beta reading and a real life friend/co-worker who’s willing to help me proof my books. I’m tired of trying to weed through people who like the idea of helping but when it comes time to actually put in the work, they balk. It’s especially infuriating when you see them later tweeting about the time they are spending on their own work since they dumped yours. I’m bitter and refuse to put myself in that position again. So, when you offer to help someone, please follow through. It really hurts to get dumped. I’ve helped many authors since I’ve started this indie stuff. I’ve done everything from editing to blurb feedback to formatting, even some simple cover design work, and I have never, not once, backed out of a project. I do all of it for free (unless someone insists on throwing me a bone, but it’s not required) simply because I know how difficult trustworthy and affordable help is to come by. I couldn’t imagine getting halfway through a project and telling someone I couldn’t help them anymore. Even the idea makes me sick. Of course, like I said, life happens, and if my kids had an emergency, or my health was suddenly in peril (my mom and her mom both died from breast cancer) then that’s something else, but realistically, if you’re backing out because you bit off more than you can chew, that’s your own problem. What’s the saying? Don’t make your problem my emergency? Know your limitations and don’t offer to help anyone if you really don’t want to. Honestly, it’s a lot easier to say no than it is to back out of a project when someone is depending on you to finish. I’m not one for predictions, though I enjoy reading them at the beginning of every New Year, but I will say this: I think more and more indies will put out their work without any help. It’s just getting way too hard to pick through the scammers to find the dependable people, and indies are going to forgo the whole thing and just put their books out themselves. Whether or not they can put out a quality product is one thing, but the community is driving us to to do everything ourselves because it either costs too much or it’s too much of a headache to find someone who won’t screw you over.

Anyway, while my friend has my paperback proofs, I’m going to start writing my holiday novel. I found a notebook with the first chapter of a book and some plotting. I wasn’t experienced enough to connect the dots, and I tabled it. This was before COVID, maybe even a couple to three years before, so this shaky outline is old, but the plot has stayed with me. I’m going to turn it into a Christmas standalone. When I was plotting it, I hadn’t started my pen name yet, so I wasn’t writing strictly billionaire. When I go back, I’m going to have to figure out how to keep him in the situation he’s in because the original character didn’t have money and was essentially trapped where he is. But, I’m excited to use this plot, and I’m aiming for a November release. Even though it’s a Christmas novel, it will be dark, and I’m going to shoot for about 80k words. This will keep me busy during the remainder of the summer and into the Fall. I’m helping someone with formatting and editing, and I told her yesterday that Novembers can be busy for me. Decembers with Christmas can be too, but November will be particularly busy with my daughter’s golden birthday on the 18th, and my birthday on the 28th, and Thanksgiving I usually cook for. I wanted her to be able to plan accordingly but I won’t be working on any of my stuff by then. A standalone should be easy-peasy considering the two trilogies I’ve put together this year, and meeting my self-imposed deadline should be a snap.

I earned out my Fussy Librarian fee ($75.00), so that’s nice. (It was on the 9th of June.) I haven’t done the math to see what my read through is for the trilogy, but since my free promo wasn’t that long ago, my numbers would be way off anyway. It seems like I get decent read through, at least, book three is making money, so that’s something. We hear a lot about saturation. Is the market saturated? Too many books, not enough readers. Too many promos and not enough readers. I’ve read where these newsletter promos like Freebooksy, Fussy Librarian, and E-Reader News Today aren’t working as well as they used to. Being that I never used them FL or ENT, I can’t say one way or the other. I’ve used Freebooksy in the past, and I have proof a lot depends on your cover, if you write in a series, and how good your book is. I did a Freebooksy for the first book in my very first trilogy and it didn’t do well. My writing just wasn’t there and it didn’t earn back my fee. Same with All of Nothing. The writing was better, but that’s a standalone. Paying $120 dollars to give away a standalone doesn’t make any sense, and I didn’t have read through to other books because that’s an enemies to lovers and the only one in my 3rd person backlist. I’m going to keep an eye on how well my promos do for my 1st person brand. So far, the ones I’ve done have earned their fee back and then some, which is how you want it. But I made a conscious effort to niche down, change POVs, and write in more series. We’ll see if it pays off.

That’s about all I have for this week. I have plenty to keep me busy for the next little while, and I am really really excited to put out my rockstar trilogy. I thought my Lost & Found Trilogy was some of the best work I’ve ever done, but I’m really eager to see how readers like my rockstar stuff. I’m very proud of them, and I hope my readers love them as much as I do.

I hope you all have a good week, and if you ask, I can regale you with all the cow pictures I take on the road.

Until next time!

Authors in Reader Spaces, Monday Musings, and Author Update

Posted on by
Reply

I actually had a different blog post planned for today. I had it all written out, but I was rereading it and after thinking about it, I decided not to publish it after all. We’ve had so much talk lately about authors who can’t handle their reviews, and we see evidence of it all the time. I’m not on TikTok, but I’ve watched reaction videos of authors who publicly go after reviewers for their honest reviews, (though some would say negative, even vindictive) and I really started to think about the kinds of information authors share.

Not just me, but any author who shares their numbers, their empty sales dashboards, their private messages, publicly. I’ve shared numbers in the past–how many books sold, how much it cost me, how many page reads after a promo and how long it took. That kind of thing. Authors who drift into the non-fiction space almost have to post some kind of proof of success or failure if they’re giving marketing advice. If I’m going to share my ups and downs publishing my books, then it’s almost a given to say, well, I paid $200 for ads between FB and Amazon in the month of May and I made $235, so really, I made $35 bucks. That’s the transparency we need as authors looking for marketing advice, and that’s the honesty we should be putting out there if we’ve chosen to share our journeys.

But then I think, authors are public figures and what we do and say on social media is put out there to be scrutinized, but not just scrutinized, scrutinized by readers who could find what we’re saying. This blog and the information I share is definitely different than what I put in my newsletters, and honestly, I don’t know how I would feel if any of my readers stumbled upon this website. We like to think readers and authors are separate, but with social media, they aren’t. (And we keep saying that authors are readers too, so…) They really aren’t. My numbers (or lack thereof) concerns them. It concerns the money and time they spend on my books, and mixing my readership with the contents of this blog doesn’t sit well with me.

I was going to share my numbers after my Fussy Librarian promo last Friday, and to be honest, I was disappointed in the results. But as I started to reread it to proof it for mistakes before I posted it today, I was ashamed. I had no right to be disappointed because in that disappointment, I discounted every reader who downloaded the book during the promo and every reader who will go on to buy books two and three. No, it didn’t pull the bigger numbers a Freebooksy does when I buy a promo from Written Word Media, but that only tells me their newsletter subscriber list is bigger. And we pay for that with a higher fee when we book with them.

I want readers to be proud they’re reading me. Proud to say, “Yeah, that VM, she’s classy. She doesn’t crap on other authors, she doesn’t splash a bad review everywhere and complain about it. She doesn’t post private messages everywhere making fun of people who reach out to her. She has a cute cat, drinks watermelon wine like me, and likes to read sexy romances in the tub. She’s my people.” That’s what I want readers to feel when they buy one of my books. That’s what I want readers to feel when they stumble upon my IG or sign up for my newsletter, or even God forbid read this blog.

I obviously don’t write for the money. If I pulled all my numbers for my lifetime of publishing, I would be in the red. Bottom line, I have put more time and money into my books than I have ever gotten back in royalties, but maybe that’s no one’s business but mine. Do I have dreams of speaking at 20books or NINC? I used to. (No, not really, I don’t EVER want to get into public speaking.) I wanted to be able to say, this is how I did it. I wanted to be able to encourage other authors and say, “If I can do it, so you can you.” But maybe I don’t want that anymore. Social media has become this dumpster fire of entitled authors who have such a thin skin they get pissed off when they get three star reviews. It’s terrible. I don’t want to inadvertently get meshed in with them, either. “Oh, that Vania, she’s complaining about how her promo did again. Ugh.” And the more you put yourself out there, the more of a chance there is of that happening.

So, that was what I was thinking when I reread my blog post that was supposed to be up for today. Was my Fussy Librarian successful? Sure. I had 1,257 downloads of Give & Take when it was free. I wouldn’t have had any if the cover was crap or my one sentence ad copy line was terrible. Have I sold anything? I sold 9 Give & Takes, 4 Lost & Founds, and 3 Safe & Sounds. If you count every sale, every reader, a success, then yes. My Fussy Librarian promo succeeded. Did I earn my fee back? No. Will I? I have faith in my books. I will eventually. I know I will, just not at the speed that I hoped. I can give myself permission to be disappointed, but my disappointment isn’t for public consumption. Readers and Authors mix on social media on a daily basis. My disappointment may not be for public consumption ever again.

So, where is this blog headed? I’m not sure. I’ve posted Monday and some Thursdays every week without fail for 7 years. I’m not a quitter and even if I don’t post hard numbers, I still feel I have a lot to share. I’m dipping my toes back into the non-fiction side, listening to podcasts, reading more non-fiction books. I want to share resources, but that’s hard to do when I’m not consuming them to pass along. I’ve been in a bubble with my own writing, and maybe blame my reclusiveness after COVID or my drive to get my pen name going (I published my first book in May of last year), but I haven’t let my attention go anywhere else and I know I need to, if anything, to grow as an author.

So, I will leave you with this: a chat between Kevin Tumlinson of Draft2Digital and Jane Friedman, on D2D’s Facebook page. I’ve tried to find it on YouTube as they post their videos there, but I couldn’t find it, so I apologize in advance if you’re not on Facebook to watch it. I’ll keep an eye out for it and if I find it, I’ll post it ASAP. Here is the link, and the screenshot is from D2D’s FB page: https://fb.watch/l4wVa0M6rS/

I hope you have a good week, everyone!