Monday Musings and Author Update

Posted on August 5, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

It feels like it took forever, but I finally finished proofing the paperback proofs of my series. I would have thought since I was feeling better that proofing would have gone faster, but I was distracted just as I would have been if I had still been feeling bad. I can’t blame my health… I’m happy to say that besides looking for snippets for social media (what little I post) I’ll never have to read these again and that probably had more to do with it than anything else. Though, I did get a little teary-eyed when I finished. This is a bittersweet goodbye, for sure.

Overall, I’m very happy with the changes I made–some of the paragraphs needed some plumping up, even after having gotten this far. You just see, and feel, things differently when you read your book as a book. There’s still plenty of work to do, starting with putting in the edits. That always takes me longer than it should because I check and double-check that I’m not editing in typos. I also tweaked the covers and I’ll be checking those changes when I order new proofs along with the formatting. Then, after everything looks good, I have to make ebook files out of the paperback PDFs. Putting changes into six books was enough–there was no way I was doing twelve–but I’ll do that when I’m ready to put the ARCs up. I’m going to make a separate page for this series on my website, including a list of FAQs about the ARCs, Bookfunnel links when they’re ready, and trigger warnings. I still have a lot to do, but I feel like the hardest part is behind me. I can put on some music, make a cup of coffee, and have fun with what I have left.

In other news that’s not boring, I saw on my podcast app that the Self Publishing Show, the podcast that was hosted by Mark Dawson and James Blatch, recorded their last episode. I was a little sad to hear that since they’ve been a staple in the indie publishing community for as long as I’ve been around (2016) and longer. It’s not really a surprise though, considering I listened to a podcast maybe a month ago, and I was confused as to why James hosted that episode alone. No one talks about Mark’s (alleged?) plagiarizing, forcing him to step back, and I guess he’s coping with the aftermath. I’m not a part of the 20booksto50k group on Facebook any longer, nor am I member of the Self Publishing Formula anymore so I don’t have the inside scoop, if they were even mumbling about it. In a different group that I can’t remember now, one person said James was retiring from the podcast because it was too much to handle alone.

Considering they record for YouTube, production of the podcast probably was a lot. It also makes me wonder if they could afford to keep it going, if they’re tightening their purse strings and decided paying their team to produce the podcast was just too much. I have no idea how many indies faded away from their group and stopped buying the ads course and their Self Publishing 101 course because they didn’t want to be associated with Mark anymore. In that vein, I’m sure they planned out guests months in advance, and maybe they just couldn’t find people willing to be part of their podcast anymore.

I don’t have much information on their conference they held in London in June, but it sounds like they still had a good turnout. I can’t find any mention about Mark and if he made an appearance or if James handled it alone. If he did, he may not want to do that anymore, either. The way Craig Martelle talked about organizing the 20booksto50k conference in Vegas every year, it’s a lot, and maybe James won’t want to do it without Mark. It’s impossible to say if their friendship took a hit. We may never know the behind-the-scenes details like that.

I liked Mark, what I knew of him through podcast interviews and how he and James would interact at the beginning of each podcast episode. I’m not spreading gossip or rumors with a malicious intent–I’m simply wondering what’s going on and mourning a podcast I listened to pretty frequently as many did. If you want to listen to the last episode with guests Joe Solari and KDP’s Darren Hardy, you can listen to it here.

Listening to Joe Solari talk about Author Nation coming up in November, it did make me realize that I won’t want to go to any future [20booksto50k] conferences. I missed out on the conferences when they were the way I wanted to participate, and my chance is gone now. Author Nation is too big, too bright, for me and my fledgling author career.

I don’t know if there are any self-publishing conferences out there anymore geared toward authors who haven’t “made it.” Bryan Cohen and Jim Kukral hosted one in Chicago before the pandemic and it was fantastic. I met authors who just published their first book to authors who were making a living wage. Their panels (for everyone, they weren’t breakout sessions) were informative and I was able to ask questions anonymously, which took away the stress. I met up with a friend from Twitter, and overall I had a good time. Maybe I’m not in the loop anymore (which wouldn’t be surprising) but I don’t see these types of conferences offered. The ones I see are huge, requiring authors to make a certain amount to be invited in, like NINC. I should probably connect to some romance writers associations. A lot of the chapters under the RWA went out independently and they do host conferences, even if they’re just virtual. I kind of lost that side of my writing while I wasn’t feeling well, focused more on writing and creating to try to forget about how I felt. I’m missing that, and in the coming months, now that my series is done, I should think about adding it back.

Especially since connecting with people is so hard. I post on Threads, and most of my posts don’t even get 30 views. How can authors connect with other authors that way? I know my opinions aren’t always popular (don’t care about things other people foam at the mouth over), and I don’t have a cat to take pictures of anymore. And on that note, I’m going to stop answering questions on Threads. I get nothing back for answering someone’s question. Yeah, I’m tired and bitter. I don’t need to spend five minutes typing out a response to get a heart reaction. If they can’t take five seconds to type a “thank you!” then I’m not going to bother. They can depend on others for the information they could look up online. I used to think Twitter was bad, but I’m gritting my teeth thinking Threads is actually worse. I’ve been used in the past. It’s not fun and rather not keep up with that tradition. In fact, it takes a toll on my mental heath, and you can read a post where I wrote about that particular subject here: https://chaoscoffeeandconfessions.blogspot.com/2024/07/garbage-doesnt-always-take-itself-out.html

I think that’s about all I have for today. I’ll be taking some time off from writing–not blogging, for this blog or my author blog–but I’m not going to work on another book for a bit. I’ve accomplished a lot since December of 2019, and saying goodbye to my King’s Crossing series at the same time as finally getting some answers for my health issues (though not the kind of outcome I was hoping for) is kind of a turning point. I’m finding some equilibrium with my health and where my publishing is going. I love writing and publishing, but honestly I thought pivoting to first person present and niching down to Billionaire would do more for me and while it has, I’m still not seeing the results I was hoping for. Nobody’s fault, but you know how it is. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I don’t want to stop, but I’ve been banging my head against a brick wall and I need to find a pillow instead so it doesn’t hurt so much.

Before I say, “Until next time!” you know I love sharing other authors’ journeys, and when I was talking to a friend yesterday morning and she mentioned all she learned posting to free sites like Wattpad, I asked her to write something about it for my blog. She said she already did for hers, so if you want to read about an author’s experience using free sites that led to her publishing through KDP, you can read it here. We all start somewhere, right? Even if it feels like years later we’re still in the same place. https://ananyascribblesaround.wordpress.com/2021/08/08/i-used-to-post-my-stories-online-for-free-and-i-dont-regret-it/

Thanks for your time, and I hope you have a great week!

Until next time!

Author Update and Separating the Art from the Artist

Posted on July 8, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

paint colors and paint brushes lying flat on desk with purple flowers

text says author udpate and separating the art from the artist

I hope this Monday has gotten off to a good start for all of you and that you enjoyed the holiday if you celebrated.

I was able to get a lot of proofing done and managed to finish book three, put in the changes into the Vellum file, and start on book four. If I can get a book a week done for the rest of the month, I may actually be able to put up my ARCs in August and get all my preorders scheduled, too. Sometimes I get stuck reading the same paragraph over and over again, or I get distracted and have to reread a page to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I’m still thinking about my health, though not as much as I used to since I stopped drinking. That has made me feel better, lessened my anxiety, and took away a lot of the bloating I was experiencing, not only in my belly, but in my entire body. But I get distracted by social media and generally just my thoughts bouncing around because I’ve read these books so many times, and to be honest, I enjoy the second couple more than the first. I hope the second three books will go even faster since I like reading their stories.

Anyway, progress is being made, even if it feels slow to me, and the end is in sight. I started blogging about my books on my author site and I did get some opens from the email part of it, and some views from the WordPress reader. I reminded everyone they could download My Biggest Mistake and got some takers for that too. Though I don’t want to bother anyone, while I’m getting this series up and going, I’ll up my blog posts over there to twice a month. I’ll be introducing characters, sharing blurbs, talking about character inspiration, etc. I can’t let my boredom get in the way of promoting these books. I’ve worked on them for four and a half years, yes, and I’m tired, but there’s a reason why I worked so hard on them and putting them out without any promotion only to watch them sink would be insulting to all the hours I put into this series. So, I will do my best to build buzz and hope that it works.

In other news, there’s a lot of disappointment on Threads (it’s really the only place I hang out to get my book news) about Neil Gaiman, in that he’s being accused of sexual assault by two young women. If you want to read the story and listen to the accompanying podcast episodes, you can look here: https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2024/07/03/exclusive-neil-gaiman-accused-of-sexual-assault/

I’m not going to debate anyone as to whether or not you think this is true, that’s not what this blog post is about. It’s about artists who behave badly. For a long time, JK Rowling was top news, people calling her a TERF because of the views she posts on Twitter (now X). I was never invested in Harry Potter–never read the books, didn’t watch the movies–so when her true colors started coming out, it wasn’t a loss to me like it was to millions of people. Neil Gaiman is the same. I have never read any of his books, have never watched any of the TV shows that are based off his books, but that doesn’t mean I’m not let down. We want the artists we admire to be decent people, and it’s sad and disheartening when we see evidence to the contrary.

I’ve been disappointed when it comes to actors and actresses, and I try not to let it bother me. I really liked Brad Pitt until rumors and allegations started coming out about how he treated Angelina Jolie and their children. I was a Johnny Depp fan, too, until all that stuff between him and Amber Heard came out. I barely knew who Amber Heard was, but I wasn’t racing to the movies to see Aquaman 2, either. It’s really difficult to enjoy art made by people who you know are crummy human beings.

And, of course, we can always move things closer to home. I have two huge paintings (6 feet by 3 feet) painted for me by my ex-fiancé.

They’re massive, and he sent them to me in a huge crate made of wood and particle board (we met on Twitter in 2016 and he lives in Georgia). I asked him to paint them for me, and, surprisingly, he did. They’re gorgeous, and two years after I broke things off, they’re still on my walls. One reason is because they’re so big, no matter what I decide to do with them will be a hassle. Two, because I don’t want to just give them away. I’d like to sell them, but again, that just seems like a big pain in the butt. Truthfully, he treated me like garbage for most of our relationship, lying to me and making promises he never intended to keep. He said he was in therapy to deal with some of his mental health issues, but he could never remember his therapist’s last name so I could look him up. Big red flag. We were in a long-distance relationship for a five years, and honestly, while I was dealing with my health issues and hysterectomy in 2022, I just couldn’t take it anymore. So, it would be nice if I could get rid of his paintings hanging on my walls, wash my hands of the whole thing, and move on from the last four years of my life as well as I can. There’s not much I can salvage or want to salvage from our relationship, and to heal, mentally while I’m healing physically, I just need to completely let go.

I’ve seen careers take a hit because people insist on being their “true selves” online. One writer was ousted from an anthology for his MAGA views and being a Trump supporter. The other writers didn’t want to work with him, and they threatened to pull out of the anthology if the person putting it together didn’t push him out. I’m not suggesting you hide who you are (yes, please let us know so we can avoid you!) but the fact is, constantly voicing your thoughts and opinions about politics and religion will inevitably rub someone the wrong way because your points of view on those kinds of things can tell someone a lot about you. After witnessing that for weeks, months, or even years, they may decide you’re not the kind of person they want to be associated with.

People argue about this, mostly so they can retain their right to leave poor reviews on their peers’ books (and why would you do that when you could lift someone up instead?), but when you decide to become an artist/author and set up a social media presence, what you put out there is for public consumption and I feel you should behave accordingly. You may insist you have a right to voice your opinions, but people also have a right to disagree with you and you’re courting mob mentality. I’ve been a victim of that a time or two, and not even on a large scale. People decide to pile on and before you know it, you have to delete your social media account. That’s a worst case scenario, I’ve never taken an account down, but it’s a real hit to your mental health and self-esteem.

When we behave badly or express our opinions online, we’re taking the chance that we’re going to let our fans down. I would never want someone to not want to read my books because of something they saw online or because of something I did. It’s difficult to enjoy something made by someone you know is a jerk, and it can be worse when they’re more than just jerks. They hurt people, like Neil Gaiman hurt those two women, or like JK Rowling hurts trans people whenever she opens her mouth.

Can you separate the art from the artist? Sometimes you can, sometimes you can’t. I wouldn’t avoid a movie that had Brad Pitt in it, but I wouldn’t watch it just because he’s in it. I’ve managed to tolerate the paintings in my living room, looking at them without seeing them, but I don’t know how much longer I’ll do that, even if they are beautiful. We get invested in who we think these people are through their work and how they act during public events, and then when their (private?) actions portray a different kind of person, we feel betrayed. No one is perfect, and I guess it’s up to each person to decide how much imperfection we can deal with before we decide it’s not worth it. I don’t want to support someone who’s not a good person, giving them my money when they don’t deserve it, and I feel fortunate I didn’t get invested Harry Potter, or any of Neil Gaiman’s work, or any of Kevin Spacey’s projects. The list can go on, really, and all we can do is stand by the artists who are decent people–until they prove to us they’re not.

Have a good week everyone!

Creating a Community Around Your Books

Posted on July 1, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

To no one’s surprise, I’ve been thinking a lot about my series and how people are going to discover them and how I can market them so people do.

It’s really not so much about discoverability, though that is difficult too. What I’ve come to realize is that we all want to build a community around our books. Discoverability, yes, but we also want people to stick around once they do find our books. We want people buy our books and talk about them. We want people to talk about our books to other people. We want those in our groups to talk to each other and engage in conversations about our books, but not only our books–other books in the genre you’re writing in.

Some authors do this really well–I’m a member of Susan Mallory’s and Brenda Novak’s facebook groups. They have thousands of members and they all talk to each other, get excited for the authors’ new releases, and just have a really good time talking books.

If you look at any author’s successful groups, you’ll find some similarities right away.

They post regularly and have chosen the platform that works best for them. They usually have one spot where they focus all their time. I might be showing my age, and other authors who are my age might be showing theirs, but Facebook groups still seem to be the place where authors and readers like to go. I’ll be 50 this year and I’m guessing Susan and Brenda are older than me. But that also means their readers are around the same ages they are. When I look at my Facebook Ads demographics, women 55+ are the ones who click on my ads the most. Which means that maybe since I’m an older author and my readers may be skewing older, places like IG and TikTok aren’t going to drive sales. The characters in most of my books are usually older than 30 years of age, and that’s a great marketing tool. So not only do they post regularly, they chose the platform that works well for them. It helps to know who your readers are and who you’e writing for. Not only do you want to speak to your readers who build your community, relating to them is important, too.

They encourage reader participation. When you peruse author groups, you’ll find out right away that they always encourage reader participation, be it a giveaway, a poll, or simply asking what their summer plans are. The reason I hesitate to do that is because when you encourage reader participation, especially by asking a question, to be courteous and polite, it is nice, every once in a while, to respond back. This is something I have to work on because I tend to blow off notifications and don’t really like to speak to anyone. That could be a byproduct of how I’ve been feeling and now that I’m feeling better, maybe I will be more open to chatting and engaging with people, but for the past four years, I’ve been a lurker and that’s not really great when you’re running your own group. In the past I have tried to run giveaways and such, but no one really participates because my “group” isn’t cohesive. I have 700 subscribers I moved over to my blog from MailerLite and only 28% of them open my emails. Fewer yet click on links. That’s not great participation. I have fewer than 200 likes and followers on my FB author page, when after all this time, I could have had thousands. It’s not that FB is a dud for me, it’s that I don’t post, and when I do post and people engage, it takes me days to respond back. No one wants to join a group where the host isn’t present so if I want to build my following, I need to put more work into it and be present. That’s what anyone has to do, no matter what platform they’ve chosen.

They have confidence in their work. It’s really difficult to have confidence in your book if you’re the only one who worked on it. Doing your own editing and cover design can make you feel like Wonder Woman, but it also elicits a lot of doubts because it’s rare someone can be a one-stop-shop successfully. I’ve gone through most of my books at least once more since they’ve been published (my duet and my Lost & Found trilogy both got massive scene rewrites). We get better as we go along, and you’ll always find changes you want to make in a book that’s three years old or whatever. Even my rockstars have a “with” and “when” problem, though I seemed to have caught on to that when I was editing A Heartache for Christmas and fixed it in that book. I could go back and re-edit my rockstars but even though I love the stories and wouldn’t mind reading them again, the want to do so just isn’t there, at least, not now. I could change my mind after my series is done and not hanging over my head anymore, but we’ll have to see how I feel. I promised myself a break, and re-editing 300,000 words isn’t a break. So, knowing your book is the best it can be is a big deal, and that gives you the confidence you need to push your book out into the world. If you love your book, love the cover, and are proud if it, you show it to everyone and can’t stop talking about it. If you’re excited, others will be too. It helps to know not every book is going to be perfectly published, and it helps to know that not every author has the same skills. I’ve read some books that were not to my taste that had thousands of 5-star reviews. There’s room for everyone, so grab your seat at the table and shine!

They have newsletters. Building a community takes time and consistency. I would love for all 700 of my blog/newsletter subscribers to also follow my FB page and maybe one day I can ask them to follow me there. Maybe a small percentage of the small percentage that reads my blog will do it. But if I do, then I have to commit to posting there, and I rarely post, hence the fewer than 200 followers. Since I started my newsletter, I have actually been really good about sending it out once a month. Writing is probably my biggest strength (as opposed to finding and posting memes or creating videos) and I do use that to my advantage posting here once a week and sending out a newsletter even though I didn’t have much to say because I didn’t have a new release coming out. I like creating content that way, and maybe during the time leading up to my series, I’ll post twice a month. I’ll have a lot to say, even if it’s just posting the blurbs to my books to build buzz. But if you’re creating a community, starting a newsletter is pretty common. My property management sends out a newsletter, so do my local libraries. My children’s schools sent out newsletters, so do churches and other groups. If you’re saying “I don’t want to send out a newsletter because…” You’ll have to find a substitute because no matter what you tell yourself, people really do want to know what you’re up to. I’d like to think my newsletter/blog will complement my FB author page and vice versa. When I start posting.

So what does all this mean for me and my series? In a nutshell, I don’t post enough. I was happy hiding in my books, churning them out, but that’s only half of what you need to do. Having the books and the backlist will always come first, but a close second is getting the word out, and that does mean posting and talking about my books. I don’t have the confidence to do a FB Live or similar, but I would like to start sharing more videos of myself, especially holding author copies of my books. Videos are rewarded by the algorithms after all, and if you film yourself they can be cross-posted. But like I said in my mental health blog, part of what is wearing me down is the fact that for so long I haven’t felt good, and while that adds to me not wanting to do stuff like that, the years have been hard and show on my face. I don’t really notice until someone takes my picture (like my daughter did of me and my sister during a roadtrip to Bismarck, ND last week) and I can barely recognize myself. Hopefully as things continue to improve on that front, my face will perk up too and I won’t look so rundown and downtrodden.

What are my next steps? While I’m proofing these books, I can create graphics that have quotes from the first book and I can make several at a time and either post when I want or schedule them through Canva. Like this one:

I want to put my covers out there for the next month while I proof and get my ARCs ready to go. I’ve always felt a little weird hyping books that aren’t ready yet, but some authors do it the second they decide to write the book. I have covers in place, blurbs, and plenty of words to search for quotes. I should have no problem creating the content, I just need to have the motivation to do it. But, if I’m interested in building a community, no one congregates where there aren’t people around. That’s why they’re called ghost towns, and yeah, right now, all that’s on my FB author page is tumbleweeds. Not great.

I do want community. I do want people talking about my books.

It just sucks I have to talk about them first.

Have a great holiday week, everyone. Stay safe, and if you’re drinking, stay away from those fireworks!

Mid-Year Check-In

Posted on June 10, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

flatlay desk--keyboard, cactus plant, and calendar showing June 2024. text reads mid-year check-in

I truly cannot believe we’re half way through 2024 already. Time flies, even if you’re not having fun. There has been so much that happened since January, but I think the second half the year will be even busier. Let’s catch up:

Health Update
So, I think you all know by now that I had a really crappy last four years. I had undiagnosed vulva lichen sclerosis, something that I got when I used a certain brand of dryer sheets. My skin must have had a reaction, and for four years, a hysterectomy, and twenty-two visits to the clinic, I lived with it. No one here knew what was wrong with me, and in February of this year, I finally went to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. My nurse practitioner was a star, and she knew the second she looked at me and since then I’ve been on a treatment plan. I’m doing well in a lot of ways, but mentally, I’m still struggling. I don’t want to go into it anymore than that, but I do blog about it, and if you want to follow along there, you can look here: www.chaoscoffeeandconfessions.blogspot.com. Suffice to say, I’m on the mend, and after living so long with that condition, it’s a miracle I can say it at all.

King’s Crossing Series Update
Another topic that is all too familiar, so I won’t spend much time on it. I haven’t published since November, and I think my sales are taking a hit for it. The last two weeks of May were really hard, and the beginning of June isn’t shaping up to be that much better. Amazon has forgotten I exist, but it’s a tough market out there, so I’m not surprised. To catch their attention again, the only thing I can do is publish, and I’m happy to say I’m nearer to that goal. I ordered my series proofs yesterday, and I’ll read through them looking for any typos I missed and formatting errors I have to fix, and that will be that. Reading six books will take me a couple of weeks, but proofreading will be faster than editing and I should be able to put up my ARC copies at the beginning of July. I’ll have to give ARC readers time to read and review, so my first book, fingers crossed, will go live at the end of July or the beginning of August. It sounds easy, but there’s a lot of work that will be involved with that. I’m going to create a separate page on my author website especially for those ARCs, and I’m going to need to list the release dates and the dates the ARC links will come down as they can’t be up when my books drop into KU. There is only one entry point, book one, and not everyone is going to want to sink their teeth into a series like this, especially if they’ve never heard of me before. Also, four of the six books end on cliffhangers, and that will need to be posted front and center because I know some readers won’t read if there are cliffhangers. The short amount of time between releases should help–cliffhangers are the worst if you have to wait months or even years for a resolution. That won’t be a problem here, and listing the release dates and having them all up on preorder so readers know they’re coming should help. I’ll need to make graphics and pull quotes, but once all that’s done and things are posted, I should be able to sit back and let the wheels turn on their own. I’m not going to do ARC forms (you can read my thoughts on them here: https://vaniamargene.com/2023/11/06/arc-forms-creating-a-review-team/) and readers can review in their own time and where they want. I’ll put them up on Booksprout, too, so I guess I’m thinking I’ll give away about 150 copies of each (100 on my website and 50 through Booksprout). That’s 900 copies, but if they can get this series running, it will be worth it. I feel like I just haven’t handled my releases very well and I’d like to do what I can push this series. That will take up my summer and they’ll release six weeks apart through February. After those are done, I’ll have another standalone ready to go, and I’ll release that, maybe in June. I can’t say what will happen after that because what will be published toward the end of 2025 into 2026 hasn’t been written yet. That’s enough for that series, and if you want more in-depth musings, you can look here: https://vaniamargene.com/2024/04/29/author-update-kings-crossing-series/

Ad Spend vs. Royalties Update
It’s probably a good idea I do this because I’m terrible at keeping track of my ad spend. That I have a little to play with and that my royalties leave me in the ~~barely~~ black aren’t excuses. Not keeping track isn’t the best way to level up, so I’ll go through what I’ve made and what I’ve spent so far.

As far as royalties go, I’ve made $3,1839.91 this year. That’s $1400.00 shy of what I made the entire year last year, so unless something serious happens to me, I can safely assume I’ll surpass that. Having so many releases this year will help a lot, I think, if I can give this series some traction and it sells. $2,500.00 of that is from KU reads, $643.00 was from Kindle sales, and there was a handful of dollars from print sales. My top sellers were my rockstars, but that’s not a surprise because that’s where I shove my ad money.

So, speaking of ad money, let me pull up what I’ve spent–more on Amazon ads than I wanted, at $711.83 so far. I think I’ll turn them off and not spend anymore on them this year. I have FOMO, and I give in to running Amazon ads even though I haven’t seen ROI using them in a long time. I panic whenever my sales dip, but sales naturally ebb and I shouldn’t be scared of it. FB ads, at least I can say my $2140.97 brought in what I spent and I still have two that are running with no end date because I get likes on shares on them on a daily basis. Social proof is what keeps them going and at .12 and .8 cents a click, they’re cheaper than Amazon ads will ever be. I have to remember that the next time I want to start my Amazon ads up again. They are too costly to keep going. With all the other extras I pay for, like Bookfunnel and Booksprout, my Canva account that renewed, etc, I’m just breaking even.

If I don’t run Amazon ads for the rest of the year and only leave the two FB ads going, I’m curious what the rest of 2024 will look like for me. It will be a skewed experiment at best because I won’t always have a series to rapid release, but I won’t be throwing money out the window. I’m proud of the books I’ve sold so far this year, but eventually it would be nice not to have to pay for every sale. I may have to start investing more time in social media than ads. You pay in money or time, but I haven’t given much time since I haven’t been feeling well, and while I’m not feeling 100% and never will be, I might have to dust off my social media accounts whether I want to or not. The big players are on socials and that could be a turning point for me–if I can stick with it long enough to see some movement.

Bits and Pieces Update
As for anything else, I’ve been keeping an eye on my Amazon followers for my pen name and I’m up to 266. At least people are reading and liking my books enough to follow me. I’ve said in the past I’ve given away more of my reader magnet since switching my newsletter to a blog format than when I was sending out a real newsletter through MailerLite. I’ve given away 35 in the last 30 days, so I’m glad to know people are still clicking and downloading. Turning to blogging isn’t ideal, but that whole debacle was so heartbreaking and I’m happy it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. At least I had the smarts to back up my mailing list and import them into my WordPress website. I see some authors who don’t back up their lists and something happens and they lose all their subscribers.

There are a few other odds and ends, like my blog posts. The updated blog post I did for my Canva tutorial (Updated! Creating a full wrap paperback book cover using Canva (plus more screenshots!)) is finally surpassing the original (Doing a Full Paperback Wrap in Canva for KDP Print (plus screen grabs)). The updated blog post has been read 2,214 times this year and the original 928. I’m glad those posts are helping people.

I haven’t been on TikTok since December and I haven’t posted on Instagram since March. I was cross posting, so more than likely I haven’t posted anything on my FB author page in about as long. I’ll need to see what I can do about that–especially since things are slowing down with my series now and pretty soon they’ll be done.

That’s about it for my mid-year recap. My health and my series have taken so much of my time that I’m not sure what I’ll do next. I’m working on a standalone I wrote in 2021 to get ready to publish, but there’s no rush to get that done, for obvious reasons. I’d like to read and clean out my TBR list on my Kindle, but I’ll have to charge it. I’ve lost a lot of joy in the past four years, feeling how I am and dealing with some other things, like breaking up with my fiancé, and I know “finding myself” however cliché that may be will take time. It would be nice if I could slow down and just enjoy the summer, but I always say I’m going to take a break and never do. As much as I’m burnt out, writing and publishing has been my safe haven the past few years, and not having to hide will be a change. Not wanting to hide will be a change. I know what my health issues are now, and that’s a big deal, so I’ll take it one day at a time and see where I land at the end of the year.

One thing I know for sure–no more Amazon ads.

Have a good week!

Finishing a Series and Author Update

Posted on June 3, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

graphic of six book covers and the title of the blog: Writing a Series. Do you publish as you go? — These are the covers I’ve chosen for my series. They just need a few more tweaks before they’ll be ready to submit when I order my proofs.

I’ve written about series a few times on this blog, mostly in favor of them because if your first book is strong there can be potential for great read-through and they have numerous marketing advantages like putting the first book free (a loss leader) or making compilation. But there are cons to writing a series too, such as how much work they are, they cost more to produce, and not everyone likes to dive into a long series, especially by an unknown author.

One thing I didn’t consider when I wrote my first trilogy, or any others after that for that matter, is never finishing once I started. To me, my duets, trilogies, and series are one long story, and like writing a standalone from the first page to the last, they aren’t done until the last book is written. I don’t consider the time or the energy it takes to write it. Once I get it into my head (and the books plotted out) I write until I’m done. I don’t even think about if readers will enjoy them or what kind of return on investment I’ll get after they’re published.

When I first joined the writing community, many years before Musk ruined Twitter, there were authors here and there who wouldn’t finish their series. Being the arrogant new writer that I was, I thought it was simply laziness on their part, but over the years, and days such as yesterday when I’m reminded of it, I’ve learned some authors don’t finish a series because the books they already have published aren’t selling.

This is a huge Catch-22. Some readers don’t read a series until all the books are out, bingeing the books like they would a Netflix show (that actually drops all at once. I’m looking at you, Bridgerton.). That does mean fewer readers of your series if you publish as you write. But since readers do this, maybe you’re not selling as many books as you want and you think finishing isn’t worth it.

I wasn’t aware authors gauged the success of their series this way, mostly because I don’t write and publish that way. In fact, it boggles my mind how you could. The thought of being unable to change details in earlier books to fit with later books gives me hives. I know not all writers need that flexibility (they’re better writers and keep meticulous track of details and/or their stories aren’t too complicated and/or their series are interconnected but true standalones that aren’t as dependent on the books before), but I think needing it also gives me the freedom to finish without worrying about consequences. Consequences such as lost time and lost resources. I’m going to take the time to write and finish because I want to take the time.

The problem with my way of thinking is that if no one reads my series from start to finish, I’ve already lost time. I don’t have the option to bail because that time is already gone. But, even if the books don’t sell, like my duet, I can’t consider it a waste–I’ve written the story I want to tell.

I understand why people don’t want to wait and write them all first. If you have limited time, you may be writing for five or six years before you can publish them all. The series I’m about to publish took me four and a half years to get to where I’m comfortable publishing, but I’ve also written, packaged, and published other books while they were breathing between edits. I’ve said I have a lot of time to write, and not everyone is afforded that luxury. So I get being impatient, wanting to put your books out there, but if you are, that does come with, in my opinion, expectations you’ll have to control. Readers who enjoy your books will want to know when the next one comes out, and that increases the pressure to write and publish quickly. On the flip side, if no one reads, you’ll feel like writing the subsequent books will be a waste of time. On the flip side of that, you’d have to decide if abandoning a series would be worth it because you have no idea how an unrelated book would do and you could find you would have been better off writing the next book in the series you put aside.

Books sell forever and you never know when something will suddenly catch. That may be a book one in a series you didn’t finish and you’re sabotaging your own success. Read through will always earn you more, and an incomplete series can elicit distrust.

It doesn’t happen with only indies… we all know about George RR Martin. I watched the Game of Thrones on HBO because I knew after all this time Martin wouldn’t finish, and I wanted some type of closure, even if it wasn’t his. Whether or not Martin had any input in how the series ended, it ended how I thought it would and I was satisfied, if not happy, though I would have been happier had I been able to read the books. Life happens and he has his fingers in a lot of pies. As an author, I’m not sure how he feels about leaving a project like that unfinished. Maybe it bothers him or maybe he feels HBO finished it for him and he doesn’t think about it. Plenty of fans want the books, and him writing and releasing them would revive the whole series.

What it comes down to is how you want to run your business and how you want to spend your time. It may not be so simple to some, but books end up being products and an incomplete series will never sell as well as one that’s finished. If anything, complete your series to say that you did? I know I wouldn’t be able to write anything else if I didn’t have intentions of finishing. I would feel like I’m letting myself down, and the time it would take to finish would be worth it to me. It’s not for me to judge if it’s not worth it to you.

As for my author update, I finally finished editing my series. The next steps are adding elements to the formatting–even though I said I wouldn’t, I’m going to add chapter headers to the paperbacks, but they’re going to be the same for all six books. I have to make sure all the front and back matter is the same and in the same order, update my copyright pages as I changed the models and backgrounds and I add that information, make sure my Also By pages are updated and rewrite my acknowledgments. I thanked my ex-fiancé and he doesn’t deserve the mention. I still have plenty to do before I can order the proofs, but it won’t take as long as the editing. Toward the end, I just kept rereading the same paragraphs over and over, mostly due to fixating on how I felt instead of the story. I haven’t had any anxiety since my Mayo Clinic appointment on the 28th, and I’m thankful for that. Anxiety attacks were also getting in the way of my editing sessions, causing me to reread more than I should have because I was scared I had missed a mistake.

If you’re reading this the day it posts, I’ll be on a clear liquid diet for a colonoscopy on the 4th. To keep my mind off how hungry I am, formatting these books will be the perfect project. I can make a cup of broth, turn on some music, and pretend I don’t have such a crummy task ahead of me. My doctor at Mayo recommended I have it, and I was very fortunate my local clinic could get me in so quickly so I didn’t have to worry or think about it over the summer. Of course, I’m hoping they don’t find anything–I’m not sure if my mental health could take anymore. I didn’t hear any bad news at Mayo. She reassured me things were okay inside my body and that my hysterectomy hadn’t messed anything up inside me. I was really relieved. I have a follow up on August 23rd, but if my colonoscopy comes back clear, I think that appointment will be the end of things for a while. I know what my issues are and I’m on a treatment plan. I may never feel “normal” again but I’ve come a long way in the four months since my first appointment, and I’m grateful.

I don’t want to bog up this post with health updates–I just mentioned it because my editing was slowed down quite a bit by panic attacks and not feeling well. I still plan on reading most if not all of the proofs, but hopefully that last and final read through will be enjoyable and I can look at it as a kind of closure in two ways: maybe not the end of my health issues, but I worked on these the whole time I was unwell and now I’m feeling better, and the end of four years of work on a six-book series that will be my pride and joy. I doubt I’ll ever be able (or want) to write anything that will compare to these. Writing kept me sane while I was dealing with all this crap, and while they may remind me of these hard years, it will be tough to say goodbye, too.

Besides telling you if my colonoscopy went okay, I don’t think I’ll need to mention my health anymore. It’s under control, and it will be interesting to see how I feel writing new books without that in the back of my mind. But I won’t stop writing on my other blog, and if you want to follow along, you can do it here: chaoscoffeeandconfessions.blogspot.com

Next week I hope to tell you my positive test results and that I was able to order my proofs. Because of the time I’ll need to read the proofs and submit the changes, I won’t be able to put my ARCs up until the beginning of July, but that’s okay. I know these are done to the best of my ability. It’s time to move on, in a lot of ways, and I’m looking forward to it. Keep your fingers crossed for me! Have a great week!

Monday Musings: writing the next book (the state of the industry)

Posted on May 27, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

I don’t listen to many podcasts anymore–I’m hoping that will change after I get more answers at my appointment on Tuesday… and after I get this blasted series done. I have four chapters left, but I know in one of the chapters there’s a scene I want to add to, just to circle back to something a character mentioned in book four that would wrap up this couple’s HEA all the better. I don’t want to rush the rewrite and I conceded a long time ago these would be done when they get done. I’ve been working more seriously on the covers, but damned if I can do better than what I have. I’ve looked at cover after cover, from dark billionaire romances to romantic suspense and the problem I keep running into is that the vibes don’t match. I don’t mean my brand, but the vibes of the stories. While these characters are a little younger than I’m used to, that’s the only difference between this series and what my backlist offers. I can’t go too dark and even if there is a lot of suspense, nothing in the romantic suspense genre grabbed me. I’m stuck with the models–one guy in a suit because he’s the billionaire, one guy (who has been used everywhere FML but I like how he’s dressed) because he’s a PI and wears a suit all of one time in the stories. You wanna see them? Here they are:

The guy on the left is Zane Maddox, billionaire. The guy on the right (who might be familiar as I played with him when I was doing my Christmas novel cover) is Gage Davenport, the PI who falls in love with Zane’s sister. They go well together and match the background I chose for them. Deviating from what I made for covers months ago feels wrong, but I’ve tried because I think the covers are on the plain side. I mean, they’re a good plain and they’ll fit in with the books in my backlist, but I really wanted these to be special, and I feel like I’m letting this series down somehow. Maybe I’m blowing my covers out of proportion. They don’t look any different than the books I’ve published before, but my sales aren’t great and it takes me a lot of telling myself it’s not because of my covers. Because in all honesty, my covers don’t look any worse than anything else that’s out there, and I still like people on my covers, no matter what the trend happens to be right now. I need elegant, not edgy, and even if they are subdued, I think ultimately they’re what I’m going for.

Anyway, so I bring this up because I listened to Craig Martelle’s State of the Industry talk in his Successful Indie Author Facebook group. I like listening to what he has to say. He’s practical and down-to-earth. Maybe in a way that only already successful authors can be because he’s making money and even “slow” periods don’t affect him that much, but he doesn’t freak out about stuff, and I can appreciate that. If you want to listen to what he has to say, he posted it on YouTube here:

I listened to it because I always like hearing speculation and trends, where people think indie publishing is going. Personally, I feel like small-time authors like me are stagnating. Nothing can help us get ahead. Right now FB ads are the only way I’m selling books, and even yesterday I had to go in and pause two of my ads. I spent 140 dollars between two ads for the first book in my duet. The clicks were only costing me .14 USD which is way cheaper than any of my Amazon ads I’ve run, but I wasn’t seeing the sales. I don’t get many sales of Captivated (I think it’s a number of reviews issue), and I would have known if those clicks were turning into buys. In fact, you can go to your Author Central page and look at the sales ranks for your books. My ad spend was going up as my book rank plummeted. That’s not a great match. I have two going for the first in my rockstar trilogy and they have ton of likes and shares. They don’t have an end date and I’ll likely never turn them off. Those two are the only things driving my sales right now. My Freeobooksy for Rescue Me did better in terms of KU reads than I thought, but I haven’t made my fee back yet. (I’ll get into numbers when I do my half-year check in.)

So if you’re a small-time author, or a baby author, you’re going to think the state of the industry is pretty crappy, and you probably aren’t liking the advice everyone throws at you: write the next book. I get the next book is important, but I can understand the conundrum. If no one is around to read it, why write it? It’s very very easy to be defeated, especially since it seems like there aren’t many people around to cheer you on. Everyone is busy with their own struggles and there just aren’t that many people who have time to hold your hand or pat you on the back. I don’t want this post to go all “woes me–” I’d like to keep it practical at least. What can a baby author do to get ahead? What can any author do to move the needle. I understand where people are going when they say write the next book. I’ve said it too. But now many will be enough? There are some authors who have written 100+ and that must feel very intimidating to a debut author whose book sinks a week after launch. The state of the industry is confusing–there has never been a better time to be writer in terms of ease and resources, but I also feel like COVID upped our competition and that competition never really went away. Al (I asked ChatGPT) said 60,000 books are published every month. I used to think that was more, but I haven’t watched a K-lytics report in a long time to know. But even 60,000 books a month is a lot. Other authors aren’t our competition, but when you start throwing numbers around, it sure feels like they are.

Craig also said a few other things, like the election not doing us any favors, and I can believe that. Trump winning wore us down, Biden winning after lifted us up. Whether Biden can win again remains to be seen, but either way, this fall tension will be high. It always is. The holidays don’t do anyone any favors unless you have a Christmas novel to put out, so you could start writing one now and hopefully have it ready to go by November. I’ll push A Heartache for Christmas because last year between November first and December 31st, I sold 31 books and had the equivalent of 96 books read in KU. I also ran ads to it, so I could have technically broke even, but these days, that feels like the best you can do.

I don’t know if Craig said much else. I don’t think he spoke with an outline in mind and he went off on some tangents every once in a while, but I still enjoyed listening to his talk. I guess you take away some negative bits from it (as it seems I have) but the real takeaway I should have gleaned from his talk is that you can’t sell a book that hasn’t been written. That’s true for any author, no matter how many books they have in their backlist, and no one knows that more than an author who has readers wanting their next book.

It’s finding those readers without growing broke or sacrificing your mental or physical health along the way.

That’s the real state of the industry.

Author Update and Amazon’s New Stat

Posted on May 20, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a great weekend. I can’t believe how fast May is going by, and it doesn’t bode well for all the things I want to get done before the end of the month. We’ve had some nice weather in the past few days, and on a walk I took a couple pictures of some berry trees.

I’m trying to get out a little more to boost my spirits. Since I’ve been feeling slightly better, I’m not as comfortable sitting in my bedroom alone hiding from the world. The sun perks me up, as does taking walks to the river and back (that’s a short 1.5 mile stroll) and I’m trying to do better as it helps with editing too. It’s easier when your mind isn’t fuzzy from staring at a screen for ten hours non-stop.

Having said that, haha, I’m still editing book six. Every once in a while I’ll have a touch of anxiety, and I lose time (even a couple hours a day at this point is a big loss). If I didn’t have to sit through those attacks I’d be able to edit a lot faster. I try to edit anyway, but I shouldn’t do that because all that does is make me have to go back when I’m feeling better and make sure I didn’t edit mistakes into my manuscript and check to see that the changes I made sound good. Anyway, suffice to say, I’ve been feeling better, but that part of feeling better has uncovered things that I wasn’t feeling before. I have another appointment at the end of the month and all I can hope for is more good news–or at least an explanation. I knew that getting over this would take time and be more of a journey than destination, and all I can do is try my best. But I will try to have this book edited by then because I’d really like to be able to order new proofs next month. (If you want to read more about my physical and mental health, I stared a new blog, and you can read it here: chaoscoffeeandconfessions.blogspot.com)

I ran a free promo on Rescue Me last weekend and while I didn’t do that to earn any royalties, since it’s a standalone and there’s no read-through to other books, there might be some who borrow in KU rather than buy for free and I always appreciate that. I made approximately $45 during the free days and almost $50 for the month. I didn’t expect it but maybe I’ll earn my fee back after all. I only really did it to get my name out there since I’m not doing anything but running Facebook ads right now. I could run an ad to my sister website to get a little more traffic there since I’ll be blogging there regularly instead of sending out a newsletter. Those ads would be in lieu of the ads I was running to my reader magnet when I had Mailerlite and Bookfunnel hooked up together. Upgrading to the new MailerLite screwed up my integration, and then trying to comply with the DMARC stuff ruined my entire account. Authenticating my account possibly wasn’t the cause of my issues, it could have been a technical issue on MailerLite’s end, but I wasn’t going to put up with it–not when the error made my website look like it was trying to steal my readers’ personal information. Ironically, since I moved my newsletter to my blog, I’ve given away a lot more copies of My Biggest Mistake and I’m not sure why. I looked at my stats and I’m getting about same number of opens, but the link possibly is more accessible? I’m not sure. But I’ve given away 39 copies in the last 30 days and I wasn’t getting downloads like that unless I was running an FB ad to my Bookfunnel link. I don’t get anything for giving my book away–I haven’t gotten many visitors who are subscribing, but I’m getting extra views through my blog popping up on the WordPress reader, and those new readers could be who are downloading my reader magnet. Not that it matters at all, it’s just another way for people to find me, sample my writing, and possibly go on to buy other books. I’m just relieved that moving my newsletter to a blog wasn’t a total fail.

In other news, during a busy day at work I opened up the last standalone I have on my computer that I wrote during the pandemic. I created the file on May 15th, 2021, and it’s so funny that I opened the file again almost three years to the day I started writing it.

general properties information.
Microsoft Word Document
411,770 bytes (414 KB on disk)
iCloud drive
Created May 15h, 2012 at 12:28pm
Modified May 10h, 2024 at 5:54pm

I’m surprised to say it sounds good, and I’m going to read and edit it, package it and get it ready for publication after my series is up. It will be something easy and less stressful to work on while I enjoy the summer, umm, fall months (I have no illusions that this series will take me the rest of the summer to publish). I’ll release it like, oh I don’t know, fall of next year? I decided to shorten the time between my series from 8 weeks to 6, and in doing so, I’ll lose three months of time. So I’ll publish that to make it up, and then I’ll have a nine months or so to write what I’m going to publish next. My brain kind of shuts down thinking about that because then we’re talking about 2026 and I just can’t think that far ahead when, since I haven’t felt good, just getting through a day was a struggle. I made a cover for another standalone that’s partially plotted, and maybe working on those two projects will be the break I need while I get my life back on track. Like I said, something else popped up, and I’ll probably find what it is at my appointment at the end of the month. I don’t think it’s serious as I’m not in pain, but it was just a bump in the road to my recovery I didn’t expect.

So, everyone was talking about the new stat on the product pages of some books on Amazon–the number of sales a book had in the previous month. I haven’t been able to find a stat like that on any books I’ve looked at, and like with a lot of things Amazon does, it might have just been a flash in the pan test and it went away just as quickly as it came.

A lot of authors didn’t like it–some saying it was a breach of privacy, though technically it’s not–you can find out how much a book is making just by looking at its rank, and here is a calculator if you’re curious to try: https://kindlepreneur.com/amazon-kdp-sales-rank-calculator/ Some authors said it was discouraging and another stat a baby author had to fight against.

I don’t think a stat like that is very important, at least, not compared to something else like reviews. Some authors wave off reviews, and while I don’t think Amazon pushes your book once you receive over fifty, social proof is important, and maybe that’s why Amazon tried this new stat. Since it seemed to have disappeared, maybe they realized the number of reviews a product had was enough.

The new stat didn’t bother me because information like that is already out there, and I’m kind of surprised no one brought up Goodreads. Goodreads shows you stats similar to that on every book.

Screenshot of my book's page on Goodreads. Faking forever. 3.74 stars.

blurb excerpt and book cover

The screenshot may be too small to see, but this is the information under my book Faking Forever. It says 45 people are currently reading and 152 people want to read. Goodreads is public, so you can see stats like that on whatever book you want. My numbers aren’t high by any means and I doubt they’re a threat to a baby author, but because a reader has to actively go into their account and add your book to their shelves, I would consider stats like this even more meaningful than something Amazon throws up just to see what kind of reaction it will get.

When it comes right down to it, the real issue is we’re all fighting for exposure and discoverability. We’re trying to get our names out there in however way we can. Sales numbers, review numbers, and want-to-read shelves can be disheartening, but you can either get discouraged or let it motivate you. You also have to ask yourself what you’re doing to get your name out there. Do you have a newsletter, run ads, buy a promo every now and then? Do you post on social media? That can be a time suck if you don’t have the favor of the algorithms looking down on you, but it’s social proof in its own way you’re alive and writing. Do you publish regularly? All of that can only go so far if you’re not consistently publishing. I haven’t published a book in seven months and that seems like a really really long time for me. It may be another three before I can this series up and going, but I didn’t realize how much work these books needed and I have to go so painstakingly slow to check consistency. The time will be worth it, but who knows if readers see I haven’t published since November (when I released A Heartache for Christmas) and think I’m not writing anymore. I try to keep my blog/subscribers updated but that’s not the same as being able to offer them a new book. I’m not sure what else I can be doing either–I’m running the maximum number of Facebook ads I can afford and spent money on that Freebooksy promo for Rescue Me. I feel like I’m doing all I can while I struggle with feeling better and working my day job and being some kind of absentee mother to my kids (don’t worry–they’re old enough they don’t need me, but I’m still not around much).

If you’re doing the best you can, that’s all you can do, so if you’re also battling writer’s block or imposter syndrome, or you’re downtrodden because it feels like everyone else is doing more than you, you just have to shake it off. And if you’ve read this blog in the past, you know I don’t say that lightly because I have been shaking off a lot, and it’s hard. It’s hard to keep going when you don’t know if it’s worth it and it’s hard to keep going when you’re exhausted. It’s really a cliché, but go back to why you start writing in the first place and try to find joy in the writing and creating. All the other stuff is just extra.

Next Monday is Memorial Day, and I’ll be leaving out of town to go to a Tuesday appointment. Unless I can think of something to say, I may just take that day off and then come back with any updated information I have to share. (When I say that, hopefully I mean good news at my appointment and that I’m done editing these books!)

Thank you so much for reading….we’re halfway through year, and I hope things are going well for you. Take care of yourself–physically and mentally. Unplug, go outside, read something that doesn’t have your name on it.

Until next time!

Author Update and Monday Musings

Posted on May 13, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

desk flatlay with flowers, paper clips, white mouse and white keyboard. text says author update

I really don’t have anything to write about this week. I finished editing book five of my series, and I’m on to book six … I’ve been looking at my covers thinking they’re a little plain, wondering if I should break my brand mold and put couples on them instead, but I don’t really want to do that. I don’t hate the covers I have now, but this series is special and I feel like they need a bit more pizzazz. Something might come at me while I’m updating the formatting–it seems my best covers materialize the night before I want to upload files, but all I know for right now is they’re missing something and I’m not going to publish until I’m completely happy. I did that when I published my Lost & Found trilogy and botched their launch. I doubt the launch of this series will go perfectly, but I want to do as well as I can and I know for right now these covers aren’t it.

In a rare move, I took last Wednesday off. Wednesdays are my biggest editing/writing days because it’s my last day off of the week (Mondays I do errands and cleaning around the apartment and Tuesday nights I go to dinner and a movie with my sister) and I don’t have any chores, errands, or plans. I can edit from sun up to sun down, and I usually get a good chunk of work done. On Tuesday I had finished book five and I just was not feeling jumping into book six. So I did some admin stuff, took a nap, brought my daughter shopping for a dress to wear to her high school graduation, made dinner, watched a replay of a YouTube live from an indie author I wanted to watch, and then I went to bed. It’s not like me to waste time like that, but I have been working so hard on this series I just needed a day to relax (if I can call that relaxing–yeah, I know).

I did a free run on Captivated by Her and Rescue Me from May 9th to yesterday, the 12th, and I gave away 4616 copies of Rescue Me and 98 copies of Captivated by Her. I paid for a Freebooksy promo for Rescue Me–that’s why I gave away more copies of that book–but I’m happy I moved a few copies of Captivated, too. I’m not sure why I did the promotion except that I hadn’t done one for a while and I’m still shaky on how to get my name out there without having to pay for it. I was happy with the placement of my book in their newsletter–I was first. I had to shrink my screen to fit it all in the screenshot, but this is how it looked:

I know giving away a book is easy, and making the free top 100 list isn’t anything to brag about, but I made it to number 6 in the contemporary romance category and number 15 overall in the free kindle store.

I was getting some page reads from Rescue Mei, but since it’s a standalone I’m not hoping to earn my fee back. I’ll keep an eye on how many people go on to read Addicted to Her, but being I gave away less than 100 copies of Captivated, it may not be that many. We’ll see what happens.

Anyway, so I watched a YouTube Live replay of a romance indie author who went over her six-month marketing plan and I noticed that she heavily used cross-promotion as a way to get the word out. I’ve moaned for a while now that my networking is crap, and while it’s really difficult to think you need to meet people with the intent of using them, I don’t see it that way. I’m more than happy to swap and share. Because writing and publishing is such a solitary thing, I don’t often think about including anyone else. I didn’t tell any of my romance groups in case they were looking for free reads for their subscribers, and when I planned those free days and set up my free days in my KDP dashboard, that was the first thing I should have done so other authors had a heads up in case they were looking for content. It’s just really hard for me to think in terms of including others in my plans and I know I need to do better.

She also was saying how important new releases are, and that you can get a lot of content out of a launch. I think we all know this…snippets…cover reveals… that kind of thing, but I am terrible at doing anything with it. I’ve said before that by the time I have a new book out, I’m already writing something else, and that is a terrible way to treat your newest release. Your books deserve all the love in the world, and I wonder if I haven’t wanted to take the time to do that kind of thing because I’ve been so busy trying to bury how I’m feeling. In the four years I’ve felt like garbage, all I’ve done is try to feel better and forget about how crappy I do feel. Immersing myself in writing has been pretty much the only way I’ve been able to do that, and pressing pause to promote a book has never been on my radar. Releasing six books two months apart will be a different thing for me and it would be a waste to publish these and not freaking tell anyone. There’s no sense in that, but fighting to be seen is a struggle and it’s difficult to add that struggle when you’re already struggling with something else. I try not to go too much into my health anymore because I don’t want to tire you and I really don’t want people to stop reading my blog because they’ll think it’ll be just more of the same. It was just interesting to me when a friend last week asked me if I still get the buzz of releasing a book, and it was a surprising revelation to think that I hadn’t really enjoyed anything in the past few years and that includes starting my pen name and releasing the eleven books I have so far. I mean, I have on some level, but not to the extent a healthy person would have enjoyed it.

So now that I know what’s wrong with me, that I’m on some kind of treatment–even more so since I’ll have had a followup by the time my series is ready to go–I’d like to intentionally enjoy these books and their launches. I would like to intentionally talk them up on social media, intentionally choose snippets and create posts. Intentionally write more blog posts about them and show them off to the world. I didn’t feel like doing that before. I wanted to be distracted by the next story, and I was, to the detriment of the other books. I mean, I’m grateful I was able to build a backlist so quickly, but it makes me wonder too, how I’ll feel writing the next book. If there won’t be such an urgency to write quickly and finish it to get on to the next. Maybe it will be different to savor the drafting part of it, enjoy my characters. I don’t know. It’s just an interesting thing to think about. When your quality of life sucks, can you enjoy anything?

In an uncharacteristic move, I think that’s all I have for today. I have a couple of personal things to do this month, like go to my daughter’s high school graduation ceremony on the 24th and I’ll be gone for two days to go to Rochester, MN for my followup appointment, Memorial Day and the day afterward. I’ve been walking a bit more, even if it’s just walking around the block during my half an hour lunch break when I’m logged into my day job. I bought a new lounger for my balcony and I’m looking forward to lying in the sun. I didn’t feel good enough last year and we didn’t have that great of a summer besides.

Things are topsy-turvy, and maybe heading in a good way for the first time in a while. It’s a different feeling, one I can’t embrace fully because I haven’t had the time to acclimate, but I mused to my friend how I would feel a year from now.

Hopefully there’s only good things ahead.

Have a good week, everyone!

Author Update: King’s Crossing Series

Posted on April 29, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

city skyline at night. text reads: king's crossing update

I’ve talked a lot about this series, and if you’re tired of reading about it, feel free to skip this post. One day soon these books will be released into the wild and I’ll stop talking about them. 🙂 Until then, this blog may be a bit repetitive as not much is going on, but I’ll try to come up with something better next week. If you have a topic you want me to write about, let me know in the comments. Thanks!

I don’t have much to share with you this week. I’m trying like mad to get these books read, and reading them over was again, so worth it. I don’t have an editing process–it seems to vary from book to book. I barely edited A Heartache for Christmas, listening to it, and proofing the proof after writing it and perhaps going through it once or twice. That’s still four sweeps, by me and me alone. I know I should get other eyes on my work, but there are just so many scammers charging for a service they have no right saying they can provide and the ones whom you could probably trust, well, they just cost too much. I’m not at a point where I would earn back a 700 dollar copy edit, and there’s no point apologizing for it, that’s just the way it is. But I’ve been sitting on this series for a long time, and every time I read it, I find other things to change, small discrepancies that probably a reader might not notice, but I did, and I like past and future details to mesh as much as possible. So, I don’t regret this read through, but besides looking for typos in the printed proofs, it will be the last one. That’s not to say I won’t fix a mistake if I find one. When I was reading the proof of A Heartache for Christmas, I found a timeline issue that I had to fix, but I published that book knowing I did the very best I could and that’s all anyone can do, whether you pay for an editor or not. What I would like is to find a person like me who can do all the things and I could give her a hundred dollars. That probably won’t happen–no one does the amount of work I do for my friends for so little, but it would be nice to have a dev editor, copy editor, and proofer all rolled into one who would catch say, 80% of my mistakes. Though, to be fair, I wrote so many books during the pandemic I wouldn’t use a person that way even if I could. That’s a lot of work for not a lot of pay, and I would feel terrible even if she were willing to do it.

So, sitting on these books was worth it, but this last editing pass before I format and order the proofs will have to be enough. At some point, you have to move forward, and while I liken several editing passes as folding more ingredients into cake batter as you mix, eventually you want to bake the batter and eat the cake.

I’m going to be moving on to researching how to market these. This series will probably be the only one like this that I do, where there is only one entry point–book one–and books one, two, four, and five all have medium to hard cliffhangers. The last thing I need is to be accused of money grabbing or get poor reviews because readers didn’t know the books ended on a cliffhanger and they hate them. Cliffhangers, I mean. So for right now the plan is to use the blurbs to put that information at the bottom and to create A+ content that will also have that information listed as well as the release dates of the other books. I’m a reader who doesn’t like to read a series unless all the books are out, and I know others are the same. I may not get a lot of sales and KU page reads until all the books are live, and that’s okay, that’s what I expect anytime I release a trilogy which is why I dump them all in the same month. Someone on Threads I think it was, or maybe it was a while back in one of my Facebook groups, said when you do that, you waste the 30, 60, and 90 day push Amazon gives you, and that may be true, but I think I’m willing to give that up in exchange for quicker read through. My sales are slow enough that I can see that people do buy all three books in a trilogy at the same time, or do read through them all one right after the next in KU. You would have to decide if Amazon’s push of your new release is worth it, or if you would prefer getting read through right away.

I can’t release all six books at once, or even a month a part, as I need the time to write more books, so I’m going to release them two months apart, though the ebooks will be on preorder which means book 6 will be on preorder for a whole year. That’s not something I usually do, but I want readers to see the series is done, and I can add that information in my A+ content as well.

The other thing that I’m going to do that I don’t usually do is put my books on sale during the preorder phase. I’m going to mark book one at .99, book two at 1.99, book three at 2.99, and the other three books will be regular price, which right now is 4.99. I normally don’t care about preorders because readers who buy books and readers who borrow them in KU are two separate audiences, and I market to my readers in KU, but I’ve never written a six book series before and I know how expensive buying an entire series can be if people want them. I don’t think I’ll get any paperback sales because I’m going to have to put them at 14.99, maybe even 15.99 to cover printing costs and I don’t have to do the math to guess readers don’t have 100 bucks to spend on an author they might never have heard of. Still, I like to offer paperbacks because besides the cost of the ISBN numbers, there’s not a lot of money or time involved so I figure I might as well.

The second I proof the final proof and make any corrections, they’ll go up on Bookfunnel for ARCs. The ARC discussion over on Threads a couple weeks ago made me want to vomit, and I will NOT be treating my reviewers and readers the way I’ve seen some authors treat theirs (such as blaming them if their books end up on pirate sites. That happens to everyone and there’s no one to blame). It was gross, and I should have made a list of all the authors I will never ever buy books from. I’ll put my ARCs on my website, let my subscribers know they’re available, maybe throw a little cash at an ad to build buzz and put them on Booksprout. I need to do that a month in advance to give readers time to read the first book at least, so it will be a lot of work and keeping an eye on the calendar because the ARC links need to come down as my books release and drop into KU. It will be a busy 12 months, and I’m also excited to get these out and work on something fresh.

I keep changing my mind on what that will be–pulled between writing something new and jumping into editing the books I have left on my laptop. I have one standalone I could polish and release, and two books of that other series that I decided I would cut down from six to four. I’m not sure, though cleaning up that standalone sounds appealing because it would be easy, but so does writing a new standalone that I partially have plotted out, but would be a bit more work.

In other news, I started a new blog to talk about coping with my health condition. Since this wasn’t a great place for it and I don’t want to make anyone tired of reading this blog if my topics don’t stay on topic. I started it over on Blogger, just so I wouldn’t confuse myself with another blog on WordPress. I already have two and using a different platform felt right. I’m not going to post on a schedule the way I do here, use it more for an online journal to talk about how I’m feeling. It will just be a place to blow off stream, and you can read it here if you want: chaoscoffeeandconfessions.blogspot.com. It only has one entry so far, and I can only post when I’m not working on something else, which won’t be often until after my series is done.

If you want to read more about marketing a series look here:

https://www.ingramspark.com/blog/marketing-a-book-series-the-power-of-readthrough

https://www.blog.yourfirst10kreaders.com/how_to_write_and_market_your_book_series/

https://insights.bookbub.com/promoting-series-keep-readers-hooked/

A discussion about cliffhangers…..https://mdmassey.com/cliffhanger-endings-writers/

That’s about all I have for this week, and I apologize if it’s repetitive. This series has been my life for a long time, and no one will be happier that I’m done than me.

Have a good week, everyone, and I hope the sun is shining where you are!

Author Update and Vetting Your Book Cover Designer

Posted on April 22, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

blog post featured photo. handsome man standing in front of windows. text says questioning your premade book cover sources

I was going to write about book covers at the end of my post, but I decided to move it to the top so if you don’t want to read my author update but still want to read that part, you don’t have to scroll to skip it.

One of the things I’ve been seeing a lot of online is scammers who are making premade book covers. That doesn’t seem so terrible–even I’ve mentioned making covers and putting them on this website, only for free in case anyone is having a difficult time and needs something quick that looks decent–and it’s not terrible, if they go about it right way.

Not everyone who makes premades is intending to rip you off, but many of them are. They think because you don’t know how to make a spine and back cover, that gives them the right to charge you $50-$100 dollars for something you can learn how to do on your own. I get that time is money and money is time, and for some authors it is worth it to pay out rather than learning how to do it yourself, and if you’re okay spending money on something someone did in under an hour, that’s a personal (and business) choice. What I am saying though, is that if you do decide to buy a premade, it’s really really important you vet where your designer is getting their stock.

Canva makes things really easy, and who knows, my instructions on how to do a full wrap may even be contributing to it. Anyone can make a cover on Canva, but what’s even worse is when scammers use Canva’s templates and only change the text to what the author wants. Years ago I was aware this was happening, but I kind of fell out of looking for it on Facebook, and it seemed to have died down. Then I was chatting with someone on Threads who saw it not long ago, and it made me realize scammers don’t every really stop, we just stop seeing it.

I also was talking to someone who does premades and she uses the stock photos that come with the Canva Pro option. Canva Pro has a lot of stock available, and they’re from all of the stock photo sites–Getty (which we know is god-awful expensive), Shutterstock, Pexels, and others. The problem with using the stock that Canva gives you access to is that KDP won’t accept Canva’s licensing agreement. I told the woman that and she didn’t care. Of course she didn’t care. She won’t be the one responsible if Amazon asks her authors for proof of copyright. They won’t have anything to give Amazon and what will happen is they won’t be able to use the cover they paid for. Scammed.

Some people think KDP won’t ask and in eight years of publishing, they didn’t ask me either, until the third book of my rockstar trilogy I released last summer. I had to give them screenshots of my DepositPhotos account (proof I was the owner and I’m glad my name matched my KDP account), proof that I downloaded the photos there, and the licensing agreement that goes with each photo. I had to do this for two photos (the man and the background) and I had to do it twice, because the first time, the KDP rep cleared me and told me to submit my book for publication again, but when I did, I was flagged again. That time after I re-sent all my screenshots, they let my book pass, but it was a very long and stressful wait. I couldn’t imagine being an inexperienced author having to deal with it, and having a book cover designer who wouldn’t care (and who couldn’t help you). I would be bawling my head off. Actually I was bawling my head off. Publishing is stressful, even when things go right.

So, how can you prevent getting scammed? The number one way is to ask for proof of licensing. DepositPhotos isn’t the only place you can buy stock at affordable prices. There’s also Dreamstime and 123rf. There’s Shutterstock which isn’t bad, but be careful with Adobe Stock if you’re a romance author. In their terms and conditions, they say they don’t want their stock used for romance book covers. You should always stay away from sites like Pixabay and Pexels and Unsplash. They may have free for commercial use pictures, but anytime you’re using a photo to sell something, like a book, always pay for the privilege. Stock photos aren’t that much, even if you buy them singly. A photo from DepositPhoto is only seven dollars. It’s worth it for peace of mind.

I don’t mean to imply people who make “simple” covers are scammers because they have no skills to make complicated ones (I make simple ones too, for myself and for others), but some premades can look fairly uncomplicated, sometimes cheap, and if you can say, “I could do that,” it’s usually a red flag you shouldn’t be spending more than twenty or thirty bucks or so. This is my opinion, but thirty dollars will pay them for the hour it took to put your cover together, seven dollars for the stock photo, and maybe a couple dollars for the font. I made this cover in an hour–it took longer to find the adjustable silver frame I needed to fit the bleed lines of the KDP template than it did anything else:

full wrap book cover. title Mine to Love. PIcture of a handsome man wearing navy suit in front of navy grunge background

I’m not suggesting book cover designers aren’t worth their fees–we’re talking about relatively simple romance/women’s fiction/thriller covers here that only require the right photo and correct font and font positioning to look decent, not in-depth fantasy covers that require hours to create. You can do a Google search for Canva book templates or look here: https://www.canva.com/templates/s/book/

Book covers and editing seem to be the top two services where scammers are abundant and vetting editing services will have to be a topic for another day. Please look out for yourself if you’re hiring out for a book cover or looking at premade websites. Always ask where they get their stock photos and if they tell you Canva Pro, or one of the free sites like Pixabay, don’t use them. Or, if you have the stock photo you want but not the skills to turn it into a book cover, buy the photo yourself and pass it on to your designer. Then you get the best of both worlds.

So, yeah, do ask for licensing proof. Also familiarize yourself with Canva’s templates. They have hundreds, maybe thousands, and browsing and noting what looks good, what fonts they use, etc, is actually a good way to teach your eye things like colors and balance. If you suspect your cover was made using a Canva template or you want to know where your designer got the stock photo, you can use a reverse look up. I use https://tineye.com/.

That’s all I have on the book covers topic. If you want to read my author update, you can keep going, otherwise I hope you have a wonderful week ahead!

I can’t believe April is going by so quickly. We don’t have much left of it but I’m hoping to finish my second to the last read through of book three by the end of the month. I’ll go ahead and read books 4-6 but I’m hoping it won’t take me long. While I do that, I’ll need to get serious about firming up the covers (I’m always having doubts) so that once I’m done, I can jump right into finishing up formatting and ordering proofs.

I said I would give you numbers on my blog post over on my author website, and I was poking around my stats. For my first author blog post, I had 26 visitors and 32 views. That’s just readers popping by on the website. I clicked on the subscribers tab (something I have never done for this blog) and it turns out WordPress does give you some email stats, and I had 300 opens and 27 clicks of links I put inside. I had a huge post that day, so the clicks could have been anything. The book promo that got botched in my last newsletter, or the buy-link for Give & Take since I said I was going to be taking that off sale soon, or the Bookfunnel link for my reader magnet that I’m going to put at the end of every blog post. I think with the number of subscribers compared to the number of opens, I have a 38% open rate on that email, and that’s about what I’ve always had. So perhaps the same people who were opening it before will still open it, and now that my blog is available to the public, I’ll continue to get more views and visits.

I have to admit, having it sent to emails, having it show up in the WordPress reader, and then linking the blog post to my FB author page makes it almost a preferable choice to a newsletter. I mean, I guess they’re the same, but they feel different, and I just think I’ll enjoy blogging more than sending out a newsletter. (And sometimes I boost a post on my FB author page for exposure, so there’s always that, too.) It’s a funny coincidence, but recently, Anne R Allen blogged about this very thing on her blog. Thanks to Nick Thacker’s ThackStack for bringing it to my attention. Nick consolidates the top weekly indie news stories, and if you like lists like that for easy access, you should sign up for his newsletter here: https://www.thackstack.com/

Anyway, so Anne has been a cheerleader for blogging for years, and she makes some great points between blogging and sending out a newsletter. Not that I’m trying to sway you into dropping your newsletter if you have one, rather, I’m making myself feel better for not jumping into another newsletter aggregator. She mentions Substack, a free newsletter option that’s available if you want to send a newsletter but don’t have the cash. You can read her blogpost here: https://annerallen.com/2024/04/substack-vs-blogging/ I didn’t consider using Substack as the newsletters I’ve read using that aggregator are geared more toward nonfiction, and blogging, since I’ve been doing it here for so long, seemed more of an easier transition. Coincidentally, I also have her book, The Author Blog: Easy Blogging for Busy Authors. I found it when I was going through all my books. It might be worth rereading since I’m doing away with my newsletter.

I’m not interested in monetizing anything–helping people on this blog is its own reward, and blogging for my readers is supposed to be a lead-up into buying my books. I would never charge for exclusive information, and I wouldn’t know what to make exclusive, anyway. I think a paid newsletter option is more for nonfiction writers who want to share their expertise in mini-chunks and still get paid. I suppose fiction writers could do the same, offering exclusive content, but the romance authors I know who do that require a signup to their newsletter or have tiers on Patreon. I’m nowhere near writing exclusive content like that (I’d just as soon add it to the actual book) or offering books before they’re published or commissioning artwork to share. I’m still finding an audience, finding readers, and trying to publish good books. I agree authors need a place for readers to find them, and that will be my website. At least my subscriber link in my back matter already pointed there, and that will just be my hub from now on.

I don’t have much other news on the author update front. I think my mind will implode once I don’t have my series to think about anymore. It’s been like a weighted blanket all these years–comfortable and heavy, but sometimes a little too much if you lie under it for too long. It would really be nice if it sold so I could stop worrying about my job situation that gets nearer and nearer as time slips away, but besides publishing the best series I can, that seems to be out of my hands so all I can do is enjoy the process.

I haven’t given you a health update since I don’t like sounding like a scratched record, but my health has improved since my appointment back in February. The creams are working and the pills to regulate my ovaries have had good results. I don’t feel as down as I used to and my ovulation symptoms for the most part have disappeared. Every once in a while I still get bloated and achy, but not as much as I used to. There are days where I can feel pretty “normal” but my mind can’t relax and enjoy it. That might be something I’ll have to deal with for a long time. I’ve felt like garbage for so long that my mind doesn’t understand my body’s feeling better. I don’t have anxiety attacks anymore, which is nice, though I do get a sense of unease sometimes, but it doesn’t feel like it used to. A little of that is probably work related because we’re going through some software changes and that makes everyone tense, and my coworker/friend is still ghosting me. I haven’t heard from her since the latter part of January, so I figure we’re done and even if she apologized, I would tell her to keep walking. If there’s one thing I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older is being alone is better than having faux friends in your life. Even now I have no idea why she stopped talking to me, other than keeping up friendships needed too much energy for her. I get it–I’ve lost a few friends during my health issues and you just can’t help it if you don’t have the spoons. But running low on spoons doesn’t make it okay to completely drop off, for her, or for me, so don’t think I’m playing with double standards. It’s just tough to get used to, kind of like wrapping my mind around feeling better. I’m not feeling “best” or “normal” but I can’t expect to after so little of a time, and maybe never since I dove deeper into what she told me at my appointment and found out there’s no outright cure. But I guess my coworker’s timing isn’t that bad. She chose when I was feeling better at least, instead of kicking me while I was down.

So, all in all, life has calmed down for me a lot and I’m looking forward to getting this series out and hopefully a hot summer. We didn’t have much of a summer last year, and I wasn’t feeling well enough to enjoy it.

This is a huge blog post, so I should wrap it up for now. Thank you if you’ve made it this far. I appreciate you all more than words can say. I hope you have a wonderful Monday!

picture of author sitting on ground in front of flowers.

Text says, VM Rheault has written over twenty titles. When she's not writing, you can find her working her day job, sleeping, or enjoying Minnesota's four season's with a cup of coffee in hand.

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Vania Margene Rheault

Independent Contemporary Romance Author & Blogger

Category Archives: author update

Monday Musings and Author Update

Author Update and Separating the Art from the Artist

Creating a Community Around Your Books

Mid-Year Check-In

Finishing a Series and Author Update

Monday Musings: writing the next book (the state of the industry)

Author Update and Amazon’s New Stat

Author Update and Monday Musings

Author Update: King’s Crossing Series

Author Update and Vetting Your Book Cover Designer

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