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

made with https://www.freewordcloudgenerator.com/

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!

Advertising versus Marketing: an Indie’s interpretation

Posted on October 2, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

Words: 2725
Time to read: 14 minutes (FML, I’m sorry!)

When I go through and read threads and posts about marketing, I’m surprised sometimes by the misunderstanding. I shouldn’t be because I had the same misunderstandings long ago. I don’t think authors really grasp the concept of what a long game writing and publishing is. We’re still hopeful that we’ll be an overnight success and that marketing will be taken care of for us by a viral TikTok or a random influencer who happens to love our book. The problem with that though, is that even if something like that were to happen, a lot of us don’t have our ducks in a row to keep that tail going.

During my first five or six years of publishing, I didn’t get what marketing was because I was thinking of each book singly as I published it. I also didn’t understand the magnitude of putting my work out there for strangers to enjoy (or not)…the responsibility I had as an author who is asking for readers to pay for a product. I was caught in an indie Twitter bubble, and honestly, it took me many many years to get out of it, or to realize I was in it, to be honest. Looking back at the first three books I published that I had no right to publish at all, and then the first trilogy I published that is still not good but better than what I had published before, I’m a little embarrassed I was so clueless. Sometimes you can’t learn unless you do it and fuck it up while you’re at it, but when you’re selling something, you’re also playing with people’s money.

When we talk about advertising vs. marketing, we’re going to assume your book is as good as it can be inside. If you’re getting any type of poor review that indicates the editing isn’t there, your character arcs aren’t fully formed, or there’s just an overall discontent with your book, you may need to revisit and revise. No amount of advertising or marketing is going to sell your subpar book and you can’t build an author brand on a shaky foundation. That’s what took me six years to learn, and maybe you need six years too, but six years is a long time to waste if you just believe what I say instead.

So this is what I’ve parsed out in my years publishing, especially the past three when I started writing for my pen name:

Advertising: Deciding what book you want to write next! Yay!
Marketing: Choosing a standalone or a series and which genre, knowing if you’re going to meet reader expectations, if you’re going to write to market, how long the book(s) are going to be, and if you’re going to write a series, if you’re going to write them all at once and rapid release them or if you’re going to publish as you go and how long that’s going to take.
Publishing, as we say, is a very long game, and you have to be honest with yourself. If you’re planning a five book series but you work full-time and have children, how long is that five books going to take you to write? Five years? If you do that and want to publish as you go, how are you going to keep your audience interested so they don’t forget about you while you’re writing the next one? I’ve spoken a lot about series on this blog, and I’m not going to rehash my pros and cons here, but advertising one book because it’s done and published is a lot different than creating a marketing and publishing plan for an entire series–especially if it’s long and won’t be completed for several years.

Advertising: You’re creating a cover for your book that you’ll use in ads like Amazon Ads and Bookbub CPC ads and social media graphics.
Marketing: You’re creating a cover for your book that will fit in with the image you want to project as an author, build your brand, and be recognizable to readers the instant they see a cover that belongs to one of your books. Not to mention convey the genre your book is written in (because you chose a genre, right?).
I think this is one of the hardest lessons I learned. I was pretty adamant that I was going to make my own covers when I first started writing and publishing, teaching myself with the help from a book that is now 100% obsolete how to make a PDF in Word. Because of that, you can thank me for the Canva how-to blog posts I have here on the website, which gets hits every day. I never would have been able to do that for others if I hadn’t learned it for myself first. That’s not to say it was the smartest thing I ever did, considering I made a lot of mistakes I still see indies make today–using a free photo from Pixabay, et al, not having any idea of a consistency stretching across other books in their catalogue, and having zero idea that the cover should actually match the spice-level my book was written in (people will tell you to browse the top 100 in your genre for a reason). I guess because my book had no specific genre, that made it kind of difficult to do any research had I even known to do it. (Romantic Speculative fiction, anyone? Blah.) One of my favorite examples of what I mean is Melanie Harlow. She has the cutest font for her name, her covers all have the same vibe, and with the sweeping font she uses for a lot of her titles, I know right away if it’s a Melanie Harlow book. I love everything she does and she knows her brand like nobody’s business. If you want to see what I mean, look at her website: https://www.melanieharlow.com/
If you work with the same designer (or do them for yourself) you’ll eventually end up with a cohesive vibe. We all have our own styles, and that will show. Choose a nice font for your name that you won’t get tired of. Decide if you’re going to do single men, couples, lighthouses, streets, what have you, depending on your genre. You want your Amazon author page to look TOGETHER. I’ve seen some author pages that look like I’m digging through a giveaway book box at a rummage sale, and that’s not a way to grab a reader . . . or their loyalty.

Advertising: You’re buying a promo spot like Freebooksy, Bargainbooksy, E-Reader News Today, Fussy Librarian, or something similar for one of your books to see if you can generate some buzz.
Marketing: You’re mapping out your promos for the next 12 months based on what you have coming down your publishing pipeline.
I heard a big-time author say you should be doing something every quarter–that’s four times a year. (It comes in handy if you’re in Kindle Select because they give you 5 free days per title, you guessed it, four times a year.) If you don’t have the backlist (or the front list) to continually run sales, you have to sit down and decide how fast you can write and what the next three to five years are going to hold for you. You don’t have much to market or advertise if you’re not writing and publishing, and what you’re writing and publishing will be important. You can do a sale or do a free promo, but unless you’re in KU where you might get some page reads during your promo, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to give away a standalone novel, especially if it’s your only book. If all you have are standalone novels, make sure your back matter is pointing your reader to the next standalone (if you like this book, check out this book) and/or to your newsletter.
You may be thinking you can’t afford to do something like that four times a year, and I understand that completely. In time you’ll start to earn out your fee or get ahead, and if you never do, then the conversation turns back to quality (book covers and blurbs) and craft (how well are the insides written).
So, grab a wall calendar and map out the next 12 months. I can mark up my new releases from now until the beginning of 2025. Can you?

Advertising: You decide to write XX genre for your next release, but you’ve written and published XX genre under the same name so your backlist is going to look a bit wonky. That’s okay though because you’re going to focus all your social media efforts and advertising promo dollars on your new release.
Marketing: You’ve decided on Small Town Romance, that is where you will stay, and that is what you want to be known for.
Everyone tells you not to genre-hop, and a lot of indies don’t listen, saying that it boxes them in or stifles their creativity. I get it. I went from Billionaires to Rockstars because I wanted to write my Rockstar trilogy and that’s what I did. I had an amazing idea for a trilogy and I wasn’t going to not write it–that would be dumb, right? I mean, rockstars are rich too, and as I’ve pointed out in the past, my books are still more contemporary romance than true Billionaire romances. Just because I make them rich doesn’t exactly mean they’re going to meet reader expectations, but so far I haven’t gotten any feedback to indicate readers are unhappy. Romance is neat in that you can choose a genre like small town romance, but the sky’s the limit when it comes to tropes. Most romances are written with a trope for a foundation, and it doesn’t matter which genre or subgenre you choose. So far, I haven’t found that writing Billionaire is stifling–there are many many tropes and you can twist them your own way to keep them fresh. Here’s a blog post I did on consistency: https://vaniamargene.com/2021/12/20/buzzword-consistency/

Advertising: I’m going to post on Social Media every chance I get. All my followers are other writers, but that’s okay–authors are readers too.
Marketing: Starting a reader group or author page on FB and joining reader groups for the genre you write in. Using author groups for publishing information and networking to find beta readers, editors, and making friends for newsletter swaps.
Bursting out of the writing community bubble was hard, but I think I’m finally doing it. It helps that Twitter imploded and I don’t waste time there anymore and besides all the authors whom I follow and who follow me back on IG where I rarely post, all my social media (besides this blog) now is for readers. I’m slowly building up a readership on my FB author page, VM Rheault, and my V’s Vixens Read Romance FB page, mostly because I run ads from it and I post so it doesn’t look empty. When I started my TikTok account, the smartest thing I did was not label myself as an author. I didn’t think it was necessary as I’m not posting non-fiction (like writing updates) there, and I’m keeping my author following to a minimum, too. I understand that social media is free and falling into the writing community is easy, especially on Twitter and Instagram, but there really is no cheap way to find readers that’s effective. Surprisingly, I’ve had better cost per click using Facebook ads, and when I paused my Amazon ads during Zoe York’s Stuff Your eReader day, I didn’t turn them back on. My sales haven’t suffered, so I’ll wait and see. I have two ads running on FB right now, one for Twisted Alibis and one for Rescue Me. I don’t want to say free social media is useless–established authors still have great success and engagement with reader groups, but filling your social media following with other writers or family and friends won’t get you the sales you’ll want long-term.

Advertising: You start a newsletter but don’t offer anything as an incentive to sign up and don’t push the link anywhere but on social media where the same people hang out.
Marketing: You start a newsletter and have a reader magnet that is a great sample of the kinds of things you’ll be writing or reflect what’s in your backlist. You add the sign up link to the back matter of all your books, you add the link wherever you can–Amazon Author Page bio, your BookBub Author Page bio, FB reader groups (if it’s allowed) and anywhere else you can get signups like BookFunnel or StoryOrigin promotions. You also push the link and your reader magnet with FB ads and promos like Fussy Librarian and Bookdoggy.
Probably the number one reason I hear for not starting a newsletter is that authors don’t like them so therefore don’t want to offer them, and the second is that they don’t know what to write. Like publishing, building a newsletter list a long game, but the longer you wait, the harder it is and the more urgent it will feel. I should have started one a long time ago, but I can genuinely say the first six years I’ve been doing this was all just one big learning curve. Maybe you aren’t ready for the information in this blogpost–and that’s okay. We do have to write the books of our hearts and in our own time, learn for ourselves that shilling books on Twitter will only go so far, and realize that if you try, you can actually make some money at this publishing thing.

If you don’t think I know what I’m talking about, I pulled up the graph from my lifetime of publishing. As you can see, I had some spikes, anomalies, but the slight upward trajectory since June of 2022 when I first released Captivated by Her and Addicted to Her means more to me than the unexplained sale spikes. Consistency will win the race, and one day my sales will make me a small, if not steady, profit.

I could be sad that it took me so long to figure things out, but I met some great people along the way and learned a lot. I wasn’t prepared for success to come any earlier, but if I wrote something and a TikTok influence loved it now, I would know what to do with the attention and that’s really important. I’m still small potatoes, and I know that, especially since I’ve joined some TikTok for Author groups on FB, and holy hell, can those billionaire/mafia/dark romance authors rake it in. But after all the books I’ve written, I think I found where my heart truly lies–with rich guys written in angsty first person. Finding my niche may have been the biggest accomplishment from the past six years. Now I can write happily in a genre while building my audience.

You can look at advertising as something you do in the present, something that builds buzz short term, but marketing is something you do over months and years, pushing yourself as an author, what your brand is, as well as your books and what they’re about. But, you do need content, and that’s what trips people up, I think. You need be writing, need to have something for people to read, be it books or newsletter content. Time can be a huge factor and that’s why I suggested buying a wall calendar and mapping out what you think you can do for the next year or two.

It’s tiring, believe me, I know. If I didn’t love writing so much, I would have quit long ago, but I do love it, already thinking of what I’m going to write next, even if that won’t be published until the spring of 2025. God knows if I’ll even be alive then with the way I feel some days, but I never want people to think I’m floating on this cloud tapping away at my keyboard, when you probably would never believe the number of down days I have. My sexy men keep me going, and I hope your characters, when you’re down, keep you going too.

Have a good week!

Monday Author Update

Posted on September 25, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

Being that I’ve been taking a break, I don’t have a lot to report this week. I managed to haul ten bags of clothes to the local thrift store, but that is only a fraction of what I wanted to get done. I still have a lot of books to go through and donate to the library for their book sales, both trad and indie books I’ll never get around to reading or never read again. I pay for a storage unit since I live in a tiny two-bedroom apartment that doesn’t have a garage, and weeding that out before it snows has somehow become a priority, if only to get rid of clothes I’ll never be thin enough to wear ever again and go through totes of books that I either need to donate or put on bookshelves once I get them purchased and my son puts them together for me. When I was out there last, I noticed I had a HUGE tote full of Harlequin Desires. Collecting them is a different activity than actually reading them, but running into a thrift store sale is too much of a temptation to avoid. I don’t have many vices, but buying old Harlequins at twenty-five cents a piece is, for better or worse, one of them.

September is slipping away from me, though, and I’ve read three out of four of the Lisa Marie Rice books I ordered. The post office lost one, so I ended up ordering it and reading it on my Kindle, which I should do for books anyway since it’s easier on my eyes and my carpal tunnel. I have one left, and then the other books that are related, but first we have a Hunger Games marathon and I have to read the prequel before the movie comes out. My sister, daughter, and I are going to a corn maze next month, so I’ll need to work on A Heartache for Christmas when I can so I can get it to my proofer by the middle of October. A November 1st publishing date is probably doable if I can get the book listened to this week. Formatting it will be a snap as I don’t think I’ll do the fancy insides like I did for my trilogy. The main thing is getting the cover done, since after some feedback in a cover group on Facebook, I decided to go in a completely different direction. This was the old one I was pretty much set on:

made with Canva using stock photos from DepositPhotos.com

It’s not terrible, but I think I was focusing more on the mystery part of the story instead of the romance part of it and my brand. So, with a lot of scrolling through DepositPhotos, I came up with a couple of different concepts:

The guy with the tie fits in with my books a lot better, and while it’s evident that’s a Christmas novel, the background doesn’t scream holiday, which is okay. The only problem I’m having at the moment is the font for the title, and maybe even the title itself, though I keep going back to it even after listening to suggesions from others. My default font choice when I have nothing else to use is Playfair Display , either plain or italicized and maybe all caps or not. My one problem with this guy is that the stock photo is only half of him, and it’s difficult (for me and my limited skills) to fill in the rest of the cover. The one with his whole upper body takes care of that issue, but then I don’t like how the title is off to the side. Here’s the stock photo I found:

I like him (love his watch) and he fits in with all my other billionaires, but he doesn’t come in a full-body pose where he’s doing the thing with his tie (why??). I don’t know if the cover that only has half of him works…I usually do have my titles over some kind of gradient to help them pop, but the men’s waists show, if only faintly. I know I said I would never cut off a man’s head, either, but here we are. DepositPhotos is getting really picked over when it comes to handsome stock photo men, and one of the things I do when I’m tired and feel like doing nothing but needing to do something is listening to music, scrolling through photos, and bookmarking them as potential cover models. The men in suits who are good looking and haven’t been used before (or very little) are getting few and far between so I may end up doing what Melanie Harlow does, and put men wearing t-shirts on her covers whether they are billionaires or not. What do you think?

I have time to decide since listening to my manuscript takes a few days and I won’t be done with that until I have to write another blog post next week.

I’m having fun on TikTok, or trying to, anyway. It still can take me over an hour to make a video simply because it takes so long to find a photo that fits in with what others are doing and to find a snippet. I posted one today and I forgot to take out one of the c*cks, so one of these days I’lll probably get suspended for going against community guidelines. Though, posting a snippet without the dirty words is rather annoying, and when I read a snippet from another author I feel like I’m playing fill in the blanks, sorry for the pun. I’m using more photos from DepositPhotos than ever before, not because I’m afraid of using what Canva has to offer, but the romance TikToks have a very gritty look to them, and while I don’t write dark romance, I still don’t want to look too out of place. I’ll probably buy another DepositPhotos pack from AppSumo as they go on sale around Black Friday. Anyway, I need to get into the habit of making them, since if I have time to make one, I probably have time to make two. It’s just choosing a book and finding a snippet that’s hooky enough to share.

I also find myself falling into different algos, and all of a sudden my feed is full of rescue horses. TikTok is very responsive to what you tell it you like, and #rescuehorsetok is not going to sell my books. I need to maybe unfollow some of the accounts and go back through the #booktok hashtag or #contemporaryromancereaders and push the algos back toward books. I hate seeing rescue vids anyway. They always make me so sad. I can’t wrap my mind around how cruel people can be.

I’m seeing on Twitter and in FB author groups some mild confusion about the new AI question on KDP when you publish a book. That wasn’t implemented when I published my rockstar trilogy, and I’m reluctant to go into a book’s content when I don’t have to, so I haven’t seen it for myself. There’s been a rumor that books will lose their discoverability if you don’t go through your backlist and check the boxes (for yes, your book was AI generated, or no, it wasn’t) but I don’t believe that. I’m not going through 20 books to check that box when I don’t have evidence (from Amazon) that I need to. Book sales ebb and flow, not to mention the sales dashboard lags, so if you’re having a slump, I wouldn’t jump to conclusions. Just like with the KU payout that somewhat snapped back, I’m going to keep on keeping on and only make changes if I have to. You can read an article about it here, but if I hear anything about discoverability of backlist titles, I will let you all know. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/11/self-publishers-must-declare-if-content-sold-on-amazons-site-is-ai-generated

That is going to be it for me this week. I’d like to congratulate Brandie Easterling Collins on publishing her newest book! You can check it out here–available in Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and Paperback. A new release is always so exciting! Good luck, Brandi, and Congratulations!

Technology in Novels: Pros, Cons, and Avoiding It Altogether

Posted on September 18, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

Since I’m on TikTok to hopefully spread the word about my books, it makes sense that I’ve found some books to read, too. I’m on a “break” from editing my Christmas novel, and I’ve been trying to do other things like read books that I haven’t written, purge some old clothing, and do other annoying things I’ve put off like getting my oil changed. I’ve had success with some–I got my oil changed and an estimate for new tires before the snow comes (yikes!)–but failed at others, mostly reading books I haven’t written.

The book I picked up from TikTok promised a hot, sexy read, and it is. A reader will have no complaints about that part of it. But like any book, there needs to be more than sexytimes, and this one delivers that too, if only in passing. There’s the main plot (all the sex), the subplot, and a sub-subplot, that unfolds very slowly, and that’s fine. We talk about “literary” versus “commercial” books, and let’s just say, people aren’t reading this for the plot. Perfectly okay. After all, I did borrow it in KU and I’m not going to apologize, but what took me completely out of the story at about 50% or so, is the fact I could see where the subplot and the sub-subplot are going to tangle and explode. It’s not that I don’t like the direction the author is going, but the whole thing could be avoided by a quick Google search.

This is where technology can be the bane of an author’s existence… and a character’s too. I’ve heard authors say they write strictly historicals because they don’t want to have to deal with it. That’s fine, but if you write 80s books, I’m not reading it. I was born in 1974, and nothing interests me less than how things were in the 80s. I actually like technology. I jumped in when internet was still new, had dial-up through our landline and learned a few photo manipulation techniques on GIMP long before I decided to write books and design my own covers because I messed around with pictures of my kids. I’m not unlike anyone else who is constantly online, and if you think about it, characters in contemporary novels are online a lot too. It’s very difficult to get away from, and as authors, we have to assume that as with real life, information is but a touchscreen away.

You can make the argument that a character isn’t going to know what he doesn’t know, and that’s true. When you’re writing a mystery or a thriller, your character is going to start from scratch. That’s inevitable, but if your detective has agency and moves the plot forward instead of letting the plot push him around, he’s going to be curious, ask questions, and yes, do internet searches. You can’t get away from it if your character works for the FBI, the CIA, or an off-the-grid intelligence agency that you invent. They have software at their disposal like AFIS and face recognition software.

Mafia and Billionaire romance is steeped in technology, everything from paparazzi stalking them and posting photos online to the male characters doing background checks on their love interests to help them decide if she loves him for him or his money. That’s the part that hung me up in this book. The main guy is the son of a dirty billionaire, she has a mysterious past, and the thing that’s going to break them on page 500, he could have found on page two. Now, I don’t know for sure if that’s how it’s going to play out. The sub-subplot is mentioned so infrequently that I will more than likely have to read the entire series to see if my hunch is correct, but I’ve written my own twisty books and I doubt I’m far off.

The thing that bothers me most is that with the type of book this is and the types of characters are in this book, doing a background check on her would have been a no-brainer. Maybe the author is a pantser and didn’t fully plot out this series and decided on the direction she wanted to go too late, or she realized that if she didn’t plan it that way, there would be no book at all. It’s not like she cares. According to Publisher Rocket, the first book in the series is estimated to make $49,000 dollars this month alone, and who knows how many books are in the series. She doesn’t give one f*ck if a lowly indie author sniffed out a potential plot hole. And let’s face it, if you’re reading a book with that much smut, a plot that makes sense is a bonus (and I mean that in the nicest way possible, as it is well-written otherwise).

Technology, or deliberately excluding it, is the same as characters holding on to a secret–sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it doesn’t. I’m getting reviews for Twisted Lies, and one or two have pointed out that they should have just talked to each other. Sure, but then there would have been no book. It’s human nature to hold on to things you think another person is going to react negatively to, but when it comes to tech, is it human nature to avoid it? Maybe, depends on the kind of book you’re writing and if you can get away with it. In my Christmas novel, he’s stranded in a small town and stumbles upon a mystery about a woman he’s falling in love with. He wants to solve it for her, and he starts with a background check on her and another character. There definitely would have been no book if he wasn’t curious enough to start investigating, and as a billionaire, he has the resources that a poorer character may not have. He digs and backtracks, people lying to him or telling him things they think are the truth only for him to find out otherwise. Could he have solved the mystery without technology? Yes. But as he dug online, the readers also could piece together clues, which is what a real mystery is about–readers solving the puzzle along with your characters.

People text each other (rather than placing phone calls), they’re on social media, they stream rather than pay for cable. They’re on TikTok and Facebook, and even if you don’t mention some platforms by name in an attempt to make your book evergreen, it looks very suspect if you exclude these things from your writing. So, yeah, when a character doesn’t know something he could find out online, that’s always going to trip me up unless your character has a specific reason why he didn’t go looking in the first place. And you better consider if “he didn’t think of it” is going to be good enough because chances are it won’t be.

I don’t go crazy with technology in my books. My characters have cell phones, take classes online. Some have social media profiles, some don’t or if they do, I don’t mention it. It depends on the story and what should and would be naturally included. Most of my books require characters to do some kind of online research. The most important is for it to sound natural.

I was disappointed this author hid a fact that would have been found out in a five second online search, but I also read like a writer and not everyone is going to pick up on that or care. Sex doesn’t carry my books, so if I do cut corners ~~out of laziness~~, I can’t use that as an excuse. Sometimes a character’s lack of information is just sloppy writing or the author didn’t do enough research on their side. When I was plotting Captivated, I spent hours on YouTube watching construction projects so I could get an idea for a realistic accident that would hurt Rick. On the flip side, when Devyn was investigating what happened, she too, watched clips on a video sharing site.

Technology is a part of our everyday lives, and it should be for your characters, too. After all, chances are good that your reader is reading your book on a tablet and she bought the ebook online.

I’ll skim the rest of the book I borrowed– I doubt I’ll find out if my hunch is correct until later books in the series. I may or may not get to those as I have other books on my list to read first.

If you want to read about more tips and ways to include technology in your books look here:

https://www.artfuleditor.com/blog/2019/6/12/how-to-use-modern-tech-in-your-novel

https://nickkolakowski.com/2022/02/01/how-to-weave-technology-into-that-thriller-novel-youre-writing/

In author and personal news, I finished the second read-through of my Christmas novel. I have a few things to do this week, so I’m going to let it sit before I listen to it, get a few things done around my apartment, and watch Queen Charlotte on Netflix. I also want to read a couple more books I have coming in the mail, and I want to work more on the cover (also working a blurb would be a good idea).

Over the weekend, I was experimenting with my billionaire trilogy covers, and I think I might have found some guys that will work a lot better than what I have now and also a city background that is more suited. I’m excited, and my first impulse is to change them out, but I’m going to wait until January when they have their first book birthdays and try to get a little mileage out of a re-release. I have plenty to do while I wait, but you know how it is. I’m not even going to put them up here until later, and I’ll write a whole blog post about it.

One more thing before I go, KENP page reads for August went up to $ 0.004108 compared to the $ 0.003989 it was in July. That’s good news, as a lot of us were expecting a downward trend. I feel justified telling my blog readers to stay calm and see what happens. It’s never a good idea to make decisions based on other people’s negative prophesies.

I suppose I should save some news until next week, so I will say goodbye for now and I hope you all have a good week!

The Secret to Leveling Up?

Posted on September 11, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

Like any author publishing today, be it indie or trad, I’m always looking for ways to level up. Take your career to the next level. We hear a lot of advice, some I’ve repeated here: learn an ad platform, network with authors in your genre for promo opportunities and newsletter swaps, write and publish a lot, that kind of thing. It can be frustrating when you think you’re doing everything right, and the success you’re hoping for is still out of reach.

I can personally attest to how frustrating that is, to the point where I think that maybe this whole writing career thing isn’t meant to be, and it will always be considered a hobby by the people in my life and the IRS.

I read some advice about leveling and it was enlightening as well as confusing. She said, and this is an author who makes six to seven figures a year, to focus on writing the next best book you can.

It made me a bit crabby (no offense to the advice-giver because I love her and she does a lot for the indie community), because when you’re writing a book you intend to publish, you’re always thinking it’s going to be your best book ever. Back when I wrote All of Nothing, I thought it was an 85k word masterpiece. (Little did I know it would take several edits after initial publication for me to be happy with it, and one that I actually did not long ago.)

This is akin to the question, how do you know what you don’t know? But, if your books aren’t selling, and you’ve tried ads and newsletter swaps and you’ve bought a Freebooksy promo that didn’t move books, there is unfortunately, room for improvement.

Craft is difficult to tackle mostly because it takes so long to make any kind of positive progress–depending on how you already write, it could take months or even years and hundreds of thousands of words. You have to write a lot to get better at it, and not only do you have to write a lot, you need constant feedback on that writing so you know what’s working and what’s not. How do you level up your craft?

*Join a critique group or work with an alpha reader who reads as you write.

*Get lets of beta reader feedback. And find people who are honest. If your characters are flat, you want, and need, to know about it.

*Read the kinds of books you want to write. One of the very first “complicated” series I read when I was thinking of writing my own books was a romantic suspense series by Lisa Marie Rice. She’s since expanded on those books, but the four I read have stuck with me for years. In fact, I want to read them again just to see if they are as good as I remember.

*Just swallow it and admit series sell and read-through is what will make you money. I love writing standalones, I do. The Christmas novel I just finished is a standalone and I fixed it so I couldn’t write any sequels from it. But the fact is, series sell because readers love reading them. But, from a writer’s standpoint, they’re difficult and stressful. They take planning, something a lot of pantsers aren’t willing to do too much of, but you need to have some details fit together from every book. If you’re a new writer, that’s hard to do. There’s a lot of details to remember, breadcrumbs to drop. You can start “small” and write a duet, then as you get more experienced, add books.

Writing a book, and a good one, is a group effort until you can get the hang of it. But what if you already think you have? When I read that advice, it didn’t know what to think. I feel like my writing is pretty good, I get positive feedback from reviews, readers reach out to me to say how much they enjoy my books. I have the skills, ability, (talent?) to write a long series–my six books I have coming out next year–and the beta feedback I’ve already received–is proof of that. So, I mean, what can you do if you think your work is already there?

If I had an answer, I’d probably be a six-figure author myself. You can study the market and see if what you’re writing is not hitting the target. Romantic suspense, psychological and domestic thrillers, and several other genres and subgenres will always be popular, but if you’re writing something mainstream and still not selling, maybe you aren’t including enough to meet reader expectations. Maybe your mystery plot isn’t twisty enough, or your characters are flat–meaning their backstories are bland and you haven’t given them enough to fight through.

Be that as it may, you can write the most perfect book in the world, and no one will be able to read it if no one knows it exists. There is the idea of word of mouth, and that does work if your book blows people away. It’s not like you can ask every reader who reads your book to spread it around like an STD, they have to want to do it, be passionate enough about your book to do it. If a booktoker doesn’t get a hold of it though, you’ll have to run ads or buy a newsletter promo spot. Those don’t work unless your cover is good, so part of leveling up may be refreshing book covers or doing better than you have in the past.

It helps to have a hook too, something I didn’t have with my first billionaire trilogy. I have decided for their book birthdays in January that I’m going to redo their covers and come up with better hooks for ad copy. Obviously, doing what I should have done a year after the fact was part of that commenter’s point. You lose a lot of time and opportunity if you don’t do what you should have done at the start. Still though, you can get some marketing juice from a relaunch–especially if you actually make improvements and the changes you make aren’t lateral moves. Maybe that means hiring someone like GetCovers to redo them, or learning new techniques on your own. Maybe that means letting go of what you want and putting a cover on your book that will sell.

As for me, we’ll see what my series does next year. I’m rethinking the covers since I made them last year and my tastes have changed. I also need to read through them one more time and make sure the writing is there. My beta/proofer found a few things, too, so I’m glad I sat on these books and waited to publish. Before I do that, though, I need to get my Christmas novel ready to go, finalize the cover (I changed the man again) write the blurb, listen to my manuscript, and get the paperback proof to my beta/proofer. Then the new covers for the trilogy, and then my series. I’m already thinking of what I’m going to write next while those release, six books at two months apart will give me all of 2024 to write something else.

Anyway, leveling up can take different forms, but there is always room for improvement. If people have read you and are willing to give you feedback, take their advice to heart. It’s okay to listen and realize that what you thought was good isn’t. It’s what you do with that and were you go from there that will help you really level up.

Have a good week, everyone!

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