Author Update…Happy December!

Posted on December 4, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

There isn’t much going on in the land of indie these days…no controversial issue that I have to weigh in on. That’s a good thing, but it does leave me little to talk about every week. I used to listen to a weekly talk on Clubhouse about marketing romance books. It lasted for a bit, but the hosts took a summer off and never came back. Though I missed the Wednesday morning chats, I understood why. There are only so many things you can tell an author about marketing before you’re just repeating yourself because true marketing lies within the books you’re writing (tropes, reader expectation, and craft don’t get talked about nearly as much as they should) and how you package them. It’s something of a no-brainer to write to market, to cover to market, to make sure your blurb is clear and intriguing. You can’t give out many tips about that–and especially to those who don’t want to follow that advice. In relation to that little story that sounded as if it were going nowhere, there’s not much going on that I need to rehash but rather than not blog, I’ll give a quick recap of the past two months and what I’m going to be doing for the month of December.

I’m done with TikTok. I enjoyed it while I was on it, got into the groove of making videos on Canva without it taking all day, and thought maybe I could actually turn it into a marketing tool like so many other authors have. But like with most things, a few bad apples spoiled the barrel, and my innocent videos kept getting take down because they were supposedly violating community guidelines (and like KDP/Amazon Ads, they won’t tell you what you did so you can avoid doing it again). When I blame bad apples, I’m blaming the dark romance authors who used it to post explicit content. And I don’t even really blame them for that–marketing on TikTok is a goldmine if you can get it to work–it’s that TikTok doesn’t want that kind of thing on their platform and dark romance authors had to find new ways to outsmart the bots that would take those videos down. Now words like “hurt” and “death” and “die” and a long list of other words (a lot having to do with sex like “come”) will get your video pulled, and sometimes not even pulled. They won’t let you post it at all, which is what happened to my last video… I used the word “hurt” in a way that I didn’t think warranted that kind of consequence. There are so many dirty snippets that authors can still get away with posting, I just gave up. I don’t like dealing with the unfairness of it all, and you can call me a whiner because we all know life isn’t fair, that’s okay, but one of my biggest pet peeves is when people are not treated equally. I don’t like the way they arbitrarily enforce their guidelines and I’m not going to put up with it anymore. My books are angsty, not dark or dirty, and when I see other snippets getting away with it when mine don’t, it’s frustrating and I’m not going to play that game. Maybe the occasional blocked video wouldn’t bother me but when that happens, your whole account is suppressed and other videos aren’t shown as often as they normally would, and I don’t have time for it. I still have my profile up, and maybe I’ll still scroll now and then because I was finding books I wanted to read (yeah, because of the dirty snippets) but I’m done posting videos. My last appeal took over a week to go through and I’ll try finding other ways to market my books.

I started reading the first book in my series to get them ready to be published. I did a good job on the last editing sweep I did, and four chapters in, I’m not finding too much too fix. If I can easily edit out a “when” or a “while” or take out an “as” phrase (she did this as he did this) I do it, but I am keeping in mind I don’t want them to sound too edited, and if the words flow well, I leave them be. I want to say I want to be done reading this book by the end of December, but I need to be done a lot sooner than that if I want to start publishing by March. In the weird way that I am, I need to have them all done and ready and final files uploaded to KDP to put them on preorder. It’s just the way I am and I’ve stopped trying to fight it, but it will free up brain space to move on and work on something else.

I have an author interview set up for later this month, and I’m looking forward to posting that. I’ve been having a difficult time finding people who are a) actively writing and publishing and have something to share, and b) willing to give me their time, which is why I don’t think I’ve had a guest post or author interview since last spring when I had my hysterectomy and scheduled almost two months of guest posts to cover my time recovering. Guests posts and author interviews aren’t a staple of this blog, but I like offering other viewpoints and experiences. I believe we all have something to share and learn from each other.

You guys know I use ads and lately I’ve been using FB ads more than ever before. I’m starting to dislike sharing sales numbers (just this morning I saw a thread on Twitter asking people what their earnings were last month), but I also want to prove that my FB ads are working and that I’m earning more than I’m spending. That puts me in a tough spot because how else am I supposed to prove to you that I’m selling books if I can’t be transparent? I realize what a conundrum that is, but let me pull the numbers and see what I can do.

October had the best sales month I’ve had selling this pen name, but I can’t say for sure overall. I’m not going back to my 3rd person books because that would be time consuming and irrelevant anyway since I wasn’t playing with FB ads then. I didn’t quite make 4 figures, October coming in at $735.20. Those were primarily my rockstars, and that’s mostly because I was running the most ads to those books. But they’re selling because the covers and titles are good and the blurbs are strong. I don’t care how fancy your ad is or if you have the hookiest hook…you’re not gonna sell if your cover doesn’t look good and match your genre and if your blurb isn’t strong. I told you about my read-through for my trilogy last week, so I know all the books are getting read. I sold some of my other books too, but my trilogy makes up the lion’s share of that figure. For ad spend, I spent $77.52 on Amazon ads, which is a little more per month than I’m used to spending, but I have an auto ad for Rescue Me that goes gangbusters every month. My sales aren’t gangbusters for that book, but I let the ad go because it brings awareness to my name and the books I have, and the clicks aren’t that expensive. For Facebook ads, I spent $87.00 for one ad and $8.77 for a different ad, and that brings my royalties for the month to $561.91. I don’t think anyone would complain about that. (Unless you’re a 5- 6- or 7-figure author. Then you’d probably die. Haha!)

November was almost the same. Before ad spend I had royalties of $593.45, which was a bit lower, but I think I also slacked on keeping my FB ads running. I schedule them for 2-week blocks, but really if I’m getting low cost per click and people are liking and engaging with the ad, I should just let it go and check in periodically instead of having to remember to extend the end date. Anyway, so with how Facebook bills out, I paid the same amount–$87.00. I didn’t boost a post, so I didn’t have the $8.77 I spend last month as I did in October. I also didn’t spend as much on Amazon ads, that total coming in at $41.09. After those two ad spends, I brought in $465.36 in royalties, which I am not going to argue about. I think most of that is my rockstars too, but now that my other trilogy is edited and re-covered, after Christmas I’ll start running ads to them too. I think with the number of books I have out, if I ran my FB ads properly, I could hopefully make $1,000/month. The steady income would take some pressure off but I would have to make double that for any real impact to be made. (For example, if I did make a steady 2k a month, I could drop down to part-time at my job and write more.) Perhaps after my series is out I’ll have a chance of doing that. I’ll have 17 books published under my initials–that has to move the needle, you’d think.

Anyway, so I’m not screenshotting my dashboard–you’ll have to take my at my word that’s what my royalties are, but there’s no reason to lie. If I wanted to lie, I would tell you my numbers were a lot better than that. Haha.

I finally migrated from the old MailerLite to the new one, and it doesn’t look much different. It wasn’t too difficult though it took a few minutes for the signup link on my author website to click in and I tried to sign up a few times before it worked. Linking my Bookfunnel account and migration to MailerLite was a bit trickier, but all I had to do there was generate a new API code and replace it with the old one on my landing page settings for my reader magnet. After I figured that out, it was okay. Luckily, and surprisingly, I remembered how I set it up last time, and I didn’t need to ask for any help. My signups and landing pages are very barebones and I only send one welcome email so my welcome sequence is very short. I haven’t segmented any of my subscribers, and it seems all my subscribers migrated over, but I saved them all first before I did anything. I haven’t sent out a newsletter since I did that so we’ll see how that goes. As far as I know, no one has signed up to my newsletter either, but I’m hoping with all the tests I ran everything works out.

I may not be completely taking time off from my books, but I did make time to read a book I found on TikTok–200 pages of pretty much just sex. Not that I minded, as I said above, the sexy snippets are what helps me find the books in the first place, but what you see, at least with that particular book, is what you get. There was no character development, hardly any backstory for either character. They didn’t even tell each other I love you, which was a real let down after all that…physical connecting. They didn’t break up and get back together, which is my favorite part of a romance book. So, I plowed through it in just a couple of hours, but it’s nothing I could ever write. I need more substance to my books, need my characters to grow and change and realize without a shadow of a doubt, if they lost the other person, their lives would never be the same. I need tender moments in the dark and gut-wrenching, down-on-his-knees proposals. To me, that’s what makes a romance novel. But there are many different types of books and many different types of authors and of course, many different types of readers. We all will find our audience, and that’s okay. I gave her .95 in KU page reads and I read something that wasn’t mine. We both win.

Later in the month I’ll do my year-end summary. It’s too early to do that now–there are still four weeks left of the year I’m not going to brush aside. Looking ahead too far means you miss what’s right in front of you, and there are still good things to come with the remaining weeks of 2023.

How are you going to spend the rest of the year? Any big projects you’re going to wrap up? If you won NaNoWriMo last month, congratulations! I will talk to you all next week. 🙂

Until next time!

Monday’s Author Update

Posted on November 27, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

Happy Monday! I don’t share many pics of myself, but this one was taken at the hotel in Minneapolis while we were decompressing after a day of shopping at the Mall of America. I literally have bedhead, haha. I hope the Thanksgiving weekend treated all of you to good food, fun family times, and some quiet relaxation for yourselves before the frenzied weeks of Christmas kick in.

Despite how busy my November has been, I’ve been able to get a few things done. My Lost & Found trilogy has been reedited and the covers have been updated (that was a lot of work and I’m glad it’s over). I haven’t taken the time to run ads to it yet, so I don’t have any data to share as to how the covers made a difference in sales. People actually have to know of a novel’s existence before they can buy it and right now the only way I do that is with ads. I can share now more on social media because I’m proud of the covers and before I didn’t really want anyone to see them. It’s difficult to market a book you’re not proud of and at least now I know the covers are the best they can be.

Ad cost over the next four weeks during the holiday season won’t be that great, and I won’t start any new ads until after the holidays. Everyone is going to be running ads to their products. I’ll keep the ads I have now going (keeping an eye on the cost-per-click), but I’ve heard CPC goes up around this time of year, and I don’t need to contribute to that.

I was a little curious as to how my rockstars were doing read-through wise, so I did some math to calculate. I’m not going to say how much they’ve made since their release (and with the numbers I share, please don’t try. So much varies with KU and sales, not to mention countries). I struggle between wanting to help fledging authors feel better about lower sales and showing my readers all that I have talked about and implemented over the years really did help me find readers and level up without flashing numbers. When you write a nonfiction blog it’s important you know what you’re doing, or at least if you’re going to experiment you’re honest that you’re experimenting and willing to share the results, but you can’t say “do this” without proof it works. No one would listen to me if I did that, and my blog would be worthless and meaningless. I’m not one of those smarmy marketing gurus that lands in your inbox, and I’m not trying to sell anything, but I do give advice and it is nice without taking screenshots of my KDP sales dashboard to be able to prove that my advice has a little weight behind it.

So, I took a few minutes to look up my stats. Twisted Alibis, in total, has sold 252 books. That’s with KENP page reads turned into full “books,” ebooks, and print sales. Twisted Lullabies has sold a total of 147 books, and that is with all the formats. Twisted Lies has sold 119 books, and that includes all the formats. I did the math and if you divide Twisted Lullabies’ sales (147) by Twisted Alibis’ sales (252) you get 58.3%. That means 58.3% of readers who read book one of my trilogy went on to read book two. I did more math and calculated that 80.9% of readers who read book two went on to read book three (119 divided by 147), and I was really really happy with those numbers. Especially since I’ve been told book two’s characters were hard to connect with and it wasn’t a classic, “boy meets girl, they fall in love, they break up, get back together, and get married” kind of romance. It’s not, really, but I believe there is room for all different types of tropes and stories and characters. I’m glad book two, despite the negative feedback, is enough for people to go on to book three, and I really hope book three nails the ending and gives my readers the closure they deserve after investing time to read 300,000 of my words. If you want to read more about read-through, how to calculate it, and why it’s important, you can read an article here by Mallory Cooper for Kindlepreneur.

What’s next for me? Right now I’m pleasure-reading/editing book two of my duet. I fell into a weird cadence overusing “while” “before” “after” and “when.” I don’t know why, and I don’t know how, unless I read a book while writing those that did the same thing. I don’t particularly like it, and there was one paragraph where I used five “whens” and it sounded like crap. I love the stories, though, so I’m pleasure-reading as much as I am fixing the sentences. It’s not a huge, anxiety-inducing priority to edit these books as my trilogy was, so I’m taking my time and still doing other non-writing things while I’m doing that. Mostly that has to do with the trip I was on for my daughter’s birthday, Thanksgiving I cooked for, and this week, tree-trimming and celebrating my birthday. I also want to spend more time on social media promoting my Christmas novel (I have five weeks to push it until no one cares), and I’ll do that while casually finishing reading book two and replacing all those files once it’s done. It’s not a big deal, and editing those books gives me a chance to update my Also By pages–I’ve written a lot more books since publishing my duet.

Otherwise I don’t have much else. I was going to take December off, but you all know me and I couldn’t take time off my books without feeling listless and, let’s face it, sad. I wouldn’t have much else to do, but I am going to read while I get my series ready because I want to start my research and plan/plot what I’m going to write next. I can’t write what I want if I don’t read and make notes of tropes and reader expectations (skipping from billionaire to rockstars to mafia), and honestly, some of these I picked up on TikTok and I want to know if they deserve all the hype. But, one thing at a time, and I want to delve into my series first, see how much work they need. I haven’t read them in a long time, and now that I’m aware of my writing tics and my new favorite garbage words, I can edit them with a fresh eye and publish them knowing I did the best I could. I need to take a deep breath and go slowly. We’re looking at a half a million words and that won’t be easy, even if they are, by my guess, 75% ready to be published. I’ve been talking about these for so long, many of you probably think they’re a myth and they aren’t really written at all. They are very real, and it will be a relief to get them polished and on preorder. I’ve held them back long enough.

Oh, and I did manage change out my Lost & Found trilogy files on IngramSpark, and I put my rockstars on there, too. I don’t use expanded distribution on KDP, preferring to use Ingram on the off chance I’m asked to do a signing and they want to order their own stock rather than me bringing in author copies. I always thought it was tacky anyway, asking bookstores to sell Amazon copies when Amazon is a bookstore’s biggest competitor. Have a little class and use Ingram for their distribution. I do both. Amazon doesn’t play well with others, so I publish there first, wait for the books and ISBN to “settle” for a few months (three or four), and then when Ingram publishes, they skip Amazon because my books are already there. It’s a system that has worked for me for 20 books, and if it’s not broken, I’m not going to try to fix it or do something else. I only messed up one of the six covers I submitted, and that by far is my best record yet. I must be getting used to how picky they are. Also, I recouped my Alli membership fee. One of the benefits of being a member is free IS file replacement. You can upload new titles for free, but if you make changes to existing books (I think it’s more than 60 days after publication) you still have to pay the fee for file replacement. That’s $25 for the interior and $25 for the cover ($50 for both). Being that I replaced both for all three books, my membership paid for itself and then some. Membership is $119 dollars and replacing all my files in my billionaire trilogy would have cost me $150. That alone was worth it, but I like being a member for peace of mind. You never know when you’re going to need an advocate to reach out to Amazon on your behalf. Anyway, so I was glad to get that done, and now my rockstar paperbacks are available everywhere. I don’t sell many, like I said, it’s mostly in case I’m ever invited to a book signing and they want to order their own copies. I do a 40% wholesale discount and don’t allow returns. I’ve heard some horror stories about dealing with IS, but I have never had an issue with getting hit with a huge return bill. There’s a first time for everything, so read up on what is best practice and make decisions for yourself and what’s good for your book business.

That’s all I have for this week. I hope you all have a fantastic one!

Until next time!

Happy Thanksgiving! Five Things I’m Grateful For

Posted on November 23, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

It’s Thanksgiving Day in the States, and most times I don’t jump on the bandwagon for much, but I thought I would blog about the five things that I’m grateful for, not only in my life, but in the indie community, writing- and publishing-wise.

Number one, no doubt about it, is going to be my audience. I don’t pick up many subscribers on the blog anymore. One or two would sign up with every blog post I published, but I think that’s due to Twitter’s API and how WordPress can’t tweet my blogposts anymore when my blog goes live. I don’t go through the hassle of pushing my own blog on that platform (or anywhere for that matter). I was happy enough to let WordPress take care of it. Now I only have my own SEO to depend on, but I’m still finding a lot of discoverability with my how-to Canva posts and I might still get a follower or two out of those instructions. But, I’m not just grateful for the readers I’ve managed to pick up here. I have readers other places too, like my FB author page, and of course, the people who read my books. I started at 0, blogging for no one, writing for no one. It’s not a lot of fun, and without consistency, you can stay at 0 for a long time too. I’m grateful for all the readers who have stuck by me, in whatever capacity and on whatever platform, but I’m also grateful I hung in there for myself.

The friends I’ve made doing this crazy thing. I talk a lot about how lonely this gig feels, and I think you can feel that way no matter how many writer friends you have. Sitting behind your laptop and staring at a blank Word document can probably be one of the loneliest things you can do as a writer. No one can write your book but you. Sure, you can join sprints or writing groups, and those can be valuable. But writing starts and ends with you–it starts and ends with what’s inside your head. I’ve made lots of friends on Twitter and they were so helpful when it came to just starting out publishing. Most have faded now, not writing, family issues pulling them away, COVID, but I believe people come into your life when you need them. If they hang around, you still need them, and if they drift off, they’ve gone on to help someone else. I like to think I’ve done my share of helping and paying it forward because I value and appreciate the time people have given me. I don’t regret time I’ve given anyone–any relationship I’ve made in the past seven years I’ll treasure. Even if we don’t talk anymore, for whatever reason, I’m always wishing you the best.

People who are free with their information. I talk a lot on the blog about how “the information for success is out there,” you just have to know where to look for it. Several successful authors write nonfiction, and you’re crazy if you’re not listening to them speak or devouring their books. In no particular order, my favorite nonfiction authors are (and yes, I’ve read them all, and no, there are no affiliate links here):

Jennifer Probst. I love her two books on writing. You can’t get a more honest look on being an author than these two books–Write Naked and Write True.
Write Naked: https://www.amazon.com/Write-Naked-Bestsellers-Secrets-Navigating-ebook/dp/B01N16FESI
Write True: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08FLGFLL5

Zoe York. Her how to write a series series is fantastic, and I can’t recommend it more: https://www.amazon.com /dp/B082CZDK75

Elana Johnson. Her indie inspiration books are the best! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TWGGLCS

Craig Martelle. Read all his books. You won’t be disappointed! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07SVG6GB9

Chris Fox. His books aren’t only a source of information, they’re also motivational: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074CJPMZ1

Joanna Penn. A pillar in the indie community, her books are a must have! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085CBDFQJ

This is quite a list, and your wallet is probably crying. I read all these over the course of 7 years, so it didn’t seem like such time-consuming event. And, you’re probably saying, these aren’t exactly free, and you’re right. Books aren’t free. But, no one said these authors had to sit down and share their secrets either, so they should be paid for the time they put into their books. All these authors share this information for free in some way, shape, or form. They all speak on podcasts, are interviewed for blogs or host their own FB groups. If you’re a romance author, start with Jen’s and Zoe’s books. They’re a godsend.

The support I have in my real life. I’ve come to realize that even if I don’t have full-fledged support from the people on this side of the screen, I don’t NOT have it, either. As a character once said in one of the books I’m putting out next year, indifference can be a kindness, and it can be. People don’t say derogatory things about my writing, and a couple of co-workers take an interest, my proofreader included. I’ve heard some people say that they don’t get any support from friends and/or family whatsoever, that their partners can be downright hostile, and even at least, if my family and friends aren’t interested, they aren’t mean about it. I’ll take that as a win and be glad I have what I have.

That this gave me a haven in the storm. I’ve been pretty honest in the past few years about my struggles, and I’m still being honest saying that having the writing and publishing community to fall back on has been wonderful. There’s nothing better to forget your worries than plotting out a book, setting a deadline, and focusing on that until it’s complete. I really don’t know what I would have done had I not had writing, not had the passion I have for it. Somewhere to put my misery and nervous energy. Somewhere to shove my anxiety. It really helps too, that so many authors and writers experienced their own anxieties dealing with COVID and the obstacles that brought on. Being able to open my Word document and focus on bringing characters to life probably saved me more than I know. Also, having this blog helped, and I hope somehow I helped others by admitting that my life just hasn’t been roses and rainbows. I never let it slow me down, though. I never let it slow me down.

I hope you can find some good in your life, something to be grateful for. There are days that are better than others, when you feel like crap and that takes precedence over everything else. Not even physical, but mentally too. Just remember things will pass and trying to be positive helps. I’ve written a lot of books when essentially my life has been pretty crappy these past few years. Do what you can and be grateful we made it this far.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Full-Time Author Status: N/A

Posted on November 20, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

You guys know I’m in a lot of groups on Facebook and most groups have the motto: “The first rule about Fight Club is we don’t talk about Fight Club.” That’s fine…everyone needs a “private” place to vent or to share information. In one of the groups they were talking about being a full-time author and apparently there were a few ruffled feathers when this group started to, I don’t know, break into smaller groups. I think that’s normal really…authors tend to gather by genre or subgenre, fiction or nonfiction, and that’s just the way it is. Lots can depend on the genre you write and what works for a sci-fi author in terms of marketing may not necessarily work for a romance author. Hang around any group long enough and you’ll find that out for yourself.

But the argument here was a group that supports authors shouldn’t be breaking into smaller groups based on earnings. Full-time authors shouldn’t have their own clique. But, guess what? All authors who are making it full-time and don’t have to work a day job do belong to a secret club, and the real reason people get mad about it is that there’s no secret handshake or password for admittance into this group.

Full-time authors get special privileges that authors who still work a day job don’t have–time to hang out on Clubhouse all day, money to go to cons like the 20booksto50k, and I don’t even mean their big meetup in Las Vegas. Craig hosts smaller meetings in luxurious locations like Bali for mastermind talks. Invitations to full-time earning author cons only like NINC (which is held in Florida so not only do you need the royalties to get invited you need the time and money to pay to go down there) will never be available to authors making three or four figures a year. Full-time authors will always have advantages over authors who still have to work, and grousing about it in a group that’s supposed to support all authors (and it really does, whether the members split off or not) isn’t going to help you move up to the next level.

I think another problem is authors are afraid if they’re excluded they’ll miss information on how to do that–level up, I mean. The thing with that though is the information is out there, you just have to be ready and willing to listen and accept it. Twitter is especially bad for authors who only want validation for their poor choices. Just the other day there was a thread about how this author thought FB ads were a waste of money and everyone chimed in to agree. I said they worked for me, and I got crickets for my effort. I just dislike blanket statements like that because it’s always going to be the operator and not the machine. You can go to any author’s profile or Amazon author page to see just what they’re trying to sell, and most of the time just from the cover alone you’ll know why their ads aren’t working. That’s why I like hanging out on Facebook more, at least authors there are willing to listen to feedback and advice. Whether you can take it and make it work for you is another matter.

I consider myself a full-time author…I put in at least 30 hours a week on my books. It might not always be writing (revamping my trilogy took A LOT of time with editing and looking through stock photos to redo their covers) but authors who are truly full-time earning authors aren’t writing ten hour days either. They’re marketing or networking, or writing nonfiction books like Sacha Black and Elana Johnson. They admin their own indie Facebook groups or host writing and publishing rooms on Clubhouse. While they are doing those things, they’re earning a full-time income on the books they’ve published. Unfortunately, I might put in a full-time author’s hours, but I’m nowhere near earning a full-time author’s income. Last month I made enough money to pay my rent–before I subtracted what I spent on ads.

I may never be able to earn enough to be invited to NINC, I may never have the time or spending money to go to a 20booksto50k conference. Writing may always be considered “just” a hobby to my friends, family, and the IRS when really, it’s my passion, what gets me out of bed in the morning, what got me through my divorce and the pandemic, my health issues and my broken engagement. Writing and publishing is part of me and words run through my veins just as much as blood ever will, but what bleeds me dry and what bleeds others dry who do this with me is the fact that we may never, ever, have the income to show for it.

If a large group is going to split off and have their own stickers and secret cocktail, I’m not going to care. I could get bitter because I’ve worked just as hard as most who have “made it” but what’s the point of that? They networked with the right people when I stayed in “indie territory” for too long, or they paid for their covers when I insisted (and still do) on doing my own. They hired editors and I still edit my own books. For every right thing they did and do, I probably did twenty wrong ones because I was still feeling around in the dark and didn’t know any better. Some people are just naturally lucky or have the money to do things the “right way” from the start. They start at the top and can keep climbing. I’ve learned a lot in the past six years. A LOT. Whether or not it will help me in the months and years to come is something else.

I do know that for every hour I put into my books, that one hour brings me closer to where I want to be. Without that time, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Even if my backlist doesn’t sell quickly or a lot, I have good books out there–books I took the time to write. You can’t get anywhere in this line of work without product, and if there’s one thing I can say about the last few years is at least I’ve been doing that one thing–writing.

Lindsay Buroker, Andrea Pearson, and Jo Lallo recently posted a new podcast episode (I’ll link it at the bottom of this paragraph) and Andrea was talking about financial planning and levels of success. She said something like, a rich person can afford to think years in advance, a middle-income person can think months in advance, but a low-income person who’s barely scraping by thinks week to week, or day to day because that’s all they can afford. You can twist that into any kind of currency you want, not just dollars–spoons, time, energy pennies in Becca Syme speak. Someone who has more resources will always be able to think ahead while those barely making ends meet can’t plan past writing their next chapter. The trick, really, is to understand and use what resources you have and figure out a way to think ahead, plan, and implement those plans so future you is really excited about what past you set up for yourself. Maybe that means sticking with a blog so five years down the road you have a steady and engaged audience, or putting all your spare time into TikTok so by this time next year you have a platform that offers some ROI on all that energy spent. Maybe that means planning six months ahead toward a book promo and using those six months to save up for the fee. Maybe you don’t have any spoons and just need your time to write, and if you can recognize that, you’re one step ahead of anyone who can’t understand why they’ve been working on their WIP for the past five years with nothing to show for it. I love their podcast and you can listen to their latest episode here:

There’s no secret knock that will open the door to a full-time author status. You have to put in the work whether you’re working a full-time job or not. It’s hard, it’s really really hard, but you can’t let yourself get bitter. At the risk of sounding trite, you have to determine for yourself what success is. I’ve stayed in the game for years, and that to me is its own form of success. Quitters never win, that’s true, but you have to find your own way to win at this game we’re playing so you don’t quit.

And maybe, just maybe, one day you’ll be walking down the street and a white van will stop alongside you. Someone will shove a burlap sack over your head and you’ll find yourself on a beach in Bali with a piña colada in your hand and part of a secret mastermind group because you wrote that one book that tipped the scales in your favor.

Just don’t get mad at me when I tell you that you have to write the book first.

Until next time!

Brief Author Update and KDP Changes

Posted on November 13, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

I haven’t been doing much except re-editing my Lost & Found trilogy and redoing the covers. I said in a previous blogpost that book one didn’t have the problems books two and three had, but I was mistaken. I went back and edited it more thoroughly which took time, and then I read all three of them again just to make sure I didn’t edit in any typos. My proofs come today, but I’m not reading them–okay I might spot-check them, but that’s all–I’ll page through them to look for formatting errors and make sure the back matter is how I want it, and then I need to move on. They are going to be as good as they’re going to be and I’ll have to be happy with that. I’m pleased with cover changes, and I hope that it will bump up sales. I haven’t been pushing them because I didn’t like the covers, but now I can promote them with confidence. I’ve said I don’t have imposter syndrome, but maybe I do. I’ve never been fully confident thinking my books are any good to read, but my trilogy is good, and I remembered that editing them. It’s a good story arch, and I want people to read them.

Just because I like the story, I’m reading my duet over again. Not with the express desire to edit them, though I am making changes and editing out the “when” sentence structure if I come across it. I also like “because” and with a quick sentence rewrite, I can usually edit it out. These aren’t bad–I hadn’t fallen into a writing tic while I was writing these, and I’m reading more for pleasure than to edit them. After those are done, I have a lot of admin stuff to do, and I’ll spend most, if not all of my free time in in the second half of November and all of December getting them done:

*Changing from the MailerLite Classic to the updated and newer version of MailerLite. We need to do that by February and I’ve heard stories ranging from it’s super simple to horror stories of lost email addresses. There’s a tutorial somewhere, so I need to watch it. Luckily, I don’t have anything complicated there, just one landing page and one welcome email that is sent to everyone regardless of how the sign up. It should be cut and dried, if not, dare I say, easy, but we’ll see. I’m going to set aside a whole day for it because I don’t want to stress myself out. This is a good time to redo my welcome email anyway, make it prettier, but I think I’ll have to redo the integration I have set up with Bookfunnel. I have 771 subscribers right now. I’m not running an FB ad to my freebie at the moment, so the past few subscribers I’ve managed to gain have been through the back matter of my books only. I’ll send an email letting my subscribers know that my Christmas novel is live, then I won’t send one out until I’ve moved my account over. That’s the top item on my to-do list for now.

*Publish my rockstar trilogy to IngramSpark. I always let a couple of months go by between publishing on KDP and publishing on IngramSpark. I’ve heard it’s good to let them settle, and it’s what I’ve always done. I’ve never had an issue publishing to IS after KDP, so I’ll keep doing it that way. The interiors are the same, but I’ll have to tweak the covers. IS uses different paper and the spines are thinner, which means I usually have to adjust the font to avoid it lapping over to the front or back covers. I can’t do that until my trilogy is done and published with new covers. I want to put the Lost & Found covers back there pushing readers who like trilogies to buy my other one. This is a back matter page of Safe & Sound telling readers I have my rockstars available:

I made the graphic in Canva. One of the best things you can do is use your back matter wisely! I do the same things with all three of my standalones–if you like this standalone, I have another available, and you can find it here.

*Make hardcovers for the rest of my books. I offer hardcovers of my Cedar Hill Duet and Rescue Me. That was all the further I got with my hardcovers, but now that my books will be 100% finished, I can make hardcovers of the rest. I’ve never sold a hardcover (only a handful of Large Print I can’t offer anymore because KDP blocks them as duplicate content) but I like how the buy-page shows more than one buying option and it shows readers that I’ve invested in my book to make other versions available.

*Try to enjoy the downtime and the holidays. That list will take me more than a few days, and while I’m not writing, I’m going to try to enjoy the holidays. I have a tooth that’s going to need to come out soon (I have PTSD from a root canal gone bad and I will never subject myself to another one) but I’m going out of town from November 15-18th and I would like to have it done after I come back. There’s no good time to have an extraction, and my November is busier than it’s ever been, but having an achy tooth in my mouth ups my anxiety, and I would like it out the sooner the better.

*Plan my next books. I’m thinking of another duet, but bigger ones, 150k per book or so. I want to incorporate the underground king concept I blogged about here, with the kidnapping/psychic element that’s been knocking around in my head. To write these as well as I want, I’m going to need to read some dark mafia books. I want these dark too, but not in the sex kind of way, well, not only the sex kind of way. Drugs, crime. Violence. The vibe I was looking for when I wrote All of Nothing. I don’t have a plot yet, and I still have to put my series up, but it’s never to late to plan.

*Try to enjoy walking more. I have a lot of negative feelings associated with going for walks, and I’m trying to sever those ties. When my ex-fiancé and I would talk, I would go outside for privacy. As our relationship deteriorated, I didn’t go outside just for privacy, I would go outside because we were fighting and I needed to walk off the nervous energy (and the fear but let’s not get into that). Walking now brings back a lot of those memories and feelings. We’ve been split up for a long time, and I’m used to him not being in my life anymore. Our five years together were more tumultuous than happy and splitting up was better for both of us. Still, those feelings are still there, and I need to push them aside to enjoy walking again. I also walked to get air at the beginning of the pandemic to try to quell my anxiety. I wasn’t anxious because of COVID though I know many were. I was anxious because unbeknownst to me at the time, I picked up a box of Snuggle dryer sheets, and they were wreaking havoc on my girlie parts (more specifically, they gave me bacterial vaginosis). Three years later, I’m still having issues my gynecologist doesn’t seem to understand, and now walking brings back those feelings too–of sucking air into my lungs, trying to calm down because while those dryer sheets were screwing up my body, they were also screwing up my mind. I’m still dealing with the side effects of that unfortunate purchase, but at least I know the cause of my health issues. There’s nothing keeping me from going for a walk and enjoying what that time outdoors used to mean to me–plotting my next book, listening to music, listening to publishing podcasts, and enjoying the health benefits that come with moving your body. I’m already doing better for myself recognizing those ties, I just need to do better with making time to do something about it.

I should probably make this a different blog post, especially since I don’t know if I’ll have time to post anything next week, but I wanted to chat about some of the new features KDP has been rolling out.

The first one is KDP will allow you to schedule when your paperback goes live. This isn’t the golden ticket people think it is though. While it’s nice you can schedule a release date, that doesn’t mean it’s on preorder. The only way you can schedule a preorder of a paperback is to publish it through IngramSpark, and I really discourage you from using IS to fulfill Amazon orders. You’ll end up with a bunch of problems, that, unfortunately, will be difficult to fix with the way I’ve heard IS’s customer service is since the pandemic and Robin Cutler’s exit. I’ve also heard that you need to have your files available before you choose a date (this was in an FB group and I have no idea if it’s true or if placeholder files can be used), but that actually makes sense, because the only nice thing I can see about pre-scheduling is that you can order author copies before your book goes live, and they won’t have the ugly stripe over the front. Paperbacks aren’t a big consideration when it comes to my books–most of my sales come from KU. I like to offer paperbacks, and Vellum makes it easy to format them and make them pretty. Lots of people were excited about this new development, but they still need the 72 hours to review your book and you can’t order author copies until your book has passed that review. As far as I can see, nothing much has changed there, except you can schedule and check it off your launch list.

For more information about using IS with KDP, look here: https://www.authorimprints.com/ingramspark-pre-order-amazon-kdp/#:~:text=Pre%2Dorders%20are%20accumulated%20in,or%20before%20the%20publication%20date.

The other thing KDP is playing with now is opening up audiobook creation using AI. So far, it’s by invitation only and in the beta stages. Beta in KDP language can take years (look a how long the new reports were in beta and how long the old reports hung around) and how long it will take to open to all of us (or at all) will be something to keep an eye on.

Of course this caused an uproar in the writing and author communities. Some are really against AI anything, and some totally embrace whatever AI has to offer. I like to be in the middle–there are good and bad aspects of it, and I think if you totally brush it aside because of the bad, you can miss out on the good. I don’t like using AI art for covers, and it’s becoming prevalent with romance authors because hot men who haven’t been used to death are becoming harder and harder to find–especially for authors on a budget who can’t afford to look beyond DepositPhotos. The only problem is, I can spot these a mile a way and all the covers that use AI to generate a man standing in a suit with a blurry background behind him are starting to look the same. No matter how long or how hard I have to dig, I will always buy stock. I believe in paying the photographer and I believe in paying the model. I don’t think creating an audiobook is entirely in the same category as using art. AI in this regard, I believe, is just technology moving forward. There is already text-to-voice options on devices, and using AI in this way is just opening up accessibility for readers who want to listen to the books they consume and for authors who can’t afford to pay a narrator. I don’t like gatekeeping and telling someone they shouldn’t create an audiobook because they can’t afford it is in its own way. There could be drawbacks to using text-to-voice, and we won’t know what those are until authors start reporting back. There needs to be way to correct the voice if it pronounces something incorrectly. The voice has to sound natural, but those voices are getting better day by day. On the author side, you have to take the time to listen and edit if that option is available. You can’t just upload your book, let AI spit out an audio version and put it up. There was one woman on Twitter who was using AI to translate her books into German, but she wasn’t using someone who knew German to double-check the translation. That’s irresponsible and scary. God only knows what it was coming up with. The last thing I want is to be a laughingstock in Germany. Good luck to her, I guess.

When it becomes available, I’ll give it a try. Apple already has given its authors a chance to create audiobooks with AI, (and people were excited about that, so I don’t know why KDP is getting flack) so it will be interesting to see how this goes. Just because I try it doesn’t mean I’ll publish with it. I might not like the voice choices, or because I write dual first person POV, I may not be able to publish using a female voice for the female POV and a male voice for the male POV. I’m definitely not going to shun something before I can even experiment with it. Ethics aside, you have to think of what you want for your business. I don’t listen to audiobooks–my mind drifts too much for me to concentrate–but I’m hearing now that listening to an audiobook is experience. It’s doubtful something that KDP offers will compete, but it’s nice to have to the option.

That’s about all I have for this week. I’ll be out of town November 15-18th. We’re driving down to the Twin Cities and we’ll be going to Mall of America, looking at a few museums, and going to the zoo if the weather permits us to be outside. I may take a pass at blogging or just put up a quick post I’ll write Sunday. Things won’t be calming down much after that either–we have The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes to watch that following Tuesday, then Thanksgiving. We’ll be at the end of the month after that, and I have my birthday to celebrate. We’re going to Napoleon and out for a fancy dinner so I’m really looking forward to that. All in all a very busy month and I think I’m going to sleep all of December.

For my last piece of news, A Heartache for Christmas is available right now–it went live today! The reviews have been coming in through Booksprout, and readers are really touched by the story (and I am really really in love with the cover!). You can find it here: https://www.amazon.com/Heartache-Christmas-VM-Rheault-ebook/dp/B0CM2BLRPF/

Enjoy your week, everyone!

ARC Forms: Creating a review team

Posted on November 6, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Writing Tics: What they are, how to spot them, and how to fix them.

Posted on October 30, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

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I don’t delve into writing craft that often on my blog. Writing quality is subjective, after all, and what is one person’s favorite book is another person’s trash. It’s fine, but I still believe there are some things that are universally downers like too much telling, too many crutch words, characters that are not well-rounded, scenes that aren’t anchored in a setting. There aren’t many things that can ruin a book for me, but one of my biggest pet peeves is characters who don’t act their age. I’ve read a few books now where the female main character is just a brat but we’re expected to believe a mature, grown (and running a billion dollar company as they are wont to do in billionaire books) hero is going to fall in love with her, warts and all. It instantly makes the story unbelievable–if I can’t stand reading her, how can he love her?

But, that’s not the point of my blogpost today. Last week I talked about redoing my covers for my trilogy, and I thought, well, there’s nothing I like more than reading my own work, so having a little look-see at the insides before I go through all the work of changing out the covers wouldn’t be a bad idea.

I’m glad I did because what I found was just not good. The first book wasn’t as bad as the other two, though I did find quite a few things to change. But when you go back to read something you haven’t looked at for ten months, that will happen. The second book…I have no idea what happened. This is where writing tics come in. A writing tic is something you write over and over again without realizing it. Maybe you get into a zone and the words are flowing, and before you know it you’ve got your favorite writing tic all over the place.

That’s what happened to me. I fell into a sentence structure I didn’t see. Since I didn’t see it, with all the editing I did, I couldn’t fix it. And it was only after ten months of distance did I read that book and think, WTF happened?

A writing tic can be almost anything. Your favorite word, turn of phrase, a description you can’t let go of (how many times can moonlight glimmer in her eyes?). My writing tic was using the word “as.” An example of that is a sentence like this: He sits back, turns the beer bottle on the table as he thinks. I found a few other tics too, during my read-through. I decided I liked the words when and while. While she was doing this, he was doing that.

Writing tics can be harmless, but if you get too carried away, they can actually destroy a good piece of writing. The problem is, sometimes you can’t always see them, and maybe if a reader is used to reading that particular tic, they aren’t going to see it either. Using “as” in first person writing seems to be common. Now that I’m sensitive to it, I see it everywhere, but that doesn’t mean I want it in my books, even if a reader isn’t going to notice it.

That’s why writing about craft is so difficult and why some authors and writers get so up in arms about it. Getting better takes work, and not everyone wants to put in that work (or thinks that they should or needs to). I did not have any fun practically rewriting all of book two… and book three. It was hard, messy, and time consuming, and I’m going to have to order more proofs and read the whole trilogy over again to make sure I didn’t edit in any typos which is always a concern no matter how meticulous you are. Not to mention how easy it is to adopt another tic while trying to edit out the one you noticed.

The real problem I have with tics is getting fixated on other books in my backlist and wondering if they have the same issue. I get almost manic with the need to go back and read them and find out if they sound good or not.

During one of my editing sweeps of my six book series, I noticed I had a love affair with the words “take” and “make.” They were all over the place, and once I realized that, I had a heart attack. By the time I noticed, I had written other books, and I found the same problem. Luckily, I had saved them up and was able to fix them. Tackling a writing tic in six books made me want to cry, and I am so so glad I didn’t publish them right away.

So, what’s next then? I’m going to finish editing out my writing tics in my third book. I’m forcing myself to go slowly because there’s no reason to rush. My books are out there, and who knows if readers think they’re poorly written. Sometimes a reader can overlook poor writing for a good story, and I may never have any proof that my tics ruined the book for them. So, I’ll take it slow, finish editing the third book over again, smooth out the prose. I’ll tweak the covers and fix a few things I found there, and order new proofs. Then, I need to read them all again to double check I didn’t edit in any mistakes. Yes, it’s a pain in the neck, and yes, it actually would have been nice if I could have done this the first time around. They were edited several times (unfortunately, only by me) and honestly, God only knows if a different editor would have spotted it.

I don’t edit for many people anymore, but one person I’ve edited for recently had the same “as” problem that I do. Another friend I edited for a while back used way too many hyphenated adjectives to describe a noun (think, long-legged blonde). When I read first person books that aren’t mine, the “as” sentence structure jumps out at me. I’ve blogged before that I can’t read a certain author who uses the word “got” over and over again. Once I saw them I couldn’t stop seeing them and now I can’t read anything from him. What’s funny is it just occurred to me now that got/get/gotten/getting could be his writing tic. Since I wrote him off my TBR list, I don’t know if his recent books still have this problem or if he’s managed to find an editor who told him to stop it. (He’s a small press author.)

Anyway, the whole thing makes me sad. I’ve documented my struggles on here, and finding something in a book that’s been published (for almost a whole year too!) is depressing as hell. I’m not chasing perfection, but I would like to say my books are published to the best of my ability. The problem is, if you’re going backward, you can’t go forward, but after this trilogy, all my books will be how I want them to be. I’ve already gone back and did the same thing with my duet (I edited them after redoing their covers). I’ve pulled enough hooks from Rescue Me for TikTok videos to know that book doesn’t have the writing tic problem, at least, not the “as” one. I’ve read my rockstars so many times I know they’re good. With this new knowledge, the only book I could probably read again is Faking Forever, but, even if it is only a standalone, going back to that one doesn’t thrill me. Especially since I’m tweaking the cover of my Christmas novel and reading it over again while I wait for the second proof to make sure the cover is going to come out how I want it.

I hate feeling like the whole world is coming to an end, but I can’t stop feeling the urgency to get these books done as quickly as possible. I won’t let myself rush–that only sets myself up to make more mistakes, but this project definitely isn’t something I thought I would be dealing with right now. Still, it’s for the best. New insides, new covers, and I can push them hard after Christmas for their one year birthdays and see what happens, because no matter if the covers weren’t great or the prose wasn’t what I thought it was, they are still really good books. I was going to jump right into editing my series again and publish the first book in January, but I don’t think that’s going to happen now. They still need a lot of work, and I may not get that all sorted until March.

I can’t look that far ahead though. My two main priorities at the moment are getting through this trilogy and getting them done knowing I will never go back to them again, and publishing my Christmas novel in a timely manner with as few issues as I can. There should be no reason to have to go back to it, now that I know I have tics that need to be fixed that could show up in that novel. I still have plenty of time to hit the readers who like Christmas stories, so I just need to keep my head on straight and remind myself the world won’t come to an end if I miss my release date, which, at the moment, is November 13th.

Writing tics can cause a lot of trouble, especially if you do something so much you need to do a lot of rewriting like it did with my second and third books. I have no tips on how to spot them, except just letting time go by and then rereading (especially if you read or work on something between editing passes). That seems to do it for me. You may have a fantastic editor who spots those things for you, or you may use a program like ProWritingAid which would probably point them out too, depending on how bad they are.

I would suggest keeping a list, and that could help. I have a list of garbage words that I avoid, but the thing I’ve noticed with my writing tics is that they can change from book to book. It would be nice if I could just not write with any, but I don’t know if anyone can do that. I suppose I should just be thankful I spotted them at all. I’m so sensitive to asking people to spend their money on my books and I want them to have the best product possible. I would love to find a writing partner that I could depend on, but after so many years trying to make friends and connections, the one thing I’ve learned is that if you want something done (maybe not right, but at this point done at all), you have to do it yourself. No one will care about your books more than you. That’s a sad fact.

I will update you with other news next week! Have a great day!

If you want to read more about writing tics, look here:

https://patthomson.net/2016/06/23/writers-tics-its-all-about-the-invisible-gorillas/

I Finally Updated My Trilogy Covers!

Posted on October 23, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

I’ve only been complaining all year about how I didn’t think my Lost & Found Trilogy covers were doing their jobs. Ten months after the fact, I finally had time in my schedule to redo them. Actually, as with my Christmas cover I talked about last week, redoing them was a process over several weeks (even months), and can outline it for you here.

I always had the basic idea of a city background in mind. Billionaire book covers usually have a city behind them and sometimes the look of the male model positioned in front of a window, alluding to him being in his office. This was the look I was going for here:

I really, really like the background, and I still wish I could have made it work somehow. But the windowpanes are in a bad spot, and while Canva has tools that could get rid of them on the back cover, it just wasn’t working. I realized I wanted color.

I went the complete opposite way and came up with these. I’m not sure why I didn’t do the third, or maybe I did and deleted it, but at one point, I was almost sure I was going to go with these and even announced it on Twitter.

They aren’t bad. I remember looking through Google searches of Billionaire book covers and this was a style I borrowed off of a premade, I think. Floating around somewhere is a book that actually uses this background, but I’m not going to waste time trying to find it. Let’s just say she probably did a better job than I did. There’s nothing precisely wrong with these… I love the ombré look of the blurb… but they aren’t eye catching, either.

I went back to square one, and came up with different renditions of the the covers I published:

Part of the problem I had, and will always have, is looking for age-appropriate men. Two characters are in their middle forties, and one is in his middle thirties. I liked the dark background enough that I kept it, but I wasn’t sold on the models. Especially for Safe & Sound since he came from 123rf.com and I don’t have a package with them. Not that that would deter me if I found the perfect model, but as you can tell by now, I change my mind a lot, and there was no point throwing money at him if he wasn’t going to stick around.

In the end, I did stay with the background but swapped out the men at the last second. The only requirement was that they wore a navy suit, and my standards, no offense to the models I did use, should have been higher. Even if I’ve seen them on covers before, they were just not romance cover material.

By now I was at my wits’ ends, and I just didn’t care about anything but getting my books published, which was a bad move. I’m usually pretty patient when it comes to things like that, but It took me eight months or so to write and edit them. I’d been experimenting from the beginning because I knew how important the covers were going to be, but I blew it anyway.

So, since my Christmas novel was pretty much a wrap while the proof was with my proofer but I didn’t want to start working on my six book series until it was scheduled and the final files were uploaded, I decided to use the time to redo my trilogy. It was a long time in coming, but like A Heartache for Christmas things just kind of fell into place while I was scrolling. I’m waiting on the proofs now (I always order proofs whenever I change something significant with a book).

You can see I found a background image that depicts what I was trying to go for before. The sunset, but almost an arial view of the city. Like I commented in last week’s post, don’t be afraid to zoom in and move your photo around. This is the original:

Los Angeles downtown at sunset, California

I like the first guy a lot better than the smarmy man (my apologies to the model I chose for Jack) I published with, and the second guy is the same but in a different pose. He was fine, I didn’t have much to say about him. Maybe he’s a little plain with a guppy look thrown in, but hot businessmen are pretty picked over on DepositPhotos. The last guy I’ve seen around, but he’s a better fit than the model I used before and looks more like the character I think of. Plus his coloring blends in with the background which was lucky for me. I also like that they are all standing in a bit of an angle which makes them look cohesive.

Changing out covers is a pain, and my track record so far hasn’t been the best–something I was trying to avoid when I started this pen name. I switched out the covers to my duet too, so out of eleven books if you include the Christmas one coming out soon, I’ve changed the covers to a little less than half. Surprisingly, I like the covers to my two standalones, and Rescue Me sells well. I don’t push Faking Forever because I don’t like the storyline all that much, but I’m thinking of putting it on sale for .99 and running an FB to it, just to see if I can sell some.

I’m relieved to have this done–I’ve lamented about the covers since practically I published, but I was so busy moving forward that I just didn’t want to take the time to redo them. I would scroll through photos when I was tired and didn’t feel like doing anything else, and I lucked out with the background. I had starred the model I used on the first book a while back so finding him was just a matter of going through my favorites on DepositPhotos and plopping him in front of the skyscrapers. Once I look over the proofs and okay them and change out the ebook covers and swap out the covers on IngramSpark, I’m not going to worry about those books anymore. It will be interesting to see if they sell better, and I’ll run some FB ads to the first one. I’ll definitely report back.

It would be nice if I could not have to redo covers at all, and I’ll try harder going forward. I love my rockstars, and those aren’t going anywhere. They sell well, and there’s nothing wrong with the models I chose. I’m also in love with A Heartache for Christmas, so that will be sticking around for a long time too.

Don’t feel bad if you have to or want to switch out covers to your books. Sometimes a refresh is needed to give older titles a boost, and since my trilogy was published in January, almost a year later a refresh could be just what they needed whether I liked the covers or not.

I’ll definitely be more careful with my six book series. I’m not going to do those covers over again, ever. I can’t think of a bigger pain. It’s bad enough I have to replace all the files for the trilogy, and the interior files too, since I name the photo contributor and photo ID on the copyright pages, but I refuse to do that for six books.

Hopefully, my mistakes can help you not to make any.

Do you have any before and after pictures of your book covers? Email them to me at vaniarheault(at)gmail(dot)com, and if I get enough, I’ll make a blog post out of them.

Thanks for listening to all the whining! Have a good week!

The evolution of a book cover

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

The creative process is messy, much like falling in love, and like relationships, sometimes you have to take two steps backward before you can take a step forward. Sometimes you rush, getting married or getting pregnant before you’re ready, publishing a book with a cover that’s only so-so, and while there are remedies for all three situations, they aren’t always pleasant.

I started thinking about my Christmas cover the second I started writing A Heartache for Christmas. I knew I was going to need time to go back and forth, and I didn’t want to make the same mistakes I did when I published my Lost & Found Trilogy. I don’t like the covers, settled on them because I didn’t know what else to do and I wanted to publish. I’ve spent the past ten months regretting the decision, and only God will know what waiting and publishing with proper covers could have done for my launch and sales.

Sometimes you can get a burst of creative juice at the zero hour, and that’s pretty much what happened to me: I created the perfect cover two days before I uploaded everything to KDP to order my proof, and that was after eight weeks of writing, several attempts at a cover, and too many hours of scrolling through men to count.

The problem was, and I see a lot of authors go through this too, is that there is so much that needs to go into your cover. You have to blend in while standing out, do what the top 100 in your genre are doing without looking like your pilfering a design, try to stay away from the guys who are hogging the covers and give some other hot dude a chance, all the while trying to stay true to your brand and the look you want to present on social media and to your readers. It doesn’t help if your design skills are lacking because that only limits what restrictions are already in place. So, when I first started thinking about my cover, I started with these ideas:

*I looked at other billionaire Christmas novels. A big concern was that this isn’t a holiday RomCom, and I didn’t want to give any readers a false impression, so an illustrated cover was out. Not to sound harsh, but there were quite a few billionaire Christmas covers out there and they just seemed cheap, like you know you’re sitting down for a B-list movie and you’re expecting the worst. My blending skills are nil, so finding a background with a model that takes little manipulation is a must. I didn’t want my man to look cut and pasted in front of a Christmas tree, nor did I want to settle for a Christmas lovers stock photo that had been used before. I scrolled a lot, not finding anything to draw inspiration from and concluded that whatever I make would be fine. There was no set billionaire holiday cover to use as a template.

*I thought a lot about my genre. The billionaire Christmas thing was only part of my book. There is also a mystery involved and a little violence (not between my H and h, though) and I definitely wanted that to come across in the cover. This wasn’t a lighthearted romp, even if it did take place over Christmas and New Year’s Day. This novel is very angsty, kind of dark (but not sex-dark, if you know what I mean) and it also takes place in a small town, which means I couldn’t use the reliable city background that I’m used to. It’s a lot to take into consideration, but I also know you can’t (and shouldn’t) cram every facet of your book onto the cover either. Choose the themes that stand out the most, and I decided on dark and the guy. That gave me a lot more room to play with but even then I still made plenty of mistakes before I came up with the right thing.

*Choosing the guy. You know from a previous blostpost that I don’t like using male models that have been on hundreds of covers before. I think in some ways it can pull your book down and make readers confused. There was an article I read somewhere, or maybe it was a discussion on FB years ago, where it was speculated whale readers don’t remember the author of the book, they only remember the book. If that’s true, the last thing you need as a romance author is for a reader to think she already read your book because the cover might resemble a different book she read. You might think this isn’t a concern and that I’m over thinking it, and maybe I am. But seeing the same five models on a fresh wave of new releases can’t do much for your book if your new release is grouped in with them. If you you missed that blogpost, you can read it here.

*Title. Choosing a title has always been a pain in my ass, or a$$ as we have to say on TikTok, much like naming my characters. I pull something out of the air and hope for the best. I wanted something with Christmas or Holiday in it, because I wrote this book specifically for a Christmas release. It takes place over Christmas in Minnesota–I don’t think you can get more holiday than that. I also didn’t want to use modified Christmas lyrics, though I did sort through some songs just to see what I could find. I asked Al for help, but nothing he came up with triggered anything. I finally settled on A Heartache for Christmas because while this book does have an HEA, there is nothing happy about this book until the end. A friend gave me a few suggestions, and I almost with with Heartache for the Holidays because I like the alliteration, or Holiday Heartache, if you wanted to shorten it up, but this isn’t a Harlequin Desire so I didn’t think I needed to be cute. I also didn’t want to cram my title full of keywords like a lot of indie romance authors are doing right now —A Grumpy Billionaire’s Christmas Gift–for example because that just seems like you’re trying too hard. That’s what the blurb is for anyway.

*Fonts suck. You can go through a million of them and nothing will work right. My go-tos when I have a hard time are Playfair Display, either in all caps (like my Lost & Found trilogy) or lowercase italicized (like my 3rd person holiday series). I also like Calgary if you need something simple yet classy (Faking Forever and my reader magnet My Biggest Mistake). I didn’t want to follow the trend of stuffing my title full of keywords, but I do like the script plus serif font duos that have been popping up. The fastest way to find a duo that goes together is to search duos on CreativeFabrica or do a Google search for font pairings. I ended up buying a font duo off CreativeFabrica for eight dollars. Canva also has some font duos, and I think I was looking in their newsletter emails because I captured some like this for future inspiration:

It helps to have the cover done so you can experiment, and finding my font duo was the last step I took, though I ended up changing the man and the background at the last minute. I kept the fonts because they still worked.

When I came up with my first cover, I decided on the guy because I had never seen him before:

This attempt didn’t stick around for very long. If you’re experimenting and come up with something you hate, that’s okay. It’s part of the creative process. You can see I went with my standby for the title font, but I struggled with how to make it look “Christmasy” — hence the bow — because that was a concern of mine at the time. The guy is younger than my MMC, and while I have never seen him on a cover before, he didn’t look right on mine, either. Canva has some great manipulation tools now. They aren’t 100% foolproof but I’ve used their magic erase with some success. This was the original picture of him:

After I decided against him, (though his drink looks really good) I thought maybe I needed to do more of the Christmas part of the story, and I looked through lots of Holiday stock photo backgrounds. Lots of trees and fireplaces, like this one:

Lexi Timms used a similar background for hers, but I don’t have the skills to do something like it (and there’s that guy again):

I mocked up a lot of half-hearted attempts at trying to figure out what worked and what didn’t, what I could do with Canva and what I couldn’t. I came up with this one, and I mentioned it in my blogpost I referenced above about book covers:

It was one of my better attempts, but I still wasn’t happy with the guy. I liked the background and I thought I lucked out because it depicted Christmas but in a dark way. If hadn’t had time to play, I might have stuck with him just because it fit my needs. I’m not even sure where I was with writing it, but I knew I had time and kept looking for a better guy.

Later I found this model and kept the background:

I actually workshopped him in the Indie Cover Facebook group, and but everyone agreed there was something missing. I still think so too and maybe if I was’t writing Billionaires, it would have worked for a simple Romantic Suspense that took place over the holidays, but I knew I needed more. They also said the font wasn’t the best, and the word placement needed work. I agreed and went back to the drawing board. (Don’t skim over this part. Feedback is important and could trigger an idea that makes all the difference.)

I decided I was trying to put too much emphasis on the mystery part of the novel and in my next attempt went in a completely different direction while keeping with the Christmas theme:

The title didn’t grab me but I did give other things a chance. I thought the guy and background was good. I like his hands and his watch, but I hated that his head was cut off, and when I put the KDP cover template on top of him I noticed that I was going to lose even more of his face:

That was when I thought I needed a new man (not the first time in my life, let’s be honest). I asked in the Book Cover Design 101 FB group I’m a part of and they offered some suggestions as to what I could do to keep the part of his face I had, but they were out of my skill set. Canva has a magic fill AI option but when I tried to build up his head using it, I got a caveman instead, and that idea went out the window. Here’s the stock photo I was trying to work with:

I almost still kept this cover though, because it was the best I had come up with by far and my time was running out. I had already finished and read through my book a couple of times by then and was almost settled on the final draft:

You can see I had almost everything in place besides the blurb I don’t write until I can’t do anything else without it. There is nothing wrong with this cover (depending on how much of his face I really would have lost, but I wouldn’t have found that out until I ordered a proof). It probably would have sold my book just fine. But there was still something pulling at me and telling me I could do better.

I started looking through backgrounds again on DepositPhotos. I looked up the trees, using search phrases like “dark trees” “dark Christmas” scrolling and scrolling. I found something almost by chance, (which is how most of my covers are made–by a chance find), and I favorited it right away so I wouldn’t lose it:

Then I started looking through all the stock photos of men I have starred over the past few weeks trying to build up a selection of models that haven’t really been used before but could still work on a cover meaning, handsome enough. I came across this guy, and after I plopped him in front of the background, everything fit together like the last handful of pieces of a jigsaw puzzle:

Shot of a stylishly dressed man posing against a gray background in the studio.

I zoomed in on the background, used Canva’s magic erase to blur out some of the lights, and with the font duo I had purchased, came up with a new cover two nights before I uploaded to KDP:

The Christmas tree vector in the corner on the back cover I used as my chapter headers:

I needed to have a little knowledge of GIMP because this is the stock photo:

An abstract of Christmas tree with sketch stroke and yellow stars as decoration.

I used color fill in GIMP to change the colors:

Then I placed it on the back cover.

I used the title’s script font for my author website and that was the last detail I added to the back.

Overall, I’m really pleased with how this cover came out. I haven’t seen the proof yet, but I’m hoping it’s just as pretty in real life as it is on screen.

If you want to ask me for tips, this is what I would advise you to keep in mind:

*Manipulate, Manipulate, Manipulate. (As much as you know how.) Don’t forget you can use the adjust feature in the “edit photo” tools. You can use the shadows and highlights, brightness and contrast, and black and white to adjust the colors of your photos. Zoom in and crop when you need to. Flip if you have to. Canva isn’t as flexible as Photoshop or the person who knows how to use it, but there is still a lot you can do with Canva’s tools–you just have to experiment.

*Look for similar colors between the background and your model. My cover works well because he blends in without me having to do anything to him. His black melds with the trees, and his scarf pops with the clouds/fog. Even his skin tone complements the orange lights. The colors of my text blend in–the blurb and the tagline aren’t white–they’re a light grey. Attention to detail matters.

*Don’t be afraid to try things. I went through a lot of men and a lot of backgrounds. Not everything will work, but sometimes you won’t know until you use a screenshot or download the composite photo and try. The least likely photo might be the one to make it on your cover.

*Have patience. I didn’t have patience when I created my trilogy’s covers and now I’m still paying. It takes a lot of patience to scroll through and bookmark photos you think you may want to use some day. I have over 700 photos bookmarked in my DepositPhotos account. One I “gave” to a friend because I knew it would fit her book. Put on a TV show and scroll. I have a lot of men that might one day make it onto a cover. You just never know.

*Create a steal file of inspiration. Lots of authors do this. See a cover you like, save it. You’re not necessarily going to copy it, but if you pick it apart, study the vibe, you could find elements that you could use in your own covers. That goes for fonts, too. If you like a font, save a screenshot of it. In the Book Cover Design 101 group, I bet you there will be at least one person who can identify it for you, or use a website like What the Font to get similar examples.

*Start as early as you can. All this is a process and it takes time. Like getting good at anything, you can’t expect to create the perfect cover the first time out. Also, get feedback. It hurts to be told something you made isn’t working or could be better, but you need to know that. The ultimate goal is to sell your books, not boost up your ego. (Let sales do that.)

I hope this was a helpful post. Let me know if you have any questions in the comments, and I will do my best to answer them for you!

Have a great week!

Spoilers, to give or not to give.

Posted on October 9, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

picture taken from Canva and made with Canva Pro

Whenever I’m on social media, there’s always someone who doesn’t want to talk about their book’s plot details. They say, “Sorry, I can’t talk about that….SPOILERS,” like it’s life or death and they have to keep such information to themselves. We’re not talking nuke codes here, but authors who are asked what their book is about act as if we were.

I have a completely different take when it comes to spoilers. I don’t care about revealing them, and here’s why. Even if you let a plot twist slip, a reader still has the entire book to read, if they want to read it. I think a lot of authors overestimate just how interesting their books are, and honestly, I don’t have that problem. Romance books are a dime a dozen, and the ending is already spoiled: the couple gets together at the end. I can’t think of a worse spoiler than that. So, I don’t mind talking about my books’ details, fights and makeups, breakups, and secret babies. Sometimes spoilers can even be a good thing, like when you’re querying. I saw an agent on Twitter say exactly that. She said, please don’t hide your spoilers in the query letter. I need to know what your book is about.

I mean, can you really spoil a 80,000 word book with a sentence or two? That seems very unlikely, especially if your book has depth, deep character arcs, and a plot that moves. Personally, I think you if you can spoil a book giving away a few details, your book is in trouble. You need more than one or two interesting things about it.

I started thinking about this last night when I was watching a free Teachable lesson about TikTok. He was saying how you need to find the hooks in your book, and a well-written book should have, I can’t remember now, fifty or so hooks that you can pull out to suck a reader in to buying it. Hooks aren’t exactly spoilers, but they’re close. Couples fighting or hurting each other, telling each other secrets. Emotional scenes that force a reader to get invested in quickly. Romance hooks on TikTok aren’t going to be all sexy scenes. My romances aren’t dark, and while I have spicy scenes, I only have three or four per 80,000 words. That’s not a lot when you think about it, and while I have used sex scenes on TikTok (and just got my first ban for violating community guidelines), I also search for scenes where there is high angst–that I may have to stick with because I don’t want my account suspended.

You almost have to use spoilers because how else are you going to captivate a reader in such a short amount of time? A reader isn’t going to want to buy your book if all you offer is bland excerpts because you’re afraid of giving away the good stuff.

I don’t have a problem with giving my work away. I give out a free full-length novel for newsletter signups, buy a Freebooksy regularly, and participated in Zoe York’s free promo last month. I think there is value in giving away content, and if the free content is good, it will entice readers and customers to buy more content, which hopefully is as good as or better than what you’ve been giving away. I’ve actually had fights with people who have said giving away content is useless (the one woman who blocked me on Twitter for it later turned around and gave away ARCs, so I guess she found value in giving away books after all), but there is a lot of evidence to the contrary, especially if you’re giving away a first in a series and that book is so good it propels readers to buy the others.

Now that my publishing has slowed down for the rest of the year (I formatted my Christmas novel and ordered the proof) I’m going to go through my rockstar proofs and bookmark hooks that I can use in videos and in social media. It’s interesting that I can post the same content on IG, FB, and TT, and the only place I have to worry about saying the word ASS is on TT. It’s kind of ridiculous, especially since you see accounts that have all sorts of raunchy things in them that aren’t being hit with a violation. But I will tone it down because surprisingly, I’ve been having fun on there, and looking for hooks and short scenes for the videos helps me find ad copy for FB ads and FB and IG posts. Like book covers, you need an eye to find excerpts that will resonate with readers, and something that you might think is intriguing is actually kinda boring. Remember that you have your whole book memorized and understand the context, a new-to-you reader won’t, and you can’t confuse anyone. Like your blurb on your Amazon’s buy-page, if it’s confusing, that won’t convert a browser to a buyer.

I’ve seen authors complain that sometimes a book review will reveal spoilers, and I have seen them with my books–one reviewer pointing out that there is no baby in Give & Take, a baby-for-the-billionaire trope. I wasn’t mad about it, in fact, it will encourage readers who want an actual baby (and not just the baby-making fun) in their books to steer clear. And it’s really important not to respond to reviews–reviews are for readers and you won’t gain any points with either reviewers or other readers if you comment or challenge. I never say anything–it was my choice not to make Emma pregnant in the story, and I’ll suffer whatever consequences come from that. But honestly, I don’t mind spoilers in any capacity–there’s a lot that goes into my books, and a spoiler isn’t going to ruin the experience for anyone if the rest of your book is as good as the plot twist that’s been “spoiled.”

Authors can be so precious about their books, but I see them as a product after they’re released and customers can say whatever they want about something they spent money on. Also, you need to put aside your feelings when it comes to reveals and spoilers because the one thing you’re hiding may be the very thing that draws in new readers.

Now, I’m going to go look for more spoilers, I mean, hooks, for TikTok videos that hopefully will not get me banned. It’s just another thing that made me crabby–this publishing can’t be easy, can it?

To read more about spoilers, look here:
Spoilers actually enhance your enjoyment

The case for spoilers: Why some people are happier knowing how the story ends

BOOKISH MUSINGS: DO SPOILERS ACTUALLY RUIN BOOKS?

Until next time!

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