Reality Bites: Visibility isn’t Conversion

Posted on October 19, 2026 by Vania Margene Rheault

Blog graphic with a dark charcoal background. On the left, a cute cartoon blue shark wears a black business suit, white shirt, and red tie while carrying a tan briefcase. On the right, beige brush-script lettering reads, “Reality Bites: Visibility isn’t Conversion.”

1,160 words
6 minutes read time

The writing/author community is pretty small, or at least, it feels like it is. You write a terrible review of an author’s book (in the name of honesty, of course) and six months later you’re sharing a lunch table with them at a book con and you’re embarrassed to introduce yourself. Or you mention them in a blog post and they DM you on Facebook and ask you to take it down. (That’s happened to me twice–true story!) It’s very, very easy to think that there are only hundreds of authors around, when, in fact, there are thousands of authors in the world, publishing books every year.

So, after I saw this author accusing Amazon of withholding sales after she had a Reel do moderately well, I thought it was time for a reality check. (Names hidden to protect the entitled.)

Not even gonna get into how many people sided with her in the comments.

I saw this one after I wrote this blog post, and I. Am. Speechless.

I think, while we write and publish in our little bubbles, that we forget how many books there are on Amazon at any given time.

According to profitable.app, there are approximately 12 million books in the Kindle store right now. While you’re reading this. This stat doesn’t include paperbacks or hardcovers or other marketplaces such as Kobo, Google Play, or Nook. That’s 12 million books your book is competing with if you publish on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. And if you’re enrolled in Kindle Select and your book is available to Kindle Unlimited subscribers, your book is competing with more than 4 million titles.

It’s actually kind of hard to wrap your mind around that. Especially if you’re wide–your book may be available in more places, but you’re dealing with that competition too. To the tune of:

Barnes & Noble / NOOK 4.5 million Ebooks available for sale
Google Play Books Over 10 million Ebooks and audiobooks combined
Apple Books Millions Ebooks and audiobooks; no precise count disclosed
Rakuten Kobo Over 5 million Ebooks and audiobooks combined

What exactly was that author, and many others like her that I see practically every day on Threads, complaining about? That her marketing wasn’t turning into sales and blaming Amazon for it? After reading those numbers, it’s not hard to see why. Readers have an enormous amount of choice, and it only gets larger every day.

When you put a piece of marketing in front of a potential reader, lots of things happen behind the scenes. Readers can fall in love with your quote/snippet, your character’s bio, your trope list. They can look up your book and buy it or borrow it in KU. I agree that’s the optimal outcome and the one I prefer too. But lots can happen besides that. A reader can fall in love with your piece of marketing, look up your book, and decide the blurb is flat or the price is too high. (That actually happened to me the other day. I saw a quote graphic on Facebook that I really liked, looked up her book and saw that her ebook was $9.99. I can’t afford that and clicked away.) Or your book is part of a series and they aren’t looking for a series to read right now. Or the opposite is true, and it’s a standalone and they were looking for a long series to read to get them through to the end of the year. Or, which is brown sadness water like a cup of decaf coffee, a person sees your piece of marketing . . and scrolls by.

Instagram doesn’t discern which of those actions a reader participates in, only that someone saw what you posted. There are no guarantees there or anywhere.

Especially since–and this is the part we don’t like to talk about–you could have a fabulous piece of marketing and your book just isn’t up to snuff. Bad cover, confusing title, the “look inside” full of typos. I mean, we really don’t like talking about that because that brings us around to AI books or trad books that are super popular that authors say sound like garbage. But when you’re looking at YOUR catalogue and wondering why readers aren’t buying YOUR books, it’s worth it to take an honest look at what you’re asking people to buy.

Nonetheless, I understand why we want someone to blame. It’s really, really hard out there right now. There’s too much choice, people are broke, and if readers are like most of us, they already have TBR lists that are so long that they could read until they died and not have to buy another book. So it’s easy to blame Amazon because they’re letting the AI books on their platform, Amazon acknowledges reporting delays and that KU page-read totals aren’t finalized until around the 15th of the following month, and everyone already hates them anyway because their slice of the pie is too big and there isn’t anything we can do about it.

But, despite all that there is wrong with Amazon–and I’m not blind or stupid, I know that there is a lot–I think it’s worth remembering that even though only something like 2% of people who say they want to write a book actually do, 2% of that number is still a really big number.

If you’re lucky to get the kind of visibility that author is getting with her Reels, remember that visibility isn’t conversion, and that sometimes you can do something about it (change your cover, refresh your blurb, put your book on sale for a bit and see what happens). Not always, and I understand that. I’ve experimented with a few other books on Reels, and some of them did well but the views didn’t turn into sales. If you have a large backlist, you have the luxury of experimenting. If not, all you can do is keep trying and hope the books you’re marketing eventually catch. No one said publishing is easy, and it really does seem to get harder every day. Keep trying and keep writing. It won’t be a consolation, but Wicked Games, the romantic suspense standalone I published in May of this year, has started to sell okay since I started sharing snippets on Reels. But that book only exists because I still wrote it and published it even when my other books weren’t selling. You can tell me to fuck off. That’s okay. I would have said the same thing to myself last year too.

This post is a little shorter than my usual ones, but they don’t all have to be 2,000 word monsters, either. So I’ll try to be good with what I’ve said here. Take a look at the top 100 books in your genre. How many of those authors do you know? Have you heard of? There are a lot of authors not on social media quietly making bank and keeping to themselves.

I don’t fault you if that’s your dream.

It’s mine too.

I’ll chat with you next week! Have a lovely Monday!

Monday Author Update

Posted on October 5, 2026 by Vania Margene Rheault

1,020 words,
5 minutes read time

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have a great week, everyone!

The Blame Game

Posted on September 28, 2026 by Vania Margene Rheault

2,062 words
11 minutes read time

Retro floral graphic with orange, peach, and dark green flowers arranged around opposite corners of a cream background. Bold black vintage-style lettering reads, “Blame does not resolve an issue. It only prolongs the problem.” — Byron Pulsifer.

Since I’ve been back from vacation, I have seen a lot of things online about blame, and I get it, you know? Times are hard, sales are low, and we look for excuses and people, companies, and platforms to point our fingers at.

It’s exhausting because sometimes there isn’t anyone to blame–things are just the way they are. And even if there is someone to blame, does it do any good? I’ve watched indie authors try to take on Amazon and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. When it doesn’t, it just makes authors more bitter, and when it does . . . they’re happy for a little bit until something else happens.

Let’s take a look at what we’ve been blaming lately:

The KDP Sales Dashboard
This has been going on for a long time, and because KDP/Amazon isn’t exactly known for its transparency, even if there was a glitch with reporting, I doubt they’d tell us much about it.

I’ve seen authors post “proof” that KDP’s reporting is broken because a customer service rep told them there was a known issue and that they were working on it. But do you really think those reps have the most up-to-date information? I doubt it. They can only tell you what Amazon has told them, and I’d be surprised if the people answering the customer service chats knew much more about what’s going on behind the scenes than we do.

And those poor reps probably deal with angry authors all day long. I don’t know why so many authors accuse them of gaslighting when they’re just trying to help to the best of their ability and go home at the end of their shifts.

Another thing that really bothers me is authors trying to “catch” Amazon holding back sales and page reads by asking their friends to buy their books and read them in KU. Amazon has stated that there’s a lag in reporting and that monthly KU page-read totals aren’t finalized until around the 15th of the following month. Why authors are determined to read their dashboards in real time and then get pissy about it is beyond me, and seeing those posts has actually made it so I really don’t like being on Threads anymore. There are a lot of reasons why your dashboard doesn’t reflect sales and page reads immediately. People read on airplane mode; readers aren’t charged for paperback copies until they ship out; credit card processing differs from credit card to credit card and bank to bank. Stop trying to read your dashboard in real time. It won’t do anything except make you mad.

At the end of the day, I truly doubt Amazon is trying to cheat us out of money. They’re a ginormous company, and yes, there are going to be days when things aren’t working right. But a reporting glitch (real or imagined) doesn’t automatically mean Amazon is deliberately withholding royalties. It would be nice if Amazon would be more transparent when things weren’t working correctly, but that’s the price of doing business with them. You can put up with it or publish elsewhere.

AI Slop
This might be a legitimate concern, until we think of the phrase “Other authors aren’t our competition.” We hear that a lot, and maybe you think it’s true, maybe you don’t, but I honestly don’t see the influx of AI-written books as competition. Yes, it’s infuriating, but we’ve had to deal with other influxes of bullshit before.

Remember back during COVID when everyone had a book in them, and with no gatekeeping, everyone was able to publish it? The number of books published increased significantly, and there wasn’t anything we could do about it. And before that, we had authors using ghostwriters, people selling each other already-published manuscripts, click farms generating page reads, and blah blah blah. There’s always going to be something getting in the way of organic discoverability.

And this circles back around to Amazon again. We call for Amazon to take the AI slop down, but can you imagine them paying enough people to manually vet every book before it’s published? And if I recall correctly (and I’m pretty sure I do), Draft2Digital implemented an account maintenance fee to help cover the costs of reviewing content, and everyone bitched about it. When Amazon does try to do something, like limit the number of books uploaded per week or ask authors to disclose AI-generated material, it’s never enough for anyone.

Do I wish the AI slop would go away? Of course I do. But that’s also like saying you wish authors wouldn’t publish shitty books. There are always going to be poor-quality books in the marketplace, whether they’re mass-produced AI slop from scammers or books written by authors who can’t afford editing or haven’t found their voice and style yet. I’m not saying those authors have the same intentions as scammers trying to game the system, but I am saying that poor-quality books aren’t a new problem, and readers have always had to sort through them to find something they want to read.

In the scheme of things, I don’t see AI slop as some new obstacle that makes it impossible for the rest of us to succeed. Indie publishing is open to everyone, and if it weren’t, there’s a good chance neither you nor I would be able to publish our books either.

The Algorithms
Just this morning I saw someone on Threads talking about how Instagram’s changing algorithms have tanked her writing career. Her reach has disappeared, and with it, her sales. I can understand why she’s frustrated. When you finally find something that works and the platform changes the rules on you, what are you supposed to do?

But the first thing you learn as an indie author is to never plant your seeds in someone else’s garden. Is it inevitable? Yes, yes it is. And I know I’m doing that exact thing by enjoying the sales boost posting Reels has given me. But I’ve always been realistic about the fact that, at some point, it will stop. It might not be this year or next year, but one day posting Reels won’t do anything, and I’ll have to figure out what to do next, if anything. I might even find myself back where I was on July 24th, 2026, the day before I posted my first Reel.

You can blame the algorithms, and you’d probably be right. Platforms change, reach disappears, and there’s not much you can do about it. But you also have to admit that you built part of your business around what that platform was giving you. That’s not necessarily a mistake–sometimes you have to take advantage of an opportunity while it’s there. The question is what you’re going to do when that opportunity disappears and you’re left with nothing but tumbleweeds.

This is where I struggle with my own advice.

Before I started posting Reels, I’d done just about everything I could think of, and nothing moved the needle. Not a newsletter, not running ads (I came out even but never ahead), and not buying newsletter promotions like FreeBooksy. So when I say authors need to have a plan for when the algorithms decide to jerk you around, I’m well aware that I don’t have one myself.

I could retry some things, like going back to TikTok or posting more consistently on Pinterest, since I never really gave that a chance. I could try something brand new like Lemon8. Or I could get discouraged and threaten to walk away like I did over the summer.

I’m not sure what I’ll do. But I do know that if Instagram changes its algorithm tomorrow and my sales disappear, spending my days blaming Instagram isn’t going to bring those sales back. I can be frustrated. I can even be angry. But eventually I’ll have to decide whether I want to try something else, keep writing without worrying about sales, or walk away from publishing altogether.

The Market
I actually haven’t seen anyone blaming the market for a while. We all know trends shift and subgenres die until they come back again like a vampire when the sun goes down.

Writing to market used to be a dirty phrase, but I don’t hear it much anymore. I don’t know if that’s because people have accepted it as a way to sell books or because authors who aren’t writing to market aren’t so vocal about it anymore. I’ve never had a problem with writing to market. In fact, when I started my pen name, I did it so I could write even more to market.

Reader preferences can change, but from what I can tell, dark romance and hockey are still having their moments. There was some talk that billionaires were out, but I only heard that from other authors, and I take their opinions with a grain of salt. I don’t write for other authors, so I don’t really care if they hate billionaires because Bezos, Musk, and other shitty men have ruined the genre for them.

What you write is one of the few variables you can control, and depending on how fast you can crank out a book, you might be able to catch the wave of whatever’s popular. Or you could switch to an established subgenre like romantic suspense or small-town romance. If you don’t write romance, maybe mystery thrillers or domestic suspense are more your thing. Freida McFadden has certainly attracted plenty of attention, and if that kind of storytelling appeals to you, you could explore it yourself.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that chasing a trend will result in sales, but at least choosing what to write gives you an opportunity to respond to the market instead of simply complaining about it.

There was also some talk on Substack about leveling up your craft and writing a better book. I blogged about that because when I first read it, I was offended. I would assume most of us try to write the best book we can every time we open a new document. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. It’s easy to grow stagnant, and plotting a new novel that requires you to stretch your skills could be exactly what you need to improve your craft. Wicked Games was my twistiest book to date, and I enjoyed the challenge of making sure everything fit together. It pushed me in ways my previous books hadn’t, and I’m glad I wrote it.

If your books aren’t hitting, though, it’s hard to tell whether the problem is what you’re writing or a lack of discoverability. You can write a wonderful book that nobody finds, just like you can market the hell out of a book that readers aren’t interested in, and sometimes you won’t know which problem you’re dealing with. That’s why I think it’s important to keep writing what you love. If the sales and reader interest aren’t there, the enjoyment you get from writing might be the only thing that keeps you going.

Playing the Blame Game isn’t much fun, and for me, there’s not a lot of point to doing it. There are always going to be things happening in the industry that affect sales, and there are always going to be companies like Amazon that are difficult, and maybe downright skeezy, to work with.

We can’t control any of that, but we do have to make choices about how we respond. We can pivot when it makes sense, try something new if we have the time and money, or recognize when something simply isn’t working anymore.

Maybe that means experimenting with a platform you haven’t tried before, like TikTok, or writing in a different subgenre. Maybe it means taking a break from writing and marketing and coming back when you feel better. Those are decisions only you can make. And while it’s understandable to be frustrated by things outside of your control, spending all your time blaming them won’t help you figure out what to do next.

So, remember, when sales are low and you’re discouraged, there might not be anyone to blame. Sometimes things are just the way they are and all you can do is push yourself through the muck and keep going.

When Something Finally Starts Working… Then What?

Posted on September 14, 2026 by Vania Margene Rheault

1,810 words
10 minutes read time

I almost stopped publishing.

Anyone following my blog knows that. I was doing too much work for too little in return, and for a really long time I was discouraged enough that I was thinking about walking away and not putting my books on Amazon anymore. I was still going to write–write for myself, write to give my books away–but I wasn’t going to write to publish. Ten years, 30+ books, and most days I wasn’t even making a dollar in royalties.

And the sad part was, it wasn’t because I wasn’t trying. I used Written Word Media newsletter promos, I tried ads. I tried a “real” newsletter (as opposed to my blog now), and I even gave away a full-length novel as a cookie. I did free book blasts and rapid released. I wrote the next book. Always wrote the next book because that book could be the one that changes everything. I did everything they tell you to do. No one could look back at the past ten years I’ve been publishing and say that I didn’t try.

Then I saw someone on Threads talking about Instagram Trial Reels, and I thought, meh, why not. I had already donated blood to TikTok so this wasn’t going to be much different. Eight weeks later, I’ve earned the equivalent of two of my paychecks.

Posting a Reel every day worked.

And now I’m in this strange place where after ten years I found something that moved the needle. After swearing up and down and sideways that there wasn’t a way to find traction or to level up.

It messes with your head.

I kept going back to thinking there was something I had done wrong, and when you produce books all alone, there’s plenty of room for error. Books that could have been edited better, covers that could have looked better. I’ve always edited to the best of my ability, and while your best at the time is always going to be your best at the time, it might not be the best there is, and that can hurt you. I’ve rushed releases and published covers that I didn’t like. Did any of that set me back? Maybe, but when I was advertising and pouring so much money into Facebook ads, quality is only half the problem. You have to get your books in front of readers first. Then they decide if your book is good enough to buy.

With this experiment, I’ve been really lucky. Really lucky and I’m not pretending that luck doesn’t play a huge part in this. I started doing snippets and hooks of my King’s Crossing serial. It’s darker than most of my other books, and the snippets where Zane is after Stella and he wants to kill her for betraying him do really well. I think that being on the fringes of “dark romance” has helped catch some of those readers, not to mention, the content is great for Reels. Especially since I don’t put sex in my snippets. I don’t want my account flagged, and posting ~~murder~~ danger and angst has worked so far. So, I feel like I had books that were geared for Reels and I have six in my serial, which is complete, so that’s another lucky thing to add to my list of lucky things. The covers are okay, most dark romance covers are object covers, but I like men and so far that hasn’t seemed to bother anyone.

I tried doing Reels of Twisted Alibis, the first book in my rockstar trilogy (mostly because I like the read-through concept), but even though I had a few Reels take off, those books didn’t sell, so I stopped. That’s another lucky thing, I guess. To know when to quit. I started doing snippets of Wicked Games instead, a standalone I call “King’s Crossing lite,” and after a couple of Reels that got really good views, that book started selling too.

But here’s an interesting thing: None of my backlist is moving. Which means readers aren’t exploring what else I’ve written. Obviously, no one has time to make videos for every book in their backlist and I have no desire to try to push a boulder up a mountain, either. I keep coming back to something Bryan Cohen said while I was doing one of his Amazon ad challenges so many years ago: advertise the books that sell. Not all of them will hit, so don’t waste your energy on the ones that don’t. And it’s true. I’ve done everything to get my Cedar Hill Duet to go, especially after I re-edited them and redid their covers. They’ve always had a lukewarm reception with anything I’ve tried to do with them and sometimes you just have to walk away.

It’s not hard to see that my King’s Crossing serial is going to be my bread and butter. The other books in my backlist don’t really compare to the fucked-up plot and those abused characters.

This leaves me in some kind of a strange limbo. I’ll keep doing Reels for those books, using the same hook and snippets (I try to mix up the b-roll and there’s plenty on Canva to choose from so it’s not too hard) over and over. I don’t do Reels for books four through six because I don’t want readers to like Gage and Zarah and then realize there are three books before them they have to read first. I’ve had readers ask if they can skip book one, and I’ve had to say no. I don’t know if that influences their buying choices or not. And I’ll keep doing Reels for Wicked Games, at least until I have another new release. I don’t know how well Bitter Love will do, and I’m hoping that if hockey is still trending next year (and I think it will be with the second season of Off Campus coming to Prime, HBO doing the second season of Heated Rivalry, and Netflix picking up Icebreaker) I’ll try Frozen Assets and Cold Mercy when they’re published.

Under all this, though, is the fear that one day this will stop giving me the results that I’ve already come to optimistically enjoy (trust me, it didn’t take long LOL). At some point, it will, right? I’m going to Florida this week and for the past three weeks, I’ve been making a “Reels stash” so I have them made to post while I’m gone. I don’t want to break the consistency that I’ve built. I started posting on July 25th and haven’t skipped a day. I know some of my “success” is posting consistently, and I see that in view bumps of older Reels when I post something new. I suppose that’s not a surprise, but I don’t think consistency is something authors take seriously enough. On the other hand, it’s difficult to consistently do something that consistently produces nothing. When I was running Amazon Ads, and to some extent, posting on TikTok and not being able to escape their 200 view prison, I saw that too.

And then you have the platform itself, and we learned that terrible lesson with TikTok. I saw creator careers crumble overnight. Over the years I have said similar things: Don’t plant your vegetables in someone else’s garden. And I still believe that, even if you can’t help it. I don’t have a “real” newsletter anymore and I haven’t gotten any new signups on my blog. I’ve gotten over 800 new followers on my Facebook Author Page, but that only gives Zuckerberg more slices of my pie. My views and visitors on my author website have gone up, though, and so has my follower count on my Amazon Author page, so that’s something at least.

A change will happen, at some point, and all you can do is hope for the best and be prepared for the worst.

To finally have an audience for (some) of my books is surreal to say the least. Interest in something I’ve written after ten years of struggling to be seen.

Where am I going to go from here? Keep doing what I’m doing. I actually like making Reels because I’m not stretching myself thin. I don’t use a service like Authorloom, and I’m not interested in posting 10-30 Reels a day. I post two every day: one for Wicked Games and one for King’s Crossing. At first I decided not to do Reels for Wicked Games while I was gone, but the bump in sales was too much to resist, so I spent most of the weekend making extras. I know how lucky I am that making Reels is easy: writing the hook, finding the snippet, and writing the caption takes time and practice if you want to snag a reader’s attention. I have the time to make them and I also know that not everyone does. There were a lot of things that came together to make this work, and I would never discount any of them.

But I think through all this, the biggest takeaway for me was that I wasn’t tired or bitter enough to try one more thing. If you’re discouraged, it’s easy to think that nothing will work so there’s no point in trying. I could have tried Reels a long time ago, but I was resentful that it was just another thing to put on my list of shit I had to do. Then after seeing so many authors say they worked, I was just like, Fuck it. I’ll try it too. There was no harm in it besides a couple of lost hours, so I wouldn’t be out much. It took me a few Reels to get into a groove that worked, now making them and posting them is part of my daily routine. Just like writing this blog on Fridays. You do it long enough and it’s a part of your business.

Things will change. They always do. I’ve seen a lot in the past ten years.

I could end with something pithy, but I’ve philosophized enough here in the past couple of years. But I can say this with all the honesty in the world. I will always keep writing. I love putting characters through hell so they reach their happily ever afters. Even if I’m the only one who will read them.

If you want to take a look at my Reels, you can find them here: https://www.instagram.com/vaniamargenerheault/reels/ Trial Reels are hidden, but I started putting the majority on my regular profile because I was getting more views there.

I will be out of office this week and I won’t have a blog post for Monday, September 21st. Behave, and I’ll tell you how my vacation went. 🐚🐬

Have a good week, everyone!

Preorders and Promises

Posted on September 7, 2026 by Vania Margene Rheault

1,422 words
8 minutes read time

Blog graphic with peach and cream flowers and watercolor accents framing the words “Preorders & Promises” in black script.

Kindle Direct Publishing created some buzz last week when they announced that they extended their preorder window to eighteen months instead of the twelve months that we were allowed previously, and let you push back a preorder date two times. Once without penalty and the second time suspending your preorder privileges for six months.

From what I can tell, there were a lot of happy people. One reason is because not many people think Amazon treats indie authors well, and when Amazon does do something positive, it’s cause for celebration. The other is, well, I guess indie authors are going to take advantage of the longer preorder period.

Preorders are a slippery slope. You want to create excitement for your book and announcing a preorder is a way to do that. You can have a link for your CTA and start posting on socials, tell your newsletter, and start running ads. But over the ten years I’ve been in the business, authors tend to get a little overzealous, maybe a little too industrious, and pretty soon they’re canceling their preorder because the book isn’t ready.

Let me tell you a story. An acquaintance of mine has been talking about her newest release since May, maybe even before that. She put her book up on preorder under a pen name, and I preordered it because, you know, I wanted to read it. Then she took it down. I asked her what happened and she said she didn’t know when she wanted to publish it or if she even would. I can understand that publishing is kind of grueling, especially right now, and I forgot about it. Then I saw on social media that she put the preorder up under her main author name, and I got excited and preordered it again. She has long preorder times, two months or so (I consider that long, LOL) but I was excited that I was finally going to be able to read it. Then she announced that she was pushing back her preorder date again. After waiting so long to read it, I gave up and canceled it. I felt like she had jerked me and any other hopeful reader who wanted to finally get the book into their hands around too much. She lost a reader, and maybe more than me. Preorders are promises and when you break them, you break a reader’s trust.

I was a little surprised when I heard that Amazon had relaxed their guidelines and gave indies more time. They are all about giving customers a positive experience, and pushing back or canceling a preorder is not doing that. I also don’t think that’s going to solve the issue I see: indies overpromising and under-delivering. Some indies use a deadline as a way to encourage their productivity, and I guess I can understand that if you’re the type of person who thrives under pressure. But a lot of indies crumble, and what they thought was an exciting announcement turns into a noose around their necks a year later.

How do you decide if using a preorder is right for you? Here are some tips:

Be honest with your own capabilities and limitations.
If you’ve never written a book in a year before, you probably won’t start now. There’s more to a preorder than just writing. You do have to get the book finished, but you also have to edit it, have it formatted, and have a cover made, which all takes a lot more time than it sounds. Eighteen months may seem like a lot of time, but if your editor rips your book apart, that time can disappear.

Ask yourself why you want to do a preorder.
Preorders are not magical. They take the same amount of time and effort to market as anything else. Sometimes more. Readers want the thing the second they want the thing and you’re asking them to wait however many months to have it. I mean, eighteen months might not sound long to you because you’re working on the book. But to a reader–that’s a year and a half. A reader can read a hundred books in that time. Unless you’re a well-known author with a loyal fanbase who’s willing to wait, chances are you’re not going to find many who will. So ask yourself why you want to do a preorder and what your plan is to put that link in front of readers who will click.

Figure out how long you really need, and be smart about it
I’ve seen a lot of authors panic because they’re locked out of their book’s content and they’re not able to change the placeholder file to the completed file. Then it goes out to their readers and I’ve seen plenty of authors get mad about it and blame Amazon for locking them out. It’s better to put a book on preorder when you have the book done, or at least almost done (whatever that means to you) and you have a cover that you can upload that won’t need to be swapped out. Just because Amazon is giving you eighteen months doesn’t mean you need the entire eighteen months. The length of your preorder should serve a purpose, and everyone’s purpose is going to be different. The longer you ask someone to wait, the more opportunities there are for them to lose interest, forget why they wanted it, cancel it, or simply tackle their TBR. Personally, I would prefer to finish my book without telling anyone than putting my book on preorder and having to add marketing to my schedule so people know it exists. (Because if you don’t, your preorder number will be 0 and there’s no fun in that.)

Putting your book on preorder eighteen months before release is potentially giving yourself eighteen months of marketing a book no one can read yet. That’s a long time to keep readers interested, especially when you’re competing with books that they can buy and read right away. Unless you have a specific reason for needing that much time, you may be creating more work for yourself without getting much in return. Finishing the book first and using a shorter preorder period gives you something concrete to market without asking readers to wait a year and a half for the payoff.

Don’t use your readers as an accountability tool.
I understand that authors can plan out their preorders and stick to the schedule. I watched a 20booksto50k talk with Elana Johnson, and if she hasn’t changed how she publishes, she plans to release three or four preorders a year. She also writes full-time and has for many years. She doesn’t need an accountability partner. Writing and publishing is her job. But if you need an accountability partner, perhaps there’s a better option than Amazon. Every day I see people hating on Amazon so I’m not sure why you would willingly turn one of the most unstable publishing partners out there into a tool that can actually interfere with your book business if you mess up.

I’ve also said this before and no one liked it: Break too many promises and all you are is a liar. Readers are not going to trust you if you back out of a preorder too many times. They just won’t. Maybe one day I’ll buy that book I canceled, or maybe I’ll forget about it after I get over being mad. I’m sure she had her reasons for doing what she did, but those reasons aren’t my business. All I wanted was to read her book. I don’t know if she’ll notice that I canceled my preorder. Maybe. She probably wants that number to go up and not down. But it’s an author’s job to follow through, not my job to give her unlimited understanding. There are better ways to hold yourself accountable. You don’t need to set up a preorder so far into the future we’ll get the next season of Bridgerton first.

Are KDP’s changes a good thing? Undoubtedly people think so. Especially since they changed how they’ll reprimand you if you have to change a preorder date. But I think these changes also come with drawbacks that may not be evident right now. We’ll see how it goes.

Good luck to you and your publishing schedule. And if you need an accountability buddy, I offer up Pim for her services. She’ll keep her eye on you!

tuxedo cat peeking over the edge of an amazon cardboard box

Have a great week ahead!

The Last Monday Author Update of the Summer!

Posted on August 31, 2026 by Vania Margene Rheault

1,393 words
7 minutes read time

Summer-themed blog graphic with a turquoise wooden background and vacation items along the left side, including seashells, a sun hat, camera, airplane, football, and travel accessories. Large black text reads, “The Last Monday Author Update of the Summer!”

Hello, hello! I hope you had an excellent summer! I know, summer isn’t technically over yet, but when September first rolls around, we all know what that means–🎃 🍂 ☕️–and after a truly lovely summer, I am ready for it.

First, I want to thank all the editors who stepped up and actually answered the questions when they volunteered to do the interviews. It kind of amazes me that so many editors said they wanted to fill out my interview questions for the blog and then just . . . didn’t. I don’t know how they think they are running their businesses, but it kind of made me give them side-eye. Anyway, it was really nice having that editing series going on the side, and I sincerely want to thank everyone who gave me their time.

Things here are going okay. I’m closing in on 70k words for Cold Mercy, and I have a feeling I have at least 20k more words to go until I’m done, if not more. I’m not sure how this plot got so involved, and it’s not a bad thing, but Frozen Assets finished at barely 80k words. When I go back over it, I’ll have to see if there are any areas that could use some plumping up. I wrote it pretty quickly, so chances are good that some scenes and chapters are thin.

But inspiration abounds, and I have quite a few standalones planned after these are done and I get Bitter Love ready to publish. I still don’t think I’m going to publish again this year. Editing and packaging always takes longer than I think it will, especially since I haven’t made a cover that I want to keep, and if you don’t have a holiday romance, November and December are pretty useless months to publish in. It’s better to wait until after the New Year and start fresh with a new book in the middle of January.

I haven’t given you numbers in a long time, and in July I did a free promo of both Captivated by Her and Addicted to Her. I didn’t do much for them except post on social media and send out newsletter. Though my open and click rates were surprisingly good with an open rate of 29% and 34 clicks (which is a 5% click rate). I haven’t had that many clicks in a long time.

Screenshot of analytics for the post “My Cedar Hill Duet is FREE for a li…” showing the numbers 289, 29.07%, 34, and 5.02%.

It’s humorous that each book got exactly the same number of downloads, though for a little bit Addicted was ahead, mostly I assume, by readers who had gotten Captivated for free at a different time. I wouldn’t call that promo a rousing success, but hopefully I got some fresh eyes on that duet at least. There has always been something not quite right with that duet, and I don’t think they’ll ever get the readers I want them to have. Even after deeply editing both books and giving them new covers.

Screenshot showing two book titles in a dashboard list. “Captivated by Her” appears beside its cover with the number 127, and “Addicted to Her” appears below with its cover and the number 127.

I also put Rescue Me in Zoe York’s book blast that took place in August, and gave away 1460 copies. I gave the bulk away on the day her blast went live, but I used my free days before and after it as well, and that was the total I ended up with. Because it’s a standalone, I can’t expect any kind of read-through tail but I’m hoping that readers put me on their list of authors they enjoy reading.

Screenshot showing the book “Rescue Me” in a dashboard list beside its cover, with the number 1,460 displayed on the right.

I still believe in the power of free, especially since I started doing reels and I’m ~~finally~~ finding readers after all this time. I’ve had a spike in website visitors and have given away a lot of copies of My Biggest Mistake. Of course, I have no idea if that does anything besides establish some goodwill toward readers since they don’t even have to give me their email address to have access to it. I’m not sure when I’ll do another free promo with any of my books. I could put A Heartache for Christmas on sale in November and December and see what that does, but I don’t like messing with my books after they’ve been published, and I’ve heard of authors getting their accounts terminated when they change their prices. Which is strange, but half the things Amazon does don’t make sense. Maybe I’ll just do another free promo, or maybe I’ll do nothing. It’s only a standalone so I’m not even sure if it matters. I do know I won’t pay to give it away. Getting a couple of trial reels to take off on Instagram would do more for it than paying for a spot in a Written Word Media newsletter.

My reels continue to do well, at least for me and what I know. I’ve seen some authors post views in the hundreds of thousands, and I have yet to crack above 100k in views. I did have one that got up to 90k which has been my best one yet, but I think anything above 5k is good and I’m content with the reach I’ve been able to find. Luckily, I have the time to keep making them and I haven’t skipped day since I started at the end of July. Mostly I’ve been doing my King’s Crossing serial, focusing on books one and two. I feel that if I go deeper into the serial that people will get annoyed they have so many books to read before they get to the part that was in the reel they liked. That might not make a difference, but I know I’m disappointed when I see a promo for a later book in a series. It’s just my way to need to start at the beginning, and it probably is for a lot of other people too. There’s plenty of material in books one and two, and so far, I’ve reused very little. Eventually I’ll have to because not every scene is reel-worthy, and at some point I’d probably go against KDP’s guidelines of not having the book be available anywhere else. Just kidding, though it seems like I’ve put a lot of my books up as it is.

I have to laugh because before I started doing reels, a friend and I were talking, and she said, it can’t be that easy, and yes, dear reader, it was that easy. If it had been TikTok-challenging, I probably would have quit. Not all my reels do well, but at least I’ve had some that pop as opposed to when I was on TikTok and every view felt like I was fighting for my life.

As for what I have going on right now, I’m just doing reels consistently and trying to finish Cold Mercy. I was skimming over Jordan and Jesse in Bitter Love, and I’m getting excited to work on them next. While I edit, I need to get on with the cover. I still might put it on my website for free for a bit, and then put it on Amazon with a different cover. I’d like to have paperbacks printed to sell and give away as well, but I’ll have to figure out the logistics of connecting a store to my author website. Then it seems like you can’t sell paperbacks direct to readers if you’re not offering swag, so I’d have to look into stickers and/or postcards featuring the small town they live in. All that sounds like a lot, but I wanted to do stuff that I’ve never done before, so doing it with that book would give me practice to give my hockey books a fun launch.

That’s really about all I have this week. I’m going to Florida from September 15th to the 22nd (flying out on the 15th and returning on the 22nd) so I may take the break that I’ve been hinting at. It will be enough to batch reels for the days I’ll be gone because I don’t want to lose the momentum I’ve been able to build. I can plan ahead, put them in drafts, and then post one every morning. You guys would get along without me for a couple of weeks, right? Hopefully. As long as I don’t take my Canva tutorial down. Just kidding! Kind of.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with that. Have a lovely week, and happy September! 🍁 🥮

PR, Advertising, and the Myth of Being Online

Posted on August 17, 2026 by Vania Margene Rheault

2,322 words
12 minutes read time

Last Wednesday I had to do my errands alone and that means having to put everything away by myself when I get home. It’s not so bad, but it’s tedious if I don’t have my son’s help, so I decided to see if my favorite podcast had any new episodes.

I love listening to Print Run, and I’ve talked about them in the past. The podcast is hosted by two agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and I listen for industry news. I don’t ever plan to query, but I like keeping up-to-date on what’s going on since indie publishing is a part of that. Anyway, so I started listening to their April episode, Mahjong on the Telephone. In it, they talk about Helen DeWitt winning, and then losing, the Windham-Campbell Prize ($175,000!!) after her reluctance to be online and participate in promotional activities resulted in the prize’s board yanking the cash away from her. Erik and Laura speculated that the era of the eccentric author only surfacing when they’ve published a new book is gone and that authors are now required to be online all the time.

They were frustrated because from their standpoint, being on social media doesn’t sell books. In fact, Erik said, and I’m borrowing from the transcript here, “You have to like be pretty on Instagram. Which is crazy because it also, that doesn’t move books. Like that’s the thing. It’s like the same like digital media pivot to video. I don’t think it’s making irony of it all. It’s like, this shit doesn’t even work. It doesn’t.”

And this is where I laughed because being pretty on Instagram might not sell books, but posting snippets of your books sure does, and I have proof of that from the Reels experiment I’ve been doing for the past couple of weeks. I’m kind of mystified that as a romance agent (among other genres) Laura agreed with him. If anyone should know what sells romance books on social media, it should be her. But we’re talking about two different kinds of being online, and after the past ten years of being online as an author, I know the kind of activity they’re talking about definitely does not sell books.

PR and advertising aren’t the same thing.
A long time ago, I heard someone say that public relations is for the author as a person and advertising is for the book, and until someone explains that, it doesn’t make much sense. You are the author. You are the book.

PR can be chopped into activities like interviews, podcast appearances, author photos, personal social-media posts, Q&As, appearances, “day in my life” content, posts about the writing process, and lifestyle content (pets, kids, vacations, etc). Most advertising consists of hooks, snippets, tropes, emotional premises, covers with sales copy and reader reviews, and anything else specifically designed to make a reader want this book. There can be some overlap, especially once you build a loyal readership, but simply being visible online isn’t necessarily advertising. And you can test it yourself by asking this: Do your readers care if you ate breakfast outside this morning or do they want the juiciest snippet from your newest release? Do your readers care that you went for a walk then wrote two hours, or do they care about the first time your FMC and your MMC kissed, and you let them read some of that scene? There’s marketing yourself as an author and there’s marketing your book and what it has inside that will appeal to your audience. Nobody cares if I ate a Clif bar for breakfast, but they want to know why Stella thinks Zane isn’t going to love her anymore.

Being online isn’t the same as posting content to sell books. That’s why the statement “Instagram doesn’t sell books” is too broad. It can. And it does. Thousands of indies know that and use it every day.

But the “pretty on Instagram” problem is real, and I’ve seen on Threads people talking about “pretty privilege” and how conventionally attractive authors have more followers, get more traction online–especially on BookTok–and presumably sell more books. I saw a good example of that just the other day when I was scrolling Instagram and came across Melanie Harlow’s post:

Author Melanie Harlow poses in front of bookshelves and a bright blue floral background, wearing a strapless green top and jeans. Large pink and white text reads, “Kinda Chic To… Melanie Harlow Edition.” — screenshot taken from her IG account. You can see her posts here: https://www.instagram.com/melanie_harlow/

This is not giving shade to Melanie at all. Obviously, she’s gorgeous, but she’s also kind and gives back to the indie community. I watched a romance talk with her on the Writer’s Atelier a couple of years ago, and she’s so nice and smart. She’s just the perfect example of what people mean when they talk about pretty privilege. But we also know, even if we don’t want to admit it, that it takes more than blonde hair and a size six figure to keep readers. Your books have to be good, and hers must be for her to keep the kind of success she has and has been able to build. It wouldn’t be fair not to say that she has an advantage that some of us don’t–being charismatic and photogenic has benefits outside the book industry too–but showing your face isn’t the only way to use Instagram. Keeping the book the content instead of turning yourself into the product works just as well or even better. It’s the lucky few who can market both ways.

When Social Media Started Selling Books
I’ve been on social media for many many years as an author, and it was a humbling experience to realize that social media/followers don’t sell books. You’ll get your friends to buy a few copies, but just simply posting on social media will not sell books in the number that most authors would like. It’s a pipe dream to hope that if you have 14,000 followers somewhere like Twitter, that when you publish a book you’ll sell 14,000 copies (or even 7,000 copies if we’re being “realistic.”) And that’s usually because when you’re an author you get sucked into the #writingcommunity, where it’s well known that while writers read, they don’t read enough to make their friends bestsellers. So a lot of being online as an author is posting word counts, the weird way your cat sleeps, and the cup of coffee you drank before bed. I have posted all of that, and it didn’t sell books. When BookTok came about, or really, TikTok in general, I didn’t hop on the bandwagon because I thought I already had evidence that posting all those things, but now in video form, wouldn’t sell books and I didn’t want to waste my time. But then readers started talking about books in a different way. Books they couldn’t put down. Scenes that wrecked them. Male characters that made them swoon. Even books that were published many years earlier started taking off.

Authors noticed. They started posting snippets and POV hooks of their own, and with a few viral videos, some of their careers took off. Authors started advertising emotion, and book marketing as we know it has never been the same.

Doing My Own Instagram Experiment
I’m pretty stubborn. When I say I don’t want to do something, I mean it. And if you try to get me to do it, you’ll usually get a big “fuck off.” So, it does take a lot for me to come around to something people are doing, even with a lot of evidence. Last month, I came upon this Threads post by Jessica Gadziala, and I just said “fuck it” in a different way and decided what the hell. I was going to give Reels a try.

You can find the Thread here along with more tips from Jessica in the comments: https://www.threads.com/@jessicagadziala/post/Da9J5bQji2S

I had already done some form of this last year when I was on TikTok briefly before they starting accusing me of using AI to make my carousels. I hadn’t seen much benefit to being on there before that (as in, boost in readers/sales), so it wasn’t a big loss to me to delete my account in a fit of rage. I missed making carousels and videos though, and seeing Jessica’s post gave me the kick I didn’t know I was looking for to try Reels on Instagram. I’m glad I did. Copying Jessica’s style, I found snippets and wrote hooks, and when one of my first videos went viral, you can see that sales suddenly moved too. I posted the video in my Trial Reels on Instagram on July 26th.

Black-and-white Instagram Reel featuring a rainy window and record player, with a highlighted excerpt from Cruel Fate. Text above reads, “Zane made one mistake and it cost him the only thing he ever wanted. Stella.” The reel has 63.5K views.

You can literally see the impact on my sales dashboard:

Bar chart of estimated book royalties from July 1 through August 15, 2026. Royalties remain near zero through most of July, begin rising sharply around July 28, peak above $100 on August 1, and remain elevated afterward, with another spike to about $50 on August 15. — Screenshot taken on August 15th, when the author wrote this post

Admittedly, it takes more than one viral reel to keep royalties up, and since the one I posted on July 26th, I’ve had a quite a few do normal numbers (anywhere from 200 views to the thousands). The aggravating thing is you don’t know why a reel takes off and because you don’t know why, you can’t dependably replicate it. Unlike Jessica, I haven’t reused any content, and I’ve made each reel with fresh content every time. I’m afraid that if I do reuse snippets and hooks that my account will be dinged for duplicate content, but I have enough juicy scenes that I haven’t needed to recycle snippets anyway.

You might say that correlation doesn’t equal causation and you’d be right, but I also wasn’t doing anything else marketing-wise, like ads. My sales before the reels are pretty clear from the graph.

So does Instagram sell books? It did for me, but I wasn’t posting pictures of my new pedicure either.

When You Don’t Want to Advertise This Way
It’s perfectly fine not to want to advertise this way. There’s a learning curve to finding a snippet, thinking of a hook, and writing a description that ties everything together. Then you have to learn how to put the reel together inside Instagram’s app, and it took me watching a tutorial on YouTube to figure out how to place the snippet and be able to move it around. And on top of that, you have to learn how to make the snippet with the highlights and I just told someone on Threads how I do it in Canva, and I might have saved her life. (Just kidding, kind of.) All of that is what kept me from trying. I had put time into TikTok and I was resentful I had to learn another app.

You might have other reasons too, like you don’t want to show off your work or you think the blurb is enough. Maybe you’re worried about theft and don’t want your prose floating around online. Those are all valid choices, but keep in mind not wanting to advertise this way isn’t the same thing as believing this way won’t work. I didn’t want it to work because I didn’t want to try it. But I saw Jessica’s post and decided to see for myself if it would work or not. With what I was throwing out there, it did. And I’m grateful I have a low-stress, even fun, way to spread the word around about my books.

It’s Not About Being Online–It’s What You Put There
In a way, Erik was right. Being online doesn’t sell books. I lived that for many many years. I had Twitter, I had Instagram, and I had my Facebook author page. I’ve been blogging since before I should have been. None of that sold books, but I enjoyed myself anyway. I made lots of friends. I’ve helped people with this blog. I got really good at making graphics. I know the things I know (like making paperback covers in Canva) because I dove into the indie community with both feet. And I have no regrets. I love living the indie life. He’s also right in that authors shouldn’t have to turn themselves into personalities or influencers to get attention online. We’re entitled to keep some things private, or for goodness’ sakes, just work on our books, and if you want to know the hard truth, most readers aren’t going to care about a lot of what you think they want to know. They’re looking for something good to read, and if you’re the one who can provide that, all the better.

It’s rather embarrassing that after ten years in the business I’m still stumbling around the internet looking for ways to sell books that actually work. And posting a snippet and a hook on Reels has produced results for me, for now. That doesn’t mean it always will and it also means that not everyone is going to get it to work for them. For every success story on Threads, I see five people who say they can’t find traction, for whatever reason. They aren’t the magic bullet to sales.

But after typing all of this, I think the real takeaway is this:

PR = Here I am.
Advertising = Here’s my book.

And advertising might be the preferable way to go for a lot of people.

Here’s Pim sleeping weird for the cat tax. And also, buy my book. Cruel Fate is on sale for .99.

Fluffy black-and-white cat lies upside down with paws curled in the air, lounging partly inside a large open cardboard box and partly on crumpled packing paper.

Thanks for reading this monster of a post today. I’m not sure if listening to podcasts is good or bad, but I love Print Run and the topics they cover. You can find them wherever you listen to podcasts.

I have one last editor Q&A that I’ll post next week because it’s been a while since she got back to me and I don’t want her to think I forgot about her. I enjoyed reading them and I appreciate the time everyone gave me. I hope you enjoyed them too and that you picked up something along the way.

Take care this week, and I will chat with you soon!

Author Transparency (again) and Author Update

Posted on August 10, 2026 by Vania Margene Rheault

1,150 words
6 minutes read time

Blog header graphic featuring a light wood desktop with coffee, flowers, a pen, glasses, and earbuds. Text reads, “Author Transparency (Again) & Author Update.”

A week ago or so, I was scrolling Threads as I do while I’m waiting for my daughter to get out of work or something, and there was an author who posted a screenshot of her KDP author dashboard in the name of “author transparency.” It showed she had made $13,000 in one month. I didn’t save it, and I wish I would have because along with the usual “Congratulations” posts, she said that she was getting nasty emails from throwaway email addresses accusing her of bragging.

This made me wonder how much good author transparency posts actually do. To be honest, I don’t think they accomplish much without context—and that context rarely fits in a Threads post. Because those numbers don’t always inspire hope. They evoke defensiveness, anxiety, and sometimes, hostility.

It’s worth taking a look at why that is, and I can tell you why because when I see posts like that, I feel it.

It’s annoying and frustrating because you don’t know how they got there, and unless they blog about it or write a lengthy post in an author group like 20Booksto50k, you’re not going to know. You could do a little snooping (if they aren’t making that money with a pen name you’re not aware of) and see how many books they have out and how many books they consistently publish in a year. You can look at their Facebook ad library and see if they’re running ads or if you scroll through their author page maybe you can ferret out if they run regular promotions. But even if you do all that, you’re still not seeing the whole picture. They could have gone viral on TikTok or an influencer could have hyped them up. They could be paying a PR company. Every algorithm out there could love them. Maybe it’s all of the above.

Ironically, there are people who ask for this kind of transparency, and they accuse authors of gatekeeping if they don’t want to share their numbers. What I don’t think they realize is those numbers don’t mean a whole heck of a lot if you don’t have the why and how behind them. And you and I know the why and how can be anything from the genre they write in to how quickly they publish.

Do I think authors need to stop sharing? I don’t post my numbers on places like Threads because I know how useless it really is. I mean, you don’t need to have the why and how if you’re posting zeroes, but on the flip side, those zeroes come with their own story that you should be prepared to tell. When I talk about my numbers here, that gives me space to explain what I’m doing or not doing and I believe that’s more helpful than posting a screenshot of your dashboard and saying, “If I can do it, you can too!”

In this current industry climate, I think authors who share their large numbers are going to be on the receiving end of some bad feelings. The publishing industry isn’t in the best place right now, AI is taking over, and it feels like there are even more real authors out there writing and publishing books than ever before. Someone who manages to cut through all that and say that they’re making a living wage isn’t going to be viewed as helpful when they post their dashboard screenshots because they’re sharing a destination that doesn’t feel reachable. I mean, let’s be real. If it was easy, more people would be doing it.

What do you think about author transparency? Do big numbers get you down or are they inspirational? Let me know in the comments.

In the name of author transparency [insert smirking emoji here] I do have some semi-positive thoughts to share about my own numbers. Lately I’ve been trying Trial Reels on Instagram that I talked about in my last blog post, and for a little while they worked. I had a couple take off, one even getting 62.1k views. I have never posted anything in my life (that’s not true, on Threads I posted a picture of some turkeys I saw on my way home from dropping off recycling that got over 64k views but I don’t count that) that has gotten that much attention. And then I had some smaller ones that took off (44.6k and 47.3k) and then had one that I forgot to make a trial reel and it was just a normal one on my profile that got up to 11.2k before dying. I hate to admit that those reels did result in a bump in sales. You can tell they worked too, because looking at my dashboard, it’s just obvious:

Amazon KDP royalties bar chart for the last 30 days. Royalties were very low through most of July, then rose sharply beginning July 28, peaking at just over $100 on August 1 before gradually declining again through August 8.

But you can also see that I haven’t been able to keep it up, and the reels I’ve been posting now are more like what I was getting when I was on TikTok, barely making it past 300 views. I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to keep that up long-term, but it was still a downer when it happened, and I wish that kind of luck hadn’t happened so quickly. Trying to keep your expectations at a reasonable level is really hard. But it does tell me that I have marketable books that people want to read, so I’ll keep feeding the machine because you never know what will hit just right that will cause another bump.

Screenshot of an Instagram Reels grid showing several book promotion reels. Most feature highlighted excerpts from romance and romantic suspense novels over dark or blurred video backgrounds, with short hook text above the excerpts. Reel view counts range from a few dozen to over 11,000. — Screenshot of my regular Instagram Reels. You can see them here: https://www.instagram.com/vaniamargenerheault/reels/

Screenshot of my Instagram Trial Reels grid showing nine book promotion reels. Several received tens of thousands of views, including reels with 16,000, 44,600, 47,300, and 62,100 views, while others received fewer than 2,000. — Screenshot of my regular Instagram Reels. You can see them here: https://www.instagram.com/vaniamargenerheault/reels/

As for what I’m doing now, it feels like my free time is being sucked away minute by minute, and I just haven’t been finding the time to write like I have in the past. I’m only 40k words into Cold Mercy, which, I guess is a milestone since I don’t plan for it to get past 80k, keeping in range with Frozen Assets, but I just kind of thought that since I have the whole book plotted out that I’d be further along. Still, I’m having fun with the characters, and when it’s done, I’ll let them both breathe for a while and flip back over to Bitter Love to get that ready for whenever I want to put it up. Despite my recent “success” such as it is, I’m still going to give that away for a while before publishing it, and I probably won’t do ARCs for it either. The results for Wicked Games weren’t worth the hassle, and it feels like the ARC environment is changing into something that I don’t want to be a part of anymore. If readers bump into the book and want to leave a review when it’s possible, that’s fine, but I’m going to stop asking and hoping.

I think that’s all I have for this week!

Have a great Monday!

End-of-July Author Update

Posted on July 27, 2026 by Vania Margene Rheault

1,666 words
9 minutes read time

Dark floral image featuring delicate white wildflowers against a blurred woodland background with the words "Author Update" in elegant script.

It’s the end of July, which means the summer is two-thirds over. It’s going by so fast, but I’ve done a couple of things like take a road trip to Bismarck, North Dakota with my sister and daughter, and we drove to a town forty-five minutes from here to go to their zoo. We have a couple of other things we’d like to do, like go to another town forty-five minutes away in a different direction and play lake tourist there, and possibly go to the zoo here in Fargo, ND, though it’s smaller and more expensive. We didn’t go last summer, so that’s on our maybe list, and if it works out, it works out.

This week is terrible with things to do, like my daughter’s follow-appointment for her wisdom teeth surgery she had done last week, and my own dentist appointment for a cleaning Thursday afternoon. My son has a dermatology appointment that same day and adding all that to the normal grind of life, maybe you shouldn’t try to get a hold of me until Sunday because there’s a high possibility I’ll be a quivering lump of jelly on the floor come Friday morning. Which is too bad because I have to work.

But, sometimes stuff is just crammed together and there’s nothing you can do. The good news is August should be slower, and my main goal is to finish Cold Mercy. Only because my sister, daughter, and I are planning to go to Florida for a week in September, and it would be nice to get it done so I can put it aside mentally and enjoy the first vacation I’ve had in over seven years. My daughter hasn’t been on a plane since she was about ten (she’s twenty now) so she’s also looking forward to it.

Cold Mercy is coming along, and I’m happy about that. I’m enjoying writing Trevor and Celina, but as I’ve said, I don’t have any plans to publish my hockey duet (that I’ve decided to call Black Ice) as of yet. I’ve actually been hunting down couples on DepositPhotos for Bitter Love, just because I think a couple would fit better than a single guy since it’s a small town second chance. So, I’m doing a little bit of everything, and I have a hockey standalone planned after Cold Mercy because I didn’t want to let all that hockey research go to waste.

After bumping into a Threads post about trial reels on Instagram and the easy videos she was making, I decided to give it a try. After posting a few, I can tell you that I like how simple they are to put together and that there isn’t a 200 view dungeon like there is on TikTok (as far as I can tell). That alone is a motivation and confidence booster, because back when I was on TikTok, it really sucked to put an hour into a carousel for it only to get 130 views or whatever. The only thing that tripped me up was figuring out the editing tools, but watching a quick tutorial on YouTube took care of my biggest annoyance. Because I still have a lot of TikTok hooks and Kindle screenshot slides, I’m going to try to post a reel every day and see how it works.

Do I think I’ll go viral and sell lots of books? No. Do I think I’ll go viral at all? Probably not, but I’m not focusing on numbers either. Do I think I’ll sell books? That’s another “probably not” but I was a little sad when I had to get rid of my TikTok account–I felt like I was actually reaching readers with the likes and saves–and this is an easier alternative. Like TikTok, they want you to do as much in-app as possible, so I’m not assembling the whole video in Canva. Here are my quick steps if you want to try it:

Film or find a b-roll. I didn’t even know what that was last year, haha. I filmed my bookshelf and my laptop with a cup of coffee, but so far I haven’t used them. Right now I just go to Canva, choose an Instagram Reel canvas, and find a video that kind of has the snippet vibe. Like the one I posted today–it’s a snippet of Rick finding Devyn at his construction site zip-tied to a support beam. So I found a video of a snowy, city street at night. That’s all you really need. I have no plans to show my face right now, but that could change. I don’t really care either way as long as I do my hair and makeup first.

Make a Kindle screenshot of your snippet. I fake those. I use an Instagram post-sized canvas and just copy and paste the text over from an ePub. To make a “highlight” I use a Square in Elements, change the color and size, and make it transparent. I don’t have all my books on a real Kindle, so this works for me.

Book excerpt from a romantic suspense novel. After finding Devyn unconscious, the hero calls 911, struggles with not being able to carry her to safety himself, and holds her hand the entire ambulance ride to the hospital.

I still have a fear thing left over from TikTok, and I mark out the naughty words. I don’t know how Instagram likes swear words and sex, but I’ve always gone more angsty in my snippets anyway so I don’t think I need to worry too much about that.

Write your two sentence hook that will go above your snippet. I still see some authors using the X, but Y, formula, like “When he falls first, but she’s off limits” kind of thing, so you’ll have to play around with what works for you.

Write your description. I write a quick couple paragraphs that I put in my Mac’s notes app, then I can copy and paste it over on my iPhone. Don’t forget the title and where they can find the book. I use keywords instead of hashtags, since that seems to be the trend right now.

Put it all together. I go into Reels on my phone, and use the b-roll I chose from Canva, add my snippet, add the hook with their text tool, copy and paste the description, add music, and I’m done. Some authors will add a “cover” to their reel, but honestly, the woman who showed us her views in that Threads post didn’t have covers for hers, and I’m inclined to just leave it and see how a simple reel without a cover works first. I’m still in the “experimenting and having fun” stage, so I’m not going to complicate it unless I have to.

Instagram Reel showing a dark, snowy street at night with a page from a romance novel overlaid. The text reads, "She disappeared without a trace. He was terrified he'd find her too late." The excerpt shows the hero calling 911 after finding Devyn unconscious and holding her hand in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

I was missing posting on TikTok, so thanks to Jessica for the motivation!

Another thing I did was revamp my FB author page banner and my website header. Since I no longer consider myself strictly a billionaire romance author, I thought it was time to change it up. I also have never made myself an author logo, so I played around in Canva and came up with something that might be a little too pink, but I like for it now.

Soft pink watercolor background with blush flowers framing the author name "VM Rheault" inside a geometric outline. The graphic includes the tagline: "Billionaire romance, small-town love, and everything in between."

That takes care of my backlist, my small town, second chance that I’ll be publishing next year sometime, and the hockey romances that I’m writing now. Those banners can just stay there for however long since I won’t be changing it anywhere to announce a new release.

Last month I teased I would put my Cedar Hill Duet for free, and I did that. Both of them are free until Wednesday, and if you were wanting to grab them or just download them to support me (thank you!) here’s the link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B1PV65WD

Dark gray promotional graphic with subtle floral accents displaying the romance novels Captivated by Her and Addicted to Her by VM Rheault. Large text announces: "Free for a Limited Time!" with the dates "July 24–28."

I didn’t do much for them except boost a post on Instagram and send a real newsletter to the few subscribers I still have. These are older books, but since they have new covers and they’ve been re-edited, I thought I’d promote them and see how they do. They’re free until Wednesday, July 28th, so if you know of anyone who would want a billionaire romantic suspense duet, you can point them that way.

I’m also putting Rescue Me in a romance book blast next month. I’m to the point where I just want people to see my books, download them if they think they sound good, and maybe read them if they ever get around to it. That’s not me being meh–I know how long people’s TBR lists are. Mine is the same, as I’ve been downloading free hockey books lately if I see them pop up in my Freebooksy newsletters, so I understand that someone downloading one of my books might not read it for months or years, if ever. I’ve stopped thinking about sales, really, and I might do a free blast of one of my trilogies next. Do a special one-day sale of all of them and see how many downloads I get. I think it’s nice to give them all away instead of just a book one. It’s just how I’ve been feeling, at least.

That’s about all I have going on. When I have a second in the evening and I’m too tired to write but it’s too early to go to bed, I’ve been watching the new season of The House of the Dragon. If you like small-town romance shows, a new season of Ransom Canyon just released on the 23rd on Netflix, and I’m wondering if I should rewatch the first season again before diving into the second. We’ll see. There are some evenings when the day hasn’t beat the shit out of me and I still have the energy to write, so I don’t watch too much TV, but it’s nice to have something to look forward to when my brain is mush.

I hope your summer has been going well so far. Do you have anything you want to get done before spooky season starts? Let me know!

Until next time, have a great week ahead!

What’s Worth the Cost?

Posted on July 20, 2026 by Vania Margene Rheault

1,723 words
9 minutes read time

Promotional graphic for a blog post titled "What's Worth the Cost?" featuring a black marble background, gold accents, and a credit card image, symbolizing spending and financial decisions.

Two years ago I used to believe that you had to spend money to make money. It’s a common quote that holds some truth and I bought into it like the true business owner I wanted to be. For most of the time I’ve been writing and publishing, I’ve had more money going out than coming in, and every year I tried to do better, thinking if I tried hard enough and spent enough money, I could turn my books into a career.

The latest price increase news circulating Threads is Squarespace’s announcement that they were upping their prices by 26% (Business/Core plans increased to $348/year from $276) and not adding any extra features to make the price hike worth it. If you don’t know what it is, Squarespace is a website platform, and it sounds like a lot of authors and other creatives were using it. This coming right after MailerLite’s decision to cut their free plan down to 250 subscribers, Draft2Digital’s maintenance fee, and Bookfunnel’s price increases has made it a bad year for indie authors so far.

I think, from what I’m seeing online and what I’ve concluded during my own thought processes about all this, is that we need to separate the idea that if we’re spending money we have to make that back, and if we aren’t making money from our hobby, business, books, or however you view your writing, that it’s still okay to spend a little if you want.

The difference for me is intent. Do I want to spend that money or do I feel like I have to? I downgraded how I think about my books considerably and no longer think about what I’m doing as a business. I don’t even really want to think of my writing as a hobby. Labeling it anything has taken the fun out of doing it, and as of right now, I’m going to stop writing for anything other than the joy of creating.

I tried the ad route, as I have mentioned before, and 2024 was my highest spending year since I started publishing, investing $5,000 in Facebook ads. I know that might not sound like a lot to some authors who spend that much or more per month, but five thousand dollars is 15% of my yearly income and I didn’t spend it lightly. I earned that money back, but the stress of making sure I did so wore me out, and in 2025 I scaled back considerably to the point that right now, in 2026, I rarely run ads anymore. It didn’t help that in April of this year I spent $80.00 on Amazon ads to only make thirty dollars of that back.

When my Amazon ads didn’t even break even, it taught me a lesson that up until then I hadn’t needed to learn: ads aren’t guaranteed to make you money. It used to be that if you ran ads, you stood a really good chance of boosting your discoverability and selling some books. There were always exceptions, those with the bad covers or the bland blurbs, or the authors who priced their books too high, but if you had a commercially viable product, you could sell books if you ran a few low cost-per-click ads. That’s not true anymore, not for everyone, and you can blame it on the algorithms or saturation or AI being put in charge, but running ads no longer works well enough for me to justify the stress and expense.

I have the same opinion of Written Word Media’s promo newsletters like Freebooksy and BargainBooksy. I haven’t earned my fee back in a couple of years now and to be honest, with the number of AI covers I see in those newsletters, I don’t want my books to be in them anymore anyway. It’s not worth the money for me and the kinds of books I’m writing, and I have finally realized that. Same with the Goodreads giveaways. I used to not mind paying for exposure, but I stopped doing that. Life is too expensive to hand money over to something that has no measurable ROI.

But you need some kind of presence online which is why authors struggle with increased prices from their service providers. After a while it just feels like they’re price gouging the small folk, and it can make you bitter. So you have to decide where can you go that still gives you what you want at a price you can afford, and that answer, unfortunately, may be nowhere. Then you take the downgrade and make do with it because there’s no justification in paying more.

It’s the same with your newsletter. You can hunt around and find something that might work that doesn’t make you jump through too many hoops at a cost that you’re willing to pay, or maybe you decide that sending out a newsletter isn’t something you want to do anymore because your open rates are crap and no one is reading it anyway. I decided to stop sending my newsletter out unless I have big announcement like a free book blast or a new release and just put updates on my author site. Especially since for the most part, I don’t know when I’m going to publish again. No one wants to read, “Good morning! I’m 20k into Cold Mercy, but I have no plans to publish it yet. I’m having fun though. Have a great day! ♥️🥰♥️🥰” There’s nothing in that for them, and my open rates will get worse than they already are. So for me, there’s definitely no reason to spend money on an aggregator that doesn’t fit what I’m doing with my writing or the dead end publishing has turned into for me.

Maybe this is how it is for you too, but you have to understand that if you decide to go that route, you’re consciously making the choice to stop trying to sell books and that can be really hard. I’ve tried for many years, doing everything I was supposed to do, and it didn’t work. So dropping everything, like a kid not wanting to play with a deflated ball, was a very conscious choice, even though it hurt like hell.

That’s not to say that I stopped paying for everything. Otherwise I’d be scaling back in a way that I didn’t want to. My backlist is available for purchase, and though I don’t have plans to publish any more books this year, I’ll probably put out a book next year just because I don’t like books piling up in my computer (I know. What a terrible problem to have!).

So, I’ll always pay for Canva because I have a lot of IP in my account, and actually, a lot of other authors’, too. If I ever wanted to close my account, making sure everyone had everything I’ve made for them over the years would be a lot of work, and something I’d like to avoid. Even if I don’t publish to make money, I’ll eventually put my books up on my website and Amazon, and they’ll need covers and the occasional graphic for Instagram. I also make all my graphics for this blog in Canva, so I’ll be locked into paying for it until I completely stop doing this due to health or death. That’s fine. Canva, or some way to make graphics, is practically a must, but if you don’t post on social media that much and you hire out for your covers, you may not need it or can make do with their free plan, and that’s valid too. I’ll keep paying for it because it’s one of those websites where I always have a tab or three open at all times.

Bookfunnel I’ll keep, because I need to have a way to distribute my books from my website, and as I’ve said before, I’m locked into giving My Biggest Mistake away since it’s in all my back matter. I’m paying for their cheapest plan, so I don’t mind the cost for a service I need.

The last thing are my websites, but I pay for two years at a time and get a discount. I pay for two websites for two years and it costs about as much as Squarespace wants to charge for one year. My websites aren’t fancy but they do what I want them to do. I’ve been with WordPress.com for ten years and the only issues I’ve had were the ones I created myself–that their tech support was able to help me with, which is more than I can say for MailerLite when I had trouble there. To be fair, the fee isn’t cheap when you’re not writing for sales, and I still pay for my Google Workspace email from when I did have a real newsletter. I kept it because I attached that to my pen name’s Goodreads account, and well, I guess it’s just professional to have an email that’s not gmail in case I ever need it. Then I pay $20/year for my two domain names. All that comes to about $275.00 a year.

That might add up to a lot more than anyone wants to pay for an activity that you don’t even call a hobby, but my websites are important to me and worth the cost.

That’s the whole point of this post. If it’s not worth it to you, don’t pay it, and either find a workaround or be okay with going without it. That’s not a philosophy I’ve always had, and I’ll be honest, I used to kind of . . . disapprove of people who didn’t want to spend money on their business. But I’ve come full circle. I did pay and it didn’t help, so I’m done judging others for their choices. Maybe they knew something I didn’t and I had to figure it out for myself. Who knows. That’s just going to be another thing I’ll add to my list of things I’ve learned over the past ten years.

If you take anything away from this post today, it’s this: save money where you can. Stay professional where you can because your readers—the ones you had, have, and will have—deserve that.

Beyond that, only spend money on things that still make sense for your goals.

As for me, I’m done paying for things that have stopped working or never started.

And I don’t think I’m the only one.

Vania Margene Rheault

Independent Contemporary Romance Author & Blogger

Category Archives: book marketing

Reality Bites: Visibility isn’t Conversion

Monday Author Update

The Blame Game

When Something Finally Starts Working… Then What?

Preorders and Promises

The Last Monday Author Update of the Summer!

Author Transparency (again) and Author Update

End-of-July Author Update

What’s Worth the Cost?

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