Four Things I Learned Editing My King’s Crossing and Rocky Point Wedding Series

Posted on February 17, 2025 by Vania Margene Rheault

1,933 words
10 minutes read time

For the past several months, from October of 2023 right after I published A Heartache for Christmas until January of this year, I was editing. I was editing my King’s Crossing Series, doing the final editing passes since I had sat on those books for over three years after I wrote them, and my Rocky Point Wedding series since I hadn’t looked at them since I published at the beginning of 2020. After so much time had gone by, I knew they could be better, and since a few people here and there were finding them, I thought while I was between projects, it would be a good time to edit them again.

But, editing ten books in a row dragged me down, so much so I didn’t even realize how icky I was feeling until those projects were finished and I started having fun writing again. Huge projects are a lot of work, especially when you don’t have help. My Rocky Point Wedding series might not have needed more editing if I’d had help in the first place, on the other hand, a lot of time had gone by and a lot of words too, so I was bound to get better regardless.

Since I doubt I’ll ever edit ten books back to back again, I thought I’d write out the four things I learned while editing these books.

Time between edits is really helpful.
When I wasn’t feeling well, I wrote nonstop. I would finish a book and move on to the next with barely a break. Before I knew it, I had several books on my computer and a different kind of anxiety started weighing on me. What was I going to do with all those books? So, while I was writing, in a way, I was taking a break from the others I had written before. I think my King’s Crossing books benefited the most from that because each time I did an editing sweep, I added more details I hadn’t thought of before and fixed inconsistencies I missed. As more time went by and I could edit with fresh eyes, I was able to fix the smaller and more intricate details and inconsistencies. I once said that something small in book two could have damning consequences in book four, but for me to remember that incident, I needed space between editing sweeps. Not everyone is going to take four years to edit a series, and I didn’t really, either, writing new books between editing sessions, but knowing how beneficial breaks can be, I’m going to try to stagger projects in the future so every editing sweep will feel “new.”

I had to develop a better memory.
Maybe it’s easier to write standalones, but while I was writing my King’s Crossing series it was difficult to remember things, and it might sound dumb, but you don’t remember what you forgot. When I was re-editing my Rocky Point Wedding series, I found a lot of places where I had forgotten things, like where a character parked her car, or when a character was supposed to be somewhere and I had him somewhere else. Also, characters had a habit of just “fading away” when I didn’t need them anymore. I was actually kind of surprised I messed that up so badly, and I could tell I learned a lot from editing my King’s Crossing series as those discrepancies were easy to spot. If you don’t have a good memory, you’re going to have to hire someone who does. I told a friend that by the time I was done editing my King’s Crossing series, I pretty much had all the books memorized. After editing them back to back three times in a row, I don’t think I had much of a choice. Now I think I have a better memory than before, though right now I’m only working on standalones and I don’t think I ever had a problem with those. I’ve gone through the standalones I have out and those were more of a garbage word sweep than anything else, maybe plumping up some scenes. But yeah, I definitely found out my memory wasn’t as great as I thought it was, but I can take steps to help with that now that I know.

Putting inside information into the books was a lot of fun, some I didn’t even consider until the fourth or fifth edit.
Probably what I loved best as I was getting to know the plot and the characters more was putting connected information from books 1-3 into books 4-6 . For instance, there’s a place in book six where Gage thinks, I bet Zane’s never gone through the public entrance of the airport, but we know in book three he did with Stella. What I loved was writing Max’s journal entries that Gage reads in books 4-6 that Max, as a character in books 1-3, wrote down. I really enjoyed writing the events of those books through Max’s eyes only for them to be interpreted into information Gage needed in books 4-6. I’m not sure if I would have even thought to do some of that stuff if it hadn’t been for the multiple rounds of editing those books went through. One of my biggest pleasures was when in book six, they need to go across the state in a hurry, and in the past Zane would drive. We didn’t really understand his fear of flying because of his parents’ plane crash until he says he’d get on a plane to save his sister.

I could tell I pantsed my King’s Crossing series a lot more than I did other books I’ve written.
I think one of the things I did the most was smooth out consistency issues, and maybe not even issues, just adding details to make books 1-3 and books 4-6 more cohesive. Because I didn’t realize that Zarah was going to get her own story until almost the very last second, that meant a lot of smoothing out books 1-3, adding details and motivations of characters to better explain what was going on. That was especially true of Max, when they didn’t really know why he was investigating Zane and Zarah’s parents’ plane crash, and the reasons he was come up in the later books.

I remember plotting out all the books in my Rocky Point series before I started writing, so the plot stuff there wasn’t too big of an issue while I was editing those, and I was happy about that. I did have one instance where I messed up and I had a character say he was doing something when he definitely was not. That was part of my memory issue too, but besides having to fix that, the plots were solid. I don’t like pantsing books because for me it takes a lot of work to edit them, but even if I had to put a lot of time into my King’s Crossing series, it was worth it in the end.

A friend and I were talking about series and how I keep details straight. Short of memorizing every single line of every single book, I really didn’t have an answer because that’s what I felt like I did, at least to the point I knew exactly the sentence to search for to get to the scene I needed to check something. I used a notebook at times, writing stuff down, but then I would never look at it again, so I don’t think writing anything down really helped me all that much. When I first decide to start a book, I write down character names and traits, that kind of thing, but once you’re five books deep into a series, that stuff doesn’t come up too often. I mean, once you establish a character’s eyes are blue, you don’t need to keep repeating it.

I think over such a long series, I had trouble more with keeping characters’ goals and motivations in check. For instance, Zarah’s therapist turns out to be a bad person, but I was vague as to how she came to be Zarah’s therapist to begin with. Once her therapist’s role became even more apparent, I could think of how she inserted herself into Zarah’s life. I’m hesitant to say that some of this stuff could have been avoided if I had written slower because I did write six books in a little over a year, and maybe that’s true, but these books were also the first 1st person dual POV books I ever wrote, so not only did I jump into a huge series, I hadn’t taken the time to learn how to write in first person after writing in 3rd all my life.

I haven’t gotten feedback on the series as a whole yet–books five and six have yet to release, and even though they were all available on Booksprout, the reviewers haven’t posted reviews of book six because it’s not time for them to. Only when feedback starts to come in of book six will I know if the series as a whole works. Probably everyone I ever tell I did these alone will think I’m crazy, but as prices go up and up, editing will be farther and farther out of a reach for a lot of authors. Which is unfortunate because if you don’t have the skill to edit your books yourself, there’s not a lot out there that can compare to a human’s feedback. ProWritingAid can only do so much, and no matter how “smart” Al is, this is just a level of editing he can’t handle.

I don’t know what the solution is. I had these beta read, both series, but you’re not going to get the kind of feedback you need to avoid inconsistencies like that unless you hire the right kind of editor and that costs. If I have to give any advice on doing something like this alone, it would be to plot, take your time writing, and give yourself plenty of space to edit, and then, when all is said and done, be okay with knowing you might not have caught everything. There probably are a couple things I missed editing my King’s Crossing series. Layers I could have added, details that would have made the story richer, but like with any book, you can’t chase perfect or you’ll never publish. That’s the simple truth.

If you’re thinking of writing a series or if you have trouble plotting in general and want to give it a try, I have a couple of resources for you (none of them are affiliate links). Next week I’ll do a proper author update, and the week after that I have a lovely interview planned with Brandi Easterling Collins.

Have a good week! Until next time!

Romance Your Brand: Building a Marketable Genre Fiction Series (Publishing How To Book 1) by Zoe York: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07XMDKV1Y

Take Off Your Pants!: Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing: Revised Edition by Libby Hawker: https://www.amazon.com/Take-Off-Your-Pants-Outline-ebook/dp/B00UKC0GHA

Melody Loomis: How to outline a novel when you don’t know what’s going to happen:

Melody also said I could share this graphic with you. She found the original via Priscilla Oliveras’s “Romance Writing” course and you can find it here: https://www.ed2go.com/courses/writing/writing-and-editing/ilc/romance-writing. She added a couple of things and so did I. Have fun filling it in–I’ve only used a notebook to write all these things down, but maybe I will try this instead. Have fun plotting:

My First Author Update of 2025

Posted on January 6, 2025 by Vania Margene Rheault

Last year went out with a bang, and this year has come in with a whimper. I mean, the whimper isn’t because I’m in pain, it’s just how I’m going to live my year. I finished reading a book I started last fall, right before I decided to edit my Rocky Point Wedding Series, and started another, reading for pleasure. This weekend I’ll begin edits on Loss and Damages, but I took New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day “off” and did some housekeeping instead.

KDP approved my new files for the ebooks and paperbacks of my series without giving me any hassle about keywords or licensing rights (or something else I wasn’t prepared to tackle). I was pleasantly surprised and relieved. Not so pleasantly surprised and relieved when I did the same for IngramSpark and ended up paying $200. Fifty dollars a book ($25 dollars per file) wasn’t something I could afford, but the changes were too drastic not to do it. It was something I had taken upon myself and paid the price. The books are better for it, and I’ll find the invoice somewhere and give it to my accountant, uh, next year as I did that on the first of January. This year’s taxes (2025) will look a lot different as I doubt there will be many royalties to declare and a lot less ad spend to claim.

I turned off all my ads after earning $1.76 in royalties on Saturday. I had two Facebook ads that had two dollars a day ad spend, and some Amazon ads that were going at .50/click. I can’t keep my ads on if my royalties aren’t at least breaking even, so I just put up my white flag completely and shut them all down, even my rockstars on Facebook I said I would never stop. I suspect it won’t take long for my books to sink, but like I keep saying, that’s okay. I used to think that breaking even was okay, or even a good thing, but all that takes energy and I don’t want to have to think about click spend or conversion anymore. I might still boost a post now and then. Facebook ad gurus say not to do that, but with the way the algorithms are, boosting a post once in a while is practically the only way to get views. Since I have my ad information all set up in Facebook anyway, boosting a post won’t be difficult. I am trying to get more followers on my author page, though I’m not sure to what end. It’s a nice thought that followers turn into readers who will buy, but I lost that dream when I was on Twitter and my 14k followers did nothing for me. But, like I told a friend in an email, without ads running, I need to do something or no one will know I’m still breathing.

Last year my books were in two promos in December. I paid for a Fussy Librarian and gave away 3,491 copies of A Heartache for Christmas, and in a Stuff Your Ereader promo, I gave away 3,130 copies of Twisted Alibis. I was disappointed because in previous SYKD events I’ve given away a lot more than that, and Twisted Alibis and my Ghost Town Trilogy as whole have done well. Not sure if my hook wasn’t hooky enough or what, but I don’t know if I’m going to participate next year. I was surprised my Fussy Librarian did so well (Al says they have 352,127 free promo contemporary romance subscribers which was more than I thought) but I gave away a Christmas novel in December, so that was probably just timing. I said in a previous blog post that I was going to do four of those kinds of promos this year, but I don’t know. I’m tired of pushing my books, tired of hoping for a result that probably isn’t going to happen. Giving away books has an ROI that can’t truly be measured, and I think I’ve given away enough books for the foreseeable future. I did an author unwrapped on Threads and looked up the free books I gave away last year. I gave away almost 15,000 books in 2024. I don’t mind giving away books, I really, really don’t, but at some point you have to decide how beneficial it is and I’m going to wait and see what kind of page reads and read-through those promos will produce, if any, in the next few months.

I did some website cleanup and moved my books off this website to my author site. I don’t blog to sell books anyway, and all my 3rd person stuff is old and not worth mentioning. I updated some bits and pieces on my author website and I’ll be fine leaving the sites separated. Blogging over there is going okay–I got a couple more downloads of My Biggest Mistake when I sent out a Happy New Year post. Checked my subscriber stats and I’m still losing people, but that’s okay. I don’t know how to cull my list on WordPress so them opting out is the only way to get people who don’t want to be there off my list.

I’m going into this year gentler, trying not to care as much, enjoying the writing and books in general. Tired of trying to make money and there are a lot of posts on Facebook and Threads right now from authors who have been at this for just as long or longer than I have making pennies a day. I’m not alone but knowing that doesn’t make me feel better. I’ve just come to terms with it, and honestly, it’s fine. I’ll accept the yearly loss on my subscriptions like Canva, Office 365, and WordPress because at this point not paying for that stuff is stepping away farther than I want to and I wouldn’t be able to help the authors I’m currently helping. My Alliance of Independent Authors membership is a must because you never know when I’ll need their support if Amazon does something to my account. Once all the books in my King’s Crossing series are done releasing, I can downgrade my Booksprout plan to only one book a campaign instead of unlimited, and I’m only paying $20 a year to Bookfunnel so they can distribute my reader magnet and my Addicted to Her easter egg. The money I have in my savings account needs to stay there, and I don’t have the energy to make sure my royalties are matching my ad spend, so it’s best just to turn them off and let my sales do what they will. The $200 I paid to IngramSpark hit me hard and will be my last big spend. I shot my shot and missed. Now I don’t have any money to play with. I knew it was going to happen, and I’m prepared. It is what it is and all that.

I’m still going to write and publish, like I said, so this blog will always be here. Besides, for some reason, I have 400 downloads in my DepositPhotos account I thought I needed, and I still have about 70 ISBN numbers to use out of that pack of 100 I bought a few years ago. I’ve learned to bootstrap book production–editing, covers, formatting–so maybe I’ll learn to bootstrap some marketing, though the only bootstrapping I know of is social media, and I’ve never been great at that. I did ask Al for some social media prompts geared specifically toward billionaire romance indie authors, and he did a good job. He gave me 31 prompts for the month of January that could actually work without much tweaking. Though, he’s not too helpful when it comes to videos (I’d never ask him to make them for me), if that’s what’s really moving the needle. At this point, my social media accounts are the only place I can talk about my books now, besides my newsletter, and I should talk about them somewhere. Especially since I still have three more books of my King’s Crossing series yet to release. Still working on keeping my books in my mind even after they’ve been published.

That’s about all I have this week. Thanks to my friend Melody for giving me a heads up about the Bookfunnel YouTube channel/podcast. Lately, while I’m cooking dinner, I’ve been listening to their episode on having a publishing plan. Because, you know, what else am I going to listen to when I’ve been saying for the past few weeks I’m going to go easy on my writing and publishing? [Insert rolling eyes here.] Whatever. It’s a great talk, and maybe it will fire you up for the next 51 weeks. If you want to listen to it, or check out their channel, look here:

That’s about all I got. I hope the new year treats you well!

Until next time!

Vania (VM) Rheault is a contemporary romance author who has written over twenty titles.

When she’s not writing, you can find her working her day job, sleeping, or enjoying Minnesota’s four seasons with a cup of coffee in hand.

Happy New Year! (Making every minute count)

Posted on January 1, 2025 by Vania Margene Rheault

I could have saved this for Monday, but I figured the thoughts running through my mind while I made pancakes for the kids this morning were an apt New Year topic.

You know lately I’ve been going through some old 3rd person books. I revamped a four-book series and it took me four months. Two rounds of editing, waiting for proofs, and redoing their covers. The proofs will come today and the last step is just pushing Publish on Amazon and swapping out files on IngramSpark. Then I can put that series away, and maybe even start promoting them a little bit because I won’t be wincing, wondering what people are reading.

Yesterday, I looked for the Vellum files of my erotica novellas and couldn’t find them. I remembered that they were lost in a Mac update and if I wanted to have them, I’d have to open the PDF in Word, re-import that .docx file into Vellum and reformat them. It’s not so bad, I grouped them into threes and so that’s what I did. I started that process, anyway. Got the front and back matter fixed again, though all that could be updated, and edited the first novella which is 25,000 words. I finished last night and moved on to the next, but then I got to thinking, “Why am I doing this?” I had a legitimate reason for doing my Rocky Point series. People were finding them without me promoting them, and since I hadn’t looked at them in four years (Amazon says publication dates were in January of 2020) I knew they could use a polish.

The only trouble with this way of thinking is, all my old books could use a polish. Scratch that. Every singe book I have ever published could use a polish, because that’s the way an author’s life works. We grow, we change, maybe our styles mature, and I doubt there’s one author out there who could go back to a book they’ve previously published and not find one thing they would want change.

So, this really just begs the question, How should we spend our time? Do I need be using my time going back to books so old that of course there’s going to be tons wrong with them, despite the fact these were edited by someone other than me, and I can tell they were. I haven’t found any typos so far except a sentence didn’t have a period and at one point a character had a tank top on and it changed to a t-shirt. What would I gain re-editing six erotica novellas? What would I gain re-editing the first trilogy I ever wrote and published. Would it help me get ahead? And should I always think about getting ahead?

A new year always calls for dissecting how you’re going to spend the next twelve months. They feel shiny and new, the world is your oyster, and everyone wants to start off with a bang. Hit the ground running. I’ve never treated a new year as anything special because I had goals and a plan and didn’t need the extra oomph a new year provides. January first is the same as July first and October first. I always had the drive to get things done, no matter what was going on in my life at the time.

So I stopped editing the second novella in my erotica series and closed out the Vellum file. The files that are published are okay, and I don’t know if Amazon has hidden them in their erotica dungeon or not. I don’t even know if I labeled them erotica when I published them, and since then, even if I had, Amazon didn’t get weird about explicit material until recently and they could still show up if someone looked. Not that anyone is going to. The couples on the covers are in bed, and Amazon won’t let me run ads to them. I could on Facebook, but the only way I would do that is if I re-edited them, and so we’re running around in circles, but after everything I just typed, I think we can discern it’s not worth it.

Books are going to have typos, even heavily edited books have typos and inconsistency issues because humans human, and there’s nothing you can do about it. I guess when I start thinking of my imperfect backlist, that’s when imposter syndrome takes over, but when that happens, I know I haven’t been reading enough. I’ve read many imperfect books since I started my indie career, books that have sold thousands of copies (you can tell just by the number of reviews they have), and I’ve said readers just don’t care as long as you give them a good story. I truly believe this, I just have to start applying that to my own books.

What does this mean for 2025? I need to stop going back. Editing my Rocky Point series was fun and I liked revisiting those characters . . . but I lost four months. In those four months I could have finished editing Loss and Damages, the next book I’m going to publish in September, and either made a good start writing my next standalone (I might have even finished. I can write 80k words in three months), or began editing the first two books I have written in the next series I want to publish. Only I can answer if those four months were worth it, but since I’ve seen the end result and I’m proud of what that series is, I guess it’s safe to say it was. But going back any further won’t do me much good, and if I ever do finish reformatting and re-editing those erotica books, and even my Tower City Trilogy, that kind of thing will have to be a side project because this is the honest to goodness truth: it won’t matter to my ~~career~~ hobby if I do those things or not. It would be for my own personal satisfaction only. Those books were published to the best of my ability at the time, just like Captivated by Her and Addicted to Her, the first books I published when I switched to first person present. Getting better is indicative of growth, and we all do that. Or should, anyway. Your first book should sound different than your tenth. We all grow and change, we work with different editors who use different skills and give us different perspectives, we work with different betas who give us different opinions. We read different books and learn different techniques. We listen to craft podcasts and marketing podcasts and learn to keep plot points opened-ended until the last book to promote read-through and learn to write bonus content that only newsletter subscribers have access to. There are lots we do to level up our craft, and that will show in every new book we write. Going back will always be futile because older books will always be lacking. It’s just the way it is.

But, you know, I’ve struggled to find purpose in this writing and publishing endeavor, struggled to find a reason to keep going. I spent more on ads in 2024 than I have, ever, and knowing that has kind of left me feeling deflated. I love finding new readers, and I know you have to spend money to make money, but it’s draining to run ads, spending a dollar only to make a dollar. Creating them, keeping an eye on them, watching them appear to spend more money than they earn–I say appear because most times they don’t (if they are wasting money you have to look at what you’re doing and the product you’re trying to sell, but that’s a lesson for another day). Facebook and Amazon bill you at different times than your royalties are paid out, so you have to be patient when comparing ad spend vs. royalties earned. The marketing part is a letdown, but I need it or my sales dashboard would be empty which I know would hurt me more than breaking even. I’m treading water, but like I said in my 2024 recap, I’m not unhappy. I just have to keep reminding myself of that.

Recently I looked at my follower count for my pen name (VM Rheault) and I was surprised to find I have 325 followers. That’s 325 reasons to keep going. I have 734 newsletter subscribers and have a 34% open rate most days I send one out. That’s 250 reasons to keep going. I have readers who care, and I value every one.

Today I’m setting aside my third person stuff and opening my Loss and Damages file. I love these characters, love the cover I already made. I’ll be happy to get this book on preorder. What I’ll do after that, I’m not sure. After so much editing, I’m a little intimidated to open a new Word file and start a book from nothing. I’ll need to sit with those characters a bit, work out the plot and get comfortable with who they are and what they’re going to go through. I’ve been thinking about them a lot in the past few months and scary or not, I’ll be happy (and relieved) to write their story. I already have the cover for that book done as well, so maybe working on something completely new is what I need perk myself up after a year of editing. But, unlike the title of this blog post, I don’t think every second needs to be accounted for. You don’t have to spend every single second trying to get ahead. That’s only a recipe for burnout and takes the joy away from whatever activity you’re doing. In my last post, I said my publishing is more of a hobby than career, and at this point, it is. I only make what I put into it, and it’s dejecting to think if I didn’t spend any money, I would make the same amount . . . zero. But, it’s freeing too, and I have tweaked my ads already in preparation for the coming year, but I’ll explain more about that in my post on Monday.

Tiffany Yates Martin came out with a new book not long ago called The Intuitive Author: How to Grow & Sustain a Happier Writing Career, and I plan to pick it up as a New Year’s gift to myself. I think it might help me gain perspective when it comes to how long I’ve been doing this and how to work through my accomplishments or lack thereof thus far. I love her other book on editing, so I know I’ll like this book too. If you want to check it out, look here: https://www.amazon.com/Intuitive-Author-Sustain-Happier-Writing/dp/1950830098

Thats all I have today. May the New Year bring you productivity and prosperity in whatever way that means to you. Subscribe to the blog if you haven’t already, and let’s trudge through 2025 together.

Until next time!

My 2024 Year-End Recap

Posted on December 30, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

gold and silver ornaments on black background text says 2024 year in review

Everyone is saying that 2024 was a hard year, but looking back, I honestly got a lot of stuff done. It didn’t feel like it because all I did was edit, but those edits were on a series that is my best work. I’ve said I may never match that quality of writing (plotting, I mean) again, and I don’t know if I want to try. Four years of blood, sweat, and tears went into over half a million words and they may always be my biggest, most impressive accomplishment. Then I had a couple other wins, like going to the Mayo Clinic and seeing a doctor who actually knew what was wrong with me. Between a diagnoses I never thought I’d get and finishing my King’s Crossing Series, 2024 was actually a pretty stellar year. Not that editing all those words over and over again and going through treatment and knowing I’ll always have maintenance until I die was smooth sailing, but compared to the previous years, things were pretty okay. I have my 2023 year end blog post up, so let’s compare.

Books/Novels/WIPs

Number of books written: 0
This is the first year in many, many years I didn’t write a book. I’m not sad about it because I got so much other stuff done, and I know for sure I’ll write one next year, if not three if things work out how I want them to.

Number of books edited: 10
Obviously, this is where I spent all my time. Right after I published A Heartache for Christmas in November 2023, I jumped into editing my King’s Crossing Series. I think I did three editing sweeps before I thought they were ready and the first one, Cruel Fate, was published in October of this year. The others were either published or I put them on preorder and they’ll release up through April of 2025. Once those were up and I could work on something else, I decided to re-edit my Rocky Point Wedding series and I finished the last book of four over the weekend. I edited those in Vellum, ordered the proofs, then edited the proofs to look for typos. All that takes such a long time, and after ten books, my brain is sufficiently fried.

Number of books published: 3
I published three of the six in my King’s Crossing series. In 2025 I’ll have four, just because the rest of the series will release and I already have a standalone almost ready to go that will release on September 15th, 2025. (Don’t ask me how many books I’ll have ready to publish in 2026. I’m not quite that far ahead, but it would be really nice if I had another series done.)

Royalties for the year: Ugh.
I’m actually kind of over shouting out how much I made because I always break even or I’m in the hole, so it really doesn’t matter how much I end up with at the end of the year. It wasn’t that much more than last year if you want to take a look. I would imagine my spend is the same too. I spent $776.43 on Amazon ads this year, something I again intended not to do, but my FOMO gets so out of control. I make ads then just cannot force myself to turn them off. I spent less than I did last year, by about 100 dollars, so that’s something, I guess. But I’m afraid that if I shut them off, and/or keep them off, I won’t sell any books at all. The struggle I constantly contend with is this: I spend XXX.XX money on ads and if I only make enough to cover the cost, is it worth it? It is in the long run because even if I’m breaking completely even or bleeding some red, I’m finding readers when, if I didn’t spend a dime, no one would find me. I just wish I could find that magical way of leveling up. I know you have to spend money to make money, but there has to be a way to get ahead. I spent $3,842.58 on Facebook ads, which means after all my subscription costs, I’m in the hole about $500 dollars. I say every year I’m going to have to do better keeping an eye on my ads, and even if it means my sales go down to zero, I may have to suck it up and turn them off or drop my spend down to a dollar or two a day which is pretty much the same thing.

Fun fact. This is the list of my books in order of popularity. These are my first person books–my third person titles are at the end of the list and not worth mentioning. It’s not a surprise my rockstars are at the top. They’ve sold well since I published them last year. What I really like to see is that my Lost and Found Trilogy and my Cedar Hill Duet have read through. It would be a shame if a Book One was on the list but then the other books were at the bottom or fell off completely. That means your first book isn’t good, and there’s no point in writing a long series if readers won’t go on to read the other books.

Twisted Alibis
Twisted Lies
Twisted Lullabies
Give & Take: A Steamy Baby for the Billionaire Contemporary Romance
Faking Forever : A Steamy Fake Fiancé Billionaire Standalone Romance
Rescue Me: A Steamy, One Night Stand Billionaire Standalone Romance
Lost & Found: A Steamy Friends to Lovers Billionaire Romance
A Heartache for Christmas
Safe & Sound: A Steamy Second Chance Billionaire Romance
Captivated by Her: A Steamy Billionaire Romantic Suspense Novel
Cruel Fate
Cruel Hearts
Addicted to Her: A Steamy Billionaire Romantic Suspense Novel
Cruel Dreams

Website/Blog Stats

My Canva tutorial is still my most popular blog post. It was viewed 5,399 times this year, and overall 8,100 times. I’m super glad I’m helping people.

screenshot of all time stats

text says updated! creating a full wrap paperback book.... views 8.1k likes 7 comments 25

I posted 55 times in a total of 94.4k words.

text says:

2024 year in review

Posts 55 words 94.4k likes 246 comments 99

In my last year-end update I said I had turned this blog into more of a personal journal, and it felt like that this year, too. I’m hoping next year I can change that a bit, as I’d like to start walking and listening to more podcasts. I used to listen to podcasts all the time and I guess with feeling bad, I just didn’t want to deal with it. I’m going to try to open myself up more, and maybe that can reflect in the things I write about. Especially since I’ve said I’m going to take it easy in 2025 and not treat writing and publishing as this desperate thing I have to do no matter what.

I only gained 22 subscribers this year, but that’s okay. I get around 50 hits a day on various blog topics, mostly my Canva tutorial, though I didn’t start this blog to gain followers. I really just wanted to blog about writing and publishing and I was happy if I could help someone along the way. I’ll always blog, seems I always have something to say, so we’ll see what 2025 brings.

I almost forgot to mention that I made a list this year, and it was the first time I’d ever done that. I had a spike in traffic for a bit and that was fun, but it died, more than likely because there is so much content out there about indie publishing, writing, and books in general. You can find the list here, and I would bookmark it too-there’s a lot of informative blogs you might enjoy reading: https://books.feedspot.com/contemporary_book_blogs/. Thanks to Anuj Agarwal for choosing mine.

Health Update

I think we all know what I’ve been up to with that, and there’s no need to regurgitate all the details here. My last resort doctor at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, knew what was wrong with me, and now I’m dealing with my lichen sclerosis, endometriosis, and side effects of the hysterectomy I had in 2022. That’s about as far as I want to go into it, and I recently updated my mental health blog if you want to read it:
chaoscoffeeandconfessions.blogspot.com

What’s next for 2025?

What’s next for next year? Lots of things but this year I’m not taking things so seriously. I’m going to edit the next book I’m going to publish, write another standalone, and then when those two things are done, look over the last two remaining books I wrote during my COVID frenzy and finish that series. Those are my immediate plans. I have a loose publishing plan I’m going to try to stick to, but I want to read more books, listen to podcasts to try to stay up to date on the publishing industry, and when the colder part of winter is over, I’m going to spend more time outside. I’m not going to spend every waking second I’m not working writing, and I’m going to cut down on my ad spend. Not really because I want to, but my finances will need tightening up due to a few things going on that I can’t do anything about.

I think the biggest change is realizing that I’m chasing after a brass ring I’ll never capture. Many many many romance authors make a living wage, but I have finally realized I’m not going to be one of them. This isn’t a defeatist attitude, more realistic on my part. I’ll never write a book that will blow #Booktok away or enthrall an influencer so much they spill it all over the internet. My books are quiet, my heroes are kind, and I really think to make an impression on readers right now, the darker (~~violent~~) the better. That’s not me. I’ll keep writing the books I love, and if I find a few readers who love them too, that will be my success story. You can’t be in it for money and I never have been, but we can’t fool ourselves, either. When you publish a book where readers have to pay to read you, royalties are indicative of sales and no royalties means no one is reading. It can be disheartening to the point of just giving up. I’m not giving up, but I do know when to quit hoping for something I’m never going to have.

I used to share this quote by Arnold Schwarzenegger: I will always stay hungry, never satisfied with current accomplishments.

text on brown background says: i will always stay hungry never satisfied with current accomplishments — https://quotefancy.com/quote/1405103/Arnold-Schwarzenegger-I-will-always-stay-hungry-never-satisfied-with-current

I guess in my own way I am sharing it just by posting it, but I don’t agree with it anymore, and it’s not how I’m going to live in 2025. It’s like being at a buffet but it doesn’t have your favorite food, so you make do with second best. You’re not content, but you’re not unhappy, and that’s how I feel. I’m not content, but I’m not unhappy. The only thing that could make me content is actually making some money off all my hard work so that maybe my finances wouldn’t be so stressful. I’ve said before that even just an extra 10k a year (that I didn’t have to pay for with ads) would go a long way. I’m never going to have that, so instead of living on hope like I have in the past, I’ll set it aside. It’s better, honestly, for my mental health anyway. Who wants to type their fingers bloody for nothing? I never did, don’t get me wrong. I wrote for a myriad of reasons, joy being a big part of it yes, but I had a lot of hope when I started my pen name. I had a lot of hope I could turn my writing into a business. Now it will just remain a hobby and I’ll do other things when I’m not working my day job. I’ll still be around helping other authors format and do covers when they can’t afford to hire out, and I’ll still blog, and write and publish, but my mindset has softened and I’m going to have a “What will be will be” attitude going into the new year.

I’ll still write and publish. Like I said, I’m not unhappy. I just wish things would have turned out differently.

Good luck to you in the new year!

Monday Author Update

Posted on December 23, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

I haven’t done one of these for a while, but there’s nothing to update you on, either. I finished book three of my Rocky Point series, and since I dated the most recent edits, I was dismayed to find that it will have taken me four months (or more as I’m not done with book four yet) to get through these. Not that I should be bothered, these books are a strong series and a solid part of my 3rd person backlist, but I had planned to use this time to get ahead. It doesn’t matter. The longer I’m writing and publishing, the less I think there are repercussions to having long wait times between books. You’ll need to push your back list and communicate with your readers through your newsletter and/or social media, but we think too much about readers forgetting about us, and that’s really not the case.

We can burn ourselves out thinking about FOMO and drive ourselves mad thinking that readers will move on to other favorite authors. It’s true, some readers may be one and done, but any author has to face that possibility, not just slow writers. There are millions of readers out there and when you do get around to releasing that next book, you’ll find new readers and the readers who have enjoyed your books before will come back.

I’m not even looking at a long gap between releases, I don’t think, despite the four months I used to polish my old series. I have no idea how long it will take me to get Loss and Damages edited and packaged (I have the cover done, so we’re just talking writing the blurb and shoving my Word document through Vellum), but if I can do that by the end of March for a September release, I’m not going to need something new until January of 2026 . . . if I keep Amazon’s cliffs in mind, and at this point, I don’t know if I care. It seems silly to freak out over something that really doesn’t warrant it, but man, it’s difficult to let go of the RIGHT NOW mentality so many authors face every day.

Anyway, so how do I plan to to keep my readers interested in me and my books while they have to wait? What can you do if you have long gaps between releases? Here are a few things I plan to do next year.

Keep going with my newsletter. I’m a proud cheerleader of newsletters, but if I have to push myself to write them at times. I almost didn’t even send one out when my third book in my King’s Crossing series released, but people wanted to know as I had the highest open rate since I started my newsletter back in, I have no idea now, 2022 maybe. I was shocked and really pleased, so you might think no one wants to hear from you but just the fact they signed up says they do.

Do better with social media. I know (I use the word loosely because we don’t talk anymore) someone who would constantly take down her social media profiles. She’d have them up for a bit, post, gain a following, then take them down. I still check in with what she does (stalking sounds so nasty, doesn’t it? LOL) only because she does social media so well. She’s got almost as many followers on her new FB page as I do after having my author page up for six years. It’s not that I don’t have things to talk about. I have plenty of books and stuff going on in my life that having a blank author page really isn’t necessary and makes me look lazy and like I don’t care. I care, but I have a terrible time showing it.

Put my book(s) on sale. This is something else that I have a problem with. I don’t remember to use my free days very often, and I can’t remember the last time I even tried to do a Kindle Countdown Deal. Sales are also a good way to keep in touch with your readers so you have something to tell them, and obviously, sales are a great way to find new readers. A while back I heard Zoe York say you should plan a promo every quarter, so four times year. I’d like to do that, especially since I have more than enough product to rotate and there are newsletter promo sites like E-Reader News Today and Robin Reads that I haven’t tried yet.

Keep doing ARCs. There’s been some talk on Threads about authors not doing ARCs anymore, due to lots of reasons like piracy and reviewers not pulling through. If just for the sake of something to talk about, I will keep doing ARCs of my books, and you can probably look forward to ARCs of Loss and Damages sometime in June or July. I’d like to have all my ARC links taken down by the time I put my book on preorder, even if it is just a short one. Admittedly, this option is only good if you write ahead. Some people put their ARCs up just weeks after the book is complete, but Loss and Damages will be finished months before I need reviews. I even hope that by the time I put ARCs up, I’ll have the next standalone I want to write done and edited and almost ready to go.

The main thing is to communicate with your readers, and I’m terrible at it. I love talking writing and publishing with other authors, but I need to get used to talking about my books in a different way. I have dreams of being an obscure bestseller, but that’s an oxymoron at best. Even if I have never heard of a romance author who is making a living wage, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have a huge fanbase she talks to on a regular basis. I need to start putting myself out there, and that’s really difficult for me. Not like, personally. I can talk about my health issues all day long (and have) or marketing or publishing, but talking about my books, hyping them up, is odd somehow. I’m proud of my books and I think I’m a good writer, even if I have to go back occasionally and do the extra editing sweep from time to time. I don’t know. Being proud of myself and my accomplishments is just different, but in 2025 I’m going to try to be better.

I’m not going to stress about my publishing schedule next year. I need to control my FOMO and just write and publish at my own pace and not think I’m going to fade off into the void if I don’t have books ready all the way until 2027. It’s ridiculous the pressure we put on ourselves, and no one is keeping score except us.

Write for the love of it, and publish because you want to share your stories. I’m excited for the books I’m going to be editing and writing next year. I want to change my perspective and talk about my books in a way that readers will want to read them.

Next week is my usual year-end summary, and after that we’ll see what the new year brings. I’m sure there will be the usual publishing predictions and I haven’t weighed in on them for a while. Mostly because it seems all the predictions are the same year after year (publishing moves slowly after all), but I haven’t really paid attention either, because of how I’ve felt, so this will just be another change in a long line of things.

I hope you have a happy week if you celebrate!

Until next time!

My 2025 Word of the Year

Posted on December 16, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

Pantone, a company that “provides a universal language of color for many industries” announced it’s color for 2025 . . . Mocha Mousse. Apparently, it’s the first time in 25 years that they chose a shade of brown.

taken from https://news.artnet.com/art-world/pantone-2025-color-of-the-year-mocha-mousse-2582184

It’s a thing, I suppose, to choose a theme, a color, a resolution, (I almost typed revolution, and maybe with the current political environment in the States, it’s that, too) to express what we plan to do, to describe the vibe we want to put forth into the coming year.

For years I never bothered because I knew every year was going to be the same as before. It’s really depressing and soul-sucking to have a health issue that doesn’t seem treatable, much less curable, and I treated each year as the same. This post isn’t about what I’ve suffered with (I’ve made you suffer with me on this blog, and I know we are both tired of that) but I can’t deny that now that I know what’s wrong and that there aren’t more serious matters to contend with (no colon or ovarian cancer, yay!) I can’t help but think of the next year in a different light.

A romance author I know went though breast cancer treatment this year, and she said she wouldn’t be able to approach writing her books in the same way. That made a lot of sense because when you go through trauma like that and can come out the other side, maybe not whole, but in pieces that can be glued together, you can’t help but be a different person.

You all know I’ve been at this for a long time, (no, this isn’t a woe-as-me post . . . I’ve had almost a million page reads in KU this year alone, so I definitely know that I’m luckier than a lot of authors) and if you do something long enough, maybe you don’t lose your joy, but you know. It stops being exciting, it stops being . . . I don’t want to say fun because I still do, have fun writing, that is. But no matter how much you enjoy something, if you feel you have to do it, it becomes monotonous, even if only slightly.

So my word of 2025 isn’t a word, but a phrase. “Be still and know.”

What’s funny is my sister, daughter, and I were shopping downtown Fargo, ND, and there are all these trendy little shops. We went into one and this saying was on journals and mugs and pens and paperweights. I liked it, the peace of it, and I asked my sister where it came from. She looked it up on her phone, and it’s actually a Bible verse: “Be still, and know that I am God” Psalm 46 verse 10.

I’m not religious. My parents sent me to a private Baptist school from Kindergarten through fourth grade, then they sent me to public school in fifth on, though I did attend Sunday church services until I moved to go to college. That kind of ruined organized religion for me because even though I was young, I saw how hypocritical people were. There may be exceptions, but I grew up learning religious people aren’t nice. And I do see that, as an adult, people using their religion to feel better than other people, or as an excuse to do nasty things that Jesus definitely wouldn’t have done while He was here.

For a while, that tainted the saying for me, but like any religious person, I can twist it to what I want it to mean for myself. Just kidding, kind of. I still like the peace of it, the quietness of the meaning.

The last few years I’ve done nothing but move forward, and I have accomplished a lot in that time. I still would like to do a few things in 2025, and I let you know what those were in a previous blog post. But I’m going to look at things differently, slow down, enjoy the silence, and work on my books in a way that I want and find that joy again.

I want to finally stand still and appreciate how far I’ve come and all that I’ve accomplished. I want to rest and breathe and do other things that aren’t book-related. Moving forward is great when you have goals and plans and somewhere to go, but maybe I’m done moving forward. Maybe I’ve reached my destination, and you know, that wouldn’t be a bad thing. I actually rather like the thought of it. We liken being authors and publishing to running marathons but even runners finish their races, and if they truly can’t, they get picked up wherever they happen to be on the course. I don’t need a ride, but maybe I finished, and now I can eat my banana and power bar, drink my bottle of water, take a hot shower, and do something else. A runner never stops running (okay, I did but I still go for walks), and I won’t stop writing, but maybe I don’t need to train to run any more races. Writing can go back to being fun, and now that I’m feeling better, I’m interested to see how that incorporates into the next projects I’m going to work on.

I suggest if you want to move forward, have goals to work toward. Know what your finish line is. After all, what is the saying? A goal without a plan is only a wish.

But wishes are nice too. Especially if they come in the form of chocolate cake that has mocha mousse frosting on top.

Author Goals 2025

Posted on December 2, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

Everyone is doing these and I thought I might as well. You can either look eagerly into the future or think it’s just going to be another year of writing to no one. I don’t really think that, I do have readers, but I know there are more than a few who do think it because marketing is hard and it’s harder still when you don’t have any money to buy ads or promos.

My goals for 2025 are pretty simple. I don’t have any. Of course, I have a list of things I want to get done, but when I think about goals and what I’ve seen from other authors, they aren’t the same. I don’t have a goal to make 10k with my writing or get an orange tag. I don’t have a goal to sell 100 copies of a book or even 50 copies and I’ll you why. Because I don’t have a plan to achieve those goals, and I don’t have a plan because if I knew what would work I’d be doing it. Goals are only as good as the motions you can put into place to achieve them, which is why the only things on my goals list are what I can control.

So, let’s begin:

Finish proofing the proofs of my Rocky Point series, upload, and publish new files to KDP and IngramSpark. I’m not going to get done this year. I wanted to, so I could start 2025 with a clean slate, but I won’t. Book one is a word salad of filler words and echoing that for some reason I didn’t fix the first time around (paper always reads different so it could just be I’m seeing them for the first time) and it’s going to take me probably until the end of the year just to finish book one. Even if I could finish book one before then, I have three more to go. I committed to editing these, so I’m going to finish it out to the best of my ability.

Finish editing Loss and Damages, a first person present Billionaire standalone that I started back in May of 2021. It’s finished and has already had one read-through and I added quite a few notes of what I need to fix. I want to finish those edits and get the preorder up, I don’t know when. I have no deadline, just do it as soon as possible after my Rocky Point series is squared away. My last book in my King’s Crossing series releases in the middle of April, and to give myself time to write, I decided on a September 15th, 2025 release date for Loss and Damages. Then, if I keep with the four-five month time between, I’ll have plenty of time to write more books, with an estimated release day sometime in January of 2026.

When Loss and Damages is completed and scheduled, the next book I want to write and edit will be completely from scratch and is a standalone Billionaire romantic suspense. I have it mostly plotted out in my mind (and to no one’s surprise, the cover is already done), and I’d like to write it before I forget what it’s about. Also, if I can make good use of my time and schedule it for the January 2026 release date, that will give me extra time to work on what I want to write next.

I doubt I’ll be able to get this done in 2025, but I want to finish a series I started back in 2021. I have two books written of a six books series, but after working on King’s Crossing (a six-book serial) and my Rocky Point series (four books that are connected but can be read as standalones), I don’t want to dive into another huge project. So what I need to do is rewrite parts of book one and cut out two of the characters or make it clear somehow they would be not be getting their own stories, so I only have two books to edit and two books to write. The combined writing, editing, and packaging of four books will take me a very long time, and I really don’t think I can edit a book, write a book, plus complete that series all in one year. I’ll need to figure out how much time I want to have between my January 2026 release and the series. I could maybe do six months and aim to have the series completed in enough time to put them on preorder in July of 2026, but I’m not going to think that far ahead.

I’m feeling better physically and in turn, mentally, so I’ve said I’m going to approach 2025 a little differently. I am, already veering away from series for a minute and I’m going to concentrate on editing Loss and Damages and writing Wicked Games. I need the break working on standalones will give me, and even though I could give myself a deadline, I actually haven’t sat down and written a book since August 2023 when I wrote A Heartbreak for Christmas and packaged that for its November release. All this time I’ve been editing, so it might be a bit intimidating to open a new Word document and try to pull words out of my head. Editing is a different beast, after all, and I’d like to have fun rather than just think of Wicked Games as another book I need to write and sell.

I’ve really grown as an author editing so many words this year, and the mistakes and filler words and general clutter I was using that I didn’t see are pretty blatant to me now. Loss and Damages and Wicked Games are probably going to sound better than any of the books I’ve written so far. Well, besides my King’s Crossing stuff because I went over those with a fine-tooth comb, and if some filler words managed to squeak by me, then they have earned the right to stay.

As far as other goals, my King’s Crossing series is done. The third book will release on December 9th, the fourth in January, the fifth in March, and the sixth in April. They are all loaded up and on preorder. No files need to be changed out, the covers are locked in. That series is gone in my mind, which is probably why I have such a hard time marketing. Once a book is up, it’s out, and I’m moving on to other things. I don’t have goals for sales or page reads, in fact, my expectations are quite low and will be until the last book is released. As a serial, a reader won’t know the whole story until the last book is released and since I have that information written in the blurb, readers might not even want to start the series until they are all available. I’ve kept my expectations realistic, running ads to create buzz and awareness (and bleeding into the red with clicks), and just focusing on editing my series to maybe boost my 3rd person backlist. I’ll be releasing four books in 2025, and anyone would be proud of that, other goals be damned.

I probably should try to think of some kind of plan to push book one out more, beyond the author driven promos and promos you can buy like Freebooksy, but that would require hustling and networking, and since I haven’t felt well, that just sounds exhausting. I have a rockstar promo opportunity someone sent me months ago and I just haven’t felt like reaching out to follow up, but if I want to spread the word I’m going to have to start doing the work and that can probably be one of my goals for next year. I need a mindset change because not feeling well has been a valid excuse not to do a lot of things, but I need to start being present in the present and not hiding, writing a book because my doctor didn’t know what was wrong with me. That’s all in the past, so 2025 will have to be different in that regard.

I don’t have a lot of goals and I really don’t want to make any beyond what I’ve touched on here. I’m not struggling as much as I have been, a clearer (and sober) mind has helped me come to terms with knowing that a lot of what I’m doing will (still) be on my own, ie, forgoing a beta readers/editors/proofers and cover designers. I have a few friends I touch base with, and I’m grateful to them because they keep me sane and remind me I’m not totally alone. Writing has always been something you need to do by yourself (have you ever tried to write while someone was talking to you?) so that part is understandable and something I have enjoyed even while I wasn’t feeling well. I’m just still adjusting to the loss of my fiancé who loved to talk publishing and a friend here and there who would like to brainstorm. Now that I’m doing better, I can focus more on replacing those relationships and reaching out to the romance community, which I should be doing anyway.

I’ll be approaching 2025 a little differently, trying to find the fun I lost in the writing, and trying to find the fun I lost in my life overall. It was a real miracle my doctor at Mayo knew what was wrong with me and could actually fix it (to the best of her ability) and while I’m adjusting to how things are in my writing and the writing community, I’ll be adjusting to my new way of feeling. I’ll never be “normal,” but I’m better than what I was and I’m grateful for that.

I suppose that’s all I have for this week. Four more weeks of 2024. Make them count, and maybe, maybe 2025 will actually be different for many of us!

Until next time!

A Massive Monday Author Update

Posted on November 11, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

I was going to blog about something different today, and I even had the post written and scheduled. It had to do with writing billionaire romance in the current political climate, but I don’t have the heart to post it. We had a chance to do something great, to make positive change, and we blew it. We chose hate and violence, and we will pay for that for the next four years, and possibly beyond. All I can hope is that the Democrats who did win state by state will slow him down and block him as much as possible. Maybe he’ll be too busy golfing to cause all the damage he says he’s going to cause.

I know lots of people didn’t get much done last week, and it’s understandable. I’ve always used my writing to hide from reality (or, more accurately, my health issues), and this week was no exception. I was able to finish editing my Rocky Point Wedding series, finish the covers, and order the proofs. I’m going to read them over to look for mistakes and make sure the changes I made make sense. I had a lot of timeline discrepancies because the first three books overlap and I didn’t keep track of my characters and what they were doing. Then I fluffed up some scenes, took out some things to streamline the prose, and I’ll just read them over quick before I approve them. I’m also interested in how the covers are going to print. When I chose the background stock photo, I knew I’d have trouble with the spine and back cover, so we’ll see if my “fix” looks good or if I need to try something else. On screen I think it looks okay and I tried really hard to match up the grey blocks and black gradients with the spine lines but printing isn’t always accurate, so we’ll see what happens.

I ended up using the same ISBNs for the books, which I probably shouldn’t have done since these will have new covers and substantial changes to the insides. On the other hand, unpublishing the old ones so I can publish new ones seemed to be a waste of ISBNs, especially since before I revamped them I wasn’t selling (m)any anyway. I put in the copyright pages that these were re-edited and re-released but I don’t know if it was necessary or will do any good. I have quite a few of the first book floating around out there due to free promos I’ve done in the past, but I don’t think it will make a difference to ask KDP to push out the new version to the readers who have the old version on their Kindles. I’ve heard of authors doing that, but I have never tried. If they don’t give me a hard time and just let me update, I think I’ll be happy with that and leave the rest alone. I don’t like messing with KDP, and I’m relieved that so far the preorders for my King’s Crossing series are still okay, that Amazon hasn’t arbitrarily canceled them. So, whether using the same ISBNs was the right call or not, I don’t know, but no one is really policing these changes, so I guess there’s no harm in it.

I’m going to do some more cleaning up of my third person books. While I’m waiting for my proofs to come back, I started re-editing The Years Between Us, an age-gap standalone. I’m halfway through the first chapter and haven’t found anything too bad, I just like to echo words and hadn’t caught on to it yet. No matter what Stephen King says, the thesaurus is your friend. I updated the back matter too, deleting people out of my Acknowledgements page that no longer had a place there, updated my Also By page, and a few other odds and ends. I’ve started directing all my readers to my vmrheault.com website and eventually I’ll take books off this one. It makes sense to turn my author website into my real author site and just use this site to blog. I’m having fun reading this book though, since I haven’t for many years. It has the same kind of tone Rescue Me does, and it’s funny that all my books have the same style, even between 3rd person past and 1st person present. I guess that’s why they say a reader falls in love with your voice. I won’t be changing the cover for this book–I think it looks fine how it is, and being that it’s age-gap, I doubt I’d be able to find a couple that fits as well as the one I found a few years ago. I know a couple years back I wrote a blog post on the differences, but I can’t find it now. For curiosity, this was the old one when I first published, then changed to the second when I couldn’t sell books. Very different vibe from the blurb.

I unpublished the two Large Print books I was able to publish before Amazon started blocking them due to duplicate content. I want to offer the same versions of all my books, so I unpublished the Hardcover versions of Captivated by Her, Addicted to Her, and Rescue Me. Hardcovers don’t sell and I wasn’t going to bother publishing more. Because they’re a mess and didn’t sell anyway, I also unpublished my two ebook boxset compilations–my Tower City series and my Rocky Point Wedding series. That sounds like a lot of unpublishing, but I mainly wanted to clean up my editions. The ISBNs will always be attached to those versions and they might even stay on my Amazon product pages, but from here on, I’m only going to offer the Kindle version and a plain paperback.

I was also going to unpublish the first three books I published (1700 Hamilton and my Summer Secrets series) but that would require updating back matter of books I’m not going to re-edit and I don’t want to do that. I was even going to unpublish my first trilogy, but then I remembered I wrote a bonus novella that sounds better than the original trilogy and closed out the story nicely, so even if they’re not well-written, I’d be taking down at least a quarter of a million words. I guess there’s no harm in keeping them up, but they aren’t my best work and I’ll never promote them in any way.

I probably should have done this stuff a long time ago, but I wasn’t feeling well and during the pandemic when everything was just kind of shitty, I wasn’t really thinking about it. I was more focused on building my pen name and writing books for that. Now that my King’s Crossing series is slowly releasing, I have a bit of free time, though not much if I don’t want my conveyor belt of content to slow down. I like knowing I have books scheduled–it takes the pressure off to write quickly.

That’s what I’m doing until the end of the year, and I have to remember what I do on KDP I have to do on IngramSpark. I updated the interior of All of Nothing after I re-edited it a few weeks ago, and I’ll have no choice but to replace both the interior and cover files for my Rocky Point series. Even though it’s going to cost a good $200.00, there’s just too much discrepancy for them to share the same ISBNs but look so different on other retailers. I used to get free revisions with my Alliance of Independent Authors membership, but now I noticed that instead of five or six free revisions you only get one. When I re-edited and re-covered my Lost and Found trilogy, I had enough revision codes I only had to pay $25.00. Unfortunately, that seems not to be the case anymore, but I’m tenacious and I’ll see what I can find when it’s time to do it.

I’d like to start 2025 with a clean slate, putting my 3rd person stuff behind me and looking forward to the future and building my 1st person pen name. I just felt like my 3rd person stuff was unfinished somehow. This won’t make that feeling entirely go away, but I can push them aside knowing that they’re better than they were before. I know for sure that my Rocky Point series sounds 100% better and I don’t consider the time I spent on them a waste, even if it will be an expensive hassle to swap out their files on Ingram. (It was actually fun to see how far my writing has come.) I might even stop putting books on there. There’s no real benefit, but it’s easy because I do my own formatting and covers. All it costs is a bit of time.

That’s about all I have this week. I’m busy doing what I want to do. I’m not going to worry about sales or page reads anymore. Those numbers have been dismal since summer and I honestly don’t know what to do. I feel like I’m doing all I can, and I need to find the fun in writing again. I’m proud of my books and what I’m doing for the indie community with this blog, beta reading, formatting, and editing for others. Sometimes I forget about what matters most, but it gets easier as I feel better. I have more gratitude for the small things and maybe getting my 3rd person stuff situated feels like a bigger project than I really wanted to tackle right now, but it will be a relief when it’s all done.

I said this was a massive update only because it felt massive. I never thought I would unpublish anything, and pushing unpublish made my stomach quiver. It’s nice because KDP keeps your title there and if I ever wanted to publish those things again, I can, but I think I’ll stick with my decision to keep my books in KU, offer the Kindle version, and price my paperbacks as cheaply as I can. There are discrepancies with some of my prices too, like my series versus standalones. I just price whatever I feel like pricing which doesn’t look very professional, but that’s something I”ll have to look into another time.

For the rest of this week I’ll be re-editing The Years Between Us and diving into proofing my wedding series proofs. I’m on track to get those done by December so I can promote them for Christmas. I think that may be my last hurrah I’m going to give my 3rd person stuff.

2025 is meant for new things. I’m going to leave behind the people who have hurt me, focus on marketing my King’s Crossing series, and plan my next releases. Now that I have a diagnosis, I’m feeling better than I have in a long time and I can leave those four years behind me.

I hope 2025 can be the start of something new for you too, despite the election outcome. We’ve dealt with him before, and we’ll do it again.

Take care of yourselves, and I’ll catch up with you you next week!

Author Update and Mixed Bag

Posted on October 14, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

tea, candle, cotton branch laying on comforter

text reads author update and mixed bag

I didn’t make any progress on my small town series last week, at least, not on my days off. I was silly and reread a standalone I published a few years ago because someone bought it and I was like, “Wait! What is she reading? What did she pay for?” And I really have to stop doing that every time someone reads something in my backlist (the reason, you’ll recall, I’m editing my small-town series in the first place), especially my 3rd person stuff, because there will always be mistakes to fix. I think that’s just the law of being an indie author. But it was worth it in other ways, as I thanked people in my Acknowledgements who no longer deserve it, and it was a relief to just delete the page entirely. One wrote under a pen name that doesn’t even exist anymore (so I doubt she’d want anyone to look her up anyway) and the other was my ex-fiancé who doesn’t need to be attached to anything I’ve done or do. I don’t need to keep reminders of people who have hurt me, even if back then they were important to me. A long time ago I wrote a blog post about this, and I think my opinions have changed. Then I advocated to leave the pages, since those people were a meaningful part of your life in some way, but now I say, change it if you want. Do whatever you need to do to protect your mental health and move on. You can read it here: https://vaniamargene.com/2018/05/31/acknowledgements-and-dedications/

I was also able to update my Also By page in the back and add all my first person stuff. I’m the same person so I thought, why not. The long list looks nice, anyway, haha. I didn’t do anything else with my back matter, though I could have put in a call to action (CTA) because it didn’t have one. I should have, but I was in a hurry, that side project not intentional, and I was mad at myself for wasting time. Oh well, it doesn’t matter since on the way home from dropping my daughter off at work the other morning I decided to stop with the hard sell.

A few years ago, during COVID, I guess, I listened to an author marketing podcast and one of the pieces of advice was to give them the CTA the second the book was done. I followed that advice and the back matter for Faking Forever‘s ePub looks like this:

The end of the story bleeds right into the call to action, and I don’t like it (anymore). I want a reader to be able to sit back and savor the ending of the story, not have my newsletter subscribe link shoved down their throats. It probably still is good advice, to hit them when they’re feeling good about your story, feeling good about you as an author because you delivered on your promise and didn’t waste their time and money. But I don’t think it hurts to give them room to breathe, either. If they liked your book that much, they’ll find a way to follow you, even if that means simply “flipping” the page to see what’s in your back matter.

Anyway, so editing All of Nothing was a side project I hadn’t counted on, but I’ll try to keep my eyes on my series now and get that done as soon as possible. I have a potential beta reading and formatting project I might be helping with that I really want to do, so that’s an incentive to stay on track.

Sometimes I think when I get sidetracked it has to do with how I’m feeling. I was a little lost last week. Just normal social media experiences that can rub you the wrong way or leave you feeling out of sorts. My friends and I talk about this a little, about the need to find connection, but when you’re online trying to reach out, you get your hand bitten off or snubbed. It’s common, and my experiences weren’t great. So, of course, when you get to feeling down like that, it’s easy to start wondering why you work so hard on your books for no reason, blah, blah, cue the violins, right? My mental health has gotten a lot better since my diagnosis, but there are a few things that can still bring me down. I’m not perfect, but things out of my control shouldn’t have that kind of effect on me and it’s something I’m working on. I can log out of Threads or even Facebook, and my books will always be there. Except Canva. I can never log out of Canva, haha.

Otherwise I don’t have much else. I posted on social media today, for the first time in a while. I think I need to keep this tab open, because the graphics BookBub highlights in their blog post can be a good source of inspiration. I was reading this today: https://insights.bookbub.com/bookstagrams-ebooks/. If you need a free place to make a book mock up, even if you just want your book’s cover on a Kindle, you can look here: https://diybookcovers.com/3Dmockups/#

I posted this pic on Instagram. It’s pretty simple, but I forget it doens’t take long to make something like this and who knows who could see it.

flat lay of wood wht autumn leaves and a blue scarf. cup of cappuccino that has a foam heart
also Cruel Fate's book cover on a kindle device

I was sent a scam email today that said I need to appeal a Facebook ad because I broke copyright. Anything like that makes you want to take action right away, but there are a lot of scammers on Facebook; I get messages on my Facebook author page and my reader page all the time. Here’s what the email looked like:

It wasn’t sent to my Spam Folder, it went to my Inbox, which gave me pause. But I didn’t click on the link, thank goodness. I checked all my ads first because I know enough if Facebook thinks you’re violating copyright, they’ll take your ads down and maybe even suspend your ad account. I checked my ads, and they were all running fine, so I reported the ad as phishing and sent it to Spam. The things you have to be aware of as an indie is getting out of control, but I was proud of myself that I didn’t overreact and click the link, which gives them access to your ads dashboard (and my ads dashboard is connected to a bank account I assigned for my marketing budget. Needless to say, that’s money I don’t want to lose). So if anything seems suspicious or fraudulent, take a deep breath before freaking out and check things out first.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it in a while, but if you’re looking for a good book marketing resource, Nicholas Erik has a wonderful book on it. I bought his second edition and was sad when he unpublished it because I recommended it to everyone. But, he revised it and released the new version. I bought it on his website but it’s also available on Amazon. This isn’t an affiliate link, I just like to recommend his book because it really helped me see book marketing clearly. If you’re interested, look here: https://nicholaserik.com/books/marketing/ Also sign up for his newsletter. He gives a lot of good advice in there, too.

photo of book cover. the title is the ultimate guide to book marketing by nicholas erik — Image borrowed from his website.

I had to pause a couple of my Amazon ads because even though I knew I was paying for exposure, it was getting to be too much. I’d already spent $29.00 by the 13th of this month, and my sales and preorders definitely weren’t reflecting that. I knew the clicks would start adding up, but I didn’t pause all of them because I know exposure is only the first step in selling books. I boosted a post on Instagram that I made about my Goodreads giveaway, and that was a little over 1200 entries the last time I checked. It will be interesting to see if anyone who wins the first one will buy/borrow the others, but like any promo, it could be months or even years until I find out, if I ever do.

That’s about all I have this week. I won’t be getting distracted by anymore side projects, though I have plenty of books I could read through on a whim. I need to get this series done because I have plans for it around the holiday season.

If there’s one thing I can say about the last four years or so, it’s that I’m glad life didn’t get me down to the point I stopped writing. When I bought those dryer sheets and my life turned upside down, I could have easily given up. I’ve accomplished a lot in the four years I’ve been writing (launched a whole new pen name and will have seventeen titles released by the time all the books in my King’s Crossing series launch), and if you’ve written despite the odds and against life’s challenges, I’m proud of you. I can look back on a long list of books, whether they need a bit of a polish or not, and be proud of myself.

Take care this week. I’m taking Friday off and we’re going to the state park to look at the leaves, then we’re trying a new bar and grill that opened in the town next door. It will be a fun day, and hopefully I’ll be celebrating being that much closer to done on my series.

Until next time!

Another (Manic) Monday

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

It seems odd that Mondays come around so fast. My weekends are Monday through Wednesday, then boom, I’m working the rest of the week wondering why I only got through half a chapter. Last week was different as my daughter started her first job and we were getting used to her schedule. Because I wasn’t feeling well for the past four years, she’s eighteen and doesn’t have her driver’s license yet. I take responsibility for that, never feeling good enough to drive with her, and I had to give her rides. So, being in the car on the days I have off will take some time away–I just need to use the time I do have better.

On Wednesday, I went to Best Buy and bought a new Mac. My T was driving me insane and I wanted to replace my computer before it gave out completely. Now that I don’t have to push on the keys so hard to type, I’m hoping some of my carpal tunnel pain will go away, too. My arms would ache after a long typing session, so replacing my old laptop (it was seven years old!) was a must. It’s a little smaller than the one I had before, so I regret getting another MacBook Air and not the Pro, but the images are sharper so maybe that will make up for it. I saved the receipt they emailed me under my 2024 Book Spend as I fully intend to give it to my tax guy as a writing expense.

That leaves me with only one more thing to do when it comes to adulting, and that’s to make an appointment for new glasses. I’ve been putting it off because I’m so sick of doctors, but like finally spending the money on a new computer, I think I’ll like having new glasses since they’re two years old and more scratched up than my furniture (I used to have three cats). I think once I get that taken care of I won’t have to adult for the rest of the year. I’m still trying to find some normalcy when it comes to how I feel. I rarely drink anymore, and that’s helped a lot. I still get nauseated sometimes and overall just feel “off” but that’s probably due to hormones more than anything else, and I’m already on birth control to keep my ovaries steady. Since there’s not much more I can do about that, I have to take each day as it comes and if I’m feeling good, enjoy, and if I’m feeling not so good, stay home and rest. At almost fifty, I could be worse off, so I’m trying to be grateful for what I have.

As far as writing is concerned, I’m trying to get through edits of my old third person series. I’m in the middle of book three (of four), and while I can honestly say I’m enjoying the stories, either my writing style has changed or I just got that much better, but it seems almost every sentence needs some kind of tweaking. I’m taking out a lot that slows down the pace, on a paragraph/sentence level, and then adding more words to plump up scenes here and there and finish conversations where the characters just seem to sputter out. I mean, when someone says, “Have a nice day,” someone else doesn’t just get up and walk away without saying anything back or at least acknowledging it in some way. It was a weird thing I held on to all the way until last year. But while I can say I’m enjoying the stories because I haven’t read them in so long, it’s a freaking pain in the butt and a project I honestly didn’t think would need so much time and work. So, I’m dragging my feet, but knowing it has to be done, and the only thing keeping me going is the fact that these books are going to sound SO GOOD when I’m finished. Could be for nothing–does anyone read third person anymore? I have no idea, but it will be interesting to see what they do with new covers and a little ad money thrown at them. That may be my experiment for 2025.

Book two of my King’s Crossing series will be out this month, on the 28th, I think, and I’m getting some good feedback on Booksprout already. I have a couple preorders for it, literally, two the last time I looked, but I didn’t put them up for preorders for people to actually do it, anyway, so that’s fine. Just passing along the information that my preorders are there, Amazon hasn’t messed with them (yet), and they look good on my Amazon author page.

What am I going to do for the rest of the year? Well, get my old series done ASAP. I’d like to promote it in December if at all possible, and then I’m going dive into a standalone that I wrote a couple years ago. I read through it once since I wrote it and made some notes on what needs to be fixed. Add more chemistry between the characters, fix a few inconsistencies, that kind of thing. I have him wearing jeans when he would never wear jeans–he’s just not the type. Now that I know most (hopefully all) of my writing ticks, like overusing words like “with” and “where” “for” and “from” and dialogue fading off into the sunset, I’ll be able to whip that book into shape pretty easily (as easily as 109k words can get whipped into shape). Don’t know if I’ll find a beta reader for it or not. I love my coworker and value her time but in the end she doesn’t give me the real feedback I need to make the story better. After working with someone who backed out of reading my trilogy last year (when I had given her so much of my time, too), I kind of soured on working with anyone, as detrimental to my career as that may be. I don’t think too many people really admit that they write, package, and publish their books all their own because being a one-stop-shop has a bad reputation, and rightly so. It takes a village to raise a child, and it also takes a village to publish a book. Too bad sometimes my village resembles more of a ghost town these days. Not a whole lot you can do about it either, especially since paying for services doesn’t mean you’re going to get what you pay for, or anything at all.

I sound like I’m whining, but I think it’s a reality for a lot of authors now. We can try to make connections and friends, but the sad truth is, people are too busy. Too busy with life, too busy working on their own stuff, too busy with the friends they already have. I should probably be grateful I can do so much on my own because I know there are authors who can’t and I feel sorry for anyone who has to wade through the scammers and the people who aren’t qualified to offer the services they offer to find real help. Anyway, so that’s what I’ll be doing for the last three months of the year, besides living it up on my birthday on Thanksgiving Day. My ex-husband said he’d come over and cook dinner so I wouldn’t have to, so I may just end up sitting around drinking Prosecco and eating chips and dip. I’ll definitely have stuff to celebrate, like my King’s Crossing series finally out into the world, my old series hopefully done by then, saying goodbye to all my undiagnosed health issues. 2024 was rollercoaster and I threw up a few times, but maybe I can get off this crazy ride in 2025. I would welcome solid ground under my feet.

My Goodreads giveaway is losing steam, but as the days go on and more giveaways are added to the list, that’s to be expected. An author is supposed to do their own promotion after all, but I already tapped out my FB author page, my Instagram, and my newsletter. All I can do now is boost a post here and there, so I might do that before the giveaway ends on the 25th.

I think my newsletter signups are getting sick of me as I lost ten in the past week, and I only had a 29% open rate for my most recent newsletter. That’s not great, but since I’m treating it more like a blog than a newsletter and posting more for the public consumption of it, I guess I’ll have to expect people who signed up to react to the shift in vibe and opt out. That’s fine, maybe a little counterproductive since I want people to sign up rather than unsubscribe, but my sales have also dropped which means fewer people signing up from my books’ back matter. I’m not sure what to do about it at this point because it sounds like a lot of us are struggling. The best thing for me at the moment is just to keep my eyes on the end of the year. I would be really disappointed in myself if I didn’t finish editing my series. I was the one who started it in the first place and doing the relaunch over the holidays would be perfect.

That’s about all I have for this week, but I’ll leave you with a warning. You know I keep my opinions on AI to myself. I’m careful how I use it and use it very little. I like to brainstorm with Al about blog subject lines or hooky tag lines for ads because I’m bad at that, but I’ve never used it to generate photos or write for me. I’ve never written a blog post with it, never used it to edit my books. Mostly because I’m not interested–the things Al does I can do myself, and an AI photo generator doesn’t offer anything you can’t find on DepositPhotos. But if you do use it to generate pictures for a blog post, aesthetics, ads, social media graphics, or for your book covers, or if you use ChatGPT to edit for you or write portions of your books, you need to be careful because not everyone is going to be so blasé about it. There are witch hunts online, a lot of it on Threads, some in FB groups, and there’s a list going around of authors who use it. I don’t condone this list (like my lovely governor says, Mind Your Own Damn Business) and don’t know any of the authors on it, so far, but all it takes is one person to add your name and that will never go away. (Screenshots are forever, my friend.) That’s not the kind of word of mouth you want.

I know the writing community is small, I know that in comparison the reading community is a thousand times larger and maybe you don’t care what other authors think of you so long as readers like your books. That’s okay. I don’t bow down to the author community, but I have been ganged up on on Twitter, and it’s brutal on your mental health. There’s also a list of authors going around who are against AI, but I didn’t put my name on it. I started adding a disclaimer to the copyright pages of my books saying I don’t use AI for my book creation, and I’ll continue to add that, but I do it for myself and my readers. I’ve never done something just because someone else has told me to, and I don’t expect you to stay away from AI if you like using it just because I said so. But if you keep your ear to the ground, you’ll know this subject is hot and it would be bad to land on the wrong side.

I use this blog to pass around information I hear and hopefully help you make informed choices about your own book business. I’ve been on social media for a long time and this AI hate is on a level I’ve never seen before. It’s best to stay away from it or don’t announce it if you’re using it (though that can be for naught as people are pretty good at spotting it). I personally don’t care either way, this blog is a safe place for everyone, but I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention it because like I said, this is a level of hate I’ve never seen before and the mob mentality oftentimes leaves me speechless.

I hope you have a good week, and I’ll see what kind of progress I can make on my series. Hoping to get book three done would be asking way too much, but if I could get close, I would be very happy.

Until next time!

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Vania Margene Rheault

Independent Contemporary Romance Author & Blogger

Category Archives: author update

Four Things I Learned Editing My King’s Crossing and Rocky Point Wedding Series

My First Author Update of 2025

Happy New Year! (Making every minute count)

My 2024 Year-End Recap

Monday Author Update

My 2025 Word of the Year

Author Goals 2025

A Massive Monday Author Update

Author Update and Mixed Bag

Another (Manic) Monday

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