Author Websites: Do You Need One?

Posted on September 2, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

Today’s topic on websites is thanks to Melody Loomis, and you can check out her website here: https://www.melodyloomis.com/

I’ve been a writer in some way, shape, or form, all my life, like most writers are, but when I found writing after a failed attempt at going into Human Resources as a career, I didn’t think to create a website. In fact, the idea of it sounded foreign, confusing, and costly. I dusted off my Twitter account–I had made one while I was in school to connect with HR people–and joined the writing community instead (thinking I’d make the connections I would eventually need to sell my books. Ha!). One of the first things they said was to start a website, so, despite my inhibitions, like everything else I’ve done in publishing, in December of 2015, according to my WordPress site, I jumped right in.

I didn’t create my website to tell people about my books though. I started an indie blog, the one you’re reading right now. Almost nine years later, I have never taken my website down or skipped a week publishing, for that matter. I was pretty hardcore back then, writing six times a month about stuff I knew nothing about. Arrogant, I suppose, like a lot of newbie authors are. I don’t recommend having a website where you blog for indie authors and try to sell your books to readers at the same time. Mixing the writing community and the reading community can leave a bad taste in someone’s mouth, be it the writing community who doesn’t like the kinds of books you’re writing or the reading community who doesn’t like what you have to say on your blog that’s intended for other writers and authors. In fact, after typing that sentence, I’m tempted to take my Books page down. I don’t promote them anyway, and really, they don’t belong on a website that I use to write about my publishing experiences. I could always add them to my true author website (vmrheault.com), nesting a page under that Books page and making it clear they’re written under another name, but that’s a thought for another day.

The title of this blogpost is “Author Websites: Do you need one?” and the answer to that question is yes. Yes, you do, and along with the reasons why, I’ll explain how I use my websites and how they differ from each other.

Don’t build your house on other people’s land.
This is really important and I can’t stress this enough. Just a couple of days ago, someone on Threads was saying how her Facebook Author page got taken down and she lost over four thousand followers. Imagine if she had created a newsletter/blog instead. I know this post is about websites, but websites and newsletters/blogs are almost one and the same. A website is yours, and so is your newsletter. Social media platforms come and go (not because they fall apart like Google + but because you’re at the mercy of a bot who decides if you’re breaking their guidelines), but your website and a newsletter will always be around (unless, for some reason, you take them down).

It’s where you should send newsletter subscribers.
It’s a very bad idea to use your newsletter aggregator’s landing page link to send readers to sign up for your newsletter. If you change your landing page or you have an issue with your newsletter, that link might not always work. When you put that link around online and for some reason it gets broken, readers will think you don’t have a newsletter anymore and you could lose a fan. Also, broken links just look plain unprofessional. If you send subscribers to your website instead, you can make changes to your newsletter sign-up link as needed. No one learned this lesson better or faster than I did when my MailerLite newsletter went up in a puff of smoke. I had an invitation to sign up to my newsletter in the back matter of over ten books. That’s a lot of links to change when you think of ebooks, paperbacks on KDP, and paperbacks on IngramSpark. Luckily, I was sending them to my website, and now instead of a landing page link, I edited what the page says and it invites them to subscribe to my blog. My reader magnet is on that page now, instead of in my welcome email, but it is what it is. I’ll never try another newsletter aggregator. I like being in control of my website and blog. The longer I’m in this industry, the more I learn it’s difficult to trust anyone with any part of your business. If you want to see what that page looks like, you can look here: https://vmrheault.com/subscribe/

It doesn’t cost that much.
I can only speak for WordPress. I use WordPress and let them host. I bought my domain name and the email I needed, vania@vaniamargene.com, when I set up my newsletter, through WordPress too. I’ve shared that email enough that I probably won’t get rid of it even if I don’t need it for MailerLite anymore. Way back people said you shouldn’t do that because you can’t enjoy plugins and other things on a WordPress-hosted site. I didn’t care about having popups or selling books on my site, and still really don’t. Selling my books here sounds like a big time-suck and I already have enough of those. So, I went with a Premium plan for both and pay $96.00 dollars a year, each, $19.00 for my domain names, each, and my G Suite email for $72.00. You don’t need all that. Personal plans are $4.00 a month or $48 a year plus the domain for $19. You can have a professional WordPress website for $67.00 a year. Some website providers are even free, and there’s no reason you can’t go that way, but you’ll still end up paying for a domain name. One of the things authors forget is that when you get your taxes done, you can write off your expenses. I keep track of all my yearly spend and give that and my yearly royalties to my accountant. With how much I spend in ads, I break even or I’m in the red, but I can still get some money back for all the money I put into my business. No matter which way you go, free or paid, or if you find a site that’s in between, set something up.

Your website will turn into your hub.
Your website will be around for years and years and years and as you publish books, you’ll add those to build a nice backlist. You don’t need to worry about SEO or how people will find you. You can add your website link to the backs of your books and on all your social media profiles. People who are searching for you or your books already know your name and what to Google. The only time you need to worry about building SEO is if you’re blogging on a topic and you want to be found when someone searches for information about that topic. That really doesn’t apply to authors, unless you write nonfiction, and then you’re probably blogging about your subject.

This website gets anywhere from 30-100 hits a day. Mostly because people are looking for instructions on how to make a paperback cover in Canva. The updated instructions have gotten over 6,000 views since I published it in June of 2022. I get my regular readers who will read every Monday, and they count too, but if you search for “making paperback covers in Canva” my blog post is on the first page of results. That doesn’t matter much since it doesn’t sell books, I’m just happy I can help people publish. I don’t sell books off this website, so that would be another reason to take my Books page down. If you’re worried about SEO for your website, the only thing you can do is blog consistently on it. Being that a normal newsletter is only sent out once a month, if you blog that infrequently, you’ll never get the SEO you want. Building SEO takes hard work and consistency. Anyone who blogs whenever they feel like it and hops around from topic to topic can tell you how difficult it is to grow your following. Still, if you choose a WordPress-hosted site, you can be part of the WordPress Reader. When I moved my newsletter to my blog, not only did my number of opens stay around the same, but my posts were seen in the WordPress Reader, a perk I hadn’t considered but appreciate now. If you truly want your website to come up if someone searches your genre, sell a lot of books. That’s all you can do.

People say they don’t want a website because they don’t have anything to put on it. To me, that sounds like a good reason to have one. There’s no maintenance. I guess then you can argue you’re paying for nothing, but you’re paying for an internet presence you own and you have no idea how helpful it is to have one until you don’t and you need it. I loving having both my websites, and I have to admit, I love blogging on both too. I never understood people who say they don’t have anything to write, and oh, my God, do I hear it a lot. You’re a writer. How hard is it to come up with 500-1000 words once a month? Talk about yourself. Talk about your books. People can’t get to know you or think they’ll try out your books if you don’t put yourself out there. Though, that’s neither here nor there since we’re just talking about websites and not blogging, but if you’re worried your website will become stale, at least copy over your newsletter content to a blog once or twice a month, and maybe you’ll get some new readers who haven’t subscribed to your newsletter.

Content is the name of the game, and you’d need something to post if you make up a Facebook Author Page. You definitely need to create content on FB if you want people to see it, otherwise the algorithms will sink your page faster than Amazon will sink your book. If you write lengthy posts on Facebook, repurpose those posts on your website.

When I started posting about my books on my author site, I really enjoyed myself, and I was surprised at the number of views and visitors I was getting. I put my ARC links up and though they haven’t gone as fast as I would have liked, more signed up than if I wouldn’t have made them available on my website at all.

Your website will be what you make it. It will reflect who you are as author and the kinds of books you write. We’re all grappling for discoverability, for our books to be seen. A website is a good way to do that.

Now, I need to set up a blog for my author site. I’m blogging more over there to create buzz for my series, and it’s working well. In the past week I’ve had 145 views and 95 visitors, plus the opens I get from the list I exported from MailerLite when I deactivated my account. I couldn’t be happier.

I hope you had a good weekend and that you’re enjoying the Labor Day holiday. Check www.vmrheault.com if you want to see what I’m writing to my readers.

Until next time!

The Weird In-Between: Thursday Thoughts

Posted on August 29, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

I think you all know I’m on a break. A “break.” I’ve said before after each release that I’m going to take a break. Refill my creative well like everyone likes to say. Rest. Recuperate. Reflect. I say it, and it lasts maybe a day before I’m back writing or editing another book.

Not this time. I’m holding true and actually…. reading. Watching a show on Netflix.

It’s weird. Quiet. Not all together pleasant.

The shadows of the urgency are still there. On Tuesday night I had my ex-husband and my sister over for dinner. Knee-jerk reaction to be annoyed my evening was gone, but then I had to remind myself that I’m not writing. Not editing. Not plotting. My sister stayed and we played Life with my daughter on her Switch. We played two games and my sister asked if we were going to play another. It was about 8:00pm. Everyone is used to me ending an evening before it practically starts and they fully expected me to say “No, I’m done.” I surprised everyone by saying, “Yeah, one more game.” Because…. I’m not writing. Not anxiously waiting to get back behind my keyboard to write another 1,000 words before bed.

Next week we’re going to a town forty-five minutes away to poke around and that night my sister and I are going to see Deadpool. A whole day, gone. Again, a knee-jerk reaction to be annoyed but I didn’t even have to remind myself I’m not writing to shake it off. Because, as surprising as it may be to you and to me, I want to do those things.

So I’m in this odd between space where I’m still blogging, still scrolling Threads for book news, still making graphics in Canva for what little marketing I do, but not writing or editing. Give & Take is scheduled to be a in a promotion soon, so this weekend I have to make graphics and write up a draft for my newsletter/blog. I did the cover for the next book I’m going to work on. It’s not set in stone–my covers go through a lot of changes before I hit upon the one I like best–but I like looking at it.

I don’t think it’s all because I’m feeling better or that I’m in the stages of acceptance that this is how I’m going to feel and there’s nothing more that can be done. It’s a big part of it, for sure, because I’ve said many times that I used writing and publishing to hide from how I felt. Not drinking much anymore helps, limiting myself to only two or three drinks a month. I broke that cycle and I’m feeling calmer and more serene than I have in a long time. Perhaps it’s a stepping back and wondering what I want from writing, because at this point I’m not sure what it’s given me or if I want to keep it.

I mean, I’m grateful it was there to hide behind. I don’t think anyone would resent a safety net. Writing, publishing, and the writing community gave me a place to go when the people in my life were tired of putting up with how I felt and how it affected me. (And I’m not stupid or naïve–I know I annoyed a lot of people not feeling well for so long.) I made a lot of friends, lost a lot of friends, too. I love helping people do their covers and edit and format for authors who are in a pinch. But I turned writing and publishing into kind of a conveyor belt of content, and only because I wasn’t feeling well enough to enjoy the product I was creating. I wrote fabulous stories, and I’m proud of all of them, but I didn’t savor them like I could have. And in saying that, I wonder how much better they could have been if I had. I don’t think I’m the only one who sometimes feels this way about their books. Indie publishing has turned into a rat race of content, not just for me. Like a shark that will drown if it can’t keep moving, indie publishing feels the same. If you can’t keep producing, you’ll sink, and that kind of thought, that kind of knowledge, that kind of fact, can wear you down fast.

I edited my King’s Crossing series while I was getting treatment, so I’m not sure how much better they are, or if the quality didn’t change. I won’t know if I don’t go back and reread some of the things I’ve written before, but I’m not too eager to do that. I recently re-edited my reader magnet and besides some typos and a small timeline inconsistency I doubt anyone noticed, I thought it sounded good. One of my best pieces, if I’m honest, because I shoved a lot of my misery into those characters. Maybe all my books are like that. That instead of my pain preventing me from creating amazing stories, it did the opposite and helped me create characters just as wounded as I was. If that’s the case though, I wonder how writing will be going forward. I mean, I’m not cured. I have the potential to feel worse as time goes on because endometriosis grows and maybe one day I’ll need another surgery to remove it, but for now, I’m feeling better, physically and mentally, than I have in years.

I suppose in the next few months I’ll be feeling my way around. I don’t want to be obsessed about writing anymore, but it does feel strange to have free time. I know finding a balance in all things will be easier said than done, but I fully plan to enjoy the next few months. Fall has always been my favorite time of the year and this year I’ll actually be able to appreciate the cooler temperatures and the leaves turning.

Anyway, I just wanted to share with you. I’m no longer struggling, not feeling like I’m drowning at least, more like treading water and realizing that I can stay afloat. I haven’t been able to enjoy anything for so long, and the simple fact that I can now leaves me reeling at times.

I hope you too, are able to find some enjoyment in your writing and publishing. I know I’m not the only one dealing with issues, mental or physical, but finding joy, no matter how small an amount, is imperative if you want to keep going and not burn out.

September will soon be upon us, and we’ll have only four months left of the year. Appreciate that time because it will move swiftly. Fall is in the air, a hint of woodsmoke and rain. Sip and savor. That will be my motto for the coming months. Wine, life, writing. I hope you can, too.

Until next time!

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

Posted on August 26, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why My Books Will Stay in KU…For Now

Posted on August 19, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

There’s been a fair amount of talk whether an author should go into KU (Kindle Unlimited on the reader side or Kindle Select on the author side) or publish their books wide, meaning on all platforms like Kobo, Apple Books, Nook, etc. You can do that easily by uploading to a place like Draft2Digital or PublishDrive. You should always go direct where you can, Kobo being the easiest, so you can earn more, but that’s a different topic for a different day.

It’s personal choice to go wide or stay in KU, and a lot of authors try to have it both ways, releasing into KU then going wide after their 90 days is up, or doing the opposite, going wide and then yanking everything down after a set amount of time, a month or so, and putting their book into KU. I’ve heard some authors even put a first in series into KU hoping to force KU readers to buy the rest to finish the series or forcing wide readers to buy on Amazon rather than their preferred platform.

I used to get disgusted, you know, authors trying to find the short cut to success, but after eight years in the business, I don’t care what other authors do anymore. For one, they have to do what they think is best for their books and for another, well, if they want to look bad to potential readers and to platforms like Kobo and Apple Books who actually do pay attention to what indies are doing, that’s their business. I’m not saying every way is a bad way. I know big indie authors like Lindsay Buroker and Mark Dawson offer their books using all kinds of various methods, but I’ve also seen indies try to sell their books in whatever way possible, regardless if they hurt readers . . . or their reputations.

I tried going wide once, and I lasted six months or so. That was back when I was writing in 3rd person, my books weren’t that great, and I had no idea about marketing. See, the thing is, it doesn’t matter where you publish if you can’t push readers there (and your books aren’t good). The only thing going wide will do is give you more zeroes to look at on more platforms. And that’s another thing authors really don’t understand–KU readers are different from wide readers. When you ask a KU reader if they buy books that are wide, most will say no because KU offers enough of a selection that they don’t have to. They have their favorite authors and Amazon is adding more books to KU all the time. Authors are delusional when they think they can force readers to buy their books by being scammy. KU readers don’t have to fall for it. Al says there are over 4 million books in KU right now (versus the 1.5 million books in Kobo Plus) so it’s just better to understand who your reader is going to be and where they are going to read your books. Anyway, I switched back to KU because it was better for my mental health. I didn’t like looking at the low sales everywhere, and being available in libraries didn’t make up for it. For me, being in KU was a better choice and still is. Here are the reasons why my books will stay in KU (for the foreseeable future):

I don’t hate Amazon, and I don’t hate that KU requires exclusivity.
The other day on Threads someone said they deserve to be in KU without the exclusivity, and I wondered which planet she came from. Life isn’t fair. Amazon doesn’t owe you anything. If you think you deserve to be in a subscription program without being exclusive, join Kobo Plus. There’s less competition over there anyway. Amazon is never going to change a platform they created for a device they invented. Through KDP and CreateSpace, back in the day when their paperback branch was called that, they gave us the tools to self-publish. Without them, it’s hard to tell how long it would have taken for indie publishing to develop into what it is now. I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I’m grateful to Amazon for the opportunities they’ve given us, and I’ll die on this hill.

I like that it’s income-friendly.
Times are tough. I read books enrolled KU and I offer my books there. I know Kobo Plus is cheaper (KU is $11.99 and Kobo Plus is $7.99 US), but Kindle Unlimited offers more books and a lot of the romance authors I like include their books there. So not only is it a personal choice because of my limited funds, but it’s a business choice because I know thousands of people are in similar situations. Sometimes I get asked if I mind I earn less on a book read in KU than if someone buys it, but I don’t. I make the same amount if two people read in KU versus one person outright buying it, but I just think I’m getting two for the price of one. I’d rather have one reader for a lower royalty than none.

I don’t believe my books are susceptible to piracy any more than other books.
People love to blame KU and Amazon for their books ending up on pirate sites, but I think this energy could be directed elsewhere. The minute you upload anything to anywhere online, your information can get stolen. A well-known author used one of my graphics I made in Canva during her 20booksto50k presentation. (I used it in a blog post on this website and I imagine it popped up in a Google search when she was looking for a graphic to use.) I was surprised to see my design on her PowerPoint (especially since it would have been very easy to create her own), but I never said anything. I was kind of tickled she liked it enough to use it, but that’s just one example of how anyone can help themselves to your work. There’s no one stopping anyone from copying and pasting my words here to create their own blog posts. My books are on pirate sites, and while we like to accuse Amazon of suspending accounts for this, they are reasonable and understand you can’t stop piracy. The issue is authors who like to try to game the system, and I don’t blame Amazon for cracking down. If anything, we can blame other indies for their “shoot now and ask questions later” approach to dealing with us. For every ten honest indies, there’s one who has to ruin it for everyone.

I think being in KU is easier.
Without KU, I wouldn’t be making any money. Going wide is hard. It takes consistency and perseverance. It takes marketing know-how and cash to push readers to all the platforms. I’m not saying that overall KU is any easier or I’d be making bank and wouldn’t still have to log into my day job, but I think it’s easier to push specific readers at one platform. “My books are in KU.” That’s all I have to say and that weeds out anyone who doesn’t have a subscription. Those people aren’t my readers. (Unless they want to be, because I do sell ebooks here and there). I don’t sell many paperbacks and don’t push paperbacks at anyone. All my ads on Facebook say my books are in KU. Sometimes, if I remember, I’ll put the KU logo on the graphic. Being part of a huge ecosystem of books on a platform that is known for selling books makes sense to me, and it frees up a lot of headspace to think about other things.

I’m not scared of Amazon.
This is probably a big thing for a lot of people. They’re scared they’re going to do something and their account is going to get suspended. I mean, I know it can happen. At the base, Amazon is run by bots, and then if you need something, a lot of times their first level of support is someone overseas. I applaud anyone who can speak more than one language because I sure as hell can’t, but sometimes language barriers prevent you from being understood. I’ve had run-ins with Amazon–they blocked a large print book accusing me of trying to publish duplicate content (ah, yeah, it was!) even though I checked the Large Print box when I tried to publish. Despite having been able to publish large print in the past, they wouldn’t let me, and after a couple of go-arounds with KDP support, I gave up.

The other time was last year when they asked me for licensing proof for the stock photos for Twisted Lies. I had what they needed, and eventually they accepted the licensing screenshots I gave them of my DepositPhotos account. I say “eventually” because I sent it in the first time and it was accepted and he told me to publish again. When I tried again, the book was flagged a second time. I submitted everything again, and that time they put it through. Pretty basic stuff from what I hear, but it doesn’t make me not worry. Running your own business is stressful and even if you’re not exclusive, you can still have your account terminated. Being wide doesn’t necessarily get you around that, especially if you really do want Amazon to sell your books because they have the lion’s share of the market in the United States. What you can do is join an organization like ALLi (Alliance of Independent Authors) who have connections at Amazon and can speak up on your behalf. I’ve been a member for a couple of years now, and they have other benefits. It’s $119.00 a year, USD, but because you’re running a business and deal with other businesses every day, I consider it an investment and write it off when my accountant does my taxes.

I’m not scared of having all my eggs in one basket.
I know this is a concern for a lot of people, and the big indies who are making six or seven figures have multiple streams of income. They have ebooks, audio, print, and translations. They offer special editions of their books. They get offers to join in book boxes. They write nonfiction and speak at conferences. They travel to book signings and reader events. They have Patreons and/or sell merchandise. I completely understand that is the way to go, but I’m small, really still consider myself a baby author despite how many books I have out. Audio isn’t possible for me right now, and I do all my own covers, formatting, and editing. The work I do on the side I do for free or accept whatever they can pay because I know life is tough and I do it to be helpful, not to make money. Maybe one day I can afford to produce audio books or pay a translator since the German market is pretty solid from what I hear, but keeping my books only in KU right now is a good fit for me. Yeah, I do publish my paperbacks everywhere because I don’t think IngramSpark is as hard to work with as people say it is. At least, I’ve never had a problem with the platform and either being part of the 20booksto50k group or being a member of ALLi has given me the resources to forgo the fees. And because I do my own covers, I can do them with what IngramSpark needs without the extra cost.

After eight years of publishing, my readers know my books will be in Kindle Unlimited.
Being in KU is part of my marketing strategy and part of my brand. I’ve been writing and publishing for eight years, or only two, I guess, if you just want to count the last couple of years when I created a pen name, started publishing first person Billionaire, and really tried to get serious about my career and where it’s headed, but I think by now, any reader who has found me and read any of my books, especially my series, knows my books are in KU. Probably one of the things authors have a tough time wrapping their heads around is consistency because when we talk about consistency, we’re talking about years of work. It’s really tough to think about what you’re doing tomorrow, and when we talk publishing schedules or a five- or ten-year business plan, you’re expected to look ahead, and by a lot. Part of marketing is training readers to know where to find you. You can’t do that skipping around from wide to KU and then back again. Part of marketing is training readers to know what you write, and you can’t do that skipping around from genre to genre. No one likes that when I say it, but it’s true. When your department store moves things around and you can’t find anything, you get mad, right? You have a favorite restaurant and it closes, or someone is parked in “your spot” at work. Consistency is comfortable, not a box like some authors think it is, and if you can realize readers love consistency and trust you to provide it in what you write, how often you publish, and where you publish your books, the easier marketing will feel. “Build it, and they will come” might not be so easy, but I think “Build it, remain consistent, and they will stay” can be pretty truthful. Anyway, I have a whole blog post on consistency, and you can read it here: https://vaniamargene.com/2021/12/20/buzzword-consistency/

Every business needs flexibility, and I’ve proven to myself that when I’m flexible, like pivoting from third person to first, that it can make a real difference. So while I’m happy being in KU, and I’m okay with the limitations that go along with it, I may be open to doing something different if circumstances change or an opportunity presents itself. Amazon may be a cornerstone in our communities, but there’s no guarantee it will last forever. (Which is why I don’t depend on free ISBNs from anyone.) Sometimes I do get bummed because I can’t do whatever I want with my books, but for now, being in KU still feels like the right decision. I don’t have a PA to deal with uploading to multiple platforms or to create graphics and social posts. I don’t have time to submit to promos on Kobo or Apple Books. I just don’t feel like I have time to push my books in a hundred different places so readers can find me. I can run an Amazon ad or I can run a Facebook ad to just Amazon and call it a day. Since I haven’t felt good for a while, that’s all the energy I really have and if you have more time and energy to devote to the marketing part of your business rather than the writing part, you do what you can do and be grateful for it.

I look at choosing between KU and being wide like this: You know how you’re in a grocery store and the lines are long. You have somewhere you need to be so you try with all your might to figure out the fastest lane. You spot one with only two people in it, and what’s this? They both have baskets, not carts. Score! But, but! You have no idea the cashier is in training and it will take him longer to check out those two people than the experienced cashier checking out the longer lines.

Hopping around from wide to KU and back again is like that. You’re looking for the fastest way to success when really, only consistency and hard work will get you there.

Choose a lane, grab a cookie out of your cart, and wait.

One day you’ll reach the parking lot.

Until next time!

Monday’s Author Update

Posted on August 12, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

I don’t have much to say this week. I was able to finish proofing my proofs and I tweaked their covers. They looked plain, like they were missing something. I had made a series logo when I had the other covers, but with the colored lights, the logo didn’t fit anymore and I had to figure out something else. I really like the bokeh city background. I think it fits in with my other covers and the brand I’ve been able to create with all my books so I didn’t want to change it once I found it.

The tagline doesn’t add much, but I think it fills in the emptiness and balances out all the text at the bottom. I bolded the font (in Canva, if there’s not a choice to bold a font, you can duplicate it and lay it on top of the first which is what I had to do here) and it actually doesn’t look too bad in person. I won’t bother to take a picture of it because it wouldn’t look right anyway, but I’m pleased with how they look and besides moving the guy up on the sixth book, the covers are good. Here are all my covers together, besides my series, if you wanted to see them side by side:

Some might say not being able to read the tagline is a concern, especially at thumbnail size, but it will be bolded on the Amazon product page in the blurb section, so it’s mostly for decoration at this point.

I still have a lot to do–I haven’t even paged through the proofs yet, just opened the box to see how the tagline looked on the covers. I need to make sure the interiors are okay, that I added and took out everything I wanted, change the chapter headers because the paperback and ebook chapter headers have to be different, and then create the ebook files, for both Amazon and Bookfunnel. For six books, that will likely take me all day, and then I still have to create download pages for Bookfunnel and upload the files. I decided that I’m going to put all the ARCs up first before putting my preorders up on Amazon. I just want to do things one step at a time, and I’ll put my ARCs up for a couple of weeks first. I plan to run a Facebook ad to my website to encourage readers to download and I’m also going to use Booksprout since I’ve been nurturing a following there. I was a little hesitant putting the ARCs up while they were on preorder because I don’t want to upset the Amazon gods in any way, and I’d prefer links not being up in other places if they’re on Amazon, even if they’re only available for preorder.

If you’re wondering why I haven’t dug into any of that yet, it’s because I was stupid. On Saturday I had the entire day ahead of me, and instead of reading a book that I didn’t write or making graphics for social media, I opened my reader magnet and started reading My Biggest Mistake.

I didn’t have any intention of editing it, but once I started reading, I started changing things here and there, getting rid of some echoing, that kind of thing. My Vellum file says I last edited it in January of 2023, and while I did a good job, I’m finding things to fix to make it sound better. The story is still solid–I’m only changing things on a paragraph and sentence basis, and not even much of that. I started reading it because I really enjoy the story, and since I’ve been lightly editing it, I’m almost sorry I’m giving this book away. Despite the changes I’ve made so far, it’s one of my better books, deep and angsty, my characters saving each other from the choices they’ve made.

I don’t know how I could sell it and not feel bad since it’s free on my website, and I don’t want to put it for free anywhere since it does encourage visitors to my blog. I’m still giving away copies, about one every two days, though I’m not sure if I’ve been getting new subscribers. I exported my list from MailerLite and fed my list into my website, but since then the numbers have remained steady, though WordPress gives me a notification now and then I have a new subscriber. I’ve been blogging more, trying to get the word out, so I guess if people are getting sick of that, they’ve unsubscribed.

I don’t pay attention to those kinds of numbers, but I would feel bad if I took down my free book. I’ve been giving it away since practically I wrote it–it’s basically part of my brand now.

Anyway, so I enjoyed reading that and it will be better for it besides.

I have a Mayo Clinic appointment on the 23rd, and my sister is taking advantage of the trip to see a dermatologist for her eczema. I’ll be gone August 21-23 and I’ll try to get as much done as I can before then. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get my ARCs up. It would be nice if I could, because once those go up, I’ll be able to take another break. I haven’t been feeling lousy, and it would be fun to actually enjoy this trip down to the Cities–maybe eat at a place we never have before and I want to hit up Half Price Books in Apple Valley, if time allows. I haven’t been in there for a long time, and they may have some craft books I haven’t read yet.

Otherwise, that’s about all I have going on. I’m having an MRI done at one of my appointments, and I think she’s going to tell me I have endometriosis. This isn’t the blog for that, but I’ve been going down there every three months since February and if she wants to see me again, I’m going to put her off until December, or even January. I’d like to enjoy the holidays this year since even though I’m not cured, I’m feeling better, AND my 50th birthday falls on US’s Thanksgiving Day. That has got to be some kind of omen, you’d think. Better things coming for 2025, maybe? Not sure. I’m too hesitant after everything that’s happened to hope.

One thing at a time, at any rate, and getting those ARCs up is what I’m going to be working on this week. My sister and I are dragging my daughter (who is eighteen) to see Twisters (the second time for my sister and me) and I’m looking forward to that. When the original Twister came out, I saw it in the movie theatre thirteen times. There’s just something about seeing a movie like that on the big screen as often as you can. Probably the only good thing I can say about COVID is that the theatres were forced to regurgitate old movies, and my sister and I were able to see Titanic a couple of times in the theatre. She’s young enough she never saw it on the big screen. We made my daughter go to that one too, and I was pleased she sniffled through the entire thing, even though she gave us a hard time for forcing her to go.

Sales are slow at the moment, and there’s nothing to report there. The only thing that will breathe life into my sales now, I’m afraid, is publishing again, and I’ll get on that soon enough. I’ve heard lots of reports of August being a slow month (which I don’t really believe because the world is a big place), and I almost regret putting out my series during an election year. Stupid politics. I have a bad feeling that fiasco is going to ruin my launch and I can only hope the series hangs in there until after the New Year because I’ll be releasing into summer of 2025. But, never fear, it’s the first year my daughter can vote and I’m running her little butt up to the polling place because we both understand the assignment. Besides, I’ve benefited from living in Minnesota. Tim Walz is great, and I would love for the rest of the country to benefit from all he’s done for us, too.

I don’t get political often, and I hope if you’re publishing around that time, too, that you have a great launch!

That’s all I have for today. Good luck this week, keep your chin up if you’re going through the usual garbage. Take care of yourselves.

Until next time!

Monday Musings and Author Update

Posted on August 5, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

It feels like it took forever, but I finally finished proofing the paperback proofs of my series. I would have thought since I was feeling better that proofing would have gone faster, but I was distracted just as I would have been if I had still been feeling bad. I can’t blame my health… I’m happy to say that besides looking for snippets for social media (what little I post) I’ll never have to read these again and that probably had more to do with it than anything else. Though, I did get a little teary-eyed when I finished. This is a bittersweet goodbye, for sure.

Overall, I’m very happy with the changes I made–some of the paragraphs needed some plumping up, even after having gotten this far. You just see, and feel, things differently when you read your book as a book. There’s still plenty of work to do, starting with putting in the edits. That always takes me longer than it should because I check and double-check that I’m not editing in typos. I also tweaked the covers and I’ll be checking those changes when I order new proofs along with the formatting. Then, after everything looks good, I have to make ebook files out of the paperback PDFs. Putting changes into six books was enough–there was no way I was doing twelve–but I’ll do that when I’m ready to put the ARCs up. I’m going to make a separate page for this series on my website, including a list of FAQs about the ARCs, Bookfunnel links when they’re ready, and trigger warnings. I still have a lot to do, but I feel like the hardest part is behind me. I can put on some music, make a cup of coffee, and have fun with what I have left.

In other news that’s not boring, I saw on my podcast app that the Self Publishing Show, the podcast that was hosted by Mark Dawson and James Blatch, recorded their last episode. I was a little sad to hear that since they’ve been a staple in the indie publishing community for as long as I’ve been around (2016) and longer. It’s not really a surprise though, considering I listened to a podcast maybe a month ago, and I was confused as to why James hosted that episode alone. No one talks about Mark’s (alleged?) plagiarizing, forcing him to step back, and I guess he’s coping with the aftermath. I’m not a part of the 20booksto50k group on Facebook any longer, nor am I member of the Self Publishing Formula anymore so I don’t have the inside scoop, if they were even mumbling about it. In a different group that I can’t remember now, one person said James was retiring from the podcast because it was too much to handle alone.

Considering they record for YouTube, production of the podcast probably was a lot. It also makes me wonder if they could afford to keep it going, if they’re tightening their purse strings and decided paying their team to produce the podcast was just too much. I have no idea how many indies faded away from their group and stopped buying the ads course and their Self Publishing 101 course because they didn’t want to be associated with Mark anymore. In that vein, I’m sure they planned out guests months in advance, and maybe they just couldn’t find people willing to be part of their podcast anymore.

I don’t have much information on their conference they held in London in June, but it sounds like they still had a good turnout. I can’t find any mention about Mark and if he made an appearance or if James handled it alone. If he did, he may not want to do that anymore, either. The way Craig Martelle talked about organizing the 20booksto50k conference in Vegas every year, it’s a lot, and maybe James won’t want to do it without Mark. It’s impossible to say if their friendship took a hit. We may never know the behind-the-scenes details like that.

I liked Mark, what I knew of him through podcast interviews and how he and James would interact at the beginning of each podcast episode. I’m not spreading gossip or rumors with a malicious intent–I’m simply wondering what’s going on and mourning a podcast I listened to pretty frequently as many did. If you want to listen to the last episode with guests Joe Solari and KDP’s Darren Hardy, you can listen to it here.

Listening to Joe Solari talk about Author Nation coming up in November, it did make me realize that I won’t want to go to any future [20booksto50k] conferences. I missed out on the conferences when they were the way I wanted to participate, and my chance is gone now. Author Nation is too big, too bright, for me and my fledgling author career.

I don’t know if there are any self-publishing conferences out there anymore geared toward authors who haven’t “made it.” Bryan Cohen and Jim Kukral hosted one in Chicago before the pandemic and it was fantastic. I met authors who just published their first book to authors who were making a living wage. Their panels (for everyone, they weren’t breakout sessions) were informative and I was able to ask questions anonymously, which took away the stress. I met up with a friend from Twitter, and overall I had a good time. Maybe I’m not in the loop anymore (which wouldn’t be surprising) but I don’t see these types of conferences offered. The ones I see are huge, requiring authors to make a certain amount to be invited in, like NINC. I should probably connect to some romance writers associations. A lot of the chapters under the RWA went out independently and they do host conferences, even if they’re just virtual. I kind of lost that side of my writing while I wasn’t feeling well, focused more on writing and creating to try to forget about how I felt. I’m missing that, and in the coming months, now that my series is done, I should think about adding it back.

Especially since connecting with people is so hard. I post on Threads, and most of my posts don’t even get 30 views. How can authors connect with other authors that way? I know my opinions aren’t always popular (don’t care about things other people foam at the mouth over), and I don’t have a cat to take pictures of anymore. And on that note, I’m going to stop answering questions on Threads. I get nothing back for answering someone’s question. Yeah, I’m tired and bitter. I don’t need to spend five minutes typing out a response to get a heart reaction. If they can’t take five seconds to type a “thank you!” then I’m not going to bother. They can depend on others for the information they could look up online. I used to think Twitter was bad, but I’m gritting my teeth thinking Threads is actually worse. I’ve been used in the past. It’s not fun and rather not keep up with that tradition. In fact, it takes a toll on my mental heath, and you can read a post where I wrote about that particular subject here: https://chaoscoffeeandconfessions.blogspot.com/2024/07/garbage-doesnt-always-take-itself-out.html

I think that’s about all I have for today. I’ll be taking some time off from writing–not blogging, for this blog or my author blog–but I’m not going to work on another book for a bit. I’ve accomplished a lot since December of 2019, and saying goodbye to my King’s Crossing series at the same time as finally getting some answers for my health issues (though not the kind of outcome I was hoping for) is kind of a turning point. I’m finding some equilibrium with my health and where my publishing is going. I love writing and publishing, but honestly I thought pivoting to first person present and niching down to Billionaire would do more for me and while it has, I’m still not seeing the results I was hoping for. Nobody’s fault, but you know how it is. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I don’t want to stop, but I’ve been banging my head against a brick wall and I need to find a pillow instead so it doesn’t hurt so much.

Before I say, “Until next time!” you know I love sharing other authors’ journeys, and when I was talking to a friend yesterday morning and she mentioned all she learned posting to free sites like Wattpad, I asked her to write something about it for my blog. She said she already did for hers, so if you want to read about an author’s experience using free sites that led to her publishing through KDP, you can read it here. We all start somewhere, right? Even if it feels like years later we’re still in the same place. https://ananyascribblesaround.wordpress.com/2021/08/08/i-used-to-post-my-stories-online-for-free-and-i-dont-regret-it/

Thanks for your time, and I hope you have a great week!

Until next time!

Every Time Someone Reads Your Book….

Posted on July 29, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

….you might not actually get paid.

There seems to be an idea floating around the author community that you should get paid every time someone reads your book. This is especially true when we talk about pirating. The main concern is that we aren’t getting paid for those reads. I get it, especially since two years ago I pivoted to first person present and focused on billionaires in an attempt to find a readership that will read all the books I’ll ever write.

But when it comes to books, we’re always saying books are meant to be shared. These days, we mean more word of mouth so that other people will take those recommendations and buy their own copies. Sharing books, physical or passing around a Kindle, has turned into something of a no-no because as an author, we want our cut, no matter how small that ends up being.

Nothing a book loves more than to be collected.

Eloise Bridgerton, Bridgerton, Season 3

I don’t know if the idea of not sharing is more popular now because pirating is more prevalent, authors complaining that the second their books are available online they end up on a pirate site, or because we’re fighting against all the legitimately free books out there. A reader can sign up for newsletter promos like Freebooksy, Red Feather Romance (that does feature free books sometimes) Ereader News Today, Robin Reads, and other newsletter promos that promote free books. If a reader opened those newsletters every day and took advantage of all their offerings, there’s a good chance that person wouldn’t have to buy a book to read ever again. And then there are subscriptions to programs like Kindle Unlimited and Kobo Plus, where readers aren’t paid as much as a sale (at least, that’s the way it is if an author participates in Kindle Select), and yeah, authors love to put Amazon down for it. And we can’t forget the huge free book blasts that are becoming more and more popular. (You can read about some of them here: https://www.bookbub.com/blog/stuff-your-kindle-day.) I joined one last year and there were over two thousand free books available for download. If a reader downloaded every book, even if they are voracious readers, how long do you think it would take them to read every single one? A year? Longer? And those blasts can happen two or three times a year, depending on the genre you like to read.

Free books are out there. And yours, whether you like it or not, might be one of them.

I’ll be fifty years old this year, and I remember when there weren’t Kindles, there wasn’t KU. There wasn’t online reading at all. Okay, you got me. There wasn’t internet, haha. If you wanted a book you needed to go to the library, pick up a paperback at a K-Mart or PAMIDA, if you remember those from so long ago. This was back when bookstores actually carried books and not toys and games and music, and if you wanted to read a series, you were very lucky if you could find them all in one place. There were other ways to get books, other ways that didn’t always ensure an author would see their royalties–thrift stores selling secondhand books, rummage sales. I have totes and totes of Harlequin Desires and Temptations because there’s not a thrift store I can’t go into without loading up.

Is it fair to an author?

At some point, I think it’s better if you let go of the idea you’re going to get paid for every read. The way books were created and designed was to be shared, and it’s been that way with other printed media like newspapers and magazines for decades. Publications try to curtail this loss of income by using online paywalls for their digital editions, but more often than not, if you hit a paywall, you click out, or you use an internet extension to bypass it if you can. To some extent, we think information should be free, but just like an author wants to be paid for their work, so does a journalist or, in some cases, a blogger or newsletter creator. Indie authors who go the nonfiction way to help other authors find a balance between free and paid information. Dave Chesson gives indie authors tons of free resources, everything from QR code and barcode generators to free Amazon ads classes. But, he also charges for things like Publisher Rocket and his formatting software, Atticus. There are other indie authors who give out free marketing advice or answer questions by giving up time to be interviewed or joining in podcasts but offer things authors can buy (I’m thinking of Zoe York who is very free with information on her YouTube channel who has written nonfiction books about writing a series and fiction writer Alessandra Torre who hosts an authors’ convention called InkerCon and runs a Facebook group of the same name).

Some authors do give away books, a reader magnet like I do, or a free first in series if they’re not exclusive with Amazon. You’d have to ask them why they’re okay with giving away books. Some of them have a large readership and just consider these books a loss leader because they know the return on investment is worth it. Some are very guarded with their books and rarely give anything away for free, thinking they deserve every penny for every second spent writing. In my opinion, this kind of attitude comes off as miserly. There was even one person in Mark Dawson’s Self Publishing group on Facebook (that I am no longer a part of) who said he wouldn’t be offering a paperback version of his book because he didn’t want people to share it. With that kind of attitude, I wonder if he found any readers at all.

This isn’t a post about giving away books. I’ve written about that before (https://vaniamargene.com/2022/11/28/author-update-thoughts-on-getting-blocked-and-giveaways-are-they-worth-it/). It’s really a personal and business choice and discussion around it can get very heated at times. What I’m really getting at here is that after someone purchases your book, what happens to it afterward can be out of your hands. They can give it to a friend, put it in a LFL (little free library), put it in a donation box for charity. When my son put together my bookshelves, I went through all my books that aren’t in storage. I gave my local library three big boxes of books I knew deep in my heart I would never read or didn’t want to keep (and yes, some of them were indie). I didn’t feel like I was cheating the authors out of royalty money. Some of the books I did buy from places where the authors would get their cut like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, the grocery store, and Walmart. Some I didn’t, like secondhand bookstores and thrift shops. I’m getting older and have trouble reading smaller print, and while I still love to hold a book, I prefer to read on my Kindle, and between the Freebooksy newsletter I subscribe to and my Kindle Unlimited subscription, I have plenty to read for many, many months.

There will always be someone selling the books they’ve purchased–third party sellers on Amazon and people trying to get rid of their copies on eBay. Some of my books are on eBay going for a helluva a lot more than if they would just buy from Amazon, and maybe sometimes those sellers make money but probably most of the time they don’t.

When it comes right down to it, authors make very little off their books, and that could be why authors are so guarded. I particularly see this attitude from newer authors who only have one book available and who’ve found their book on the pirating sites. They realized that when you print a 500 page book and have to price it at 25 dollars readers are paying Amazon for paper and those authors are lucky to make fifty cents (that’s actually an exaggeration, and if you you want to play with a print calculator, you can find it here https://www.draft2digital.com/podcalc). They don’t want to give books away for free, don’t see a value in it because they do only have the one book. I see authors raising their prices to try to make any kind of money at all, and that’s a business decision. Personally, I’d rather keep my prices reasonable, even on the low side. I’d rather have two readers for the price of one, but not everyone thinks like that. I’d rather have a reader in KU than lose out on page reads because I hate Amazon and I’m wide. We all have to make the choices that are best for us, but while owning a business can be stressful, there are things you can choose not to stress over and one of those things are readers reading your books for free. It will happen.

I don’t mind if people share my reader magnet after downloading it from Bookfunnel. I don’t care if someone buys one of my paperbacks and ten people read it after her. I’ve read free books, and it would be hypocritical not to expect it to happen to me because I’ve done it all my life. The idea that people shouldn’t be able to read a book for free needs to die down. There will always be free books everywhere, and if you believe you should get paid for every page, I’m sorry to say that you may be in for a hard time business-wise. There is value in ARCs, reader magnets, and loss leaders. There might even be value to your books being read on pirate sites. Who knows where you’ll pick up a fan.

Laura Zats and Erik Hane, the hosts of Print Run, recorded an interested podcast about the topic of secondhand books, more specifically, the used bookstore Half Price Books in Apple Valley, Minnesota. They’re agents who live in the Twin Cities area, so they talk about the trad side of things, but their conversation was interesting nonetheless, and you can listen to it here: (https://soundcloud.com/printrunpodcast/episode-166)

That’s all I have for this week. I’ll have an author update for you soon, and hopefully that will have some good news. I also would like to talk more about ads and I’m still mulling over what I want to talk about based off a comment about AI and algorithms I saw on Threads not long ago.

I hope you’re having a great summer. It’s two-thirds gone, and if you wanted to get anything done before fall hits, you might want to get on that. Summer will be gone before you know it!

Take care and thanks for reading!

Policing Other People’s Work

Posted on July 22, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

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

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

Picture of reporting screen on a kindle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s a Matter of Perspective (Ad Platforms)

Posted on July 15, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

Things may seem bleak now, Brother. But if I’m learning anything from my art studies, it’s that it is almost always a matter of… perspective. I look at my art, and if I do not like what I see, I may always alter the color palette, but I certainly do not toss the entire design aside. Perhaps you, too, could do the same in your own life.

Benedict Bridgerton to his brother, Anthony

Season 2 Episode 7: ‘Harmony’ (2×07) | Produced by Netflix (Taken from: https://scatteredquotes.com/always-a-matter-of-perspective/)

There is a lot of advice online about indie publishing, and we all know to take advice with a grain of salt. People rarely post the whole story to any situation, but a lot of times that’s not their fault. When you’re given a character limit, there’s not a lot you can do. That’s why when someone is asking about ads or editing or marketing, there’s going to be a lot of missing, or misleading, information. Whole books are written on topics like that and there’s no way the person asking how to run Amazon ads will successfully learn everything they need to know in a Threads post or on Twitter. Even Facebook with their unlimited character limit, people won’t/can’t post everything you should probably know. Besides, it’s not their job to teach you, and their way may not be your way.

Part of the problem is the people asking don’t want to take the time research for themselves. We’re all busy and sitting down to read a 200 page book on Amazon ads may sound bland and time-consuming. They want to know the nitty-gritty, but the problem is, we all have different books, knowledge bases, different budgets, and yeah, different perspectives.

I never considered it until someone I’ve interacted with every once in a while relayed this story on Threads:

Authors: please realize that phrases like “this doesn’t work” or “this works great” in regards to sales of promo are completely subjective. No one owes you their numbers but without them it can be hard to get a sense of what their advice means. For instance, I was talking to another Author in my genre and was saying that I had a hard time getting Facebook ads to work, and she replied that she has no problem at all.

I replied “wow that’s great. I could never make a profit. The best I could do was break even” she says “oh I don’t make money on them , but I don’t lose either and I consider that a win because it keeps me visible”
We were both having an identical ROI but I thought of it as going not well while she considered it a success because our goals were different. Now take this example and multiple by a million for every aspect of this industry

I related to the post because I too, break even on Facebook ads, but I never considered myself “failing.” I reason that I’m finding readers–people are reading my books who wouldn’t have before–so I never considered the ads or my books, a failure. So, yeah, in a sense they are “working” but anyone who is in my shoes would want them to work “better.”

That’s why it’s important to know what you want out of your books, what you want out of your business, and what you want out of your ad platform. If you want to sell 100 books a month, your goals are a lot different from someone who’s happy to sell one. If they’re happy with that one book a month, then your marketing strategy is going to be vastly different from theirs.

I haven’t done a very good job of figuring out what I want, mostly because I’ve been happy simply writing the next book and breaking even. I’m rather vague, saying I just would like to make a part-time income to fill in some of the blanks my day job leaves behind. I need to change that mission to earning a part-time income without having to spend on ads, or making 200% ROI so I’m earning more than just being able to cover ad costs. I’m grateful I’m selling books at all, even if I have to pay for ads to do it, because the market is crazy right now–there are so many authors and books out there–and selling books isn’t a guarantee no matter how wonderful your books are or how big of a backlist you have.

So when you seek advice online, be prepared for advice given by people who have different goals and perspectives than you. Rarely do we all want the same things or have the resources to obtain them. Taking advice from someone who has very little to spend on ads will be a lot different than listening to advice from someone who can afford to throw $500.00 a month at them. They can because either they have the day job to afford it, or they’re making money off their books and they’re putting their royalty money right back into their business. You may be a ways off before being able to do that.

If you aren’t making money off your ads or you’re not selling books, changing how you look a your product can help too. Get honest feedback on your cover. Get help rewriting your blurb. We become very close to our books and we’re biased because we don’t want to think anything negative or bad about something we worked so hard on. But it’s essential to look at your book as a reader of that genre and not its creator. Change your perspective and you might be faced with a whole lot of truths that can only help you move forward.

When you think about ads or booking a promo through Written Word Media or something else like Fussy Librarian, it helps to know what you want. Do you just want to make your fee back? Maybe you want some reviews too (keeping in mind on average, only one reader out of 100 will leave a review). Maybe you’re just testing the waters and don’t mind losing a little money. Maybe you’re just paying to get your name out there, wanting the exposure, or maybe you’re pushing out your backlist and laying the groundwork for a new release. If you know what your goals are, you can study what others are doing and twist them to suit you and your business.

If someone does say they are having success with ads and you want to break down the hows and the whys, here are some basic things you can look at:

How are their covers? Covers play an important part when you pay for ads, especially Amazon ads where the book cover is the only thing that’s featured (if you don’t choose to write ad copy). Are yours up to snuff? Because if they’re not and theirs is, you can throw their advice away. It won’t work for you.
Blurbs. You need a strong blurb (and cover) or you could pay for clicks and once they reach your product page, they’ll back out and you won’t get any sales.
How many reviews do they have? Opinions on this vary, but from my own experience, books that have more reviews do better than books that have fewer. If you have five and the person you’re talking to has 500, you’ll have to keep that in mind and maybe realize it will be harder for your ads to encourage sales.
How often do they publish/how big is their backlist. If they publish four times a year and never fall off Amazon’s 90-day cliff, but you can only publish once a year, take that into consideration. You’re going to be pushing a boulder up a mountain, and that author is already at the top.
Are they promoting other ways (like a newsletter)? Any way an author is pushing readers toward Amazon tells Amazon to push your books and ads will work that much better. It’s kind of a crappy cycle: the more you push readers to Amazon, the more they push your books, and the more your books will sell, and the more your ads work, and the more your books will sell, and the more Amazon will push your books. I believe that’s called being “sticky” an achievement I haven’t reached yet.

Changing your perspective can help in other ways, too. Experiment with your bid, experiment with your ad copy/tagline, even changing your keywords or categories. If something isn’t working, you need to look at it from a different point of view. This is what my ad would look like if I ran an Amazon ad with ad copy to Twisted Alibis.

For as good as it sells, I’m disappointed I don’t have more reviews, but it’s better than Captivated by Her that only has like, 11 star-reviews and maybe one text-review, so I’ll take what I can get.

You can study that ad and think of what you could do if it was your book. Is the cover good? If you’re in a country that allows you to add text, is your tagline hooky? How many reviews do you have? Is your Kindle price where it should be, or is it too much… or too little?

You have a lot more freedom with Facebook ads, though they’re making changes now and I bought a class from The Writing Wives because Mal is going to go over them. I’ll be logged into work and I won’t be able to watch it live, but I need to know what to do the next time I want to set up a Facebook ad. I have two running right now that have great social proof and I’m never going to turn them off. As of right now, even though I’m slightly losing money on them because sales are dismal, they are the only thing driving any kind of traffic to my books.

There are a lot of resources out there about how to set up Amazon and Facebook ads. A lot of it is technical information, and you have to take that information and tailor it to your books. Like with Facebook ads, not everyone is going to use the same featured stock photo, or use the same headline, or use the same description. All they can tell you is how to set up the ad and possibly give you tips on hooks. You’ll have to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Look at your ad in the POV of a reader and ask yourself if it would draw you in.

Anyway, Dave Chesson has a free Amazon ads course he just updated, and you can find it here:
https://courses.kindlepreneur.com/courses/AMS

There are others out there like Robert Ryan who have written books on Amazon ads, and Matthew J Holmes has a book on Facebook ads.

David Gaughran has a ton of information on Facebook ads, and he recently just did a tutorial on how to turn your book’s cover into a graphic using Canva.

This blog post has gotten way out of hand, and honestly, I’m not even sure what I’m trying to say. Listen to what people have to say, but be aware their goals may not be yours. That might not be a bad thing–getting others’ opinions can be helpful. Know what you want out of ads, and be honest with yourself if they’re not working. Or if they are working and you want them to work better, figure out what you can do, even if that’s just adding a dollar to your daily spend (if you can afford it and/or if you know you’ll earn it back). Right now, I’m stalled out, spending about 8 dollars a day and earning 6 if I’m lucky, but I think it’s because I haven’t published anything for a long time, and we always have to keep in mind that writing the next book is the best thing you can do.

It’s been kind of a long week, and it’s hot outside–86F. I’m going to go outside and give some water to my animal friends and walk around the block to clear my head. I swear to God I’ll be a different person once this series is done. Maybe I can finally get some rest.

Have a great week!

Author Update and Separating the Art from the Artist

Posted on July 8, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

paint colors and paint brushes lying flat on desk with purple flowers

text says author udpate and separating the art from the artist

I hope this Monday has gotten off to a good start for all of you and that you enjoyed the holiday if you celebrated.

I was able to get a lot of proofing done and managed to finish book three, put in the changes into the Vellum file, and start on book four. If I can get a book a week done for the rest of the month, I may actually be able to put up my ARCs in August and get all my preorders scheduled, too. Sometimes I get stuck reading the same paragraph over and over again, or I get distracted and have to reread a page to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I’m still thinking about my health, though not as much as I used to since I stopped drinking. That has made me feel better, lessened my anxiety, and took away a lot of the bloating I was experiencing, not only in my belly, but in my entire body. But I get distracted by social media and generally just my thoughts bouncing around because I’ve read these books so many times, and to be honest, I enjoy the second couple more than the first. I hope the second three books will go even faster since I like reading their stories.

Anyway, progress is being made, even if it feels slow to me, and the end is in sight. I started blogging about my books on my author site and I did get some opens from the email part of it, and some views from the WordPress reader. I reminded everyone they could download My Biggest Mistake and got some takers for that too. Though I don’t want to bother anyone, while I’m getting this series up and going, I’ll up my blog posts over there to twice a month. I’ll be introducing characters, sharing blurbs, talking about character inspiration, etc. I can’t let my boredom get in the way of promoting these books. I’ve worked on them for four and a half years, yes, and I’m tired, but there’s a reason why I worked so hard on them and putting them out without any promotion only to watch them sink would be insulting to all the hours I put into this series. So, I will do my best to build buzz and hope that it works.

In other news, there’s a lot of disappointment on Threads (it’s really the only place I hang out to get my book news) about Neil Gaiman, in that he’s being accused of sexual assault by two young women. If you want to read the story and listen to the accompanying podcast episodes, you can look here: https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2024/07/03/exclusive-neil-gaiman-accused-of-sexual-assault/

I’m not going to debate anyone as to whether or not you think this is true, that’s not what this blog post is about. It’s about artists who behave badly. For a long time, JK Rowling was top news, people calling her a TERF because of the views she posts on Twitter (now X). I was never invested in Harry Potter–never read the books, didn’t watch the movies–so when her true colors started coming out, it wasn’t a loss to me like it was to millions of people. Neil Gaiman is the same. I have never read any of his books, have never watched any of the TV shows that are based off his books, but that doesn’t mean I’m not let down. We want the artists we admire to be decent people, and it’s sad and disheartening when we see evidence to the contrary.

I’ve been disappointed when it comes to actors and actresses, and I try not to let it bother me. I really liked Brad Pitt until rumors and allegations started coming out about how he treated Angelina Jolie and their children. I was a Johnny Depp fan, too, until all that stuff between him and Amber Heard came out. I barely knew who Amber Heard was, but I wasn’t racing to the movies to see Aquaman 2, either. It’s really difficult to enjoy art made by people who you know are crummy human beings.

And, of course, we can always move things closer to home. I have two huge paintings (6 feet by 3 feet) painted for me by my ex-fiancé.

They’re massive, and he sent them to me in a huge crate made of wood and particle board (we met on Twitter in 2016 and he lives in Georgia). I asked him to paint them for me, and, surprisingly, he did. They’re gorgeous, and two years after I broke things off, they’re still on my walls. One reason is because they’re so big, no matter what I decide to do with them will be a hassle. Two, because I don’t want to just give them away. I’d like to sell them, but again, that just seems like a big pain in the butt. Truthfully, he treated me like garbage for most of our relationship, lying to me and making promises he never intended to keep. He said he was in therapy to deal with some of his mental health issues, but he could never remember his therapist’s last name so I could look him up. Big red flag. We were in a long-distance relationship for a five years, and honestly, while I was dealing with my health issues and hysterectomy in 2022, I just couldn’t take it anymore. So, it would be nice if I could get rid of his paintings hanging on my walls, wash my hands of the whole thing, and move on from the last four years of my life as well as I can. There’s not much I can salvage or want to salvage from our relationship, and to heal, mentally while I’m healing physically, I just need to completely let go.

I’ve seen careers take a hit because people insist on being their “true selves” online. One writer was ousted from an anthology for his MAGA views and being a Trump supporter. The other writers didn’t want to work with him, and they threatened to pull out of the anthology if the person putting it together didn’t push him out. I’m not suggesting you hide who you are (yes, please let us know so we can avoid you!) but the fact is, constantly voicing your thoughts and opinions about politics and religion will inevitably rub someone the wrong way because your points of view on those kinds of things can tell someone a lot about you. After witnessing that for weeks, months, or even years, they may decide you’re not the kind of person they want to be associated with.

People argue about this, mostly so they can retain their right to leave poor reviews on their peers’ books (and why would you do that when you could lift someone up instead?), but when you decide to become an artist/author and set up a social media presence, what you put out there is for public consumption and I feel you should behave accordingly. You may insist you have a right to voice your opinions, but people also have a right to disagree with you and you’re courting mob mentality. I’ve been a victim of that a time or two, and not even on a large scale. People decide to pile on and before you know it, you have to delete your social media account. That’s a worst case scenario, I’ve never taken an account down, but it’s a real hit to your mental health and self-esteem.

When we behave badly or express our opinions online, we’re taking the chance that we’re going to let our fans down. I would never want someone to not want to read my books because of something they saw online or because of something I did. It’s difficult to enjoy something made by someone you know is a jerk, and it can be worse when they’re more than just jerks. They hurt people, like Neil Gaiman hurt those two women, or like JK Rowling hurts trans people whenever she opens her mouth.

Can you separate the art from the artist? Sometimes you can, sometimes you can’t. I wouldn’t avoid a movie that had Brad Pitt in it, but I wouldn’t watch it just because he’s in it. I’ve managed to tolerate the paintings in my living room, looking at them without seeing them, but I don’t know how much longer I’ll do that, even if they are beautiful. We get invested in who we think these people are through their work and how they act during public events, and then when their (private?) actions portray a different kind of person, we feel betrayed. No one is perfect, and I guess it’s up to each person to decide how much imperfection we can deal with before we decide it’s not worth it. I don’t want to support someone who’s not a good person, giving them my money when they don’t deserve it, and I feel fortunate I didn’t get invested Harry Potter, or any of Neil Gaiman’s work, or any of Kevin Spacey’s projects. The list can go on, really, and all we can do is stand by the artists who are decent people–until they prove to us they’re not.

Have a good week everyone!

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