Category Archives: indie publishing news

Reality Bites: Visibility isn’t Conversion

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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.”

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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.)

Screenshot of a social media post with the author's name and profile picture obscured in purple. The author angrily criticizes Amazon KDP, writing, “If KDP had a face, I’d fucking decimate it,” and questions how KDP can claim there are no reporting issues when one of their Instagram Reels received 10,000 views in 24 hours. The post ends, “I’m so FUCKING sick of their bullshit.” Below the post are 97 likes and 26 comments.
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!

Indie Author News Roundup

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I’d love to write a cowboy romance, but I don’t know a thing about horses!
(Except how beautiful they are!)

1,781 words
9 minutes read time

There have been a couple of interesting things happening in the world of indie publishing, and I thought it would be worthwhile to chat about a couple of them. I don’t have much going on besides editing Bitter Love and keeping in mind the self-inflicted pub date I set for myself, and if you want a more updated version than that, I posted a real update last week. You can read it here: https://vaniamargene.com/2026/10/05/monday-author-update-7/

What’s been in the news? Maybe you’ve heard about them already, but you haven’t been treated to my sparkling opinion of it all, so let’s dive in.

Meta launched Meta One, a paid membership service, and some Facebook Pages are now being limited to two posts containing external links per month unless they pay for a subscription.
What does this mean? Well, Meta is rolling out this restriction, so not every Page is affected yet. But if your author Page is included, you’ll only get two opportunities a month to direct your readers somewhere else, such as Amazon, Goodreads, a Books2Read link, or anywhere else that takes your readers off Facebook. You can pay for more, and according to Reader Radius, the tiers are priced like this per month: Advanced ($49.99) gets 8, Expert ($149.99) gets 20, and Max ($499.99) is unlimited. I doubt many will pay since there were so many people who opposed Draft2Digital’s 12-dollar-a-year fee, and I won’t give Zuckerberg any of my money. He has enough of his own, and I’m not paying for the privilege to post links. Especially since I don’t use affiliate or tracking links and I have no idea how many people really click on them anyway.

News of this change made a lot of authors angry, but I took it in stride like I do most things. Why? Because… Okay, well, let me be honest for a second. I didn’t have many followers until I started posting Reels at the end of August. I was stuck at 229 for years and years. I would get followers, sure, but I almost ruined my page when I was boosting posts and Meta was showing them to males in India who would follow my page. Because of that, I had a lot of followers that would never buy my books and I started blocking them, which kept my follower count very low. I stopped boosting posts, and after I started posting Reels consistently, my followers shot up with people who, I hope, are actually interested in my books.

So, let’s get back to why I don’t care that much. For one, I didn’t really direct people to go anywhere else, and I didn’t want to start. I write about bits and pieces of my books, what I’m working on, mention a quote I like, etc, and those posts have no links. Readers want more than BUY MY BOOK all the time anyway, and I don’t like yelling BUY MY BOOK all the time either. I’d rather post about WHY someone would love reading my book and you don’t need a link for that. For another–and this is the biggest one–people who really want to read your book will find it on their own. I’ve accumulated quite a bit of proof when it comes to that because my Reels don’t have a link and never have. At the bottom of all my captions, I list myself as the author, the title, and where they can find it, like this:


Wicked Games is a standalone romantic suspense novel by VM Rheault, available on Kindle, in Kindle Unlimited, and paperback.

Then I add the categories so they know the type of book it is. That’s all a reader is going to need if they’re interested in finding and reading your book. I promise.

I haven’t found anything to the contrary, but you can still put a link in your post (it won’t be “live”), and if a reader really wants to know where it goes or act on your CTA (call to action) they can copy the link and paste it in a different tab. That would be another version of “If a reader really wants to find your book, they will” and I would do that too, if I ever surpassed the free monthly limit.

I’ve seen a lot of angry authors posting on Threads over this, and yes, it’s okay to feel your feelings, but Meta is gonna do what Meta is gonna do. Like with anything similar, getting mad won’t help. You can try to find loopholes, like posting the link in the comments, having a third party publish your posts for you, or putting all your links in a pinned post, and see how that works, but if you have to work that hard to get around something Meta is going to enforce, it might be better to find an alternative. All your energy could go into writing your book.

And, I mean, I’m not saying this to say “I told you so,” but we all need the reminder. I really think free author services are eventually going to go away, and this is just another example of it happening. We cannot expect things for free. If you use a service to run part of your business, you’re going to have to expect to pay. I’ve cut way back on the things I’m willing to pay for, in all aspects of my life, not just my author business. Learn to go without, but if it’s valuable to you and your books and you want to keep it, fork over that green stuff.

If you want to read more about this you can here:
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/facebook-pages-get-charged-for-link-posts/830743/
https://kanorio.com/en/blog/meta-link-limit-brand-response

Goodreads added fraction stars to their rating and reviewing system.
I hate Goodreads and don’t go on there (unless I have a new release and I have to make sure that it transfers from KDP to my author profile), so I didn’t care about this particular piece of news, either, but authors on Threads lost their minds.

I’m not really sure why, except for the idea that readers and reviewers will now go back and adjust their reviews, bringing them lower or closer to the “true” number of stars they wanted that book to have in the first place. Personally, if you’re an author, I think it’s a terrible practice to review another author’s book, since you’re peers and coworkers in an increasingly hostile industry, and I’ve seen enough authors make fun of reviewers for simply stating their honest opinion (which is what a review is for!) that I honestly don’t feel safe posting a review, even if it would be mostly positive. The author of the book I’m reading now wouldn’t like to read the review I’d write. There’s too much echoing and the characters are too young for the situations she has written them into. Her book would read much better if they were aged up by ten or fifteen years, but I would never say that in a public forum with our names attached, nor will I DM her because it’s not my place and the criticism wouldn’t be taken well anyway.

If you’re a professional reviewer, you might appreciate the accuracy fractional stars provide, but I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Although, I watched a clip of someone playing around, moving their pointer back and forth over the stars, and it looks like it’s possible to rate a book less than one star–.50 or .25 of a star. I actually think that’s kind of crappy and wasn’t necessary. Does anyone really need to rate a book less than one star? I’m not sure what that gets the reviewer or the author. With review bombs a real thing and vindictive reviewing a common occurrence among spiteful authors and readers both, I see this blowing up and not in a good way. It just makes me even more glad that I don’t review books or read the reviews attached to my books. That is part of the publishing industry I’m comfortable avoiding.

If you’d like to read more about that, you can here:
https://goodereader.com/blog/amazon-news/goodreads-finally-supports-both-half-star-ratings

Those were the two biggest news stories to cross my path last week, but I think this is something of interest to those who are still in KU. The KENP payout for the month of August is the highest it’s been so far this year, at 0.004895. Everyone says how little KU pays and that the KENP keeps getting lower and lower, so this should be good news for the pessimists who think KU isn’t worth it. Though, it’s probably not enough proof to get them to change their minds.

If you want a visual of what that means, Wicked Games has a KENPC (Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count) of 462. That’s different than the number of pages in the paperback, and you can find your KENPC under the “Promote and Advertise” tab on your dashboard. Click that and scroll all the way to the bottom of the page.

Screenshot of the Amazon KDP Bookshelf showing Wicked Games by VM Rheault. The Kindle eBook is live at $4.99 and enrolled in KDP Select, while the paperback is live at $14.99. A purple arrow points to the “Promote and advertise” button beside the Kindle eBook listing.
Screenshot of Amazon KDP’s “Earn royalties from the KDP Select Global Fund” section, explaining how authors earn royalties from Kindle Unlimited page reads. The listing for Wicked Games shows a Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count (KENPC) of 462 pages, highlighted by a purple arrow.

Anyway, if someone reads your book from cover to cover, you can multiply the KENP payout by the number of pages and you’ll come up with how much you get paid for that read. At 462 x .004895, a full read of Wicked Games earns me $2.26. That doesn’t quite compare to what I earn if someone buys the paperback or the ebook, but I’d rather make $2.26 than nothing at all because my books aren’t in KU. This isn’t a KU vs. Wide debate, it’s just how I feel, and I was happy to hear the payout had risen that much. Of course, that doesn’t mean it will stay there, but it’s good news for authors in KU who are toughing it out despite Amazon’s shaky content policies and the AI slop taking over the bestseller lists that Amazon doesn’t seem too keen on doing anything about.

I don’t have sources to cite for the KU payout, but Craig Martelle said in his Successful Indie Author Facebook group that 2026 was turning into a stellar year for KU authors and he keeps track of the monthly payout. I stole the August figure from him. September’s hasn’t been released yet, but hopefully the trend keeps going. Especially since in September I had the best sales month I’ve had in years, and I didn’t have to pay a dime for it either.

That’s all I have for this week. I hope you have a lovely Monday!

Until next time!

The Blame Game

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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.

Preorders and Promises

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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!

PR, Advertising, and the Myth of Being Online

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A woman in profile speaks into a yellow megaphone against a pale pink background. A large yellow starburst beside her reads, “PR, Advertising, and the Myth of Being Online.”

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!

What’s Worth the Cost?

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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.

Before You Sign with a Small Press

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Graphic for a blog post titled "Before You Sign with a Small Press." An illustration of a contract and pen appears beside a checklist that includes covers, editing, formatting, distribution, and contract terms.

I saw something sad yesterday, and no it wasn’t my sales dashboard. Just kidding. I stopped looking at that.

No, even though I talk like I’m not a part of the writing community anymore, I’m still a member of a lot of writing and publishing groups on Facebook. It’s pretty much all that’s in my feed right now which works because I’m not really interested in much else besides the occasional spoiler for House of the Dragon. Anyway, so a woman that I have actually met in person when I tried to join a local writing group posted that her debut had just been published by a “small-press–” I use the term loosely–and her cover was . . . not great. It kind of looked like the romance covers that were coming out in 2016 when authors were doing it themselves and didn’t know how to blend or add a filter so the couple fit into the background. It made me curious about the publisher, and I went on their website. Unfortunately, nothing I saw boosted my confidence that this author would have a good experience with this small press.

I understand the appeal of wanting to publish with a small press, and I’ve known other people who have made the same choices. You can’t afford an editor, you don’t know cover design, and you wouldn’t begin to know where you’d get your book formatted. So a small press sounds like an answer to a desperate prayer. They take on your book and promise you editing, formatting, and a genre-appropriate cover. If they’re being honest, maybe they say that marketing efforts will be weak and that you’ll have to do the bulk of it, and you think that’s a fair trade in exchange for the services they’re going to provide.

Deciding to go with a small press presents the same challenges that an indie author faces having to hire out every step. When you’re looking at a small press and you’re thinking about submitting your work, there are a few things you should do first:

Look at what they’ve already published.
This is huge because if you don’t like the covers on some, or most, of the books in their library, chances are really good that you aren’t going to like the one they do for you. Small presses tend to have one designer on their staff, and that one designer is going to have a certain way of doing things. If you don’t like their style, you may take that as a warning that what they come up with for your book won’t match what you had in mind. And what you want may not even be that crazy. Just a nice, normal cover that meets genre expectations and that looks professional. When I looked up the designer on the copyright page of my acquaintance’s book, the designer’s website looked sketchy as hell. So please click around the internet and look at what they’ve published, peek at the designer they use, and decide if you think they’re going to give you a cover that will actually sell your book.

Look at who the founders are.
I don’t think judging someone by their looks is that great in most cases–we all have our bad hair days–but on the other hand, if you’re running a business, you should look professional in your picture. A founder of a small press who is wearing pajamas doesn’t inspire much confidence even if they work from home and wear pajamas for most of their day. Also, what are his or her credentials? What makes them a good fit for your book? Do they have previous publishing knowledge? What can they offer that you don’t have access to yourself? I can edit, format with Vellum, and make you a decent cover in Canva. But that doesn’t mean I know how to run a small press. I have no distribution channels besides knowing how to upload a book to KDP and IngramSpark. I can’t get your book into bookstores. I don’t have the connections or warehouse space for storage to do that. I have absolutely no money to hire someone to help me. Think about what your goals for your book are going to be once it’s published. Can the small press you’re considering do those things? Also look to see if they’ve published their own books. If their finished products don’t look professional, chances are good they won’t be able to do any better for yours.

What kind of editing do they do?
It’s really important that you skim, if not read, a few of the books that the small press you are considering has published. If you find typos on the very first page, or if there are grammar or punctuation errors throughout, their editor may not be very good. When you’re going with a small press and giving them your rights, the least they can do is edit your book properly. Do they have an editing certification? Do they have testimonials saying that they’re good at what they do? If they’ve published their own books, do they sound good? How long will it take them to edit your book? Do they use AI tools, or will they do it themselves?

What kind of formatting do they do?
Granted, formatting is probably the least of your worries if you’re finding red flags elsewhere. And from what I can tell, small indie presses just use Vellum. But you should still check out whether their books look nice on the insides. Do they add chapter headers? Ornamental scene breaks? I don’t pretty my books up too much, because I think story is king, and I have actually seen readers complain that gooped-up pages take away from the reading experience, but still. A nice chapter header can make a paperback look professional. Like, you know, someone actually cared. And if you can, make sure that they’ve taken a little time with an author’s front and back matter. You might not get all that with Amazon’s 10% sample pages, but look at what you can. Formatting, from my experience, is the simplest step. If they aren’t doing that, your editing and cover chances don’t look great.

What are they doing for distribution and visibility?
To be fair, this was probably one of the only things that the small press that I referenced earlier was doing. Or looked like they were doing. Their website listed the book fairs they attended or were planning to attend. Whether they actually did, I guess no one knows, and what they did there would be a mystery unless you were present to see it. Since both the founder and the editor of that small press had published books, they could have been there to only represent themselves. Hard to know. If they aren’t going to show up on your behalf, will they pay for author copies or other swag so you can attend your own book fairs and signings? How are they investing in your books besides basic services? Zero investment may be more common than you hope, and maybe you think that’s asking too much anyway since author copies are expensive, but if they aren’t going to do anything, it’s better to know before you sign your life away.

And then after you’ve taken a look at all that and think it isn’t so bad, take a look at what they’re asking for.
How long do they hold your rights? When can you get them back if you decide to? What happens if the press closes? Do you automatically get your rights back? Are your rights folded into a new small press? You might say this should be the first bullet point, and you might be right. If you don’t like the contract terms, none of the rest matters. But I also know some authors will accept contract terms that aren’t exactly awesome if it means they’ll have their editing, formatting, and cover taken care of. Is it a good trade? It really depends on what you’re comfortable with. You’re essentially giving your book away and may never get it back. Some small presses can be really nasty to their authors, never giving rights back or asking exorbitant amounts of money to break a contract. A mediocre cover is annoying. Being locked into a mediocre cover for seven years is a disaster.

I’m not sure what’s going to happen with my acquaintance and her book. Her cover broke my heart, but she could be happy with it and that would be okay too. It’s her debut, and maybe she’s not really aware that her cover doesn’t fit in with what contemporary romance covers look like now. If she’s happy, then I’m happy for her. But competition is so fierce–not in an author-eat-author way, but we’re at an all-time high for how many books are available to choose from–that a poor cover can kill a book before it’s even had a chance. If she would have posted in the group that she wanted to self-publish and needed help, I would have helped her and she could have kept her rights. Not everyone knows that I would do that, and maybe that’s for the best, haha, or if she didn’t trust me, I could have at least pointed her in the right direction so she could have hired out dependable people.

Wanting to go with a small press is an understandable choice, but if you have to ask, “If the publisher’s version isn’t better than what I could have reasonably done alone what exactly am I getting in exchange for my rights?” then maybe that small press isn’t for you.

Not all small presses are bad. Some do excellent work and provide opportunities that would be difficult for an author to access alone. The point isn’t to avoid small presses. The point is to investigate them with the same care you’d use when hiring an editor, cover designer, or formatter. Because the old adage, “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself” may be truer than you want to admit and you could save yourself a lot of pain and heartache along the way.

If you want to read more about small presses, Writer Beware is a great source of information, and you can find it here: https://writerbeware.blog/2011/11/11/introducing-writer-bewares-small-presses-page/

Thanks for stopping in this week! Next week I’ll have another editor Q & A to post, and after that possibly an author update. By then summer will be half over. Do you have any goals you’re keeping an eye on that you’d like to finish up before the kids go back to school? Let me know so I can cheer you on!

I hope you all had a lovely 4th of July holiday!

Until next time!

Monday Musings: Indie News, AI Accusations, & What’s Next

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Graphic for a Monday Musings blog post featuring a stack of white papers clipped together with a blue paperclip on a soft blue background. White daisies decorate the image, and gold text reads: "Monday Musings: Indie News, AI Accusations, & What's Next."

Good morning to everyone except the people who hate Amazon and won’t shut up about it. Here’s your monthly reminder that if you hate them that much, you don’t have to publish with them! Ta-da! If that’s not you, I hope that wherever you are the skies are sunny and your coffee is hot!

There have been a couple things in the indie industry that caught my eye over the past couple of weeks and I thought I’d touch on them since I like keeping up with changes and then maybe I’ll mention quick what I’ve been doing at the end.

One of the biggest pieces of news that floated by me last week was that MailerLite is going down to only 250 subscribers in their free plan. I feel like this is in line with what I’ve been speculating since Draft2Digital launched a 12 dollar per year service fee for active accounts and everyone went crazy because of it. Free services are slowly being phased out, or the services are being so pared back that they’re almost useless. An author who is starting a newsletter with the intention of actually growing it isn’t going to begin with a platform that cuts you off at such a low number. That means if they’re going to hustle for signups, they could be looking at a platform change just months after starting or they’ve made the decision that they’re going to pay so they can stay.

I’ve always been of the mind to begin as you wish to continue–since it’s just easier that way all around–and I’d look for a different provider. If you’re looking to move or start a newsletter and want a bigger number, Kit seems to have the biggest number of free subscribers that I’ve seen in their free plan at 10,000 (that isn’t a typo). Use the slider to adjust to the 10k number and you’ll see that the free plan stays free for that number. I have never used Kit before, but I know people who have, and you need to get your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC in order and also use a professional email (like hello@pennymaxwellauthor.com) or your emails will go to people’s spam/junk folders. Gmail has tightened up how they deliver emails, and that’s just the way it is now. As they say, nothing in this life is free. Still, my email attached to this site is $84.00 a year, which doesn’t seem so bad if your newsletter aggregator is free. Kit will also integrate with BookFunnel if you pay for the Mid-List Author tier, though BookFunnel’s prices went up this year too, so you’re going to be paying for something if you want to offer a newsletter to your readers.

Whatever you do, export your list regularly! Don’t lose your list. Then you’re free to move to whatever aggregator you want, even if that means just blogging on your own website like I’ve started doing.

Another big news item that everyone lost their minds over is that KDP is now offering groundwood paper as a page color choice. I didn’t think this was a big deal really. Cream has always been fine for me, but there are a couple of things worth noting. For one, KDP will allow you to change already published titles to groundwood, which is interesting because page color used to be tied to your ISBN number. That appears to no longer be the case. I buy all my ISBNs from Bowker and KDP has offered me the choice to switch, though like putting my ebooks in libraries, I’m not going to bother.

Screenshot of the Amazon KDP Bookshelf page for Wicked Games by VM Rheault. The Kindle eBook and paperback editions are live. The Kindle edition is enrolled in KDP Select and priced at $4.99 USD, while the paperback is priced at $14.99 USD. The page also displays options to promote and advertise the book, order author copies, create a hardcover edition, and add an Audible audiobook using a virtual voice. Also groundwood option is shown

The other thing to keep in mind is that your spine width might change. KDP encourages you to double check by using the Print Previewer and/or ordering a proof before you publish with the changes. Be sure to read their guidelines so your book will print properly if you make the change.

Amazon was on a roll with changes this month and sent out an email notifying authors that if they were using a Payment Service Provider that is not a participant in Amazon’s Payment Service Provider Program, you would need to change where your royalties are deposited. I didn’t get the email because I have my royalties deposited into a local bank, but there were plenty of authors who did, and of course, because it’s Amazon, everyone was unhappy.

Screenshot of an Amazon KDP email notifying publishers about an update to the Payment Service Provider (PSP) Program. The message states that bank accounts linked to KDP must participate in Amazon's PSP program and complete know-your-customer (KYC) verification. Publishers are instructed to update their bank account information by August 1, 2026, or royalty payments will be placed on hold until the account is updated.
h/t to Emma Hamm for showing us her email on Threads.

In other news that’s equally disheartening, is this article in The Independent. Three out of five winners of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize were accused of writing their stories with AI. Upon an investigation, those writers were cleared. Unfortunately, I think we are going to be seeing more and more of this as time goes on. What really bothers me is that there doesn’t seem to be any repercussions for the people doing the accusing. Accusations like that can destroy careers and reputations, but there doesn’t seem to be any consequences. Another thing that bothers me is that when they investigated the claims, they went over evidence including “working drafts, time-stamped documents, and notes.” What if we don’t have any of that? I write in one Word file and edit in that file. I have some notes in a notebook and I also have bits and pieces of prose since writing in a notebook is how I get unstuck, but that may not be enough evidence if I am ever accused of using AI to write my books.

I don’t know how anyone can protect themselves, and stuff like this is part of what makes me feel so defeated. Accusers get away with it while the authors have to prove their innocence. It’s not right, but I don’t see anything changing. Burden of proof shouldn’t be on the author, but here we are. If you’d like to read it, you can read it here: https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/books/news/commonwealth-prize-clears-winners-ai-allegations-review-b3001994.html. Thanks to my friend Chris for the article, and if you’d like to read what he’s been working on, you can find it here: https://www.shadeofthemorningsun.com/

Life has been kind of busy lately so I haven’t gotten much done on Frozen Assets. I’m 74,722 into it with maybe around 10k more to finish it up. I was a little concerned that it’s going to be shorter than my usual, but then I thought that gives me some leeway when I start writing Cold Mercy. I don’t have all of Celina and Trevor’s story plotted out yet, and it will make things easier if I don’t feel like I have to compete with a 110k word book. I’ve been thinking about Cold Mercy off and on and I’ll take a break after I’m done with Frozen Assets to watch more hockey documentaries and read We Breed Lions by Rick Westhead. The research has been half the fun of writing a hockey romance and I think I might have said in a different blog post that rather than using it for only two books, I’ve been thinking about a standalone after my duet is done. Though I was reading about an “Alpine Divorce” situation on Threads that gave me an idea, but that will have to get in the queue.

As of right now, I’m not sure when I’ll publish again, as I’m leaning toward saving up some books for the next couple of years or just putting them on my website for free when I feel like it. I have come to the sad conclusion there is no point in publishing anymore, not in the way that I have been with cover reveals, blurb reveals, ARC copies, trying to have a big launch, and paying for ads and buying promos. I’ve done all there is to do, and like I told a friend earlier, I’m taking my hands off the wheel.

I have two more editor Q & As to post, then I will be done with the people who were kind enough to give me their time. I hope you’ve been enjoying them. I know it’s been fun for me to see the different ways editors work.

This is all from me this week. Enjoy the rest of June, and if you have plans over the 4th of July, be careful and stay safe!

Until next time!

Nancy Drew and You: The Rise of the Reader Detective

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Cartoon illustration of a woman holding a magnifying glass and investigating a cluster of floating "AI" labels. The image humorously represents readers searching for signs of AI-generated writing.

Lately I have come to realize that there is a certain subset of readers who are no longer reading for pleasure.

Before Al became a household name (I like to call him Al because in some fonts AI looks like Al… You know what, never mind), readers picked up a book to either be entertained or to find out information. There wasn’t really a reason to read a book otherwise. Maybe in the indie community someone slogged through a book they didn’t like in the name of “support,” and if you do your own detective work, sometimes you can still spot it every now and then, but these days there’s another reason readers read.

They’re searching to see if you used AI to write your book.

I don’t have concrete evidence for this of course, except that every post I see on Threads now leaves no room for writerly error.

Didn’t vibe with the style? AI

Too many inconsistencies? AI

Too many clichés? AI

Too many em-dashes, semicolons, any other punctuation that particular reader decided to dislike that day? AI

Too much echoing/too many filler words? AI

It’s never-ending, and I have a theory that those certain readers don’t sit down to just enjoy a story anymore. They’re reading to find AI tells, and when they think they’ve spotted something, they shout it to the whole world.

And I don’t mean they’re telling people to warn other readers not to read an AI-written book. They want to feel validated, vindicated, and smug they “caught” you.

When, in reality, unless an author leaves a prompt or a prompt answer in their book, no one is going to truly be able to tell. Because, and this is the sad part, a newer writer, or an author who couldn’t afford an editor, might have poured years of their life into a book that has all those things wrong with it. I’ve edited for people for many, many years, and we forget how raw a new author’s writing can be.

I think the existence of AI has changed how a lot of us, or even most of us, have started consuming content. A very vocal section of the internet does not want to consume any content that’s even partially AI, and for the most part, I agree. There isn’t much, if anything, that I would prefer to hear from Al instead of a human being, and I do get kind of disgusted with people when they can’t put in the work to write their own blog posts, Substack articles, and Threads posts (like the ones that need 5-20 posts to tell a story or recount an event). If you can’t put in that work, then don’t try to offer that content to people. There is so much noise online there’s nothing in it for you anyway.

I’ve noticed this particularly recently when the newest accusation popped up that if you don’t credit your cover designer or your editor on your copyright page, you used AI to create your cover and to write your book. A long time ago I started crediting the stock photo contributors on my copyright page, and I say that I make my own covers in Canva. It never occurred to me to add that I edit my own books, mostly because that sounds like an invitation to read my poorly edited books. It’s not anyone’s business, I don’t think, if I edit my own books or not, as long as they sound good and make sense. I’ve edited my own books for many years now simply because I can’t afford to hire out, especially at the speed I produce and with how little I make after publishing. And in an ironic twist, now days I don’t want to be scammed by an editor who will only drop my book into ChatGPT and ask him to find typos. I can do that myself . . . for free.

All of this has made readers wary, and I get it, but that doesn’t explain the vindictiveness I see toward books that aren’t to a reader’s liking. I feel bad for newer authors who are putting their first book out right now. Maybe they haven’t gotten their voice and style down yet, or they haven’t controlled their echoing, or they fall into clichés because they’re easy to write. Maybe they have terrible memories and hired basement-bargain editors. Then you get someone talking about you online and giving it the biggest insult there is: this was written by AI.

There are only three ways, that I know of, that you can potentially avoid having a bookstagrammer accuse you of writing your book with AI. You’d think the simple answer would be just not use AI, but unfortunately, it’s not that easy.

Don’t use an AI cover
Almost everyone who is on writer/reader social media will assume your book was written by AI. Is it fair, no. But you’ll undoubtedly get people making the leap, like people in this thread on Threads:

Screenshot of a Threads discussion about AI-generated book covers. The original post asks: “If an author uses an AI-generated cover, what are the chances they also use AI to write (partially or fully) the book too?” Responses include: “Very likely. That’s why we don’t allow anyone with an AI cover to submit to us.” Another commenter jokes, “High. Shame them and throw rocks at their computer.” Other replies say they would not take the risk of reading the book and believe authors using AI covers are likely using AI for writing as well.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t use Midjourney to make your cover, but you do have to realize that you are not giving your book its best start if you do. You’re going to be posting your cover on social media–I don’t think there’s any way around that even if you’re not actively marketing–and loud and proud anti-AI people are going to see it. If they make the assumption that your book was written by AI because Al made your cover, then unfortunately, you’re going to lose a lot of people right off.

DepositPhotos has a lot of stock, even if you filter out the AI offerings, and you can make a decent cover with a legit stock photo and good font. I would very much rather do that because I work really hard on my insides, and I’m sure you do too.

Do the best you can editing
This sounds stupid, because I’m going to assume everyone does do the best they can while they’re editing. You can try to clean up your book as much as possible during editing by avoiding:

*Echoing the same words repeatedly (over time you can make a list of crutch words and search for them using the search feature of your writing program)
*Reusing sentence structures (altering sentence length and structure just makes for a good reading experience anyway)
*Characters saying similar things (each character should sound like their own person and have their own distinct personality)
*Illogical situations (if you have a two year old in your book, don’t let her sound like an adult when she speaks or if you’re leaving her home alone, make sure she has a babysitter)
*Plot holes (give your book a break for a couple of months to read with fresh eyes)
*Inconsistencies (keep a character sheet for each character and write down eye color, hair color, careers, etc for easy reference)

I’m not going to tell you senseless fixes like avoiding em dashes or leaving typos in your book to prove that AI didn’t write it, or avoiding the rule of three. Some people are just not going to vibe with your voice, and that’s okay. Your writing was never meant to be for everyone and if the first conclusion they jump to is that AI wrote it, that’s on them, not you.

Credit your cover designer and editor
You don’t have to do this on your copyright page, though that is probably the best place to do it. You can also add a link to your website on your copyright page and give your designer and editor attribution there if you have an About Me page or something. But also be prepared for people not to believe you. Once these particular people get a bee in their bonnet about your book, there isn’t going to be much that changes their minds, especially since people can lie. Anyone can say anything, and people will.

I think it’s pretty sad that we’ve come to this. That we can’t post our daily word counts because people will accuse you of using AI if you’re a fast writer. I just saw someone on Threads accuse Freida McFadden of using AI, when you know she can write full time and probably actually uses her time to write, like other heavy hitters such as Nora Roberts and Marie Force.

The readers who have turned Nancy Drew have stopped reading for pleasure and now read to investigate. That’s a real tragedy that doesn’t seem to have a happy ending.

Books are supposed to be an escape, not a crime scene.

And if you read thrillers, then you know that some mysteries are never solved.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time! Have a great week ahead!

Monday Musings: Publishing Whiplash

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Graphic for a blog post titled “Publishing Whiplash,” featuring a snowy mountain road and a lone car driving through a winter forest at dusk.

I’ve only had whiplash once in my life. When I was thirteen or so, I was taking the van home from church. I did this a lot even when my parents had also gone to church, because it was fun and one of my friends didn’t live that far from me and we rode the whole way together. The roads were slippery, and at an intersection, a school bus hit us from behind. I didn’t feel it for a couple of days, but when I did, I was miserable for weeks. Luckily, I have never been in a car accident where I have suffered like that again, but being online these days gives me a different kind of whiplash.

Everyone is talking about sales, KDP reporting, and what you can or can’t do to sell books.

On the one hand, there are people who say there’s nothing you can do. Good books are buried every day, and it doesn’t matter how well your book is written or how wonderful your cover is. The algorithms are against you, and it does feel like that. You publish a book and it joins the ranks of the thousand other books that are published that day. There is no organic discovery, it feels like Amazon no longer pushes your books (is the 30-day cliff even a thing anymore?), and word of mouth is bestowed among a fortunate few.

But on the other hand, I am seeing a lot of, If your books aren’t selling have you…?

started a newsletter
posted on socials consistently?
asked beged for reviews?
optimized metadata?
picked the right tropes?
run ads?
rapid released?
made or bought the right cover?
written the perfect blurb?
built an ARC team?

And anyone who has been publishing for a while will say they’ve done all those things, and it can get annoying and frustrating hearing that same chorus over and over again.

Because we can dissect that list and find many reasons why they don’t work anymore. It’s harder than ever to entice, persuade, or cajole someone to sign up for your newsletter, and when they do, good luck getting them to regularly open it and engage with what’s inside. Social media is a time suck and you’re fighting a different kind of algorithm war. Reviews can be hit or miss, but my experience with BookSprout, PenPinery, and giving ARCs away on my FB author page and through my newsletter has been less than stellar. Optimizing metadata isn’t a secret anymore and everyone knows how important categories and keywords are. Running ads is a gamble, especially with Facebook making it increasingly harder with their AI and interest targeting changes. Not having the right cover is so 2016 and it’s easier than ever to make something yourself in Canva or buy a premade, and maybe people still struggle with blurbs, but they’re doing their best. We know how important it is to build an ARC team, but everyone is trying to build one, and while publishing is a marathon, you may die before you reach that finish line.

So, what’s left?

I know this post sounds like a lot of what I’ve been talking about for the past six months, maybe even the past year, but it’s only lately that I’ve been seeing the tug of war online . . . or maybe it’s always been there and I haven’t been sensitive to it until now.

Perhaps one thing that made me go, “Hey….” is Becca Syme’s recent Substack article. In it, she says to stop worrying about saturation and start writing better books. In a lot of areas, I agree with her. For the past fifteen years we’ve been swept up in the culture that faster is better and that more books will earn you more money. She mentions authors publishing their Minimum Viable Products, and that truly did used to be a thing–just get it done and out. I think authors still think faster is better, just for the sake of feeding the algorithm and building a backlist, or if not that, then they publish the second their book is done because they’re excited. I mean, I just saw someone post on Threads that they put the first two books of a new series on preorder, but now they have writer’s block and were panicking because they barely had anything written. I get being excited, I even understand needing a deadline to work toward to keep motivation up, but that sounded like unnecessary sabotage to me.

So, in some ways, Becca is absolutely right. Stop thinking you’re going to fade away into obscurity if you’re not publishing three times a year, focus on enjoying the process, and give your readers an experience that they won’t regret paying for.

But I also disagreed with her. Not because I think authors shouldn’t focus on craft–we should all be trying to level up every time we write a new book–but because the authors who write good books have the same problem that everyone else has: discoverability. In fact, some could argue that poorly-written books seem to do better, but that’s a discussion that leads to nowhere so we probably shouldn’t do that here.

The truth is both sides are right, and that’s what gives me whiplash. Yes, authors should focus on craft and giving a reader something they’ll love to read. Yes, we should package our books professionally, write the best blurbs we can, and understand the basics of marketing. But there comes a point where “Have you tried…?” stops being helpful and starts sounding rather accusatory and condescending, like if you had just posted one more reel or spent five more dollars on ads, you would have made it.

And you know the people who keep telling you to keep writing, those are the people who have made it, and they have the “Just Do It” mentality because it worked for them. That doesn’t make them wrong (maybe annoying, though), but people who have found success sometimes wear rose-colored glasses, and it’s difficult for them to take them off.

So we can look at publishing and focus on what we can control. We can level up our craft in a way that our time and expenses allow, we can put good covers on our books and write good blurbs. But I also think we need to be honest about what control actually looks like. Not everyone has the money for developmental edits, professional copywriting, or custom covers. Not everyone has an army of beta readers, honest author friends who will tell you the truth if your cover sucks, or an ARC team that will actually read and leave a coherent review. A lot of publishing advice assumes access to resources that a person working two jobs, parenting, and running a household may simply not have.

Over the past ten years I’ve learned a lot. I’ve leveled up my craft, and I know I have. I never could have written Wicked Games five years ago, and I have said in the past that I tabled A Heartache for Christmas because I didn’t have the skill to write the book I wanted to write. I’ve learned a lot about covers, not just making nice ones in Canva, but making ones that specifically fit the genre and vibe of the book. And yeah, I do it alone. But even though I do it alone, I don’t stagnate because I love doing what I do, and getting better is a part of having a passion.

In my last blog post, I said that this post would be about finding discoverability if you don’t like posting on socials and if ads don’t work for you. I’m not sure what I thought I was going to offer, since my books’ discoverability is pretty much nonexistent. I make pennies a day, even with nineteen books in my backlist. And because of that, I decided to stop writing to publish and write because I love it. I don’t know when I’ll publish again and that’s okay. I’ve done everything on that list and it’s time to move on.

I’m tired of thinking I could have done more, and I’m tired of being told I could have done more.

I don’t have whiplash anymore. I don’t go to church anymore, either, and the friend I used to sit with, she’s been in my past for a long time.

But five months out of the year the roads are still slippery, so I’ve learned to slow down and enjoy the view.