Monday’s Author Update

Posted on November 24, 2025 by Vania Margene Rheault

1,284 words
7 minutes read time

thanksgiving flatlay. pumpkin green gourd gold ribbon silver and gold silverware. text says. monday's author udpate

Hello, hello! We are nearing the end of November, and US Thanksgiving is this week! I have everything I need except potatoes, and I’ll grab them during my usual grocery run on Wednesday. When my schedule at work changed, I had no idea how much I depended on my routine and I probably will always have to grapple with when I can get stuff done while still trying to write as much as I can. Anyway, some weeks are better than others, but that’s life in general, and despite those changes, things are okay.

WIP Update
Even though my writing time being severely cut, I’m still making great progress on Bitter Love. I’m 59,000 words into it and I am so happy with the progress I’ve made this month. I joined ProWritingAid’s Novel November, but I haven’t been keeping track of how many words I’ve written so far. My only goal was to get this book done by the end of the year, and I think I can do that. I have the last third of the book plotted out, which is the hard part, in my opinion, so writing the rest should be easy enough. I was going to jump into my hockey duet, but I’m going to put that on the back burner again, and in January re-edit and re-cover my Cedar Hill duet. That will take me a month or so, and then when I’m done with that, I’ll get Wicked Games ready to go for a May release. (I already announced it so I don’t want to lie to the few people who were listening.) I’m struggling with whether or not to do ARCs considering that my attempts in the past have had lackluster results. People take but don’t review, so there’s really no point in handing them out. I canceled my BookSprout subscription because the quality just wasn’t there for the price I was paying. I listed some other alternatives in a previous blog post, so I might try something new, if just as an experiment so I can blog about it later.

Then once Wicked Games is off my plate, I have a cute story idea about a woman who inherits a bakery she doesn’t want and a billionaire who wants to buy it. She can’t sell because of some stipulations in her grandma’s will, and he can’t work around them because of his own obligations. With some of the dialogue that’s already going through my head, it might be more romcom, if I can find my funny bone, and the characters already have names which means I will definitely be writing them in 2026.

So my plan is:
*Finish Bitter Love
*Revamp my Cedar Hill duet
*Get Wicked Games ready to release in May 2026
*Write One Tough Cookie
*Jump back to Bitter Love to get that ready for release maybe at the beginning of 2027 or the end of 2026, whichever works out

It’s nice to have so many plans and an idea of what I’ll be doing for the next little while, but it also makes me kind of sad too. I’m not doing this for anyone but me, which, I know, that should be the only reason a writer does anything–for themselves first–but it can be disheartening after a while and it doesn’t seem like there’s much I can do to fix it.

Deleting TikTok
I mentioned in a previous blog post that I was having fun with a reader account on TikTok, and I was even getting a few views above the 200 view dungeon a lot of people seem to get stuck in. Then they started suppressing my carousels and labeling them as AI. This ticked me off for two reasons: one, they weren’t AI. I used stock photos from DepositPhotos (that were not AI) and two, there actually is a lot of AI on TikTok they aren’t flagging and the hypocrisy drives me insane. So, I deleted my accounts. Both my reader one and my personal one I started a long time ago.

The hit to my mental health was just too much and I don’t have the bandwidth to put up with it. It’s too bad because I was getting into a groove posting, and doing slides is a great way to learn how to pull hooks out of your books and write ad copy. But maybe I’ll just try to post more on Instagram. I barely post there and even though Facebook keeps telling me that my author page is getting views, I haven’t posted there in three weeks. I saved all my carousels in my Canva account, and turning them into Reels would be easy enough, but I’m not sure if I really care that much to do the work. Posting on social media is something I struggle with anyway, though I do like talking about my books to the handful of people who see my posts.

Black Friday Promo
I wasn’t sure if I was going to buy a promo for any of my books this holiday season, but I went ahead and bought a promo in the Red Feather Romance Books newsletter and set my Christmas novel to free for three days around Black Friday. I’m not sure what else I’m going to do, if anything, because while I think giving away books can be beneficial if you have a plan, I have no plan, and don’t really care either way about giving books away. Mostly, all I think it does is create high hopes that it will finally do something and then it never happens. Chances are 100% I won’t make back the $135.00 I spent on their fee, but I’m really proud of the changes I made to the book when I re-edited it a couple months ago, so I wanted to give it another push. But A Heartache for Christmas is getting old, so maybe one day I’ll write another Christmas novel, if I can think of a plot.

The Future of this Blog (It’s good!)
I had to renew my plan for this website, and they gave me a discount if I paid for two years instead of one, so I’m locked into this website and blog until the end of 2027. I suppose that was kind of optimistic, though I have no plans to go anywhere. I enjoy blogging very much, and having all my things in one place has been nice. I get why people write on Substack, but having a WordPress plan isn’t very expensive and having a main hub where readers can find you is less confusing for everyone. Granted, blogging on my author site isn’t the same as having a true newsletter, and even though I regret not having one, I still don’t think I’ll ever try that again. My author website is also locked in until March of 2026 and that auto renews every two years as well. I pay $156.00 for those two years and I think that is a decent price for a site that only has about 100 visitors a month.

That’s about all I have for this week. As part of my “Favorite Things” section of my blog I have going until Christmas, I want to tell you about this free crossword puzzle maker that I used to make a romance crossword for my Facebook author page. You make up the questions and answers, and the website spits out the puzzle. It’s fun, and you can find it here: https://crosswordlabs.com/

Here’s the one I made with the answers. You can steal it if you want. I don’t mind.

crossword puzzle overlayed on faint pink hearts. text says. contemporary romance fun

Crossword clues

Across

5. The one person meant to be with you
7. Symbol of love
9. Emotional tension that keeps readers hooked
11. The obstacle or competing love interest
12. Romance shorthand for a happy ending
13. A big question that changes everything
14. A charming or quirky first encounter
16. Intense romantic or physical attraction
18. The magic connection between two lovers
19. When estranged lovers find their way back

Down

1. A romance that takes its time building
2. Playful back-and-forth dialogue between lovers
3. The central female character in a romance
4. What every romance promises in the end
6. A break of trust between lovers
8. A spark that often changes everything in romance novels
10. A dominant hero archetype
12. The leading man of a romance
15. A recurring theme in romance stories
17. Hidden truth that complicates love

Happy Thanksgiving to all those who celebrate!

I’ll talk you you next week!

Monday’s Author Update (Mind, Body, and Soul)

Posted on August 26, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

I have a couple of things to talk about today, but surprisingly, my life has calmed down by a lot. My ARCs have been up since last Tuesday. I was able to upload them into Bookfunnel for my author website and upload all of them on Booksprout too. My reviewers there haven’t forgotten about me, and 41 out of 50 copies were taken for the first book. The numbers dwindle as the books go, but that’s to be expected–that’s how it is on the sales floor, too. Readers will be able to snag the books for a couple more weeks, but I have the first one set to release on the 16th of September. I haven’t put the preorder links up yet, so they aren’t on Amazon right now. I’m going to wait until I delete my links off my author website and the campaigns close on Booksprout. Since my books are dropping into KU after their preorders end, I’m just being careful. This was a big project for me, and I don’t want to screw it up. Here’s my publishing schedule if Amazon doesn’t give me a hard time:

Cruel Fate, Book One, September 16th, 2024
Cruel Hearts, Book Two, October 28th, 2024
Cruel Dreams, Book Three, December 9th, 2024
Shattered Fate, Book Four, January 20th, 2025
Shattered Hearts, Book Five, March 3rd, 2025
Shattered Dreams, Book Six, April 14th, 2025

I’m a little disappointed more haven’t dowloaded off my website. Books 2-6 have about 9 a piece, and book one has 12. That’s not terrible….if everyone leaves a review when the books release, between what I’m giving away and my Booksprout copies, I could potentially have 50 reviews a book. But, I know since these are spaced out, the potential people will forget is high. Booksprout will send reminder emails, and I’ll write blog post reminders, but there’s only so much you can do. If you want to see what I did with my ARCs and the series page I created on my website, you can look here: https://vmrheault.com/kings-crossing-series/

I’m holding true to my resolution to take a break while my ARCs are up, and I’ve been reading my favorite Nora Roberts book, The Villa. I love the story so much and it was a good choice to dip my toes back into reading. After that I want to read Sadie Kincaid’s Mafia series. I got hooked on those snippets when I was on TikTok trying it out for myself, and I have all of them borrowed in KU. You can find them here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSQZPJ6H

Going forward, I’m going to try to find more of a balance between reading and writing. Since I saved up my books and the next standalone I’m going to release is in its editing stages, I feel like I have some wiggle room to actually read, go for walks, and spend more time with my kids while I’m getting this next book ready for publication.

I had another Mayo Clinic appointment on the 23rd, and my MRI showed signs of hysterectomy scarring and the presence of endometriosis. She didn’t recommend exploratory surgery to find out how much (which is the only way to know for sure), and I didn’t want it anyway. So my discomfort comes from nerve damage/scarring/endometriosis. There’s nothing more that can be done unless I want to try an anti-inflammatory diet–that I may look into–and I don’t have another appointment scheduled. I’m welcome to message her anytime, and I will have to next year when my lichen sclerosis cream runs out and I’ll need a refill on my ovary pills sometime next year as well. Whether she’ll want to talk to me during a virtual appointment, I’m not sure as she didn’t mention that, or she could just put the refills through my pharmacies if I’m not feeling any worse than I am now. I mean, I’m not feeling bad, but I’m not feeling good, and it’s disheartening to know that I’ll never feel “normal” again, even though I expected that kind of news before my appointment.

I’m still not drinking, limiting my alcohol intake to two, maybe three, drinks a month. Because of this, my anxiety is still under control, though I do get nervous from time to time. I get a little nauseous sometimes, but that could be from my ovary pills or from the endometriosis, since both cause that. My doctor hugged me when I left and said she was proud of the work I put in to feel better. I’m proud of myself, too, because I lived through some pretty bleak days, but she said she was especially proud I had the self-awareness to know drinking was causing me harm and knew enough to stop. She said some people get into a cycle where they don’t feel good so they drink, and then they feel worse because they’re drinking, and then they drink more because they don’t feel good. I never considered drinking could have such detrimental effects on your mind and body, but I can tell the difference. Now if I have something to drink I sip and savor. Life has changed since my first appointment in February, I’ll tell you that.

So, what’s next for me? I’m going to try to find balance in all ways. My body needs to adjust. I’m still not feeling well from the MRI I had on Friday (ironically, some kind of shot to slow my insides down gave me diarrhea), and I didn’t take the next day off to rest after my appoinments and traveling home so I worked all weekend. I’m going to try to walk more, especially now that the weather will be cooling down here shortly. My stamina is crap and I’ve gained a lot of weight since 2020. My series is done besides putting the books up on Amazon, so that’s a relief, and I’m going to try to find the joy I lost. Writing and publishing was more of a job I hated than something I started because I loved it, but that’s only because I used it to hide from how I was feeling. There’s no reason to do that anymore. I’ll never feel normal again, but I know the reasons why and that’s huge when it comes to my mental health. It’s scary when you’re sick and no one can tell you why, and they don’t want to find out for you, either.

It’s still in the back of my mind to write up my experiences and publish them in hopes of helping other women like me. One website said that women who have vulva lichen sclerosis live with it for 5-15 years before being diagnosed. I had it for four and felt like I was going out of my mind. I had other issues, like my ovaries out of whack because of my hysterectomy, but even so, women’s medical care leaves a lot to be desired, and if telling my story could help someone, then I think I should do it. I’d like to do it soon while all the details are fresh in my mind, but regurgitating all that could be triggering too. I’ll never forget the callous way my doctors treated me. Even lying to me in some cases, and being treated like that is just as difficult as living with whatever is hurting you. What’s sad is that I know people have been treated far worse than I have, and though I’ll never feel normal again, people live with worse pain, conditions, and symptoms than what I have. I have a lot to be grateful for after all is said and done and in the coming months and years I’ll be looking for peace to come to terms with what I’ve gone through.

I’m not sure how this will affect my writing, if it will. I don’t feel like writing and publishing is as important as they once were. I was using it as a shield to hide from how I was feeling, and I don’t need to do that anymore. I can write because I want to. I can publish because I’m proud of the story and want people to read it, not because I need the distraction and something to do to forget how crappy I feel. It will be interesting to see if I can find that joy again, the joy I had for writing and publishing prior to 2020, or if I’m so different now after those negative experiences that I’ll never feel the same way. I did the cover for the standalone I’m releasing next year, and it makes me excited for the book. I know I need the break though, a real break, so I’m not going to jump into editing it. Finding balance will be harder than it sounds, but I have to remind myself that it’s okay to slow down and rest. With as abysmal as my sales are, there’s no reason to rush anyway. No one’s buying and it could be a combination of things, but the bottom line is the books and readers will always be there so there’s no harm in taking some time for myself.

Anyway, that’s all I have for today. At some point I’m going to write the instructions on how to create an ebook cover out of the PDF full cover book wrap. A couple people have read my blog post on how to make a full wrap in Canva and they asked for directions on how to turn that PDF into an ebook cover. It’s quite simple, really, but it will be good to have those instructions out there, I think.

Have a good Monday, everyone! Take care of yourselves, and take a break! You’ll be thankful you did.

Policing Other People’s Work

Posted on July 22, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

One thing that has always puzzled me about authors is their need to police other people’s work. I see it all the time, from the authors who defend their right to leave bad reviews (thinking they’ll teach that author how to write correctly) to people who are loud and proud about the books they do not finish (DNF) for whatever reason. I came across this jewel the other day, and I gave myself a cookie for not responding:

genuine question for kindle unlimited authors: does reporting typos through the content error box ding you in any way? Is there a better way to report mistakes?

Picture of reporting screen on a kindle

I actually see this a lot, with authors who are asking if it’s okay to email other authors about mistakes, or direct message them to inform them of errors. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen someone ask about the actual reporting feature on a Kindle either, and it just makes me so confused as to why someone would waste the energy to do something like this while they’re supposedly reading for pleasure.

This is one of the big reasons I don’t promo my books where other authors hang out. I have never met a more judgmental or pickier group. And not only are they judgmental and picky, they are not afraid to let others know. The reporting system on a Kindle is anonymous, but just the fact that she posted that on Threads tells me she actually uses it, or wanted to use it. Maybe the responses changed her mind, but knowing she would think about it gives me the ick and I don’t want her reading my books.

I’ve given this some thought as to why authors would want to police someone’s book:

So they can feel better about their own writing. I know this is a pretty crappy reason, and maybe that tells you something about me that I mentioned it first. I think the worst of people? Maybe, but I’ve also seen it enough that I do think authors enjoy being able to report typos or call a book out for bad editing. They like to feel like their books are better than someone else’s. It’s not a terrible thing, really. I think we all have read a book that we thought was bad and said, “If this book is a bestseller, then my books have a chance.” We need the validation, but that’s not a good way to go about getting it. Putting someone else down, even in the guise of being helpful, will never lift you up. It might make you feel better for a little bit, but as most authors become aware, what goes around comes around, and someone reading your book may not take so kindly to your typos, either. And trust me, no matter how many times you go through it, you’ll publish your book with a couple.

They really do want to be helpful. I don’t jump completely to negative assumptions–there are authors out there who genuinely want to tell an author what the problems are in their books so the authors can fix them. The problem is, not everyone has access to their files. If they’re traditionally published, or if they’re published by a small press, telling them about the typos, or plot holes, or that the male main character’s eye color changed halfway through the book, won’t help. You can report it, sure, maybe eventually Amazon will alert the author of the quality issues and prompt their publisher to submit the edits (from what I know this would be very unlikely), but what good is that going to do? You can email, but if every person emailed that author about their typos and they can’t do anything, think of how defeating that would be. You get an email once a week about an issue you can’t fix….how demoralizing that is. Detrimental to that author’s mental health, even. So you being helpful can turn into anything but being helpful.

I understand that you might want to help an author fix their book, but after publication is not the time for that. If you truly want to help, help a writer beta read, or offer to proofread. That book you’re so eager to give feedback on, that book could have gone through multiple rounds of editing, or maybe that author couldn’t afford an editor at all, did the best they could, and you’re rubbing salt in their wounds by needing to mention all the typos, words used in the wrong context, and punctuation errors.

Writers and authors have a really difficult time turning off their editing brains to read for pleasure. It’s part of the reason I don’t read as much as I should. It’s difficult for me to find authors whose writing styles I mesh with. Sometimes I don’t like the author’s voice from the first page, and it takes me a chapter or two to let go of my dislikes and get into the story. I, too, am picky, and I dislike characters who don’t act their age, or dual point of view books that have too much of the female point of view and not enough of the male’s. I’ve read books where the author couldn’t decide between past and present tense, books where the author (or editor) didn’t know how to punctuate dialogue. Books that didn’t take time to flesh out characters. Never, not in my wildest dreams, have I ever wanted to report an error through my Kindle, email an author, or direct message them. I would never take the time to edit a book like that or tell them that something they were doing didn’t work for me. Chances are really good that they wouldn’t care anyway, so when you think about reaching out to an author, figure out what you want the outcome to be. Do you want them to thank you? Is gratitude what you’re after? Will you be disappointed if you don’t get a response? What would you say if they wrote back and said, “Thanks for letting me know, but I’m published with a small press and I can’t do anything.”? Apologize for saying something? Not respond? Get embarrassed and crawl into a hole? Because that’s what I would do if that happened to me. You have no idea what an author’s circumstances are, and even if you are coming from a sincere place of wanting to help, you could be doing more harm than good.

I’ve known authors who police books, giving “honest” reviews, or even editing snippets of books on Twitter, and it’s never great when it comes back to them (and Karma’s like a Boomerang–it will). I keep my nose out of people’s business. Years ago I used to write “honest” reviews, too, even some on this blog that I have since trashed because it was a hard lesson learned that no one is better than anyone else and we’re all in this together.

If you just can’t stop yourself from emailing an author, at least offer to beta read their next book or join their ARC team. Offer some help instead of just emailing them a list of typos and expecting a thank you. Be kind and realize that they may actually not want your help. They might not be able to do anything with it, anyway. I’ve seen vindictiveness and I’ve also seen it returned. Instead of focusing all that energy on someone else’s book, concentrate on yours. It will be better spent.

ARC Forms: Creating a review team

Posted on November 6, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

Since I’m going to be releasing A Heartache for Christmas soon, I’ve been thinking about ARC teams (or street teams as some authors call them). I have to admit in my years of publishing, I wasn’t doing this right, and take this blogpost with a grain of salt because I’m still not. One of the things I did wrong was sub-genre hop, and it’s really difficult to build a review team from scratch if you do that. Think about it–you draw in your advanced review readers with a sweet (fade to black) small town romance, and then the next book you write is a dirty motorcycle club. You’re going to tell me that some romance readers will read anything if it has an HEA, and okay, maybe. But maybe you like writing sci-fi and then scooch over to YA dystopian. The point is, a lot of readers read one thing and your book has to sound pretty enticing for them to stray. So if you start out with billionaire romance and then change your genre to mafia, you probably will have some that will follow you because they aren’t too different, but like my billionaires to rockstars, you might have some that drop off.

I’ve gotten great requests for all my billionaire books on Booksprout, but the second I moved to rockstars, the number of requests went down by half. I’ve talked about that before, and it will be interesting when I go back to billionaire with my Christmas novel to see of those requests go up again.

The second thing I did wrong was not think about reviews at all until the book was published, and I made that mistake with my duet, not putting them on Booksprout before they were live. They sell the least out of all my books now, and I’m pretty convinced that it’s because they don’t have any reviews. That duet is a year and a half old, so at this point, I’m not sure what I can do about it. I gave away 950 copies of Captivated by Her in August of this year during a promotion and it yielded one review. I actually don’t know why I saw it–I don’t hunt for reviews–but it made me happy she liked it at least.

So, of course, I want reviews before my book goes live and with the exception of my rockstars, (their loss as they are selling well) I’ve had good results building a street team of sorts on Booksprout.

I do give away ARCs, and I use Bookfunnel to distribute them, which brings me to the subject of today’s blog post–where do I distribute them and how do I choose?

I have to admit, I don’t like the thought of review forms. I’ve never created one for people to fill out, and I’ve never filled one out. I’ve heard people mention creating them, and for the purpose of this blogpost, I looked up a few to see what in the world people are putting in them. (You can find some if you look at these Google search results.) I wasn’t sure I liked what I found… authors asking where the readers were going to leave the review, links to their social media accounts (for proof that maybe readers are active online?), how old they were…one author asked her readers if they were going to rate the book three stars or fewer to wait until after the launch week to do so. Another added the warning that just because a reader asked doesn’t mean that would ensure she got a copy. I mean, I get it. Reviews are tremendously helpful, but as a reader who is giving my time to an author, all those forms and questions turned me off.

We forget that when we ask readers to help us like that, we are asking them for a lot of time. A lot. And as someone who is going to be giving someone ten plus hours of my time, the last thing I need is to feel insulted before I even open my Kindle.

Have authors forgotten books are free everywhere? Every day? And that readers aren’t obligated to review? Like, ever?

I suppose that is part of what building an ARC team is–you want readers to want to read and review YOUR books, but I don’t think you need a form and to quiz your readers before they even have your book in their hands.

Where do I put the link when I upload my book to Bookfunnel? All the usual places I suppose: my FB author page, Twitter (I still have a few friends on there who will grab it), Instagram, and my newsletter. I don’t make unlimited copies free–I set the limit at about 30, and first come are first served. My standalones tend to go quicker because there’s no monetary commitment to read other books. That’s fine, though I am trying to build my brand on being in KU, so all my readers should know by now that if they get the first one for free during a promo they have access to the other ones with their subscription.

Between Booksprout and my ARCs I post elsewhere, my books tend to release with around fifty reviews. My rockstars still haven’t even reached twenty a piece, but that’s okay. It hasn’t hurt them–they’ve made up most of my royalties since they’ve been published.

Maybe my nonchalance is surprising, or maybe if you’ve read my blog for a while, you’ll think it’s par for the course with me. I just don’t make a big deal about things, leave a review if you want, if you don’t, whatever. I’m not watermarking my ARCs either. My books have ended up on pirate sites and that has nothing to do with ARCs, watermarked or not.

Perhaps if I was more strict about who would get a review copy, i would have built a better team by now, or a team at all, but authors and reviewers have a shaky relationship, mostly due to authors freaking out publicly over bad reviews or responding to reviewers when they shouldn’t be. Reviewer spaces are not for authors! I don’t want readers to think there is going to be some kind of backlash if they don’t review or don’t like the book. There are billions of people in the world, and if a handful of readers don’t like what I’m writing, I don’t care. There are books I’ve read I don’t like, so I really don’t understand why authors throw tantrums online. I want to put a vibe out there that I don’t take myself or my books that seriously because if you have a chip on your shoulder, it will show and you’ll get a reputation as an author who can’t handle negative feedback. If you start earning a reputation for that, you’ll stop getting good feedback, too. A gracious, “thanks for trying it!” if you’re tagged in a negative review can go a long way, and maybe that person will read the next thing you write and like that.

Anyway, I understand the purpose of an ARC form, but I don’t like the feelings I get thinking about creating one for my own books. Booksprout has been working well for me (damaged rockstars aside) and even though my newsletter list was built on a freebie, there are some who do open my emails, click on links, and download ARCs.

We all want readers to like our stuff, but as authors, we need to give readers the freedom to dislike our work, too. What do you think of ARC forms? Have you created one for a new release? How did it work for you? Let me know!

Monday Author Update

Posted on January 16, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

Believe it or not, I don’t have much to say this week. If things went correctly with KDP, the first in my trilogy should be live today. Over the weekend I set up some Amazon ads for the preorder hoping that the ads would have a little time to click in. Being I’m writing this post on Saturday afternoon, the ads are still in review, but I’m hoping they are moderated and approved with little fuss. I don’t know why they wouldn’t be–the men are clad in a suits from head to toe, after all. [Insert rolling eyes here]

If you remember from a previous blog post, I put all three up on Booksprout for reviews, and one kind reviewer read all of them and pointed out a couple of typos. Two real typos and a stylistic choice among three books is amazing, I think, and I was grateful she took the time to let me know. The typos appeared in books two and three, so I was able to find and correct them and upload new files before the preorders went live. I was happy.

I’m reluctant to schedule any promos yet because I want them all to release before I do. I haven’t had any unfortunate encounters with Amazon besides them blocking one of my Large Print books that I eventually gave up on, but I have heard of preorders being canceled for no reason and other glitches, so I’ll wait. I don’t know how busy the promo sites are in February, but hopefully I can get something lined up before the first in my trilogy drops off its 30 day cliff. I also want to set up a promo for Captivated at the same time using a different site and maybe the two promos will feed each other and I can get a nice lift on this pen name.

Otherwise, I spent a couple days beta reading for a friend and that put me behind a tiny bit, but I haven’t needed a reason to set my WIP aside. I’ve been dragging my heels from the start, and I have no idea why. At 80k I’m almost done, maybe 20-30k more, but I just need to sit with a notebook and write down every single scene that’s left so I don’t have plotting excuses. I had set the end of January as my original done-by date, so I guess we’ll be going with that despite my good intentions to finish faster.

Last week was pretty quiet, and surprisingly I don’t have any news or Twitter gripes. Like I said, my Booksprout reviews have started coming in, and sometimes I get a little annoyed when someone who says they aren’t the target audience reads it and doesn’t like it. I kind of feel that if you’re not the audience, don’t bother because you already know you won’t like it, but she complimented me anyway saying the concept was too good for her to pass up. (I’m hoping this means the blurb is good!) She gave me 2 stars because she didn’t like Jack, but what are you gonna do? She didn’t say my writing was bad or that I needed an editor, so I’ll take the good for what it is and move on. If you want to read it, she’s already posted it on the product page of Give & Take. In all honesty, I don’t mind. A book with all five-star reviews seems shady anyway. In private feedback I thanked her for her time and if she reads the other two books to let me know what she thought of the trilogy as a whole. We’ll see as she didn’t respond, but maybe my graciousness will lead her to read more of my books in the future. I will gladly take an honest and well-thought out review over a five-star lie. Though I will always love Jack no matter what anyone says. He’s just a little misguided.

I suppose you can have a heart attack now because that’s all I have for this week. Cross your fingers for me that my trilogy launch goes well, and that I make more progress on Twisted Lies and Alibis. We have two weeks left in the first months of 2023. Make them count!

Interview: Romance Novel Reviewer Jeeves Reads Romance

Posted on June 20, 2022 by Vania Margene Rheault

I was thrilled when Jeeves, from Jeeves Reads Romance, said I could interview her for this blog! As a romance writer, I’m always interested in why some books work for some people and not others. I like knowing what weighs more heavily with a reader and what, as a writer, I don’t have to stress so much about. I hope any romance author out there can learn a little something about crafting their own novels, and if you’re a romance reader, follow her blog, and bookmark her website and other social media. She completely takes the work out of finding your next read!

Let’s dive it!

Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview! Let’s start with you telling us a little about yourself. How did you get into reviewing romance novels and how long have you been doing it?
No problem, it’s kind of fun to take the time to step back and reflect once in a while! I started reading romance back when I was young, probably 13 or 14. My mom would have her Nora Roberts novels around the house, or I’d sneak off with one of my older sister’s historical romances to see what she was reading at the time. That love of romance stuck with me, even after I (temporarily) ditched the books when I got a real life boyfriend. For several years, I consumed my romance via rom com movies, sitcoms, and Hallmark movies, until I got a Kindle for my birthday one year – and that love of romance novels came rushing back. I haven’t stopped reading them since! I started reading books by the authors I was familiar with growing up, and then I discovered Kindle Unlimited… and it was like a whole new world opened up. Once I started reading more indie authors, I realized how important reviews are – and one thing lead to another. I’ve had my blog since 2019.

How many books do you read a month? And please count all the audiobooks you listen to, as well!
I was reading about a book a day when I started my blog, but now I get busy with everything else related to blogging, so it’s more like 4 a week. And I’m listening to them about 75% of the time, whether it’s true audiobooks or just having Siri read text aloud to me. I love having the option to switch back and forth between text and audio, which enables me to fit a LOT more reading into my schedule.

What do you need for a book to be “unputdownable?”
That’s a tricky one! There’s no tried and true formula that works, but a book needs to grab me right away, or I make assumptions about how the story will go and I lose interest. I’m a true romance reader, so I really prefer for the characters to spend most of the book on the page together. Building the chemistry is essential, and sexual tension is a definite plus. I read everything from rom coms to mafia to angsty stories (at all steam levels), so I always love it when I’m left guessing about how things will play out. I’m much more forgiving of minor issues if I’m entertained and surprised!

For various (marketing) reasons, romance authors are encouraged to write in series. Do you like reading series or can you dig into a standalone just as well?
Standalone or series, I’ll read either. If an author has a unique idea that doesn’t work in a series, then I’m happy to dig in. There’s something to be said for interconnected standalones though – I love getting to know side characters and trying to predict which tropes will be used in their stories. It just makes the anticipation of the next love story that much stronger. I vastly prefer when a couple’s love story is contained to one book though. I’ll read duets from authors on my one-click list, but I’m done with trilogies. There always seems to be either too much time in between book releases or the middle book is dramatic filler, so if I see that a book is in a trilogy, I (almost) always pass. Don’t give me an unexpected cliffhanger though, that’s a surefire way to anger readers, lol.

Do you have a preference over 3rd person POV over 1st?
I greatly prefer 1st person, with dual perspectives unless there’s a good reason why the second shouldn’t be included. It makes me feel like I’m a part of the story, not like I’m an outsider looking in. That makes the experience more immersive. I read 3rd person occasionally, but it’s definitely not something I seek out and it has been the reason why some books haven’t resonated with me in the past.

Does the cover matter when you’re choosing what book to read?
100%. Covers typically indicate what kind of story you’re in for – something light and fun, something dark and twisty, something sporty. I read different types of romances when I’m in different moods or settings, so even if it’s a one-click author for me, I want to make sure the vibe will match. If I’m trying out a new-to-me author, then I will also be turned off by a cover that doesn’t look professional. A poorly designed cover usually means the author hasn’t taken the time to get the book properly edited, which is never an encouraging sign. Also, if I’m scrolling on social media or Amazon, then the cover is what will lead me to check out the blurb of a book I’m unfamiliar with. Covers are important.

What are some of your favorite tropes?
Tropes are more popular than ever right now! My trope-focused recommendation lists (https://jeevesreads.com/best-of-lists/themed-recommendations/) are by far the most popular pages on my blog. For example, my list of Brother’s Best Friend Romances (https://jeevesreads.com/2020/10/10/15-brothers-best-friend-romances/#more-5826) has been viewed over 40,000 times in the last two years – and that’s not even the most popular one. Readers love tropes because they usually give an indication of the type of obstacles a couple will need to overcome. I struggle with secret baby and second chance romances, but I always seem to be in the mood for a fake relationship romance or enemies to lovers friction. I’ve also been loving marriage of convenience and mafia romances lately, which can play out in a variety of ways. Grumpy/sunshine is also one of my personal favorites.

Earlier you did a blog post on books you did not finish (DNF). We’ll link to that, but can you explain a little about why you would not finish a book? What is a pet peeve or mistake an author can make that will cause you to DNF?
Yeah, talking about why books didn’t work for me can be as helpful to other readers as talking about why they DID work. Occasionally, I post a DNF Report (https://jeevesreads.com/2022/05/16/tossed-off-the-tbr-the-dnf-report-2/) that goes over why I set certain books aside. I’m a mood reader who knows what will irritate me while reading, so it’s usually pretty obvious if the experience isn’t going to go well, lol. Other readers may have different preferences, so what irritates me might be a win for them. I’m not a fan of excessive miscommunication or other woman drama, which is the fastest way to make me DNF a book. Sometimes a character’s personality isn’t a good fit for me either, it can be as simple as that. Or maybe the blurb led me astray, and the tone is not at all what I was expecting. Not all DNFs reflect poorly on the book.

You always have such awesome, up-to-date lists! How do you find the books you read? If a romance author was interested in you reviewing their book, do you accept requests? And if so, how do they contact you?
Thank you! As a reader, one of the most frustrating things for me has always been trying to figure out what to read next, or keeping track of the never-ending new releases. It can be an overwhelming experience, especially when there are so many books I’d love to check out. That’s really been the focus of my blog (http://www.JeevesReads.com) – helping other readers take the frustration out of managing their TBR and making it a more relaxing experience. In putting together my release calendar and new releases lists, I discover a lot of books I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. I also follow many authors on social media, or take recommendations from fellow bloggers. Every time I see something interesting, I put it on my TBR and keep it in mind for later. Of course, my TBR is never-ending like everyone else, lol. That’s why I don’t take requests, I’ve always got something on my TBR to satisfy whatever vibe I’m looking for that day.

I’m always happy to interact on social media! I’m most active on Twitter and Instagram.

Jeeves, thank you so much for giving us your time! I really appreciate your opinions. If you want to follow Jeeves for book recs, here are all her links. Also, keep reading to enter the giveaway!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeevesreads/

Website: http://www.JeevesReads.com

Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jeevesreads

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeevesReads

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/crzyjeeves

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jeeves-Reads-Romance-107218497418106/?view_public_for=107218497418106

Because Jeeves is a romance novel reviewer, it’s only fitting I have a romantic giveaway! This giveaway includes a $25 dollar Amazon gift card (fill up your Kindles!) two champagne glasses I purchased in a gallery/gift shop in Fargo, ND, and a trinket dish that says, Happily Ever After, for a combined total of $90 dollars. I hope you enter, and good luck to those who do!

Raflecopter collects email addresses but I only use them to inform the winner they have won the giveaway.(US and Canadian residents only.) Click here to enter!

Monday Musings and Happy March!

Posted on March 1, 2021 by Vania Margene Rheault

I don’t know about you, but to me, these past two months flew by! March can be the crappiest time of year in Minnesota, but if we can get through the month without a blizzard, that would be wonderful. Spring lands on March 20th, and we have daylight savings this month, too, on the 14th, when we go back to lighter mornings and darker evenings, for a while.

My goals for March are mostly the same as every other month. Work hard on my books, try not to stress too much about things I can’t control, wait for it to warm up. I don’t have much going on in my life where I measure time by an upcoming event. Life slips away while I work, write, spend time with my family and friends. I wonder if I feel some discontent because my characters talked about this not long ago. “Do you ever think, this is all there is?” she asks. And sometimes that’s me. Is this it? Would I be happy if it were? What am I working toward? They say happiness isn’t a destination, it’s a journey, but you still have to know where you’re going. All those who wander are not lost, but you still decided to put your foot on that path and take the first step, right?

I guess I’m just a little reflective because of the past couple months. I’ve had a hard time transitioning from work to working from home, my cat, even though he’s on medication, still won’t let us sleep, and I’ve been dealing with a sensitive health issue. There is good news on that front, and I’m on an antibiotic now. I hope I can start feeling better. I’ve been dealing with this for eight weeks. Please don’t ever let a doctor tell you you’re okay if you feel like you’re not. The third doctor I saw finally found the problem (hopefully) and I would be dealing with something potentially dangerous if I had given up. Plus, I have a mammogram scheduled for tomorrow (Tuesday), so I am taking my health seriously from here on out. While I won’t turn this blog into a health and diet diary, I am on a mission to lose a little weight, and I hope now with warming temps on the horizon that will be easier.

On that note, what else have I been thinking about lately?

We can’t please everyone. No one knows that better than an author. A while back, I signed up for Derek Murphy’s newsletter and in one post he talks a little bit about his new book Book Craft. It turns out the book that I like very much a lot of people don’t. It’s difficult when you put your heart and soul into something only to be told it’s not good enough. We do that all the time when we publish and always, without fail, there will be someone who has to say that they don’t like it. Sometimes they’ll pick it apart bit by bit–the review is longer than the book itself! That’s why authors are told not to respond to reviews. It’s not worth it. If you want to read the blog post where he talks about his book, look here. While he had a pragmatic approach to looking at the bad reviews, it still makes me feel bad he’s going through this.

So, yeah, we can’t please everyone, and we’ll only hurt ourselves trying. All of you know about the kerfuffle with a certain author I had over the weekend. I don’t go for click bait, nor do I want to stir the pot like Jerry Springer or Perez Hilton. I don’t need the drama for the views, prefering to give my readers useful information. This isn’t a gossip blog. I want to share my experiences with writing, publishing, and marketing, my opinions on what’s going in with the industry. I’m not going to change what I like to write about because I make one or two people unhappy.

That being said, I’ve come to realize that there is a dark side to indie publishing, and it’s not just the bookstuffers trying to make an extra buck in KU, or the authors using ghostwriters who plagiarize. When I decided to publish my books, I had no idea this other side existed, and now that I know it does, I’m going to stay as far away from it as possible. It shouldn’t have surprised me there’s a dark side because there’s a dark side to anything. I’ve heard about the dark web, and the dark side of Twitter where only the accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers are allowed to go. When authors start making millions of dollars a year publishing books, they are elevated to a stratosphere many of us can only dream of, and with software like Publisher Rocket, that information is available to us with just a few clicks of a mouse. (And I’m beginning to think that’s information we shouldn’t have.) Where authors have the power to tear down another author out of fear, jealousy, or spite. Where an author can destroy another author’s career simply by siccing their fans onto that author’s Goodreads profile and trashing her books.

I entered this industry thinking everyone is kind to everyone else, but I guess when you’re making millions and your livelihood is at stake, you’ll do anything to protect it. We hear all the time that people will say if they find some kind of success that they won’t let it change them, but of course we change. We may just change for the better, when some people change for the worse.

Like a lot of my blog posts, I’m not quite sure where I’m going with this. I beta read, I edit, I format for others when they can’t afford to do it for themselves. I give back and I don’t keep score. I would like to think success won’t change me–if I find it. Entitlement is nasty, and this pandemic brought out the bad side in more than a few people. I’m blessed with what I have and I’m saying I’m sorry to everyone who reads this blog that something I wrote was taken the wrong way and my post was dragged unnecessarily through the mud. It’s not what I want for my blog, or the readers who loyally come back every week to see what I have to say.

We can’t please everyone, we can only control our response and move on the best we can. I have a lot of things to look forward to, and I hope you do too!

Happy Spring, everyone! Until next time!

She flicks a glance at me. “Do you ever wonder if this is all there is?”

“What do you mean?” I shift in my seat, suddenly uncomfortable.

“Like, this is it. Work. Dates with people who don’t mean anything to you. Won’t mean anything more. Can’t, really, because they’ll never understand you. More work. A party here and there. It all feels so, I don’t want to say useless, but I want my life to go somewhere. You know?”

“You mean you don’t want your life to be one big party?” I can’t keep the bitterness out of my voice, and she catches it, loud and clear.

She turns in her seat and meets my eyes, her irises blazing in the firelight. “You think all of us have let you down.”

Christ. Talk about not beating around the bush.

“Yeah, yeah, I do.”

“I can see why you would think that, but don’t you also think that we’re allowed to go our own way?”

“Why? I wasn’t.”

Author Musings and Are You a Good Writer?

Posted on September 25, 2020 by Vania Margene Rheault

Happy Weekend! I know I don’t normally post on Fridays, but my work computer at home had some problems and I had to go into my call center. It threw off my whole day, and usually I can shake off change, but today I had a couple things planned I wanted to do and after I went in to work, I just couldn’t wrap my mind around any of them. But there’s always tomorrow, right?

I did use the time to read more of Amazon Decoded: A Marketing Guide to the Kindle Store by David Gaughran. It’s an interesting look at Amazon, and I’ve learned a couple things. Overall, I like to read book-marketing books, but they do make my head hurt a little bit. Spending money on ads, and spending money on how to learn ads, choosing a platform (Amazon Ads, Facebook Ads, Bookbub Ads) not to mention promo sites, it can all be just a little much. Still, there’s some interesting tidbits about Amazon’s own promo tools like the Kindle Countdown and the free days you get if your book is enrolled in Kindle Select, and just a few ways to use those to the best of your advantage. I’m not sure if anything will help me right now, as I’m still writing the last book in my series, and it remains to be seen if switching from 3rd person past POV to 1st person present POV will make a difference to the way readers look at and buy my books.

I haven’t done this for a while, so just for the hell of it, let’s take a look at the top ten contemporary romance books on Amazon. This changes all the time, but here’s what was up top when I wrote this post:

Playing with Fire: A Bad Boy College Romance by L.J. Shen FIRST PERSON PAST
Seabreeze Inn by Jan Moran THIRD PERSON PAST
Roommaid: A Novel by Sariah Wilson FIRST PERSON PAST
Riley Thorn and the Dead Guy Next Door by Lucy Score FIRST PERSON PAST
Coming Home for Christmas: A Clean & Wholesome Romance (Haven Point Book 10) by RaeAnne Thayne THIRD PERSON PAST
Marrying My Billionaire Hookup by Nadia Lee FIRST PERSON PRESENT
Wild Fire: A Chaos Novella by Kristen Ashley THIRD PERSON PAST
My Husband, My Stalker by Jessa Kane FIRST PERSON PRESENT
The Takeover (The Miles High Club Book 2) by T L Swan FIRST PERSON PRESENT
This Is Not How It Ends by Rochelle B. Weinstein FIRST PERSON PAST

I haven’t done that exercise in a little while, and there’s not as much first person present as there used to be, but that’s just a minuscule sample of the top 100 on Amazon. There could be more first person present when you drill down into some sub-genres, but I’m not going to do that now. I’m still confident my POV shift was a good move, but I won’t know until early next year when I start publishing.

In other news, I’ve been hearing a lot about stalling a release or putting a hold on book promos from October through the election, even going into next year and the inauguration. This year is going to be a bit crazy, and it doesn’t matter what side you’re on. There is going to be overwhelming disappointment no matter who wins, and authors like Lindsay Buroker and Kristine Kathryn Rusch have cautioned authors and suggested scaling back a bit during the election period. I won’t have a new book out ready until the beginning of the new year anyway, but it’s something to keep in mind. Thanks to Joshua Edward Smith for posting this on his FB page. It was a good read. https://kriswrites.com/2020/09/09/business-musings-trainwreck-fall-edition/

I still like Twitter for some things, other things, not so much. The book promos are getting a bit out of hand (I’ve heard September is being a hard month for everyone), and no one seems to be writing anymore for personal reasons. A lot of my friends have school-aged children and we’re all doing the best we can with e-learning, and over here we’re trying not to meltdown because every five minutes we have a Google Hangout meeting and my daughter doesn’t want to do it.

Anyway, so there’s a woman who’s close to publishing her first book. She’s got the preorder up, had her cover professionally done (I don’t like it, but she didn’t ask my opinion LOL) paid for formatting, so it seems like she’s got things under control. But it’s her first book, and she’s green. I can tell by some of the things she tweets . . . and by the way she shrugs off advice. You’re right, she could be taking all the notes, but when she only hearts a suggestion and doesn’t bother to even thank someone for thinking of her, I know she’s shrugging off the advice. And I get it, you can’t taken EVERYONE’S advice. There’s just too much of it out there, and yeah, I completely understand there is more than one way to do this. And looking at my sales, better ways than mine!

But her attitude drives me a little nuts, and she’s not the first indie author to put a book out, expect to become overnight sensation, and earn bestseller status without having to lift a finger besides press Publish on her KDP dashboard. We all have to cut our teeth, but I hope back when I published 1700 in 2016 and didn’t know what I was doing, I had a little more grace. I probably didn’t. We all know more than a teenager when we put out our first books. But being seasoned, (and even not that seasoned as I only have 10 books out when others have 50+) I can step back and be slightly amused. I wish her well, I really really do, but it would be nice if she didn’t act like she was the first person in the whole world to publish a book. We get it. It’s fun, it’s special, but honey, if you don’t know how to market besides tweeting on Twitter, your book is going to sink like a stone and after your 30 day grace period is up on Amazon, I’m going to watch to see what happens. Hopefully, I’ll be pleasantly surprised.

How do you know you’re a good writer? Reviews? People simply telling you you are? Sales?Who do you believe? It’s tough because while quality is subjective from person to person, there has to be an overall agreement to what “good” is or there wouldn’t be bestsellers. It hurts when I see my author friends’ self-esteem shaken because they get negative feedback. Sometimes by several people. So, how do you know what to believe and what you shouldn’t?

For me, I can look at bad reviews with a critical eye. It’s easier when I don’t have reviews that say I’m a bad writer. They can nitpick a character or plot (one reviewer said His Frozen Heart had too much drama in it), or dislike Jax because he was an alphahole and maybe I didn’t completely redeem him at the end of All of Nothing, but in the reviews that I’ve read about my work, no one has come out and said that I’m a bad writer. And that helps. But it also doesn’t. Bad writing you can fix with time, effort, and lots of words written, but can you fix something that’s “off” about your books when no one can really articulate what that is?

Who should you listen to? Too many cooks ruin the broth, but when are opinions valuable?

Kristine Kathryn Rusch in her talk at 20booksto50k in Vegas last year said shouldn’t write by committee. Write the story you want, publish it, and go write more.

If you can’t trust your beta readers, can you trust reviews? I counter that for every one unhappy person who bothers to leave a review there are 20 happy readers who won’t take the time.

Writers are a sensitive bunch, and I hope that she finds her way out of her maze. She enjoys writing, and from the small portions I’ve read of her work, she’s a good writer. Hopefully she finds her happy place, and that’s back in front of her laptop.

That’s about all the news I have for today. I’m trying to get through to the end of my last book. I’m at 43k, so I’m slow going, but I need to plan out the rest of the book so I make sure I wrap up every single plotline I had going. At work tomorrow, whether I’m back home again, or going into the center, I need my notebook and I’m going to make list after list of what I need to finish this series. I think knowing exactly what I need for the last 50k+ words will help a lot.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Launching your book. Is there anything you can do to have a great launch?

Posted on November 14, 2019 by Vania Margene Rheault

your book launch

I have to get this disclaimer out there: I suck at launches. I hit PUBLISH and kind of move on. In fact, this goes in line with what Andrea Pearson says on the new 6 Figure Authors Podcast with Lindsay Buroker and Joseph R. Lallo. She recommends not bothering to market until you have at least ten books out.

As I found out being $70 bucks in the hole doing Amazon ads for The Years Between Us (I still haven’t updated that blurb, dammit!) sometimes spending money on marketing and advertising is just a waste of money that you may not ever get back.

But sometimes you wanna throw a little money at a new book, and maybe if you can hit the right notes it can take off and Amazon might show your book some love. That chance is getting smaller and smaller because of the competition, but it never hurts to try. You might get lucky.

Launching can take some planning, so I’ve been mulling over ideas. Because only half the books are edited, I don’t have blurbs or titles yet, and I only have basic concepts for the covers, my launch is going to go into next year. I’m a little embarrassed since I’m 18k into book 2 of my SUPER SECRET PROJECT trilogy, and I’ve been spending more time writing that than I have working on my series. That’s what you get when you chase after the shiny objects.

When we talk about launches, probably the top two things seasoned authors will tell you is to announce it to your email list and reach out for newsletters swaps.

I can’t do this because 1. I don’t have a email list, and 2. because I don’t have a newsletter (email list) I can’t ask around. I mean, I could ask, but I would have to be clear that I cannot reciprocate. So I’m reluctant to ask because swapping implies doing it in return at some point, and I can’t. To me it would feel like asking for favors, and I don’t like owing people.

If you don’t have a street team, email list, or friends to help you out, what can you do? The only options are then to fling some money at your book.

But first, before you shove money at it, try to get some reviews.

This is my tentative plan when I have my series ready to go:

Put my book on BookSprout before I put the ebook in KU. You can publish your paperback ahead of your Kindle book. Reviewers can’t put up a review on a preorder so the way authors are getting around this is publishing the paperback before the Kindle book. That way, when you do publish your Kindle book, it will have reviews. (You may have to contact Amazon to have them linked up to make the reviews show up for both versions.)
In a previous blogpost, I questioned the quality of the reviews from BookSprout, but you have to weigh what you need versus what you want. If you can grab four or five reviews from them at least you have something to get your book off the ground. Some readers won’t read anything that doesn’t have a review. And if you have only one book out and no one knows your name, your chances of a reader picking up your book without reviews is even lower. BookSprout will offer your book to 20 ARC readers for free. If 25% of them leave a review, you can publish your Kindle book with a few stars, at least.
Buy some promos. I want to have my whole series published when I do this. That way the promo for book one is actually going to be for all the books in the series, and I’m hoping for some serious read-through.
The two places I’m going to try are: Red Feather Romance. This is a promo site run by Written Word Media who also offers Freebooksy and Bargainbooksy. I’ve tried both of those before, and I’ve had better luck with Freebooksy. But I tried Bargainbooksy on a standalone, and I’ve come to realize marketing a standalone is not cost-effective. Ereader News Today. I haven’t tried this service, but other authors swear by it. I like trying something new every time I release a book, if anything, just so I can blog about it.When you look at promo sites, make sure before you apply that they don’t have a minimum review policy. Some don’t, some do, so it’s best to be sure you don’t need 10+ reviews before you apply for a promo. It saves time.

Also keep in mind your publication date. Popular promo sites book out a couple weeks in advance. If you’re launching your Kindle version on January 10th, you may need to rethink it if you can’t get a promo date until February.

This brings up the subject of release pricing. I think I’ll release the first book in the series at .99 and release the other books at 2.99. I’ve tried 3.99 and that seems to be too high. When you’re releasing into KU, price doesn’t seem to matter as much because you’re going more for the page reads than you are sales. If you’re wide, price matters a little more, and then you have to research in your genre what other books are going for.
Ads. I may still do some Amazon ads a few weeks after the release of book 4. That might keep my sales and page reads up after the 30 day drop off when I run out of books to release. I’ll have my SUPER SECRET PROJECT close to being done, probably, but that will be under a different name so I won’t have the power of this release behind it. What little power there might be.

your book launch (1)

I’m being realistic with this launch. My kind of books are not what’s selling right now. You might wonder how that’s possible, because romance is romance. But if you take a look at the top ten, only three of them are written in third person past, and one of them is from Nora Roberts. I don’t count her.

Dirty Letters by Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward: 1st person past
The Family Journal by Carolyn Brown: 3rd person past
Crazy for Loving You: A Bluewater Billionaires Romantic Comedy by Pippa Grant: 1st person present
Havoc at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys Book 1) by C.M. Stunich: 1st person present
A Nora Roberts reprint from 2009: 3rd person past
No Broken Beast by Nicole Snow: 1st person present
Winter Cottage by Mary Ellen Taylor: 3rd person past
My Big Fat Fake Wedding by Lauren Landish: 1st person present
Insatiable: A Cloverleigh Farms Standalone by Melanie Harlow: 1st person past
Stealing the Bride by Nadia Lee: 1st person present

You can dig deeper down the list and keep counting, but that small sample is enough for me. I’ve blogged about this before, too, how I think that 3rd person past is going out of style, and after my wedding quartet, I’ll have to decide if it’s even worth writing anymore. I mean, there’s no telling when 3rd person past might come back around. Everything circles around if you give it time. But you also have to resist banging your head into a brick wall trying to sell books readers don’t want.

Anyway, I’ve talked enough about my launch plans. It seems the best plans will incorporate a little teamwork by way of newsletter swaps, but it puts you in a hard place if you don’t have one of your own.

If you find this is the case, you can be stubborn like me and keep doing what you’re doing, or you can start a newsletter, and realize that it’s going to take you a couple years to build a list of readers where you can tell them about your releases and other books you enjoy. Also, there’s no time like the present to reach out and make some friends in your genre. If they’re your friends and want to help, maybe they won’t ask you for anything in return. Some people out there are still nice. Just be careful not to take advantage.

Got any other launch ideas? Let me know!

My Midlife Crisis. I Mean, my Mid-Year Check In.

Posted on July 8, 2019 by Vania Margene Rheault

It seems completely crazy to me that half the year has gone by. After a crappy winter, my first as a divorced lady, plus a surgery (old news) and dealing with a POS car on top of all that, my spring smoothed out, THANK GOD.

How I started 2019. This smile was before I started puking from anesthesia.

Blaze got better and is fitting into our new family dynamics. I post a lot of pictures of her and my other cats over on Instagram. If you want to follow me there, click here for my profile link.

My car, after $600.00 in repairs, is running all right, but the countdown is on to buy something better.

I published The Years Between Us in May, but that too, is old news. Though, really, it doesn’t feel like old news. It still feels like a brand new book. Not many people have read it, and it has 0 reviews on Amazon. I have it on BookSprout, and if you want to nab a copy for review through that service, click here.

I had a nice vacation last month to Georgia with my sister, and I met up with David Willis, a fellow writer I met on Twitter a couple years ago. I can’t even tell you how much I adore the ocean.

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Spring is about new beginnings. Summer about shaking off the winter, sleeping in, and picking up more hours at work. Things are going as well as anyone can say their life is going.

Planning my next six months won’t be much of an undertaking. Like Adam Croft said in a New Year’s interview with Joanna Penn, he doesn’t treat the new year any differently. He does what he needs to do to get the things he needs done to write and publish books. And I feel that way about the rest of 2019.

When you are running your own business, being a self-starter and a self-motivator is a must. No one can force you to do the work. All you can do is look in the mirror and ask yourself if you want to sell your books or not. If the answer is yes, well, you can’t sell what you don’t have.

I’ll be finishing my Wedding Party series in the next few months. I’m 18,000 words into book three. As I write, I’ve been exploring covers. Formatting will be a snap with Vellum, but to put links in the back of the books, I’ll have to publish all of them at once so the links will be available, then I’ll need to add the links to the back matter and swap out those files. It’s nothing less than what other successful indies do, but it still sounds like a pain in the ass.

Anyway, anyone keeping track of my progress knows I’m getting a little fed up with this lack-of-sales thing I’ve got going on. It’s not my way to whine–in fact I tend to avoid those who do on a consistent basis. I can’t handle how energy-sucking it can be. I need all the energy I have for myself.

In the next 12 months, you’ll be seeing a lot more progress reports from me. I’ll do this because:

not all of us are making money at this writing thing, and it’s okay to talk about it.
if I find something that works for me, I want to share it because it might work for you, too.
I’m at a point where my backlist should be making me a little money. Focusing on writing and not marketing has been at fault, but this is why I’m experimenting now. I thought All of Nothing would be a game-changer for me, and it has been in some ways. It’s the most-read book I have. But that was luck or better timing as when I used a free day and ran a Freebooksy, All of Nothing was in KU.

Why in this business does it feel like all roads lead to Amazon_ HMMMM.

My personal life probably has a lot to do with how I look at sales. But I’m not different than any other writer using their royalties to buy a better place to live, buy a newer vehicle, or pay down credit card debt.

Anyway, I’m doing what I can and what I can afford to do.

In September, I will be a part of an author panel and luncheon at the Fargo Public Library. I’ll be able to sell my books there too. A lovely woman who connected with me via LinkedIn emailed me the opportunity, and I said yes. While it may not yield any results, it made me remember that local networking can be just as important as networking online.

Something like this makes me excited I’m wide–if, after the luncheon, the library wants to carry my ebooks in their lending catalog, my books are available in the library program through Draft2Digital.

I’ll continue to blog in lieu of a newsletter. I prefer to blog, and every time I publish a new post, I gain new followers, so thank you for reading!

This post needn’t be too long. I’m struggling to write my books and stay afloat like many others out there. Some may have it better than me, some may have it worse. But as I have said many times in the past, we can only work with what we’ve got. Keep your chin up and a smile on your face.

Why in this business does it feel like all roads lead to Amazon_ HMMMM. (1)

Care to share how your 2019 is going? Drop me a comment.

Share a little triumph that will carry you for the rest of the year. ❤

My books are wide! Find them at your favorite ebook retailer.

Don’t Run Away: books2read.com/dont-run-away
Chasing You: books2read.com/Chasing-You
Running Scared: books2read.com/running-scared

Wherever He Goes: books2read.com/whereverhegoes1
All of Nothing: books2read.com/allofnothing1
The Years Between Us: books2read.com/the-years-between-us

Try the Tower City Romance Trilogy Today!

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Vania Margene Rheault

Independent Contemporary Romance Author & Blogger

Category Archives: book reviews

Monday’s Author Update

Monday’s Author Update (Mind, Body, and Soul)

Policing Other People’s Work

ARC Forms: Creating a review team

Monday Author Update

Interview: Romance Novel Reviewer Jeeves Reads Romance

Monday Musings and Happy March!

Author Musings and Are You a Good Writer?

Launching your book. Is there anything you can do to have a great launch?

My Midlife Crisis. I Mean, my Mid-Year Check In.

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