Moving the Goalposts: The Feeling of Not Doing Enough

Posted on November 3, 2025 by Vania Margene Rheault

1,343 words
7 minutes read time

toy soccer ball with toy goalie net. green background. text says: moving the goalposts. the feeling of not doing enough

Years ago when I saw someone say being an indie author felt like always having homework, I laughed, but I didn’t quite believe it. When I was in school, I hated homework. Back in high school, anyway. College was a little different, and when I went to tech school to get my HR degree, I actually enjoyed homework and group assignments. I suppose age could have played a part in that, because I think as we get older we just naturally appreciate things more and I was grateful to have the resources to go back to school.

Anyway, so when it came to my writing and all the stuff that went along with it, I didn’t compare homework, a seemingly endless, joyless, task, to what I had to do to write, publish, and market my books.

But, when I wrote my blog post for last week, I realized that no matter how much an indie author gets done, there is always going to be more to do, and instead of being excited for the next cover design, formatting job, or editing sweep, it turns into a version of Groundhog Day that we can’t escape. That infinity loop also sucks the joy out of the past accomplishments, and something to be proud of, like a book release or the cover of a book that comes together perfectly, is just an item on the list that needs to be checked off.

When I really thought about why we never feel like we’ve done enough, a few things came to mind.

Because we’re indie: We control everything — writing, editing, marketing, covers, social media — there’s no external validation from a boss or coworker nor is there a stopping point we can work toward. There’s always going to be another social media post to create to keep your profiles from stagnating. There’s always going to be a newsletter to send out. Another ad to create. There’s always a WIP to work on because we all know that writing the next book is the best marketing and front list sells backlist.

Moving the goalpost: We hit one milestone (a release or a finished draft) and immediately reset the net. I think this one is what I was particularly feeling writing my blog post last week. No matter how much I accomplish there will always be more to do. Another goal to score, another game to win.

Comparison culture: We see other authors posting “I just hit 10k sales” or “my preorder is live,” and that fuels the sense we’re behind. This one is particularly triggering for me because I have a terrible fear of missing out. I don’t want other authors to be doing something I could be or should be doing too.

The creative push to keep moving forward: Creatives are wired for “what’s next?” The next book, the next painting, the next drawing. That desire to create makes us prolific, but it can also burn us out. This one I understand 100% because once I start thinking about characters for a new book, they don’t leave me alone until I set them free on the page. I mean, that’s a great place to be in–I never have to worry about writer’s block or what I’m going to write next–but it’s also draining because I don’t let myself properly rest between projects . . . or celebrate something I just achieved.

Lack of (what you consider) success: This one probably hit me the hardest because with all the books I have out, with all the hard work I’ve put into my author career in the past ten years, I don’t have the sales I hoped I would have. So I’m always reaching for that next book, that next social media graphic, that will get me there.

The indie hustle culture: This kind of goes along with comparing yourself to other authors. We see on social media what other authors are doing, but at the same time, there’s an underlying feeling of not doing enough and getting judged for it. You see it on Threads when people start their posts with, “It might not mean much to some . . .” or “It might not be a big deal to a lot of people here but . . .” We are constantly afraid that we’re being judged for our successes and achievements, and while a lot of people will tell you to stop worrying about what others will think because no one is watching you, for as many people who don’t care what you’re doing, there are just as many who do and are judging you. “You’ve only written one book this year?” “You’ve only made fifty dollars this week?” “You don’t post on TikTok? How do you expect to sell books?” “When is the rest of your series coming out?” The hustle culture online is real, you can see evidence of it every day, and it’s just another reason why you can never be happy with what you have because it will never feel like it’s enough. And it will never feel like that so long as someone you see online is doing more than you.

So, what can we do to combat this? It’s a question that I’ve been dealing with since the beginning of 2025 when I came to the conclusion my books would never be a business and that I would never make any meaningful earnings from it.

It was a disappointing and disheartening realization to come to, but it was freeing in some ways. I stopped my Facebook ads. I took time to go into my backlist and re-edit a few titles. I don’t stress about the fact that I have written only one book this year. I don’t let myself feel bad if I don’t feel like writing and would rather watch a show instead. Do the low sales numbers bother me? Sure. I think any author who publishes to a site where readers have to pay wants sales. But I just remind myself there is a lot of content out there and I can’t be, and don’t want to be, everywhere online. Creating content when you don’t feel like it is just as stressful as forcing yourself to write when you’re not in the right headspace.

But, no matter how many times I remind myself to loosen up or brush away those pesky feelings of inadequacy, they always manage to pop up, which is why I wrote my blog post last week to begin with. I needed the reminder that yes, I have accomplished a lot this year, and more than acknowledging it, I should celebrate it. Even if I closed my laptop today, after I schedule this post, and don’t open it again until January first, my 2025 year in review would still rock and it really has nothing to do with how much I’ve made this year and if I managed to break even with all that I’ve had to pay for to keep my hobby afloat.

I wrote a book I’m proud of. Maybe it won’t make me any money, but I wrote it with my whole heart, and I love Seth and Avery. I wrapped up five years’ worth of work when the last of my King’s Crossing serial released, and I doubt I’ll ever write anything like that again. I applied what I learned and re-edited three of my standalone books. I’ve helped hundreds of authors make their own book covers using my Canva instructions. I edited for someone who couldn’t afford to hire out and helped her get that much closer to publishing her next book.

It’s easy to forget even your biggest accomplishments when the to-do list never ends. Give yourself credit for everything you’ve managed to do–this week, this month, this year. Being an indie author really does feel like having homework sometimes, but maybe it’s time we start grading ourselves on how happy we are with what we’re doing, not on our output or the outcome of it.

And stop moving those goalposts. Run past them and don’t look back.

What I’ve Done This Year: Beating Up Imposter Syndrome

Posted on October 27, 2025 by Vania Margene Rheault

1,561 words
8 minutes read time

red boxing gloves hanging in front of black and grey background.

Text says what i've done this year: beating up imposter syndrome

Sometimes you can look back and not feel especially productive. I feel like that this year since I have only one book written so far. But feeling like you haven’t gotten anything done is actually a form of Imposter Syndrome and instead of letting it win, I thought I’d pick apart my year and document everything I’ve done that moved my writing business forward.

January
According to older blog posts, I started editing Loss and Damages in January. I don’t know when I decided to release that book, but it had been written for a couple of years already. I spent the last four months of 2024 re-editing my Rocky Point Wedding series, so I was feeling a little burnt out. But I didn’t stop to rest, no that would be silly, and jumped into getting Loss and Damages ready for a September release.

I also kept up with this blog and wrote my four posts that I published on Mondays. But I must have had a lot of thoughts because I gave you seven posts instead of four. I feel like that might have started my year off on a good note, so let’s see if I kept that going.

**Shattered Fate released January 20th, 2025, but that seems like a very long time ago now.

February
I started writing Wicked Games on February 4th, 2025

screenshot of statistics of Wicked Games.
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Besides my King’s Crossing serial slowly releasing around that time (they dropped six weeks apart), that was the biggest thing I did that month. Doing so much editing made me miss writing and I was excited to get back into it.

I also kept writing on this blog, and I must have had more to say that month as well since I wrote six posts instead of my regular four.

March
March seems like it was the same old, same old for me. I kept working on Wicked Games,(though I hit a bump with lack of motivation) kept posting on this blog, and Shattered Hearts, the fifth book in my King’s Crossing serial, published on the third. March can be really dreary in Minnesota too, so I was probably just waiting for the snow to get the hell out of here and for it to warm up. But, every little bit counts and releasing a book is a pretty big deal. I shouldn’t brush it off, even if SAD was probably getting me down.

April
According to a mid-month check-in blog post, I finished Wicked Games the first week in April. Getting a book done in three months tracks, so I’m not surprised that despite writing a whole blog post the month before about how “stuck” I was, that I finished a short time after. What else did I get done?
*I didn’t give myself a break and did another round of edits on Loss and Damages.
*I blogged four times.
*The last book in my King’s Crossing serial, Shattered Dreams, released.
Looking back, April was a pretty big month for me. I finishing writing a book and that series wrapped up five years of hard work. I was also working on a book that would turn out to be my next release. It was a good month but I doubt I took the time to celebrate anything. That’s just how I am.

May
May was a slow month for me. I was listening to Loss and Damages and thinking about what I wanted to write next. I’m amused because in my author check-in for May I was thinking about the book I’m writing now, Bitter Love. I hadn’t named it and only had the idea of a plot, but I guess that’s what happens when a story won’t let you go. I remember feeling burnt out still, and while I was considering diving into hockey, even started doing some research, that kind of project felt like it was too much to tackle.

That month was a breakthrough for my health though, and I stopped drinking our city’s tap water and switched to bottled spring water. That has made a big difference in how I feel. I’ll always have my lichen sclerosis and nerve damage from that hysterectomy I agreed to in desperation, but I’m closer to normal than I have been in the past five years. So May might have been quiet writing-wise, but it turned out to have a big impact on my life.

My blog had a good month: I had five posts, and one was an author interview. I like adding new voices occasionally since different perspectives are interesting to read and keeps things fresh. It’s tough finding people who will give you time though, so I only get to do that a couple times a year.

June
I was making some small progress in June. I got the proof of Loss and Damages in the mail and did some light editing of my rockstars. I was still debating on what I was going to write next, waffling between writing Bitter Love and hockey. That’s probably about as relaxed as I get. But I can tell while reading past blog posts that I lost a lot of the urgency I was feeling in previous years to move, move, move.

Blog was good. I wrote five posts.

July
I re-edited Rescue Me and I’m happy I did. I found a timeline issue that I’m glad was easy to fix and just eased up on my dense prose. I think I got rid of about 1500 words and updated the formatting, and I ordered two proofs to make sure my changes looked okay. I uploaded new files at both KDP and IngramSpark. We also adopted my son’s friend’s cat and she’s been a nice addition to our family so far, her need for attention aside. (That has nothing to do with productivity, unless you count her helping me.)

tuxedo cat sitting on chair in front of black laptop. small pumpkin gourds in foreground.

My blog was still chugging away–I had four regular Monday posts.

August
August was more of the same. I re-edited Faking Forever, which was a chore and a half, then moved on to A Heartache for Christmas. I ordered proofs of both of those books and updated the files with KDP and IngramSpark. Though at the time it felt like I wasn’t going anywhere, overall I’m satisfied that I took the time and with the results of those several weeks of re-editing. It was a crash course in readability, and all three books sound more conversational and not so stuck-up. I plan to do my Cedar Hill Duet after the New Year. I want to redo the covers after doing another edit. Those are good books but they can be better. I’ll have a little time after I finish Bitter Love, so that’s the next project on my list.

September
I started Bitter Love, but my friend was ready for me to edit her book, so that’s what I did for the majority of the month. Because of changes at my job, it took me a little longer than it has in the past, so I didn’t get much done on anything else.

Loss and Damages also released on the 15th, after trying to do a proper launch that included a cover reveal on IG, sending out ARCs, and a Goodreads giveaway. It didn’t hit big, most people who took an ARC didn’t leave a review, but I’ve sold two ebooks and have had the equivalent of eleven books read in Kindle Unlimited. It’s a long and character-driven book. I didn’t expect it to do much better.

Blog was fine–I published five posts.

Looking back, I’ve done a lot with my year so far, and I’m not sure why I don’t give myself more credit. I finished releasing a six-book series. I released a standalone. I re-edited three books and started a new WIP. I think one of the issues is that when you’re an indie author, there’s always something more to do so you don’t get the chance to feel like you finished anything or are any closer to your goal. There’s always another book to write, another book to edit, another TikTok video to make.

And think this is especially true when you haven’t gone viral, you haven’t earned an orange bestseller tag on Amazon, haven’t reached the number of followers you were hoping for. I think I might want to do a separate blog post on why goals never seem obtainable, even if you have reached milestones you should be proud of, so I’m going to leave that there for now.

Of course now the only thing that I’m thinking about now is getting Bitter Love done but I’m taking it easy and enjoying the process. Jesse and Jordan have been fighting inside my head for a few months now and it’s a relief to be putting them on the page. Motivation is the key to getting things done and getting things done is the only path to success, no matter what your definition is, but we also need to celebrate the little wins or everything we accomplish will feel hollow.

Be proud of yourself for sticking with it. Not everybody does. And if you’re reading this and thinking you haven’t done much this year, try making your own list. You’ll probably surprise yourself.

And that’s worth celebrating.

Have a great week!

Monday’s Author Update

Posted on September 15, 2025 by Vania Margene Rheault

1,617 words
9 minutes read time

higher view of a state park in autumn. browns dull greens and oranges over a hilly field. lake to the left a murky green water. — Maplewood State Park, Maplewood, MN October 2024

It’s cooling down in the evenings and the leaves are just beginning to change colors, which is lovely. We’re tiptoeing into my most favorite part of the year, the yummy months when it isn’t summer but it isn’t winter. In Minnesota, no one can accurately guess how long that time will last, but I’ll enjoy it for however long it stays.

My editing and proofing is done!
I finally finished proofing my Christmas novel that I was re-editing in time for the holiday push. I ordered a second proof just to make sure the formatting is still okay, but I’m not reading it over again. I changed a lot of word choices and phrasing, just like I did for Faking Forever, and going forward I’ll be trying to sound more conversational while staying true to my voice.

One of the things I had in the back of my mind when I re-edited those three standalones (Rescue Me, Faking Forever, and A Heartache for Christmas) was those books not sounding like me if I made too many changes. But, I’m trying to lighten up because since I’ve been reading a little bit more I’ve noticed that popular romance books just don’t get too deep with the prose and vocabulary. Whether this is a conscious choice of the author or just their own light writing style, I’m going to try to meet in the middle. I can only write how I write . . . but I can be mindful of word choices and syntax and maybe my books will be a little easier to read. I wrote a blog post on the changes I was making in A Heartache for Christmas and you can read it here: https://vaniamargene.com/2025/08/18/when-dumbing-down-your-writing-isnt-dumb/

I’m going to set up an Amazon ad for it, I think, and maybe set up a Facebook ad for it at the end of October. I really let up on the Facebook ads this year, and the only ad I’ve purchased was for getting my ARCs of Loss and Damages seen. I did manage to give away quite a few ARCs of that book through the ad, but since I gave them away on good faith (meaning no Google form to fill out and no email collection), I doubt much will come of it.

Goodreads giveaway update.
My Goodreads giveaway is doing well, though I guess I don’t have a gauge to tell. I have 1,150 entries at the time of this writing, and I’m pretty happy with that. Like the ARC giveaways through my FB ad, I doubt much will come of it, but if you don’t get your name out there somehow, no one will know who you are. It’s especially true these days with so much content to choose from.

New book and new editing project.
I’m 6,563 words into Bitter Love, but I’m going to have to table that for now. One of my friends I edit for has the next book in her series ready for me, and I’ll be putting Jesse and Jordan aside to take care of that. Because of the changes at my work and just basic free time slipping away, it will take me a while to get that editing project done and I probably won’t get Bitter Love finished this year like I wanted. My day job has just been stressful overall, and I’m at the point where I’m not sure what would be harder: staying and toughing it out or finding something new after twenty-four years. All I’m grateful for is that I’m feeling better physically every day, so if/when I decide to jump into the job search I can at least handle the change. It still won’t be easy because change is hard, but at least I won’t have the physical stuff to deal with if it come to pass.

Posting on social media.
I’ve still been trying to post on socials, and though I’ve pulled way back on FB ads, I’ve been boosting posts on IG a little more. That hasn’t translated to sales as far as I can see, but I have gained a few followers pushing me close to 500 after having the account for thirteen years. I only post graphics, not reels, so I don’t know if growing my IG account will do anything for me, either in the long or short runs, but I think I prefer posting on IG rather than my FB author page. I have come to realize I hate that page. I have three friends who like all my posts and besides that, reach is non-existent. I wonder if it would be smart to start over, but I’ve had that page for almost as long as I’ve had Instagram so I have no idea where that link is out in the world. I hate broken links so I’ll keep it up and just repurpose my IG posts for it. I started a new TikTok account and just named it something generic that has to do with books. I’m testing to see whether a “book” account will do more for me than an “author” account, like my reader page on Facebook I run ads off of when I bother. It doesn’t seem so advertise-y, so we’ll see what comes of it. Content creation is still the main issue, but I’m good with Canva and just try to juggle creating on my laptop and posting on my phone (I have the Canva app). Even if I’m stuck in what’s considered the TikTok dungeon, the low views (my last carousel got 353 views) still beats what I get on FB and IG combined, even when I boost a post on IG. I don’t want to try to be everywhere, just where I can have the most eyes without a lot of work.

Blog cleanup.
Speaking of broken links, I’ve been cleaning up my blog posts and trashing some of my older ones I did with other authors who have since flaked out or have changed their own links (or even author pen names!) making the post useless or obsolete. I didn’t like doing that, but some of my relationships with those authors have gone so far south I didn’t like having them on my blog anymore anyway. So if you happen to run into a link that doesn’t work anymore, you weren’t missing much and there’s a reason why the post no longer exists. I’ve also gone back and updated a few older posts that kept getting hits even though they were six, seven, or eight years old. Back then I had no idea what I was doing and the posts are only getting hits because my SEO on this site is actually pretty good. So, I updated those older posts with actual relevant information and now I won’t feel bad when people are reading them to find out about something.

Library distribution of Kindle Select books.
There’s been a lot of talk in indie circles about KDP letting ebooks into libraries even if you’re enrolled in Kindle Select (the author side of Kindle Unlimited).

I didn’t jump on this bandwagon for one simple fact: you still have to be selected by a librarian to be in a library. Your books don’t just automatically show up there because they’re available. And with the deluge of indie books now being available, your chances of being selected are that much worse. So, no I didn’t go upload all my books to Draft2Digital to use their site as a distribution service to libraries, and I probably won’t. My paperbacks have always been available through IngramSpark and as far as I know a library has never purchased one of my books. Like being in a bookstore, being in a library has never been a dream of mine, and I just don’t care. If you care about being in the library system and want to take advantage of that for your Kindle Unlimited ebooks, you can make an account with Draft2Digital and when selecting storefronts, select library distribution only. This article gets a little more detailed: https://newshelves.com/kindle-unlimited-authors-can-now-distribute-to-libraries/

What’s on the blog next week.
I was going to get into if writing a long series anymore is a good idea and talk about some current information I’ve run into that has possibly proved that it’s not. But right now, this blog post is already eight minutes long, so it’s probably better if I wait to talk about it another day.

Peak leaf-looking season will be coming in a couple of weeks and I’ll be taking a day off to go to a state park near here with my sister and daughter. We went last year and I took some amazing pictures. It’s nice to spend the day outside in cooler temperatures and then we go out to dinner after we get back into town. Things will change a lot for me if I have to get a different job, but change doesn’t have to be bad. It’s the getting-through-it part that’s uncomfortable, but with my health issues, the past five years have been hellish and maybe finding a different job will be a piece of cake after that. Anyway, I will keep you posted on all that as I know more.

Next week, let’s say I’ll write that blog post on whether or not it’s worth an author’s time to invest in a long series. With attention spans dwindling and a reader’s need for instant gratification, I feel the old advice of writing a long series is slowly becoming as obsolete as some of my old blog posts.

Chat more about that later! Have a great week!

murky photo of a lake through dark brown and black tree branches. brown and orange trees off in the distance — Maplewood State Park, Maplewood, MN. October 2024.

Monday Musings: Editing, Book Launches, and the Rest of 2025

Posted on August 25, 2025 by Vania Margene Rheault

1,902 words
10 minutes read time

Editing Update
For the past few months I’ve been trapped in editing hell. A hell of my own making, but hell nonetheless. Anyway, I’m happy with the choices I’ve made, especially since I’ve sold a couple copies of Rescue Me since I updated the files. At the time of this writing, I’m waiting for another proof of Faking Forever to come because I forgot to add the “About the Book” section to the front. I also made a couple additional edits, but because you can edit a book forever and ever, after this second proof comes, I’ll just page through it and mark it done. Even if I happen to miss something, it will still sound 1000% times better than what it did, so I’ll consider that a win.

I’m still going through my Christmas novel and I’m hoping to be done with it by the end of the month. It’s a little slow going because I’m trying to avoid having to read through it again, but I guess I’ll skim the paperback proof when I order one. Of course there’s always a risk of editing in mistakes, but I’m not the only one that happens to, so I’ll just make peace with the fact that all the books I’ve edited in the past several weeks sound better than they did. I did a blog post on some of my changes for A Heartache for Christmas and you can read it here: https://vaniamargene.com/2025/08/18/when-dumbing-down-your-writing-isnt-dumb/

Loss and Damages Launch Activity
I haven’t been doing much for it except buy a Goodreads giveaway and run an Amazon ad to the preorder. At first I felt bad I spent the $99 dollars on the giveaway because other than exposure, like when I bought one for Cruel Fate, I won’t get much out of it. Comparing the two books might be worthless since Cruel Fate is the first in a six book serial and Loss and Damages is a standalone which (in my mind) makes it much more likely to be read, so chances are outcomes will be completely different anyway. But, I get paid three times in September, so after realizing that, I shrugged and moved the Goodreads receipt into my 2025 Book Spend folder to give to my accountant next April. All that being said, I’m at 832 entries and the giveaway ends the day the book is live, on September 15th. Since those free books are added to my sales dashboard, maybe they’ll count as “sales” and they’ll give me a little push that day. Who knows. If you want to enter, you can here: https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/419642-loss-and-damages

The Amazon ad isn’t doing too much but it’s just another way to push my book out there, and for now, it’s low-cost. My ads going to other books are doing well, but my sales aren’t keeping up with ad spend so I may have to reassess them at the end of the month. For now, the ad has resulted in one pre-order. I usually get none, so that’s a small win all around.

snapshot of Amazon ads stats for Loss and Damages. 6422 impressions, three clicks, cost per click is .35 cents.

I have four paperback copies I ordered since my paperback is scheduled and I can order them without the proof stripe on the cover. I was thinking about maybe offering them on IG to a few bookstagrammers or something, but time is slipping away if I want to do that because half the appeal is getting the book and reading it before it releases. I have less than a month to do that now, and with shipping, even to the United States, I’m cutting it close. Still, it never hurts to put up a post, so I might be doing that sooner than later.

Overall, I don’t have other plans for it. Most times I forget I even wrote it and that I should be pushing it. I have a terrible habit of moving on before I really should be moving on, but I’m always thinking about the next thing, and being stuck in editing makes me antsy to write something new.

What subgenre in romance is hot right now:
If you get the K-Lytic’s marketing trends research newsletter, you’ll know that Cowboy and Western Romance is on the upswing. I never was one to care about cowboys, even if Glen Powell portrayed a pretty sexy one in Twisters (that I have seen approximately 100 times). Ranch and farm life is a bear to get right if you’ve never lived on a ranch or a farm. Tacking a horse incorrectly will get you skewered by readers who actually know how to ride, and that is a level of research that I just don’t care to do. Especially since the last, and only, time I rode a horse was back when I was ten and went to summer camp. The last time even I saw a horse in person was two winters ago when we went on a sleigh ride (“sleigh” being used loosely as there wasn’t much snow that year and we were actually on wheels) and I got to pet one before we set off. That, unfortunately, does not qualify me to write a cowboy romance, and neither does living in the middle of farm country. But, it’s interesting to note that Cowboy and Western Romance is having a moment. This is the snapshot that Alex Newton shared in his K-Lytics email.

graph on left showing uptick between 2020 and 2025 of cowboy romance. on the right, a sexy cowgirl and sexy cowboy both wearing cowboy hats

If you want to buy Alex’s newest report, you can find it here. In the past they were $37 and now they’re $57, I believe, but he offers a lot of information. This is not an affiliate link: https://k-lytics.lpages.co/western-romance/. I like watching them but I have a Mafia report from two years ago that I haven’t watched, so it’s pretty obvious I don’t make the time and shouldn’t waste the money.

Authors Guild Webinar
There’s a free Authors Guild webinar that looks interesting that also popped up in my email. It’s called How and Where to Find Your Readers and it’s on Wednesday, August 27th, at 2pm EST. Someone on Threads asked me if there would be a replay, and though the information doesn’t say that there will be (that I could see), they usually put a lot of their content on their YouTube channel. Here is the registration link if you’re interested in attending the webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_z9jduvBMTL-wsm77dcFMjg#/registration You don’t have to be an Authors Guild member to attend.

You can also subscribe to their YouTube channel as they have a lot of content there as well: https://www.youtube.com/@AuthorsGuild

The Anthropic AI Lawsuit
You all might have heard that Anthropic was found to have legally obtained thousands of books and other work from pirate sites such as LibGen and Library Mirror. There was information going around that if your books were included that you could join the class action lawsuit. If. If you had filed a copyright for your work with the Copyright Office. That little piece of information was hidden in the Threads posts and other bits and pieces I read about it, but Craig Martelle was very upfront about it in his Facebook group, Successful Indie Author. I realized it’s because it’s just one of those things people assume an indie author will do. [Cue the Chrissy Teigen meme where she’s grimacing in the audience.]

Applying for copyright was something I planned on doing when I started my pen name and then, I guess you can call them excuses, I lost focus because of COVID, my health, and other things going on at the time. Not to mention price. After paying for what we have to pay for, adding another expense, and one that didn’t seem imperative, was a lot, and I just . . . didn’t. Now I’ll be paying for that along with many, many, many other authors who don’t bother because if whoever is behind this class action lawsuit wins and damages are paid out, they won’t be paid out to us. It’s really a “coulda woulda shoulda” moment, and you can’t go back to retroactively submit your copyright because you have to do it within three months of your book being published. And I don’t even mean that in a skeezy way of trying to become a part of the lawsuit, just simply going back to fix your mistakes. Along with having a membership to the Alliance of Independent Authors, paying for your copyright is probably a good idea. There are so many scammers and thieves out there now. Authors need all the protection they can get. If you want to read more about that, you can find it on the Authors Guild website here: https://authorsguild.org/news/anthropic-ai-class-action-important-information-for-authors/

What’s next for the rest of 2025?
It’s a little early to be thinking about the end of the year, but September is just around the corner, and once the holidays hit, it’s game over. So, in recognizing that, I’d like to try to write another book. I have Bitter Love pretty much plotted out in my head. I’ll have to fill in some blanks as being a “planster” that’s expected, but I know the major plot points. How it ends right now could go either way, not the HEA part, but where they end up, you know. When I write my small town romances, sometimes they stay and sometimes they don’t.

If I can start on Bitter Love September first, I’d have to write 5300 words a week to write a 90k word book. That actually sounds pretty doable, considering in the past I’ve been able to write 5000 words a day, but now with changes at my work, I’m not sure what kind of word count I’ll be able to produce. I have a really difficult time writing on the days I work–my ten hour shifts don’t leave me a lot of time and by the end I’m exhausted anyway–and the days I don’t are filled with chores, errands, and other pesky things that make up life. So, while that 5300 word count cheers me because it doesn’t sound that bad, I’ll have to see what reality lets me do. But that is the goal so we’ll see what happens. Especially since this book might not be that long. There’s no mystery in it, just a bunch of garbage my characters have to deal with, so maybe it would be a nice change if my book came in at 75k words or so. I won’t know until I write it, but I’m not put off by the idea.

I guess that’s all I have for this week. Overall things are good. Health is hanging in there, nothing bad is happening with my car. Pim is a little jerk (I mean that very affectionately) and she hates being alone, but I think we’re all still getting used to each other and there’s a chance yet she could quiet down. I hope she does because having to feed her breakfast around 4am isn’t awesome, and sometimes, like on the days I know I have to get up for work, I can’t always fall back asleep. My son has been good with getting up with her, too, and sometimes when I finally get up, he’s asleep on the couch. Not great, but I love having a cat again, so you just have to deal.

Here’s Pim for the pet tax. She loves that piece of packing paper.

Enjoy the last little bit of August, and I will talk to you next week!

Monday Musings: ARCs, Goodreads, and Writing While You’re Sick

Posted on August 11, 2025 by Vania Margene Rheault

1,906 words
10 minutes read time

I’ll tell you a little story. In our city, our Walmart is located in a poor neighborhood. I would imagine when they built it, they didn’t intend for that to happen, but as the city grew, it became a poor part of town. Since then, theft has increased. You can tell it’s increased because of the way they treat their customers. They have security walking around their store (I know who he is because I worked with him many many years ago when I was checker at K-Mart), they lock up everything that has value, from laundry detergent to pregnancy tests, and in the cosmetics department, you have to pay for anything you want before you leave. They don’t let you pay at the main checkout counters anymore.

They treat you like you’re going to rob the place the second you step foot in their store. And you know what? It sucks. It sucks being treated that way. I mean, I get it, they probably do lose thousands of dollars in product every year, and that will continue to happen as things get more expensive and companies don’t want to pay their employees.

The sad part is, I’ve seen authors treat their ARC readers this way. Changing one word in each copy to “catch” someone pirating, watermarking their copies, making them sign NDAs. Sometimes we forget that we need them–ARC readers don’t need us. Treating them like they’re guilty before they do anything is kind of, I don’t know. I left another Facebook group the other day because I got into a discussion with someone who was trying to prevent theft. At first she said her post was about ARC readers then she changed her story and said she was doing a giveaway on Instagram, mostly, I think, because I told her treating ARC readers like they’re guilty before they even do anything is nasty and unnecessary. No matter how you’re giving out copies of your book, treating readers like they’re going to steal from you will only make you look petty and mean. Your book will get pirated. The potential is there for it to get stolen, but the stories I hear of that happening? Other authors are doing the stealing, not plain old, every day readers who want to help you.

I’m glad I left that group, but I’m sure I’ll see it again. I don’t like being treated like I’m going to do something before I’ve done it. I don’t like being accused when I’m innocent. And neither does anyone else. If you feel that strongly about protecting your work, don’t give out ARCs. Don’t do giveaways and don’t publish because the second your book is on Amazon, it will get pirated.

And as Forrest Gump says, “That’s all I have to say about that.”

Once again I had to go through the wonderful process of contacting Goodreads to move Loss and Damages from my “fake” profile to my “official” one. I don’t understand how my “fake” profile isn’t allowed to exist, but it does, and every time I publish, I have to contact Goodreads and have them move my book. This time I contacted support rather than a Librarian and they actually took my “fake” profile down, so maybe the next time I publish a book it will move over correctly without me having to do anything. They were great about it and did it in a couple of hours. I should contact a Librarian and change some of my old covers too, but dealing with Goodreads is a necessary evil, and I try to do it as little as possible.

I’ve been re-editing some older titles, and I think I mentioned that in my last blog post. Since then I finished Faking Forever a couple days ago. Now I’m reading it over just because I made so many changes that I’m looking for mistakes in my edits.

I’m trying to think back to when I was writing that book, or Rescue Me for that matter. Most of my books I wrote between 2020 and 2024 were written while I wasn’t feeling well. I wasn’t myself, dealing with my lichen sclerosis when I didn’t know what it was, getting a hysterectomy that I’d find out later wouldn’t help and only cause me post-surgery issues, and breaking up with my fiancé who did nothing less than catfish me into thinking he was a decent human being. I look back at that time in my life, and I just wonder if those things didn’t effect how I wrote, because I have to say, Rescue Me didn’t sound too terrible, but Faking Forever sounded like shit. My word choices, my writing style, it all sucked, and I can really tell that I wasn’t in a good frame of mind. I just wasn’t.

When I was re-editing Faking Forever, I practically rewrote the whole thing. Not on a plot or character arc basis, but on a sentence and paragraph level. I took out over 1,000 words when I re-edited Rescue Me, and I took out almost the same in Faking Forever. It makes me sad because looking back, maybe I shouldn’t have been writing. Though, I don’t know what I would have done with myself if I hadn’t. Those four years I was undiagnosed, my doctors lying to me, prescribing treatments that wouldn’t help, I was in a really bad place mentally. I had anxiety. We were going through COVID and lockdown and I was trying to support my daughter who started tenth grade virtually.

I’m feeling better now. In 2024 I got a diagnosis. I stopped taking the medication that had side effects. I stop drinking the tap water that was making me nauseated and messing up my digestion. Most days now I don’t think about how I feel physically. I can push what’s left into a corner of my brain and ignore it. But in doing so, that leaves my mind open to a lot of other things, and I can see in my writing how stressed out I was.

This makes me feel horrible, because in 2020 I started my pen name in an effort to do everything “right.” I wanted to turn my books into a career, but I sabotaged myself and starting a pen name or trying to do any kind of “real” work not feeling well only backfired. I have a lot of books out. My Lost & Found Trilogy. My Cedar Hill Duet. Those are the first books I published. Since I published them, I’ve edited them, but I edited them when I still wasn’t feeling well, and well, unless I read them again, I have no idea how they would sound to me now.

I can safely say that my other books are okay. I just reread my rockstars and I like how they sound (except for a couple of typos here and there that are normal). I’m lucky I did the final sweeps of my King’s Crossing serial when I was feeling good. That would have been a monster of a project to re-edit and I’m confident I don’t have to do that. Rescue Me and Faking Forever are fixed, or close to it. I’ll edit A Heartache for Christmas after I upload new files to KDP for Faking Forever, just in time for the holiday push this year. Then, maybe I can feel in a good enough place to write new work. I felt good writing Wicked Games earlier this year. I edited Loss and Damages (coming out next month) when I was feeling good.

Where does this leave me? I’m cleaning up my house, literally and figuratively, but there’s a lot of time gone by. I don’t want to say wasted. I can’t. Writing was there for me when my world was pretty much falling part, for lack of a better way to describe it, but I don’t want to sound melodramatic either. I can write new books knowing I’m giving my best to the story and the characters and nothing is holding me back or distracting me.

A friend told me to give myself grace. That if my writing is better today it’s not only because I’m feeling better but because I’ve put a lot of words on the page. That might be true. I know I learned over the past year to spot some writing tics that I’ve been able to avoid in newer work. I’ve learned to relax, not only just to enjoy the writing, but my writing style and my voice. Who cares if I use “get” or “put” or “takes” or a little telling slips in there sometimes? My writing sounds stilted because I was trying to avoid garbage words, and honestly, with the books out there that are selling like ice cream cones in 90 degree weather, you’re better off just saying “fuck it” and write in a freer manner than trying to conform to rules that will only make you sound like cardboard.

But this also circles around to my not having an editor. I’ve broken probably one of the most important rules in publishing. Not even just indie, but publishing in general. There are a lot reasons why I haven’t. I mean, I used to, back when I first started, but my productivity was so much that I would never have been able to afford one for every single book anyway. And I’ve had this argument with myself and others before: an editor can’t teach you how to write. They can only make better what you’ve given them, and if you give them garbage, you only get better garbage when they’re done.

Likely, an editor wouldn’t have been able to do much with Faking Forever. It was my voice, my style as a whole, that had problems. Fox’s and Posey’s character arcs are solid. The plot is fine. It just read like crap and I’m not sure what an editor could have done. Marked every sentence and suggested I rewrite it? And even if that had happened, I’m not sure I could have. Not how I was feeling.

So, I guess the best thing I can do is move on. Write more, enjoy the process now that I can. Celebrate my improved health. Go back if I feel like it, and I probably will at some point. Re-edit my Lost & Found trilogy and my Cedar Hill duet. Those would be the last books I’d need and then I could say all my books are okay. But I don’t want to be re-editing forever either. I’d like to write something new, but I’m going with my instincts and right now after getting Faking Forever out of the way, giving A Heartache for Christmas one final read will make me feel better. I like Evie and Sawyer anyway, so going back won’t be a hardship. I’ve read bits and pieces since I published them and I already know that book doesn’t sound like Faking Forever did. Maybe I was in a particularly nasty frame of mind when I wrote Faking Forever, I don’t know. All I can do is take the good from that time in my life and leave the bad.

I’m still getting used to the restructuring my work did last week. Only time will tell if it will effect how often I can blog, but I love sharing bits of my life and news with you so I’ll do my best not to let it impact me too much.

Have a good week, everyone, and I’ll chat with you later for sure.

Monday Author Update

Posted on August 4, 2025 by Vania Margene Rheault

2,052 words
11 minutes read time

wooden background with pink flowers. text says, monday author update...also, hello august!

I don’t have a lot going on, though I’m keeping busy.

For the past two months I’ve been working on re-editing a couple of my older titles. Rescue Me was re-edited from cover to cover. I updated the copyright page, back matter, and About Me page. (It was nice to add Pim to our family!) Then I decided to do Faking Forever, and that book has been taking a bit of time. Like, I don’t know how I was writing, but man, maybe I had stick shoved up my ass. All I can say is, this editing pass will definitely make the book sound better. More relaxed, more conversational. It’s a good story. Too bad pretentious writing kept it from shining because it’s nothing I would have wanted to read.

Those two projects have taken me longer than I’d like, editing practically sentence by sentence, but that’s okay. I think I’m still fighting a little burnout from getting my King’s Crossing serial out there. That wrapped up five years’ worth of work, and I might still be coming down from the adrenaline high. But, putting out Loss and Damages was hectic in its own way, so working on a couple of books that just need some polish has been a nice break.

I uploaded Rescue Me‘s updated files to KDP without an issue and did the same on IngramSpark. IngramSpark took three days to send me a new cover template for the changes I had to make to the spine (they don’t have the 10-page grace that KDP has, so I had to tweak my cover to reflect the 1500 words I took out of the book), so if you need to update to IngramSpark, use the Lightning Source template generator instead. It’s the same template and they sent it to my email in a couple of seconds. I even went so far as to swap out the links in my Canva tutorial. I’m one of the most patient people I know, and even I wouldn’t wait three days for a template. I also scheduled Loss and Damages on Amazon. They put the ebook’s preorder up in just a couple of hours and they scheduled the paperback without asking for copyright proof. I’m always a little on edge dealing with them, but this was smooth, so I’m thanking whoever for that.

I ran a Facebook ad for my Loss and Damages ARCs, and among my newsletter, a boosted Instagram post, and the FB ad, I was able to giveaway 110 copies. I sent them out on good faith, not asking them to fill out a form or give me their email address, and I just hope that next month they show up and post their reviews. My Booksprout campaign did okay, and I gave away 20 out of 25 copies available. I’ve already gotten some good feedback, a kind soul posting on my author website in the comments of one of my blog posts. I was a little hesitant about this book, but I think I was just too close to it and I hope my lingering doubts are unfounded.

I changed the header on my FB reader group page and also my author website, but Facebook flagged my page for sexual content and I had to change the banner and delete it off my timeline. I think that fixed it, since it says there are no violations on my page now, but Facebook took away the privilege of being recommended, not that that matters too much. I only post anyway so my page doesn’t look empty when I run ads off it. But, it was a reminder that someone is always watching what you do so if you’re depending on something, it’s best to keep your nose clean or not get too attached. They’ve made a lot of changes anyway, letting their AI tools take over more and more of the targeting and someone in an ads group I’m in on Facebook theorizes that their ads will be all but useless coming as soon as next year. They want the click money, you want the click-through and the sales, and those aren’t always the same. I might write a different blog post on the subject, but I wouldn’t be surprised if authors stop using Facebook ads entirely if we lose our ability to choose our target audience.

In other news, I decided to change what I’m going to work on next. It’s not a secret that I’ve been struggling to reconcile how much better I’ve been feeling with where I am in my book business. I want to lighten up and find some balance while not feeling guilty and thinking everyone is going to forget about me, and I thought maybe going back to writing 3rd person when times were simpler and I was having more fun would be the answer. But whenever I started thinking about the book I have in mind, all the scenes were still in first person. I’m afraid after writing 15+ books in it, I won’t be able to shake it that easily, and well, all my third person books have been stagnating so there’s not a lot of sense adding to the backlist.

So, all that to say is, writing another standalone feels like a better fit than starting my hockey duet, and since I can’t get first person present dual POV out of my head, I’ll write it in that and put it under my initials instead of my full name. I haven’t figured out an occupation for him yet, but I guess it’s safe to assume that he’ll have money. He may not be billionaire status, but I’m not sure if it really matters at this point. It will be a small-town second chance, and I already have a tentative cover for it. The story is about a man who has to go back to his hometown because his grandma who raised him is dying. There he finds out the real reason his high school sweetheart broke up with him after high school graduation. Then I’ll have published (?) written three standalones in a row, so my hockey duet will mix it up. I’m trying not to think of timelines because I don’t want my books to be like that anymore. I understand that consistency is key to building a loyal audience and I have Wicked Games almost ready to go so that will give me extra time to write.

The problem is, I don’t want to publish as I write. I think it puts a lot of pressure on authors to write faster because it feels like people are waiting for the next book (whether that’s true or not). There’s a perceived expectation, and I don’t want to feel like that. I see others experience it, like they’re taking too long to write the next thing, and that’s a bad place for mental health. On the other hand, I really don’t want to feel like my books are just products I have to dress up and put on a shelf. I would like to find a happy medium between writing the next book but knowing I have my ducks in a row for the readers who are waiting for my next release. I think one of the best ways I can do that is put more time between releases. I’ll put out Loss and Damages in September, then maybe not even worry about publishing again until September of 2026. Being I already have Wicked Games almost done–it just needs a couple more editing sweeps, a blurb written, then formatting–that would give me plenty of time to write and not feel stressed out. I can take a page out of traditional publishing’s playbook and completely relax my publishing schedule.

How that would go over, I have no idea. And to who? Me? I’ll still be working on what I love, so maybe it won’t affect me that much, but I don’t have a real reader base to know if readers would get annoyed with me or not. As far as I know, and this is just an observation, not a pity grab, I don’t have a core set of fans. No one that interacts me with on a regular basis on my FB author page, maybe some people who open all my newsletters, but I haven’t gotten any new subscribers to my blog in a long time. So I have a feeling I’m the kind of author that readers just stumble upon from one of my Amazon ads or a Freebooksy promo spot, read the book they found, then move on. That’s not bad. It just doesn’t make for a strong, lucrative career. So would slowing down to a book a year slow my royalties and visibility as well? That might be something I won’t know until I do it.

Anyway, as much as I was excited to start my hockey duet, I think I’ll wait on that for a bit. If anything, it will give me more time to write them without feeling like I’m falling behind.

Otherwise things are going so-so. Our apartment complex was sold and now we have a new property management. Only time will tell if they’re okay to work with or worse than what we had before. I also found out the same day that our workforce at my day job was reduced which always gives me a wiggly feeling in my stomach because the next set of terminations could include me. Somehow I dodged this round, but I don’t think that will happen forever. Sometimes I feel like getting pushed out is what I need to find better life satisfaction all around, but then it would be nice if I was smart enough to leave on my own so I won’t have the panic that comes with being fired with no notice. So, I guess time will tell then too, but of course I couldn’t help but feel that it would have been nice if I could’ve turned my books into some kind of a career so I could quit if I wanted to or at least had a safety net. I’ll just have to keep buying lottery tickets. I probably have a better chance of winning than writing a bestseller.

So, you know, I still have stuff going on but I’m slowing down and doing things I neglected while I wasn’t feeling well. I’ve been cleaning out closets and going through clothes. Our front closet was a mess and I got rid of about ten pairs of shoes and five or six hoods that came off my kids’ winter coats when they were small. I had a million string bags from when I was running races, and donating some of that felt good. I still get an itchy feeling, like I’m not working fast enough, I’m not doing enough, but I know that’s just a phantom feeling of hustle culture and trying to make a mark in an industry that’s saturated. I’ll have to remind myself, often, that what I’m doing is enough and that it’s okay to pay attention to other areas of my life, even if that’s just resting after a long shift at my day job.

Besides that, everything is okay. I’m not online much because everyone is so nasty, from people making fun of Audra Winter and her 6k preorders for a book that needed editing to what the current administration is doing. Scrolling on Facebook is terrible, it’s just AI images and commentary written by ChatGPT. Nothing feels real anymore, and I don’t know if it’s me or what, but when I open up my FreeBooksy, BargainBooksy, Red Feather Romance, and Fussy Librarian promo newsletters, the covers have gotten terrible. It’s such a shame because they used to be decent places to find new readers but I really don’t want my book to be sandwiched between two covers that look like Photoshop vomit. I don’t agree with gatekeeping, but the quality of those newsletters aren’t what they used to be. I’d like to know what their open and click-through rates are.

I think that’s about all I have for today, but that’s enough. I’ll talk to you next week. Enjoy the last month of summer!

Monday’s Author Update: Progress and Plateaus

Posted on June 16, 2025 by Vania Margene Rheault

1,438 words
8 minutes read time

I kind of copped out on you all last week, not really posting anything because I had nothing to say. Unfortunately, this week I’m in the same predicament. As Avery McKay says in my novel, Wicked Games, “I love writing. I can scribble all day. But that doesn’t mean it’s worth printing.” And that’s kind of where I’m at at the moment. I have plenty to say, but I don’t think it’s worth your time.

I scroll social media and there are so many voices out there. Screaming, and not even into the void, because I hear them, loud and clear. It has always mystified me how people can post on a social media platform, four, five, six even more times a day, assuming, hoping, maybe praying that what they are saying has some kind of worth to somebody . . . anybody. Most of the time, I don’t think it does, and a lot of what I see is just annoying, like a mosquito buzzing around my head that I can’t kill because I don’t kill things.

I was thinking about that this morning, too, that there are so many books out there, and so many opinions about them, and at some point, you have to think that none of it matters at all. That maybe, instead of posting every five seconds, it could be better for your mental health and everyone else’s if you only say something when you have something meaningful to say. There was something I read on Threads that said, “I’m not actually surprised when some authors don’t say anything about injustices in the world because they barely have anything to say in their books. Why start now” and it actually made me mad. Just because I don’t post incessantly on social media doesn’t mean I don’t care about what’s happening in the world or that my books don’t have substance. That maybe I’m doing things in my real life that make a difference that don’t need to be blasted all over the internet.

Is it a crime to be a private person now?

It perhaps isn’t a crime, but in the age of digital when you aren’t shoving yourself out there every five seconds, your chance of discoverability goes down. But I don’t want to be known for telling my followers I vacuumed the living room, or I finally got around to cleaning my bathroom, or that I have a dentist appointment that I finally kept after a year of canceling because I was fed up with doctor appointments and I just needed a break (actually, that’s what I’ll be doing Thursday afternoon. Pray for me.).

And the woman who got ran off the internet for musing about plotting a book where the hero and heroine meet at an ICE protest has probably never regretted anything more in her life. Some thoughts should just be kept inside your head. In fact, probably most thoughts you should just keep to yourself.

Then we have platforms where pictures and videos need to accompany what you want to say and honestly, it’s really no wonder people don’t have attention spans. Even I’ve had that problem lately, watching an episode of The Outsider, then stopping after ten minutes to scroll Threads only to find there’s nothing there, then going back to my show, but then stopping again and scrolling DepositPhotos for an alternate guy for my hockey book’s cover. Then I feel stupid for not being able to finish my show and go back and force myself to watch until the end. In my case, I want to be working on my books but I also know I’m burnt out and need the break–hence watching a show in the evenings to chill out. It’s not that I didn’t like it, I’ve watched it before and knew that I did, but that feeling of not getting anything done, especially when I do have things waiting for me, wouldn’t leave me alone. Which, I can just blame on social media anyway. People are always posting what they’re doing or what they wish they were doing or what they’ve done, and you feel left out if you can’t join in.

Anyway, I am getting some stuff done. I finished that read-through of Wicked Games, and now I’m definitely going to put it away for few months. Right now I’m 33% of the way through proofing my proof of Loss and Damages and it’s been worth it as I’m finding a few typos, a scene break that didn’t need to be there and a couple of slow spots where deleting a sentence or two keeps things on track. I’m second guessing myself a lot, putting in a change and then adding a question mark as an indication that I might not really want to change it after all. A lot of the time I don’t, thinking that it’s not going to be the end of the world either way and how I wrote it was probably how I wanted it.

After I put the changes into Vellum I can order another proof, and I’m deciding between two chapter backgrounds. Let me know which one you like:

two screenshots of the first page of Loss and Damages one. One has light swirls from the top of the page that fades and the other has a light floral design that also fades down the page.

Text reads:
Dominic
The sidewalk is packed with protesters as the car pulls up to the curb in front of Milano Management and Development. I chuckle as the chants penetrate the town car. “Don’t let them win! It’s a sin! Don’t let them win! It’s a sin!” They tote signs, waving them high in the air, exclaiming the Milanos are murderers, poor people are people too, and #poorpeoplematter. My driver meets my eyes in the rearview mirror. “Sir?” “It’s fine, Duncan.” I tilt my head toward the two burly bodyguards striding through the crowd. One opens the door for me, and I climb out, clutching my briefcase. The chanting’s louder without the barrier, and it turns into a full-on explosion when they see me exit the car.  “Asshole!” “Greedy son of a bitch!” “Motherfucker!” I’ve heard it all before and the insults ping off me like arrows against a suit of body armor. My security helps me fight through the crowd, but they can’t stop a thin, blonde woman from getting close enough to spit on me. Wiping my cheek, I meet her tired blue eyes, frustration and stress digging lines into her skin. I turn away.

The first one is what I have now because it complements the chapter style I chose, but then I got to thinking about the flowers because she’s an artist who paints china. The model I chose for Dominic on the cover is standing in front of a black brick wall which is a nod to him being a land developer, so I could have “him” on the outside and “her” on the inside. I’ll order another proof and see which one I like better in print. That will just be for the paperbacks. The Kindle version will just be the chapter style. I don’t care about finding a heading image like I have previously. I don’t know what I would put there anyway and don’t feel like scrolling through stock photos.

I decided I’d make ARCs available July 15th. Let the excitement of the holiday fade and that will give reviewers two months to read for a September 15th release.

I have realized that if I wanted to write my hockey romance this summer that I might actually need to start writing it as summer will be a third over soon. Though, I didn’t realize how far into the summer the hockey season goes, as the Florida Panthers and the Edmonton Oilers are still battling it out for the Stanley Cup and it’s mid June. So, maybe a hockey romance could be released all year without sales dipping too low during launch. Maybe I’ll publish Wicked Games first after all, but honestly, at this point, I’m just going to do what feels right. I don’t mind having books sit on my computer. I’ve never felt the need to publish something the second I got it done. Well, that’s not true, I used to feel that way when I first started publishing, but after a while, maybe the novelty doesn’t wear off, but you get more strategic and if a release doesn’t feel right, I have no problem waiting. My King’s Crossing serial can pick up a lot of slack and do some heavy lifting for the next year if it had to come to that.

I have another promo for the first book, Cruel Fate, lined up through BargainBooksy for the 20th. I changed up the copy from what I used in my Fussy Librarian so I’m hoping that I get a few more sales out of it. I think it’s important that you tell readers the series is complete (if it is) as that encourages them to buy because they know they can binge. The first three books are still on sale, and I have no interest in changing the prices, though most of my “sales” right now are from KU.

That’s about all I have this week. I read an interesting Substack article by Jan Harayda about Taylor Jenkins Reid’s publishing deal. It’s more talk on why “subpar” books sell, and what that means for the authors who get those kinds of deals, for other authors who get left behind, and the readers who are offered those books. I read Daisy Jones and The Six, and I thought it was good. I know the difference between commercial and literary fiction, and I can chose my books accordingly. There’s no harm in writing fluff, but that doesn’t mean people will always think you deserve to get paid for it. You can read that article here: https://substack.com/home/post/p-165915819

See you next week!

Monday Author Update: Vellum, Bots, and a New Hockey Romance

Posted on June 2, 2025 by Vania Margene Rheault

2,289 words
12 minutes read time

spring desk flatlay. tulips, coffee, glasses, pen. keyboard

text says: Monday Author Update: Vellum, Bots, and a New Hockey Romance

Happy June!

Things are going pretty good here . . . I got the proof back for Loss and Damages, but I’m not going to dive into proofing it yet. Just a quick flip through made me realize I forgot to add the page that asks readers to sign up for my blog on my other website and reminds them I have a free book there. I’ll get that put in and I’m sure there will be more after I sit down to read it.

I’m not going to stress over typos anymore considering there’s backlash now if your book is too perfect. Apparently a typo-free book is a sign you’ve used AI to write, which is ridiculous, but so is the accusation by a clueless reader that if you’ve formatted using Vellum software that you’ve written your book with ChatGPT.

Screenshot of review:

Frankie
* The entire thing is Al trash
Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2024
Verified Purchase
Was very excited to read this book. Sapphic Fantasy is far and few in between. The book arrived and I realized there was some weirdness going on with the art on the cover. Try to look for an illustrator credit only to find out the entire production is made with Vellum Al.... cool. I love when a piece of media is entirely stolen and then has the audacity to say that no form of the media may be reproduced. When the entire thing is a stolen reproduction of other people's talent and hard — https://www.threads.com/@the.book.lush/post/DJigP-YslFl

Of course, that reader didn’t know what Vellum even is (and it’s not her job to, but still, maybe she shouldn’t have been voicing her thoughts on something she didn’t understand), and the creators of Vellum have changed the language of the indication that it was used in the book’s formatting. It used to say created with Vellum on the copyright page if you checked the box, and I always did to give Brad Andalman and Brad West credit for creating the software in the first place. But if that’s the way readers are going to be, I’ll uncheck the box and give them credit on the copyright instead. It’s a shame really, because these AI witch hunts are doing more harm than good, but props to Brad and Brad for fixing the terminology after these accusations spread over the web. (Not that I’ll apply it anytime soon . . . I’m about five updates behind because it already does what I want it to do.)

screenshot of Vellum software formatting of the copyright page of my book, Twisted Lies, the third book in my rockstar trilogy.

It seems every day there’s a new accusation and it’s getting to be so it’s really tiring to be online. I get why there’s pissy conflict about it, indies saying “Why should an AI book sell better and make more money than my book that I worked so hard on all by myself” and it’s valid . . . up to a point. People have said that about books that aren’t well-written as well, the same attitude being, “Why would a book that sounds like crap do better than mine?” and it’s a really toxic place for your mindset to be. Not only because competition is the thief of joy, but because quality is subjective, and not everyone reads at the same level. Calling someone stupid for liking a book you don’t feel is worthy of the time or sales is a choice. And maybe that’s not a thought spoken a loud, but it’s there whenever the topic comes up. (How could a reader like that?) There’s room for all books and all reading levels. Is this me defending AI? Not really. Mostly it’s me thinking authors can do what they want. I’m not getting involved like some busybody who can’t mind her own business. I have my own life to live and my own projects to work on. And honestly, all the BS people are posting just makes them look like jealous idiots.

Anyway, so I’ll get to Loss and Damages when I feel like it. Right now, for some reason, I was compelled to reread my rockstars (perhaps to remind myself that book two actually did have a plot), putting in some slight editing changes as I went along and fixing a few typos and stuff I didn’t see because I didn’t have great glasses back then–and I wrote those when I wasn’t feeling good so I was distracted by that. Things like commas that are supposed to be periods, or I found a place where I used a single quote mark to start a sentence but didn’t close it. Nothing major and not many, but since I was reading for fun, I thought I might as well not waste it and if I saw something that needed fixing, I did. I can upload the new files to KDP, but I don’t know if I’ll bother with IngramSpark. I haven’t sold a book through there in years, and it would cost $75 dollars for three books if I can’t find a promo code somewhere. But I don’t like the idea of my books being different on different platforms, so I’ll probably just swallow the cost and tell myself to stop reading my books over, even if I enjoy it, because at some point it’s going to cost me money.

What I really wanted to talk about was my new summer project! You’ve heard me talk about my plans for the next little while–getting Wicked Games ready to go and getting back to work on a series that I started writing during COVID that’s 1/3 completed–but I was inspired by Alex Newton’s new K-Lytics report. If you’re interested, you can find it here and purchase the report for $47 USD. This is not an affiliate link: https://k-lytics.com/sports-romance/.

It really got me thinking about jumping on the hockey trend, though I don’t think it can be called a trend anymore. Hockey romance has been around for a long time and like Billionaires that started as a fluke when Fifty Shades of Grey came out almost fifteen years ago, it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. So there is definitely no rush to get it written and published, and well, putting out a hockey romance during hockey season would be good timing anyway.

I wouldn’t bother if I didn’t have plot, and I have no idea where it came from (no, Al didn’t give it to me). All I knew when I started thinking about it was that I had to make my MMC rich to tie him into the Billionaire brand I’ve got going for myself. My rockstars still did well even if they weren’t billionaires, but they’re rich, of course, which fits into that wealthy lifestyle my characters live. Hockey players can be millionaires too, if they’re valuable, skilled, and sign the right contracts with the right teams. They play hard and . . . play hard. But this isn’t going to be some fluffy hockey romcom. No, this book is going to be gritty and dirty because hockey’s a sport that’s rife with sexual assault and domestic violence, among other things. I like to mix up tropes, bend genre expectations, like my FMC not getting pregnant in Give &Take, my a-baby-for-the-billionaire novel, the first book in my Lost & Found trilogy, or my rockstars who never get up on stage to do a concert. I’m going to flip it. My MMC hasn’t put a skate on a rink in twenty years and when he gets pulled back into that world unwillingly, he is a very pissed off man. So yeah, I’m really looking forward to writing this standalone and I’ve already been doing some research, diving into watching documentaries like Faceoff: Inside the NHL on Amazon Prime. Here’s the hook I posted on my FB author page:

puck and hockey stick on ice. the text reads, I didn't want the hockey team my grandfather left me...and I certainly didn't want the woman who came with it.

I’ll need a lot of research because I know next to nothing about hockey and it’s going to turn into that kind of a joke where I have to watch six hours of documentary just to write one believable paragraph. But I’m wondering if this isn’t the kind of passion project I needed to boost some writerly morale, though my King’s Crossing serial suddenly selling is doing that too. With a passion project I’m excited to write and my King’s Crossing serial doing well, I’m actually in a good headspace about my writing right now. I’ve let go of the hopefulness, which I think did me a world of good. All I have going on for promo is some Amazon ads that aren’t bankrupting me. So, I can say (again) that not all my royalties are mine, but anyone who thinks books sell themselves needs to take a Business 101 class because that rarely happens. I knew it too, setting up some ads when I said I wouldn’t bother anymore. If you want numbers, I made $142.00 in May and spent $95 on Amazon ads. Since the beginning of the year, I’ve had some subscriptions renew, like Canva and my Office 365, so if I did all my numbers from January until now, I’m probably still in the red, but I’m not trying as hard as I did last year and the mental freedom is what counts.

To keep up with that mental freedom, I have to really try hard not to think about my publishing schedule. I have Loss and Damages set to be published on September 15th with ARCs going out in July. I’ve had that date set for many months, and there’s no reason to change it. I also have said I would publish Wicked Games in January of 2026, but I would absolutely love it if I could swap that out with Frozen Assets. If I can’t, for whatever reason, I can’t, but if that works out, it wouldn’t mess me up too much as I could schedule Wicked Games for Fall of 2026. I’d still have two books out next year while I finish up my series for 2027. I just hate thinking like that now because for one, I don’t have a business anymore, and that is such a business way to think. For two, it really makes my books sound like widgets on a conveyor belt, and I don’t want to think like that. I never really did, think of my books as products, that is, only when my books were published and I had to figure out a way to sell them, but trying to plan a publishing schedule makes me feel like that and I just want to focus on the writing and not what I have to do when they’re done. I mean, to be honest, I don’t have a business. I have a hobby, one I take very seriously, but it’s a hobby nonetheless. I tried to turn it into a business, but all I did was burn myself out.

There are some things I might never change in my process, like coming up with the cover concept as quickly as I can so I have time to look for stock (it’s easier to find a guy who fits when you have the background you like and the title font in place) or change my mind and start from scratch. So, with that being said, I think I might have my cover done. This will be my first “abs” cover because while I stayed away from skin so I could do Amazon ads, there are just some things that are nonnegotiable and abs on a hockey cover is one of them. I didn’t want an illustrated cover, just because there is so much crap said about Icebreaker, how cute the cover is, but then inside it’s all sex, and I don’t want to mislead anyone. I didn’t want an object cover either because I don’t feel like learning how to make one and I’m not in the mood to hire out. So, he’ll have abs, his head won’t be cut off, and even if he’s hockey, he’s going to blend in with the rest of my backlist.

That’s about all I have. A German bot jacked up my views last week, which made me kind of mad. Messed up my stats for the week. I’m not 100% it was from a bot, but it was just looking at my home page, not a specific post that could have been shared. So, I’ll go with the bot theory and I enabled two-step verification and changed the password to my website. I had a chat with a WordPress happiness engineer who said my website looked fine, and the views died down after a couple of days.

screenshot of stats for may 26 to june 1. highest views were on May 27th at almost 900. Total views for the week were 1.4k

My KC Crowne blogpost has still been getting hits, don’t know how that makes me look when I didn’t bulldoze over her. Someone on YouTube mentioned my post, or just referenced it, I’m not sure, and you can watch it here if you want:

I actually don’t like consuming content about myself, which makes it easy not to read reviews about my books. So if you watch, only tell me if she has nice things to say. Otherwise, I’m good with not knowing. Not everyone likes it when you’re Switzerland, but I just have a lot of sympathy for authors who get caught up in the grind. It’s really a mental health issue, turning to Al to ramp up your productivity because you’re scared of being left behind. That kind of panic hustle is real, and it will only get worse. Since KC Crowne, a couple more authors have been caught with prompts in their books, which is too bad. I really can’t emphasize enough to read your proofs when you order them to check the cover. Even if you don’t ask Al for help, you never know what kind of formatting errors you’ll find, pacing problems that could be corrected since you’re now reading a “book” as a “reader” and typos that you missed on screen. It’s also just a really good time to pull quotes for social media. Yeah, just please read your proofs. Mark them up. Then, if you don’t want to keep them, create a giveaway for your readers who are interested in your creative process.

I guess that’s it. I always go into writing these like I’ll just be quick, then you need half your day to read. Sorry about that!

I hope you have a good week ahead, and I will chat with you next week!

Six Things I Learned after Starting My Pen Name

Posted on May 26, 2025 by Vania Margene Rheault

2,277 words
12 minutes read time

I thought starting my pen name (not really a pen, VM Rheault vs. Vania Rheault but for now, that’s what I’ll call it) would be the ticket to not fame or fortune, but I wanted to start my career on the right path after a couple of years of not doing things the proper way.

When I first started publishing, I did what a lot of indies did, and still do. I published what I wanted, didn’t really have a plan. I genre-hopped, looking for that genre I wanted to settle into long-term. No one told me I didn’t have to actually publish those experiments, but I wouldn’t have listened even if they had. Publishing without gatekeeping was a free-for-all, and it still is, indies publishing whatever they want without regard to a publishing schedule, marketing, or anything else that would start them on the right foot. Probably the only habit I had and still hold on to now, is writing all my books in a series first before publishing them. I started that when I wrote my Tower City Trilogy and I’ll never stop, even if that means I have a year or two between launches. But, let’s break it down. Here are the six things I learned when I started my pen name back in 2020, well, 2022 when I first published my Cedar Hill Duet and I tried to do things the “right” way.

You can’t click Publish and walk away.
If you don’t have a launch plan, this is what a lot of authors do. They don’t know how to launch and it can hurt you. When I published my Cedar Hill Duet, I didn’t put them on Booksprout for reviews. Before 2022, it was a free service, and I used it for my Rocky Point series under my full name. Then it went to paid, and I listened to the annoyed authors who said they were going to stop using that service. I should never have listened and put my own books up. Reviews matter. No one wants to think it, and I know correlation doesn’t equal causation, but Captivated by Her and Addicted to Her are my worst selling books and I attribute that to their low number of reviews. So, if you don’t have a plan or don’t want to have a plan, like cover/title/blurb reveal or newsletter, at the very least, try to get as many reviews as you can the week of your launch. They will affect how your book does from that day forward.

Nail your cover the first time.
When I decided to do my pen name, I really wanted to make sure I published correctly the first time. And by that, I mean I wanted to make sure my covers met genre and reader expectations. I’ve written a lot about how my cover for The Years Between Us screamed Women’s Fiction, and after I changed it to a couple, my sales went up. It was a beautiful cover but didn’t match the blurb or what the book was about.

I changed the cover to Wherever He Goes, too, and that helped. Unfortunately, I’ve had to change covers for some of my first person books even though I tried my best to avoid it. Your skills get better or better models come along, your taste changes, whatever, but no matter why you have to change your cover, if you change it to something better, just know that you’re blowing your launch period. I totally fucked up my launch for my Lost & Found trilogy because I didn’t wait to find better models. I published with what I had, and didn’t change the covers for a year or so after my launch. I gave them another edit, too, so I “re-launched” them, but man, you really waste Amazon’s bump if you screw up the first month of your release. Title, blurb, and your cover’s tone need to be spot on. Just because you like something or it looks professional doesn’t mean it’s a good fit. You have to do market research, and nobody wants to do that because it sounds like you’re selling out. You’re not. You’re helping the right readers find your book, and that’s all that should matter. I wrote more about choosing the appropriate cover, and you can read it here: https://vaniamargene.com/2024/04/08/my-marketing-secret-shh/

Don’t listen to everything you hear.
One of the riskiest things you can do online is listen to other people. I’m on Threads a lot (you know this) and the number of opinions out there, well . . . you know the saying: Opinions are like assholes . . . everyone has one and they all stink. There is no place this is more true than when you get a bunch of romance authors together, be it on Threads or in a Facebook group, and they’re telling you what they like and what they think should be the standard. No 3rd act breakups, no cliffhangers. Don’t use the word “folds” when you’re talking about p*ssy. Don’t make him an asshole, don’t write about rape. Don’t romanticize stalking. Don’t write in 3rd person. Don’t write your blurb in 1st person. Don’t do this, don’t do that, but what’s funny is that when you take a look at popular books, THEY ALL DO THAT! Yes, there is some advice out there that’s good, like don’t genre-hop if you hope to build an audience. I’m a firm believer in writing your blurb in the POV your book is written in. But at the end of the day, when it’s just you and your book, you need to write what you enjoy. Even if that’s a super dark romance that would get you locked up (and not in a good way). If you’re bombarded with opinions about how nasty the enemies-to-lovers trope is, and that’s what you’re working on, it can be discouraging. But honestly, you’re not writing for other authors anyway, and if an author tells you she hates cliffhangers and you love them, tell her to fuck off. There are readers for everything, and it’s okay if people self-select out of your books. You don’t want people who don’t like what you’re writing to read your stuff because all you’re doing is courting bad reviews. It can be difficult staying true to yourself, but you’ll be happier for it.

Just because you do everything right doesn’t mean you’ll find success.
This is probably the hardest lesson of all. You can spend a ton of money on editing, you can publish with the perfect cover and a ton of reviews, but in the end, that doesn’t mean you’re going to find success. And by success, I mean, readers, sales, royalties, whatever success means to you. I’ve said in the past that success to me would be making a part-time income with my books. Part-time for me would be about 15k a year. It would help me out tremendously, that little extra money, but this year I gave up that dream and realized that maybe what I’m writing just isn’t going to hit the market the right way, or my reluctance to be on TikTok will always hold me back. My books are too quiet, or I chose the wrong sub-genre when I rebranded myself. I don’t know, but the fact is, there are thousands of authors out there who publish regularly, publish good books regularly, and they get absolutely nowhere. They spend more than they make, they get burnt out, and/or they publish to no one over and over again. After you come to that realization, you’re hit with the trite sayings like “A quitter never wins and a winner never quits” or “Believe in yourself and you’re halfway there” and you just wanna cry (or puke). When 2025 rolled around, I decided to change how I looked at my writing. I can’t call it a business because I don’t have one. That implies money in and money out, and right now, I pay more than I earn. So, in that vein, I decided to stop doing what I think I should be doing and just do what I want. That means writing what I feel like writing without regard to a publishing schedule. I stopped all my ads. Don’t care about social media and post only when I have something to say. I stopped chasing the dream and I feel better. Writing is fun again and that has turned into my new definition of success. Here’s an interesting article by Jane Friedman about having what it takes to make it: https://careerauthors.com/do-you-have-what-it-takes-to-make-it-in-publishing/

Numbers don’t mean anything.
Social media sucks. It really does. I believe that you should have a hub where readers can find you if they want. (That should ultimately be your website, but I understand the value of a Facebook author page or an Instagram account.) Authors should have some kind of social media presence, if only to prove you’re a real person instead of a made up author some guy sitting in his mother’s basement created using AI. You can’t appear fake in this day and age when there are so many bots out there that can act and interact like a real person. As AI usage gets worse and worse, readers knowing you are real will be part of your marketing toolbox. But in the past seven or eight years I’ve been online, I’ve learned no matter how many followers you have, that doesn’t mean you’re going to sell books. They might like you because you have pets or because you live in the same state. They like how you do your hair or think you’re pretty, whatever it is, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be able to sell them your books [see Billie Eilish: https://medium.com/better-marketing/billie-eilishs-book-flopped-because-her-marketing-team-assumed-it-would-sell-itself-71c32dc19af3]. I just looked up someone who has over 5k followers on her Facebook author page, and she sells very few books every month–and she has a lot of books. So, if you don’t have many followers or you’re just on social media to kill time or to amuse yourself, don’t feel bad. Finding readers is hard work and it’s a long game. Besides, depending on how you run your social media, you could just have other authors following you, and when it comes down to it, that’s not helpful. I wrote about busting out of the #writingcommunity bubble, and you can read it here: https://vaniamargene.com/2021/12/06/how-to-break-out-of-the-writing-community-bubble-and-sell-books-to-readers/

Mix friendship with business at your own risk.
I help a lot of people do their covers, format, even just give them publishing advice through my experiences and what has worked for me. I’ve paid my friends to edit and beta read, I’ve done a lot of free work that I was pleased to do because you’ll learn fast that the #writingcommunity can be full of people only in it for themselves. I’ve also accepted some payment for the work I’ve done for others, but no matter if it was free or paid, in the past eight years I’ve been at this, nothing has pleased me more than helping someone publish their book. But not every relationship is infallible, and mixing business with pleasure isn’t always something that works out. I’ve lost friends because the business part of our relationship soured, and unfortunately, that’s a risk you take. Sometimes you can see that person for what they are and you realize that in time your friendship would have tanked anyway. But, it’s important to understand what you’re getting into, even simply saying you’ll format for someone or if you offer to whip up a quick cover. Writers and authors are some of the touchiest people on earth, and I’m included in that because I know I’ve gotten upset over things other people would have shrugged off. But when I help someone, I’m a professional at heart and always do my best to give them a product I would be proud of if it were for my own book and I don’t think I’m out of line to expect the same–especially when cash exchanges hands. I’d never beta read while watching TV or use photos on a cover that weren’t safe to use. Even though I have ethics and integrity, not everyone does, and I stopped talking to someone who admitted she was editing my book while she was at a hair salon, and I cut ties with someone who backed out of reading for me when she gave me her absolute promise she would finish. I know that sounds callous, but we had underlying issues and those instances just happened to be what did me in. So if you think you’d be heartbroken to lose that friendship, don’t let the line between personal and business smudge. It’s difficult to get past that.

I’m sure there are more things I’ve learned, but this blog post is long enough for now and I touched on the topics that I have found the most important in publishing and the most important to me when it comes to my experiences. It’s tough to cut out the noise, but like I said, at the end of the day, it’s only you, your book, and your readers and if you go to bed happy, that’s all that matters. People will come and go, opinions and advice change. Do your best with what you have, keep true friends close, and go outside and touch grass every once in a while.

That’s all I have for this week. Next week I’ll let you know about a shiny new thing I couldn’t step away from and what my publishing schedule will entail because of it.

Chat soon!

Author Life Lately: The ol’ bait and switch

Posted on May 12, 2025 by Vania Margene Rheault

1,919 words
10 minutes read time

Author Life . . . is the only life for me. (Just kidding, and no, I wasn’t tipsy writing this blog post.)
Happy Monday, if it is for you. I don’t mind Mondays, they’re a break after working four ten-hour shifts at my job. They usually entail some chores and couple of errands since I don’t have time for much while I’m working. Today I’ll be doing some of that and hopefully listening to more Loss and Damages. I’m halfway done . . . my trip to the Mall of America and the Minnesota State Zoo took up a large portion of last week and I didn’t get anything book-related done, though it was a nice break. I’m not really in any rush to finish it, but after having a heart to heart with a friend, I decided to work on my next series which will be called The Husband List just to get that off my plate. I have no idea how long it will take me to write four books and package them all. I’ve decided to write the four instead of rewriting book one to have only two left because I think it will just be easier to write four more plus it will be a nice addition to my backlist. But the minute I’m done with Loss and Damages and Wicked Games, I’ll be looking through stock photos for men for the covers. Six covers, six men, figuring out the series concept . . . that will take me just as long as writing the remaining four books. I like the idea of it though, so I’m going to jump in and see if I can turn that series into something special.

Besides that, it’s the same old, same old. Summer is coming and the days are getting warmer and longer. I don’t have anything planned for the next three months besides relaxing, writing, and going on a couple of day trips with my sister and daughter. We usually go to the zoo that’s in a town 45 minutes away and to Bismarck, ND, for my sister’s birthday in June. Last year it was raining and we couldn’t go to the zoo there, but we’ll try again this year. I’m kind of a zoo junkie, though I know how sad and inhumane it is for those animals be locked up.

This is me bonding with a tired old bear. I know how he feels.

Russian Bear exhibit. Minnesota State Zoo

It was free, now it’s not, and isn’t that the way life goes?
As far as anything in the indie publishing industry is concerned, Bryan Cohen is doing his ~~famous~~ Amazon Ads Challenge again, but it’s disappointing because he decided to charge this time around. It’s not like anything that hasn’t been done before. There are quite a few indie publishing services that have started off as free and then as soon as they had customers who relied on their services, they changed to paid tiers only. The two that come to mind right off the top of my head are StoryOrigin and Booksprout. So, what Bryan is doing isn’t new, but it makes me wonder if he’s going to be subjected to any backlash or if the new authors who were planning to take his challenge will just pay the $9.00. For the information he gives you, that’s still a bargain, but I won’t be able to recommend his challenge as freely as I used to because if you’re an indie strapped for cash, even $9.00 can feel out of reach. I’m fluent in “poor” and $9.00 to me is three gallons of milk. Nothing to take lightly if you’re struggling paycheck to paycheck.

I also wonder what Amazon will think of Bryan suddenly charging for his challenge. For the past couple of years they’ve backed him and recommended his challenge to authors, and it makes me wonder if they’ll still encourage authors to participate or if they’ll be salty Bryan’s making money off them (or trying to. Who will actually pay remains to be seen). He wouldn’t be the first one to do that, either, so maybe it’s not a big deal. There are plenty of Amazon ads resources out there, including books from Janet Margo who is a former Amazon employee. Bryan’s been under fire in other ads groups on Facebook, some members saying that his approach is just flinging spaghetti noodles at the wall, but his challenge does more than just tell you how much to bid. Probably the most valuable part of his challenge is that he goes through what will actually make your book marketable. I’ve seen some pretty gnarly covers and read some very confusing blurbs during his challenges, and if anything, it makes authors open their eyes and choose covers that will sell, not only covers that they like. He also explains ad copy, page reads, and read-through. But if you’re looking for a book that does the same, Nicholas Erik has updated his book on book marketing, and I found it extremely useful. Also, you can keep his book, whereas Bryan’s course has a time limit even though you paid.

I won’t be paying to participate in his challenge. I’ve already taken it a couple of times and I feel I’ve been in this business long enough to understand what makes your book sell:
1. Good cover. It’s the first thing a reader sees, especially using Amazon ads where you don’t choose your own graphic.
2. Good blurb
3. A title that’s not confusing
3. Strong look inside (first 10% of your book)
4. Strong keywords (the seven fields you fill in when you set up your book to publish)
5. Categories that actually match your book’s genre
6. A list of comp authors and comp book titles if you choose to do keyword ads
7. A short hook if you want to add text to your ad
8. Competitive price

Those are pretty non-negotiable before you even set up your ads account. Once you do that, Amazon will know whom to show your ad to, and that can make or break your ads. Then bid .50 cents or so per click (it’s gone up over time due to market saturation, but NEVER go with their recommended), and you’re pretty much all set. I don’t think I revealed any super-secret information. Most of that stuff is no-brainer material anyway but can be difficult to come up with once you need it. Like the keywords you should choose while you’re setting up your book in the KDP dashboard. The number of reviews can affect sales, so can your book being first in a series but your series isn’t done. You need to take a lot of things into account for ads to work. And well, Bryan tells you that stuff whether you want to hear it or not. I’ll be interested to see how his challenge does now that it’s paid. Nothing in life is free, baby. Except this blog. You’re welcome.

Never kill the dog (unless you want John Wick to come after you).
There was some emotional discussion last week on Threads over an author who defended killing a dog in her book.

screen shot of thread post. text says
erinleeauthor
indieauthors
3d
I killed a dog in my book & said there's no afterlife. Then I watched a writing video that said pets can have big roles in books so be careful. & a beta reader asked me if a dog dies & said she checks a site with a list of books to avoid. Then a dating app guy said my afterlife rule was a "hard pass" & dipped. Damn, people. Dog culture is dire. They're a great pet, but stop acting like they have little moons orbiting them. Your behavior is raising our vet bills. They're not a child. Chill.

2.7k hearts 10k comments 745 rethreads or quotes 931 shares — https://www.threads.com/@erinleeauthor/post/DJZS7YSRIw- A million views? OMG.

This is a bad take. A bad take. A bad bad bad take. Especially after all the crap we had to read and hear about Kristi Noem killing her own pup last year. It’s kind of amazing how something can go viral (chances are good I could write the exact same thing and get the obligatory 10 views Threads seems to think I deserve), and I hope she got what she was looking for putting her nasty thoughts out in public. It does bring into question what should be listed on content warnings or if animal death is considered “normal” in the genre you’re writing in. Horror, I would imagine, can get away with a few things Romance can’t, for example. I killed a cow once, and it was very much needed for character trait evidence, but I don’t have it listed on any content warnings anywhere. Fortunately, the feedback I’ve gotten for that book has been nothing but positive. I told ARC readers on Booksprout there was an animal death, but no one mentioned it in their reviews. I don’t go out of my way to kill things, even people. When they die, it’s surprising to me and never planned. It just happens, much like real life. Though, when I was putting together the content warnings for my King’s Crossing page on my website, I included this:

screenshot of trigger warning on my website. text says
One last thing–people do die in this series, but if you read through to book 4, I assure you, Gage’s dog is okay through to the end. I would never hurt a dog!

picture of dog vector. german shepherd

Baby, actually, plays a pivotal role in the books where Gage is the MMC, and I considered her a main character in her own right. Anyway, nothing quite shakes up the internet like talking about dogs dying, so be careful what you say. Erin ended up taking her book down and now she has quite a few one-star reviews on her product page. What she thought was “any press is good press” didn’t turn out to be true. Wanna peek at the book she will now have to rebrand and publish under a pen name to hide? Look here: https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Aware-Erin-Lee/dp/B0CRZJDZJZ

Everyone complains, but no one says thanks.
Everyone complained when it wasn’t possible to buy books off the Kindle app on an iPhone or iPad because of Apple’s fees and restrictions on external purchases, but no one mentioned when a recent court ruling prevented Apple from doing so. Apple is appealing, but for right now, if you use the Kindle app on your iPhone or iPad you no longer have to go to the browser to buy a book. I read on my Kindle Fire anyway, and I’ve always purchased books on my laptop because for me, it’s easier to look around the product page. But this is a big win for authors right now and we can only hope it lasts. If you want to read more about that, you can here: https://www.theverge.com/news/661719/amazon-app-ios-apple-iphone-ipad-kindle-buy-books

That’s about all I have for this week. My schedule is back to normal and I’ll work on Loss and Damages on my days off work. It’s going to be hot, the highs in the 90s until Thursday, so I will also be lying on my balcony enjoying the heat and sun.

If you’re looking for something to listen to while you, too, are flirting with heat stroke, I’m going to be digging into this podcast episode with Jane Friedman. She’s got a new updated version of her book, The Business of Being a Writer, and she’s been promoting that. I love listening to her talk about the industry. If you’re interested, you can find it here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-make-a-living-as-a-writer/id472152554?i=1000705377607

A new Craftwork conversation about the business of being a writer with Jane Friedman. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, is now available in an updated second edition from the University of Chicago Press.

Friedman has spent 25+ years working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World. Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC.

***

Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.

Have a great week, everyone!

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Vania Margene Rheault

Independent Contemporary Romance Author & Blogger

Tag Archives: author update

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