Author Update and Monday Musings

Posted on May 13, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

desk flatlay with flowers, paper clips, white mouse and white keyboard. text says author update

I really don’t have anything to write about this week. I finished editing book five of my series, and I’m on to book six … I’ve been looking at my covers thinking they’re a little plain, wondering if I should break my brand mold and put couples on them instead, but I don’t really want to do that. I don’t hate the covers I have now, but this series is special and I feel like they need a bit more pizzazz. Something might come at me while I’m updating the formatting–it seems my best covers materialize the night before I want to upload files, but all I know for right now is they’re missing something and I’m not going to publish until I’m completely happy. I did that when I published my Lost & Found trilogy and botched their launch. I doubt the launch of this series will go perfectly, but I want to do as well as I can and I know for right now these covers aren’t it.

In a rare move, I took last Wednesday off. Wednesdays are my biggest editing/writing days because it’s my last day off of the week (Mondays I do errands and cleaning around the apartment and Tuesday nights I go to dinner and a movie with my sister) and I don’t have any chores, errands, or plans. I can edit from sun up to sun down, and I usually get a good chunk of work done. On Tuesday I had finished book five and I just was not feeling jumping into book six. So I did some admin stuff, took a nap, brought my daughter shopping for a dress to wear to her high school graduation, made dinner, watched a replay of a YouTube live from an indie author I wanted to watch, and then I went to bed. It’s not like me to waste time like that, but I have been working so hard on this series I just needed a day to relax (if I can call that relaxing–yeah, I know).

I did a free run on Captivated by Her and Rescue Me from May 9th to yesterday, the 12th, and I gave away 4616 copies of Rescue Me and 98 copies of Captivated by Her. I paid for a Freebooksy promo for Rescue Me–that’s why I gave away more copies of that book–but I’m happy I moved a few copies of Captivated, too. I’m not sure why I did the promotion except that I hadn’t done one for a while and I’m still shaky on how to get my name out there without having to pay for it. I was happy with the placement of my book in their newsletter–I was first. I had to shrink my screen to fit it all in the screenshot, but this is how it looked:

I know giving away a book is easy, and making the free top 100 list isn’t anything to brag about, but I made it to number 6 in the contemporary romance category and number 15 overall in the free kindle store.

I was getting some page reads from Rescue Mei, but since it’s a standalone I’m not hoping to earn my fee back. I’ll keep an eye on how many people go on to read Addicted to Her, but being I gave away less than 100 copies of Captivated, it may not be that many. We’ll see what happens.

Anyway, so I watched a YouTube Live replay of a romance indie author who went over her six-month marketing plan and I noticed that she heavily used cross-promotion as a way to get the word out. I’ve moaned for a while now that my networking is crap, and while it’s really difficult to think you need to meet people with the intent of using them, I don’t see it that way. I’m more than happy to swap and share. Because writing and publishing is such a solitary thing, I don’t often think about including anyone else. I didn’t tell any of my romance groups in case they were looking for free reads for their subscribers, and when I planned those free days and set up my free days in my KDP dashboard, that was the first thing I should have done so other authors had a heads up in case they were looking for content. It’s just really hard for me to think in terms of including others in my plans and I know I need to do better.

She also was saying how important new releases are, and that you can get a lot of content out of a launch. I think we all know this…snippets…cover reveals… that kind of thing, but I am terrible at doing anything with it. I’ve said before that by the time I have a new book out, I’m already writing something else, and that is a terrible way to treat your newest release. Your books deserve all the love in the world, and I wonder if I haven’t wanted to take the time to do that kind of thing because I’ve been so busy trying to bury how I’m feeling. In the four years I’ve felt like garbage, all I’ve done is try to feel better and forget about how crappy I do feel. Immersing myself in writing has been pretty much the only way I’ve been able to do that, and pressing pause to promote a book has never been on my radar. Releasing six books two months apart will be a different thing for me and it would be a waste to publish these and not freaking tell anyone. There’s no sense in that, but fighting to be seen is a struggle and it’s difficult to add that struggle when you’re already struggling with something else. I try not to go too much into my health anymore because I don’t want to tire you and I really don’t want people to stop reading my blog because they’ll think it’ll be just more of the same. It was just interesting to me when a friend last week asked me if I still get the buzz of releasing a book, and it was a surprising revelation to think that I hadn’t really enjoyed anything in the past few years and that includes starting my pen name and releasing the eleven books I have so far. I mean, I have on some level, but not to the extent a healthy person would have enjoyed it.

So now that I know what’s wrong with me, that I’m on some kind of treatment–even more so since I’ll have had a followup by the time my series is ready to go–I’d like to intentionally enjoy these books and their launches. I would like to intentionally talk them up on social media, intentionally choose snippets and create posts. Intentionally write more blog posts about them and show them off to the world. I didn’t feel like doing that before. I wanted to be distracted by the next story, and I was, to the detriment of the other books. I mean, I’m grateful I was able to build a backlist so quickly, but it makes me wonder too, how I’ll feel writing the next book. If there won’t be such an urgency to write quickly and finish it to get on to the next. Maybe it will be different to savor the drafting part of it, enjoy my characters. I don’t know. It’s just an interesting thing to think about. When your quality of life sucks, can you enjoy anything?

In an uncharacteristic move, I think that’s all I have for today. I have a couple of personal things to do this month, like go to my daughter’s high school graduation ceremony on the 24th and I’ll be gone for two days to go to Rochester, MN for my followup appointment, Memorial Day and the day afterward. I’ve been walking a bit more, even if it’s just walking around the block during my half an hour lunch break when I’m logged into my day job. I bought a new lounger for my balcony and I’m looking forward to lying in the sun. I didn’t feel good enough last year and we didn’t have that great of a summer besides.

Things are topsy-turvy, and maybe heading in a good way for the first time in a while. It’s a different feeling, one I can’t embrace fully because I haven’t had the time to acclimate, but I mused to my friend how I would feel a year from now.

Hopefully there’s only good things ahead.

Have a good week, everyone!

Author Update: King’s Crossing Series

Posted on April 29, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

city skyline at night. text reads: king's crossing update

I’ve talked a lot about this series, and if you’re tired of reading about it, feel free to skip this post. One day soon these books will be released into the wild and I’ll stop talking about them. 🙂 Until then, this blog may be a bit repetitive as not much is going on, but I’ll try to come up with something better next week. If you have a topic you want me to write about, let me know in the comments. Thanks!

I don’t have much to share with you this week. I’m trying like mad to get these books read, and reading them over was again, so worth it. I don’t have an editing process–it seems to vary from book to book. I barely edited A Heartache for Christmas, listening to it, and proofing the proof after writing it and perhaps going through it once or twice. That’s still four sweeps, by me and me alone. I know I should get other eyes on my work, but there are just so many scammers charging for a service they have no right saying they can provide and the ones whom you could probably trust, well, they just cost too much. I’m not at a point where I would earn back a 700 dollar copy edit, and there’s no point apologizing for it, that’s just the way it is. But I’ve been sitting on this series for a long time, and every time I read it, I find other things to change, small discrepancies that probably a reader might not notice, but I did, and I like past and future details to mesh as much as possible. So, I don’t regret this read through, but besides looking for typos in the printed proofs, it will be the last one. That’s not to say I won’t fix a mistake if I find one. When I was reading the proof of A Heartache for Christmas, I found a timeline issue that I had to fix, but I published that book knowing I did the very best I could and that’s all anyone can do, whether you pay for an editor or not. What I would like is to find a person like me who can do all the things and I could give her a hundred dollars. That probably won’t happen–no one does the amount of work I do for my friends for so little, but it would be nice to have a dev editor, copy editor, and proofer all rolled into one who would catch say, 80% of my mistakes. Though, to be fair, I wrote so many books during the pandemic I wouldn’t use a person that way even if I could. That’s a lot of work for not a lot of pay, and I would feel terrible even if she were willing to do it.

So, sitting on these books was worth it, but this last editing pass before I format and order the proofs will have to be enough. At some point, you have to move forward, and while I liken several editing passes as folding more ingredients into cake batter as you mix, eventually you want to bake the batter and eat the cake.

I’m going to be moving on to researching how to market these. This series will probably be the only one like this that I do, where there is only one entry point–book one–and books one, two, four, and five all have medium to hard cliffhangers. The last thing I need is to be accused of money grabbing or get poor reviews because readers didn’t know the books ended on a cliffhanger and they hate them. Cliffhangers, I mean. So for right now the plan is to use the blurbs to put that information at the bottom and to create A+ content that will also have that information listed as well as the release dates of the other books. I’m a reader who doesn’t like to read a series unless all the books are out, and I know others are the same. I may not get a lot of sales and KU page reads until all the books are live, and that’s okay, that’s what I expect anytime I release a trilogy which is why I dump them all in the same month. Someone on Threads I think it was, or maybe it was a while back in one of my Facebook groups, said when you do that, you waste the 30, 60, and 90 day push Amazon gives you, and that may be true, but I think I’m willing to give that up in exchange for quicker read through. My sales are slow enough that I can see that people do buy all three books in a trilogy at the same time, or do read through them all one right after the next in KU. You would have to decide if Amazon’s push of your new release is worth it, or if you would prefer getting read through right away.

I can’t release all six books at once, or even a month a part, as I need the time to write more books, so I’m going to release them two months apart, though the ebooks will be on preorder which means book 6 will be on preorder for a whole year. That’s not something I usually do, but I want readers to see the series is done, and I can add that information in my A+ content as well.

The other thing that I’m going to do that I don’t usually do is put my books on sale during the preorder phase. I’m going to mark book one at .99, book two at 1.99, book three at 2.99, and the other three books will be regular price, which right now is 4.99. I normally don’t care about preorders because readers who buy books and readers who borrow them in KU are two separate audiences, and I market to my readers in KU, but I’ve never written a six book series before and I know how expensive buying an entire series can be if people want them. I don’t think I’ll get any paperback sales because I’m going to have to put them at 14.99, maybe even 15.99 to cover printing costs and I don’t have to do the math to guess readers don’t have 100 bucks to spend on an author they might never have heard of. Still, I like to offer paperbacks because besides the cost of the ISBN numbers, there’s not a lot of money or time involved so I figure I might as well.

The second I proof the final proof and make any corrections, they’ll go up on Bookfunnel for ARCs. The ARC discussion over on Threads a couple weeks ago made me want to vomit, and I will NOT be treating my reviewers and readers the way I’ve seen some authors treat theirs (such as blaming them if their books end up on pirate sites. That happens to everyone and there’s no one to blame). It was gross, and I should have made a list of all the authors I will never ever buy books from. I’ll put my ARCs on my website, let my subscribers know they’re available, maybe throw a little cash at an ad to build buzz and put them on Booksprout. I need to do that a month in advance to give readers time to read the first book at least, so it will be a lot of work and keeping an eye on the calendar because the ARC links need to come down as my books release and drop into KU. It will be a busy 12 months, and I’m also excited to get these out and work on something fresh.

I keep changing my mind on what that will be–pulled between writing something new and jumping into editing the books I have left on my laptop. I have one standalone I could polish and release, and two books of that other series that I decided I would cut down from six to four. I’m not sure, though cleaning up that standalone sounds appealing because it would be easy, but so does writing a new standalone that I partially have plotted out, but would be a bit more work.

In other news, I started a new blog to talk about coping with my health condition. Since this wasn’t a great place for it and I don’t want to make anyone tired of reading this blog if my topics don’t stay on topic. I started it over on Blogger, just so I wouldn’t confuse myself with another blog on WordPress. I already have two and using a different platform felt right. I’m not going to post on a schedule the way I do here, use it more for an online journal to talk about how I’m feeling. It will just be a place to blow off stream, and you can read it here if you want: chaoscoffeeandconfessions.blogspot.com. It only has one entry so far, and I can only post when I’m not working on something else, which won’t be often until after my series is done.

If you want to read more about marketing a series look here:

https://www.ingramspark.com/blog/marketing-a-book-series-the-power-of-readthrough

https://www.blog.yourfirst10kreaders.com/how_to_write_and_market_your_book_series/

https://insights.bookbub.com/promoting-series-keep-readers-hooked/

A discussion about cliffhangers…..https://mdmassey.com/cliffhanger-endings-writers/

That’s about all I have for this week, and I apologize if it’s repetitive. This series has been my life for a long time, and no one will be happier that I’m done than me.

Have a good week, everyone, and I hope the sun is shining where you are!

Author Update and Vetting Your Book Cover Designer

Posted on April 22, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

blog post featured photo. handsome man standing in front of windows. text says questioning your premade book cover sources

I was going to write about book covers at the end of my post, but I decided to move it to the top so if you don’t want to read my author update but still want to read that part, you don’t have to scroll to skip it.

One of the things I’ve been seeing a lot of online is scammers who are making premade book covers. That doesn’t seem so terrible–even I’ve mentioned making covers and putting them on this website, only for free in case anyone is having a difficult time and needs something quick that looks decent–and it’s not terrible, if they go about it right way.

Not everyone who makes premades is intending to rip you off, but many of them are. They think because you don’t know how to make a spine and back cover, that gives them the right to charge you $50-$100 dollars for something you can learn how to do on your own. I get that time is money and money is time, and for some authors it is worth it to pay out rather than learning how to do it yourself, and if you’re okay spending money on something someone did in under an hour, that’s a personal (and business) choice. What I am saying though, is that if you do decide to buy a premade, it’s really really important you vet where your designer is getting their stock.

Canva makes things really easy, and who knows, my instructions on how to do a full wrap may even be contributing to it. Anyone can make a cover on Canva, but what’s even worse is when scammers use Canva’s templates and only change the text to what the author wants. Years ago I was aware this was happening, but I kind of fell out of looking for it on Facebook, and it seemed to have died down. Then I was chatting with someone on Threads who saw it not long ago, and it made me realize scammers don’t every really stop, we just stop seeing it.

I also was talking to someone who does premades and she uses the stock photos that come with the Canva Pro option. Canva Pro has a lot of stock available, and they’re from all of the stock photo sites–Getty (which we know is god-awful expensive), Shutterstock, Pexels, and others. The problem with using the stock that Canva gives you access to is that KDP won’t accept Canva’s licensing agreement. I told the woman that and she didn’t care. Of course she didn’t care. She won’t be the one responsible if Amazon asks her authors for proof of copyright. They won’t have anything to give Amazon and what will happen is they won’t be able to use the cover they paid for. Scammed.

Some people think KDP won’t ask and in eight years of publishing, they didn’t ask me either, until the third book of my rockstar trilogy I released last summer. I had to give them screenshots of my DepositPhotos account (proof I was the owner and I’m glad my name matched my KDP account), proof that I downloaded the photos there, and the licensing agreement that goes with each photo. I had to do this for two photos (the man and the background) and I had to do it twice, because the first time, the KDP rep cleared me and told me to submit my book for publication again, but when I did, I was flagged again. That time after I re-sent all my screenshots, they let my book pass, but it was a very long and stressful wait. I couldn’t imagine being an inexperienced author having to deal with it, and having a book cover designer who wouldn’t care (and who couldn’t help you). I would be bawling my head off. Actually I was bawling my head off. Publishing is stressful, even when things go right.

So, how can you prevent getting scammed? The number one way is to ask for proof of licensing. DepositPhotos isn’t the only place you can buy stock at affordable prices. There’s also Dreamstime and 123rf. There’s Shutterstock which isn’t bad, but be careful with Adobe Stock if you’re a romance author. In their terms and conditions, they say they don’t want their stock used for romance book covers. You should always stay away from sites like Pixabay and Pexels and Unsplash. They may have free for commercial use pictures, but anytime you’re using a photo to sell something, like a book, always pay for the privilege. Stock photos aren’t that much, even if you buy them singly. A photo from DepositPhoto is only seven dollars. It’s worth it for peace of mind.

I don’t mean to imply people who make “simple” covers are scammers because they have no skills to make complicated ones (I make simple ones too, for myself and for others), but some premades can look fairly uncomplicated, sometimes cheap, and if you can say, “I could do that,” it’s usually a red flag you shouldn’t be spending more than twenty or thirty bucks or so. This is my opinion, but thirty dollars will pay them for the hour it took to put your cover together, seven dollars for the stock photo, and maybe a couple dollars for the font. I made this cover in an hour–it took longer to find the adjustable silver frame I needed to fit the bleed lines of the KDP template than it did anything else:

full wrap book cover. title Mine to Love. PIcture of a handsome man wearing navy suit in front of navy grunge background

I’m not suggesting book cover designers aren’t worth their fees–we’re talking about relatively simple romance/women’s fiction/thriller covers here that only require the right photo and correct font and font positioning to look decent, not in-depth fantasy covers that require hours to create. You can do a Google search for Canva book templates or look here: https://www.canva.com/templates/s/book/

Book covers and editing seem to be the top two services where scammers are abundant and vetting editing services will have to be a topic for another day. Please look out for yourself if you’re hiring out for a book cover or looking at premade websites. Always ask where they get their stock photos and if they tell you Canva Pro, or one of the free sites like Pixabay, don’t use them. Or, if you have the stock photo you want but not the skills to turn it into a book cover, buy the photo yourself and pass it on to your designer. Then you get the best of both worlds.

So, yeah, do ask for licensing proof. Also familiarize yourself with Canva’s templates. They have hundreds, maybe thousands, and browsing and noting what looks good, what fonts they use, etc, is actually a good way to teach your eye things like colors and balance. If you suspect your cover was made using a Canva template or you want to know where your designer got the stock photo, you can use a reverse look up. I use https://tineye.com/.

That’s all I have on the book covers topic. If you want to read my author update, you can keep going, otherwise I hope you have a wonderful week ahead!

I can’t believe April is going by so quickly. We don’t have much left of it but I’m hoping to finish my second to the last read through of book three by the end of the month. I’ll go ahead and read books 4-6 but I’m hoping it won’t take me long. While I do that, I’ll need to get serious about firming up the covers (I’m always having doubts) so that once I’m done, I can jump right into finishing up formatting and ordering proofs.

I said I would give you numbers on my blog post over on my author website, and I was poking around my stats. For my first author blog post, I had 26 visitors and 32 views. That’s just readers popping by on the website. I clicked on the subscribers tab (something I have never done for this blog) and it turns out WordPress does give you some email stats, and I had 300 opens and 27 clicks of links I put inside. I had a huge post that day, so the clicks could have been anything. The book promo that got botched in my last newsletter, or the buy-link for Give & Take since I said I was going to be taking that off sale soon, or the Bookfunnel link for my reader magnet that I’m going to put at the end of every blog post. I think with the number of subscribers compared to the number of opens, I have a 38% open rate on that email, and that’s about what I’ve always had. So perhaps the same people who were opening it before will still open it, and now that my blog is available to the public, I’ll continue to get more views and visits.

I have to admit, having it sent to emails, having it show up in the WordPress reader, and then linking the blog post to my FB author page makes it almost a preferable choice to a newsletter. I mean, I guess they’re the same, but they feel different, and I just think I’ll enjoy blogging more than sending out a newsletter. (And sometimes I boost a post on my FB author page for exposure, so there’s always that, too.) It’s a funny coincidence, but recently, Anne R Allen blogged about this very thing on her blog. Thanks to Nick Thacker’s ThackStack for bringing it to my attention. Nick consolidates the top weekly indie news stories, and if you like lists like that for easy access, you should sign up for his newsletter here: https://www.thackstack.com/

Anyway, so Anne has been a cheerleader for blogging for years, and she makes some great points between blogging and sending out a newsletter. Not that I’m trying to sway you into dropping your newsletter if you have one, rather, I’m making myself feel better for not jumping into another newsletter aggregator. She mentions Substack, a free newsletter option that’s available if you want to send a newsletter but don’t have the cash. You can read her blogpost here: https://annerallen.com/2024/04/substack-vs-blogging/ I didn’t consider using Substack as the newsletters I’ve read using that aggregator are geared more toward nonfiction, and blogging, since I’ve been doing it here for so long, seemed more of an easier transition. Coincidentally, I also have her book, The Author Blog: Easy Blogging for Busy Authors. I found it when I was going through all my books. It might be worth rereading since I’m doing away with my newsletter.

I’m not interested in monetizing anything–helping people on this blog is its own reward, and blogging for my readers is supposed to be a lead-up into buying my books. I would never charge for exclusive information, and I wouldn’t know what to make exclusive, anyway. I think a paid newsletter option is more for nonfiction writers who want to share their expertise in mini-chunks and still get paid. I suppose fiction writers could do the same, offering exclusive content, but the romance authors I know who do that require a signup to their newsletter or have tiers on Patreon. I’m nowhere near writing exclusive content like that (I’d just as soon add it to the actual book) or offering books before they’re published or commissioning artwork to share. I’m still finding an audience, finding readers, and trying to publish good books. I agree authors need a place for readers to find them, and that will be my website. At least my subscriber link in my back matter already pointed there, and that will just be my hub from now on.

I don’t have much other news on the author update front. I think my mind will implode once I don’t have my series to think about anymore. It’s been like a weighted blanket all these years–comfortable and heavy, but sometimes a little too much if you lie under it for too long. It would really be nice if it sold so I could stop worrying about my job situation that gets nearer and nearer as time slips away, but besides publishing the best series I can, that seems to be out of my hands so all I can do is enjoy the process.

I haven’t given you a health update since I don’t like sounding like a scratched record, but my health has improved since my appointment back in February. The creams are working and the pills to regulate my ovaries have had good results. I don’t feel as down as I used to and my ovulation symptoms for the most part have disappeared. Every once in a while I still get bloated and achy, but not as much as I used to. There are days where I can feel pretty “normal” but my mind can’t relax and enjoy it. That might be something I’ll have to deal with for a long time. I’ve felt like garbage for so long that my mind doesn’t understand my body’s feeling better. I don’t have anxiety attacks anymore, which is nice, though I do get a sense of unease sometimes, but it doesn’t feel like it used to. A little of that is probably work related because we’re going through some software changes and that makes everyone tense, and my coworker/friend is still ghosting me. I haven’t heard from her since the latter part of January, so I figure we’re done and even if she apologized, I would tell her to keep walking. If there’s one thing I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older is being alone is better than having faux friends in your life. Even now I have no idea why she stopped talking to me, other than keeping up friendships needed too much energy for her. I get it–I’ve lost a few friends during my health issues and you just can’t help it if you don’t have the spoons. But running low on spoons doesn’t make it okay to completely drop off, for her, or for me, so don’t think I’m playing with double standards. It’s just tough to get used to, kind of like wrapping my mind around feeling better. I’m not feeling “best” or “normal” but I can’t expect to after so little of a time, and maybe never since I dove deeper into what she told me at my appointment and found out there’s no outright cure. But I guess my coworker’s timing isn’t that bad. She chose when I was feeling better at least, instead of kicking me while I was down.

So, all in all, life has calmed down for me a lot and I’m looking forward to getting this series out and hopefully a hot summer. We didn’t have much of a summer last year, and I wasn’t feeling well enough to enjoy it.

This is a huge blog post, so I should wrap it up for now. Thank you if you’ve made it this far. I appreciate you all more than words can say. I hope you have a wonderful Monday!

picture of author sitting on ground in front of flowers.

Text says, VM Rheault has written over twenty titles. When she's not writing, you can find her working her day job, sleeping, or enjoying Minnesota's four season's with a cup of coffee in hand.

Author Update and Why I Skip #IndieApril

Posted on April 15, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

picture of yellow tulips on beach background

I was going to write about Indie April in a different post, but I don’t have to much to say regarding my author update, so I thought I would squish them together.

I wrote out my first blog post on my author website last week. I gave a brief update on my King’s Crossing series and let everyone know that I’m going to put Give & Take back to the normal price. It’s been .99 for a long time and I need to put it back before the summer promotions begin and my series launches. I can update you on how many views/visits it received once it’s been up for a bit longer. I hope this will be a successful alternative to my newsletter because I don’t know when or if I’ll ever go back to a newsletter aggregator. I’ll give blogging a try for a few months and see how it does. Readers are clicking on the link in my books’ back matter, going to my site, and still downloading my reader magnet. According to my Bookfunnel stats, I’ve given away 4 copies of My Biggest Mistake this month, and 6 copies in the last 30 days. So, even if they aren’t subscribing to the blog, my back matter is doing its job at least, and readers will know if they want updates to look on my website. Do I mind giving away a book for what seems to be no reason? Not really. I’ve been giving away My Biggest Mistake since about 2022 when I first launched my pen name and I’ve given away over 1,000 copies. I love the book and the characters, and I kind of look at it as a loss leader and an introduction to the kinds of books I write hoping to hook readers and entice them to read my other books.

I started reading my series over again, and it’s going faster this time. Each book is only taking a week, as opposed to when I was adding more to the scenes and each chapter was taking 4-7 days to get through. I’m liking the changes I made and some of the things I added surprise me, but in a good way (because I forgot I added them). I was only going to read the first three and then save the entire read through when I ordered the paperback proofs, but I can take a look at the other books and see how they sound. The more work I put into them now before I order the proofs, the more work I save myself later. I hate how long this is taking, but it’s such a big project that I’m probably smart not to rush even though I am getting impatient and want to write something new.

I don’t have much else in terms of an author update. I need to drag out my calendar and look at promo dates and figure out what books I want to put up for what months. I haven’t pushed a book since December, and I want to do one this spring, possibly in May before my series starts to launch, and then in the fall. I’m tired of Written Word Media promos like Freebooksy and BargainBooksy. Even their Red Feather Romance has the same audience. I tried a Fussy Librarian and I would have to log into my profile and see which book I did and figure out the ROI, but being that I can’t remember, the results probably weren’t that great. I think I’m going to try a site I haven’t tried before like Love Kissed or Robin Reads. I might do Rescue Me, since I haven’t pushed that book in a while. It’s got 79 reviews, so it might do okay. I have never done a free promo on Twisted Alibis and since my King’s Crossing series will have started to drop by then, I might put that one for free in say, September. Then of course, I have A Heartache for Christmas that will need some promo October through December, but instead of putting it for free, I might just start up my Facebook ads again. Besides running FB ads to Twisted Alibis and Give & Take, I haven’t done promo for any of books in a while, I need to get something new going.

I think that’s really I have on the author front this week. So let’s talk about #IndieApril.

I hadn’t heard about #IndieApril until a few years ago scrolling on Twitter, something about supporting indie authors, lifting up fellow writers, and promoting your own work without shame.

It sounds great and probably why it’s been around for so long. I appreciate the concept, I really do, but it’s nothing I want to participate in. I support my friends in other ways, like editing and formatting, doing covers if my skill is up to the challenge. Not that I don’t support my friends online too, by sharing their posts and commenting, but we all know social media is a blackhole, and for every 20 minutes I spend making a graphic to promote one of my books somewhere, I earn fewer than 100 views, sometimes even a lot fewer than that, and it’s not worth the time.

But here are the real reasons I don’t participate in Indie April:

It’s mostly other authors hyping up their work and their friends’ books. Like I just said, I think that’s great, but while you can say until your face is blue that authors are readers too, authors (your friends and acquaintances and authors who pop up on your “for you” page) will never buy your books in the numbers you would need to make the sales you want for any kind of real traction or career. Indie April is nothing but preaching to the choir, and what’s the point of that?

I will say this until I die: Readers don’t care who publishes your books. If you’re indie, or small press, or trad, they don’t look, and as long as you’re giving them a good read for their time and money, they will never care. Shouting from the rooftops that you’re an indie author won’t get you anywhere. Indies are always complaining about the line between Trad and Indie, I see it on Threads, and it was a big topic on Twitter too, but you know who draws that line? Indies do! It wouldn’t even exist if indies weren’t calling themselves that all the time. We’re writers, we’re authors. Indie April gives you no traction as an author. What gives you traction as an author is finding readers, who, once again, don’t care how your book is published. This indie reputation was started and cultivated by us. Maybe one or two readers will care if they get seriously burned by an author, but in all honestly, readers will more than likely not read that author again. It has no effect on you or your books.

Indies have a difficult time breaking out of the writing community bubble and then they wonder why they aren’t selling books. I did the same thing–it’s tough, but that’s the line you should pay attention to. Not every author friend is going to buy and read your book. You have a better chance finding a larger number of readers marketing your book to people who read and don’t write. It really doesn’t help when all your author friends follow you on all the social media platforms. I have the same followers on Twitter to Instagram. I’m being introduced to new people on Threads, though most are writers and authors. I didn’t join Threads with the idea to promote my books, but I’m not a surprised others are. They see the platform as another free platform in which to promote their books, and free, unfortunately, doesn’t get you very far anymore.

I understand the concept of us banding together and supporting each other, but we need to let go of the idea our author friends need or will want to read and review our books. There’s a whole world of readers out there, and my ideal reader is a mom who hides from her kids in the tub with a glass of wine and wants to dip into a good story that has a little spice. She doesn’t write her own books. She’s a reader who reads romance, has a KU subscription, and she’ll either binge my trilogies or a quickly read a standalone, and she’s off reading something–someone–else.

Supporting our friends is great, and I love my friends who support me too, but I don’t ask them to, and it’s never an expectation.

I wrote a blog post a while back about breaking out of the writing community. 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/

Anyway, so I don’t promote my books on Threads, or even on social media at all anymore. I had a good run using a February content calendar but March passed by without a single post from me, and we’re already into the middle of April. Should I be posting more, yes, at the very least so my accounts don’t look abandoned, and maybe after my series is on preorder and I don’t have to think about them much anymore I’ll have the headspace. I’m so caught up in these books (and how I’m feeling) nothing else matters. I know that’s not healthy, either, but it’s how I work and now that I’ve posted my first blog post on my author site, I’ll keep that going. I have no problems blogging every Monday, so I’ll get into a routine over there, as well. I really just wanted to let the MailerLite debacle die down. I’m still embarrassed, but it wasn’t my fault and I rectified the situation in the only way I knew how. Hopefully it works out.

That’s all I have for this week! Have a lovely Monday!

picture of author (woman wearing dress sitting on the ground in front of a garden of wildflowers) the text reads: Vania VM Rheault is a contemporary romance author who has written over 20 titles.

Author Update and Writing What You Love

Posted on April 1, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

wooden background colorful cut out bunnies hanging from a ribbon by clothespins

text says. author update and writing what you love

If you celebrated Easter, I hope you had a lovely holiday. We’re celebrating today, in fact, because I work on Sundays and there’s no reason to use PTO to take the day off. We’ll dye eggs and I’ll cook a chicken casserole. A coworker gave me the recipe she found on TikTok. It sounded yummy and easy and I’m all about easy. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

I finished editing the last book of my series. I had to revise parts of the last two chapters and I wrote a 1900 word Epilogue that I think ends things beautifully, if I do say so for myself. Of course, I couldn’t just let that be it, and I went back to the beginning and I’m rereading the first book. I think it was around book 4 where I noticed I had a “with” problem, and that’s why I went back. I won’t need to read the series in it’s entirety again (I’ll save that for the paperback proofs and look for typos only), but I think I’ll do the first three, since book one is proving that to be a sound choice. It’s not taking as long as when I started them before, and that’s good. I’m very aware that I could be over-editing them as well, so I’m taking it easy and only editing out blatant over-use I didn’t catch the first time. I know these won’t be perfect and I’m keeping in mind books that have echoing and proofing errors sell like crazy all the time, so I can be gentle with myself and give myself grace. After all, I don’t want to work on these forever. I’m excited to start my standalone, though between setting these up on preorder and putting all the ARCs on Bookfunnel, it will be a while before I can open a new Word document.

When I was finished editing them, I decided against fancy formatting, but then I stumbled upon a vector of a city skyline that worked perfectly.

The photo was already faded at the bottom, but I brought it up a little more in GIMP so the chapter and number would stand out more. What I liked best was that even though it’s in black and white, I feel it meshed with the new background I chose for the covers.

I’m still playing with the models, but I have them chosen. They both come in lots of poses, so I’m in the process of finalizing them and don’t want to show you what I have just yet. Cover reveals don’t do much and I’ve never been interested, but I’d like to at least post them on my author website first. I’ll probably blog here about how I changed my mind because I have proofs that have a different background and models.

Because ebooks don’t have “pages” a set chapter photo like this isn’t possible, though something smaller under the chapter number is. I don’t know if I’m going to look through stock photos to find something. I’ll sell a lot more ebooks so it would be nice to offer those readers a little something. I have time to look but I don’t know for what yet. Usually when I find something that’s just right, it’s by accident, so I’ll just keep scrolling and see what pops up.

These feel like they’ll never be done, but then, I finished the initial edits before the deadline I gave myself, so if I can keep going, I’d love to be able to order a new set of proofs by the middle of April. Unfortunately, these things always take longer than expected, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the first one isn’t published until July. Way longer than I’d hoped, especially since I published A Heartache for Christmas in November, and that’s a lot more time between releases than I’d like. But this project is huge, any author would agree, and it’s better to take my time instead of rush and have regrets later. I may surprise myself, because I’m not starting from scratch, at least. All the blurbs have been written (and I’ve read them all and still like them, so that’s a relief), all the ISBNs have been assigned. All the keywords and categories have been selected on KDP, it’s just a matter of uploading new files, both interior and covers, and reading through new proofs. That might not take as long as I anticipate, but who knows what could happen.

I still haven’t posted a blog on my author site explaining what happened to my newsletter or given my readers an update there. I’ve been kind of waiting for things to cool down, and there isn’t any news that’s different from the last newsletter I sent out. Since I canceled my MailerLite account, I don’t even know what my open rate was for that last newsletter, though for once I hope it was close to nothing. I’m still humiliated a glitch like that would make me look so sketchy, and I’m bitter MailerLite handled it so terribly. I was upgraded for about five minutes before I deactivated my account, and unlike so many author services who will prorate your fees, MailerLite didn’t refund me one penny. An expensive lesson, indeed.

I heard something interesting the other day–I finally watched one of the free webinars I like to sign up for, and the first thing he said was, “If you write the book you love, don’t be surprised if readers don’t like it. You wrote the book you love, not a book others will love.” I’m paraphrasing, but I usually agree with advice like that. That kind of thinking is called writing to market, meeting genre expectations, meeting reader expectations. Writing first and then trying to market later is always a bad idea, but authors don’t understand that what you choose to write, what genre, what POV, if it will be part of a series, and if it is how far apart your books will be, the cover, the title, the series title, all that is part of the marketing process before you even write one word.

When I started my pen name, I was going to do everything right. I chose my subgenre, chose the POV (dual first person present), decided what kind of covers I was going to create to build my brand, all of it. I wrote most of my books around tropes, like a baby-for-the-billionaire, one-night-stand-with-my-boss, a fake fiancé, and a second chance. Some books I didn’t have any trope in mind, like the second book of my Lost & Found Trilogy or A Heartache for Christmas. Even my Cedar Hill Duet wasn’t written around tropes, but I’ve come to realize that if I’m writing a book that has romantic suspense themes, I’m meshing two subgenres, and I let the mystery part of the book fill in for the missing trope.

So this is the part where I admit that while I think I’m writing to market, I’m not actively writing to market, only hoping for the best. I’ve never sat down and started a book I wasn’t going to enjoy writing all for the sake of marketability or sellability. But, I am doing better than I have in the past, before I decided to at least stick to billionaires and package my books in a way that finally builds a brand.

I’ve also realized I don’t read enough to even know what’s selling–and that could be a big mistake on my part. You can’t fulfill reader expectations if you’re not reading to see what kinds of books readers are enjoying. Is it enough to say, “Well, I’m writing billionaire romance, I chose this trope, and I’ll give them a happily ever after?” I mean, writing a romance isn’t complicated (and romance authors will probably hate me for saying it). There are few rules to break, and I would like to think that my readers are getting well-rounded characters and in-depth backstories–that my books aren’t 90k words full of fluff. But, you need to read to compare, and I have plenty of books on my Kindle at the moment so when I do take a bit of time to fill my creative well once my series is up and there’s nothing I have to do for them anymore, I’ll do my own study and see if what I’ve been writing measures up.

So the TL;DR gist of it is, I used to think I was writing what readers love to read, but what I’m really doing is still writing what I want first and then hoping for the best. Which is what we’re all doing. I’m a little amused by this, since I’m such a write to market devotee, but I just have to admit that niching down, changing my POV, and packaging my books properly did more to bring readers in, and then what I’m writing will hopefully keep them coming back.

Speaking of tropes, since I had a little extra money after doing my income taxes, I bought a couple of books that I’ve had my eye on. I like to buy my nonfiction in paperback, even though they’re getting harder to read every day. But, I bought Jennifer Hilt’s Romance Trope Thesaurus. I haven’t had time to page through it yet, but I think it’s a great for market research or for brainstorming your next book. She has a generic Trope Thesaurus too, and one for horror. Give them a look on her author page on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Jennifer-Hilt/author/B01GETN4LM

Trope Thesaurus book cover. red and white text. author name Jennifer Hilt — photo taken from Amazon

In case you missed it, my blog was mentioned in the Feedspot 100 Best Contemporary Book Blogs and Websites. This is a great list of blogs and I’m honored to have been chosen. If you’d like to take a look at the list and find other blogs to subscribe to, look here: https://books.feedspot.com/contemporary_book_blogs/?feedid=5675940

I was going to write more, but I’m already at 1700 words and so I might as well call it. I have other things to do today, and I would imagine, so do you.

Have a great week ahead!

Monday Author Update (The Grownup Version)

Posted on March 25, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

I’m not sure what got into me last Thursday, well, I do, but I think I need to start finding other ways to, ah, voice my displeasure and unhappiness. I’m not all gloom and doom–if I didn’t like being an author and publishing books, I wouldn’t do it. Anyway, read on if you want a more sophisticated update on what I’ve been doing lately.

I’m almost done editing my series. After a heart to heart talk with myself, I admitted I need to rewrite most of the ending. It’s not as heart-wrenching as I want it to be… what I have now isn’t worthy of half a million words. It probably won’t take too long. I’m just not happy with the last scene where they get together for good, although I thought it would be a good idea to end the whole thing with an epilogue so I’ve been writing that in my head for the past few nights while I’ve been trying to sleep. It’s not so I can add more words or tie up a very tiny loose end that I left open in book 2, but rather, I like when a book’s ending circles around to the beginning. I started the series with one couple and ended it with another couple, but I want to bring the first couple back and let them wrap it up. It will add a few days of writing and editing, but that’s okay. These books will be perfect the first time out, and I can’t say that about very many (none) of the books I’ve published.

As far as series go, I’ve talked before about having two books done of a different six book series, but I’ve been dragging my feet because writing four more books feels really daunting and I don’t want to do it. So, I thought rewriting parts of book one to eliminate the need for two of the books would be a lot easier than forcing myself to write all four. I don’t want the two I have to go to waste–they’re good stories. After I decided the amount of rewriting would be worth it, I was relieved and instead of working on my mafia books, I’m going to write a quick romantic suspense standalone and then work on those for a 2025/26 release. I want to write a standalone for something easy after all the work I’ll have put into this series. I’m burnt out, but I don’t want to not write, and since I have something partially plotted out, I thought I might as well. And also since I have a love/hate relationship scrolling through stock photos, I think I might already have a cover which will elevate some stress while I’m writing it. Things could change, but I like what I have. It was actually a little difficult to figure out a romantic suspense cover that didn’t have a couple on it (the same issue I had when I was working on A Heartache for Christmas‘s cover), but I didn’t want to deviate from the brand I have going. My covers all have a single man on them, most in suits, the only one who isn’t is Sawyer, but that’s a small-town romantic suspense as well, and sometimes my guys aren’t dressed in suits all the time.

So, I’m happy with what I’ve got scheduled for books in the coming 24 months or so, and the cover I created for the standalone is icing on the cake.

I don’t have much else going on. I mentioned my health in Thursday’s post so I won’t bother going over that again. Threads has been the filler I needed to let go of Twitter, and I haven’t been tempted to log in just to see what’s going on and I don’t miss having it on my phone. I have come to realize though, after engaging with some authors there and just generally scrolling, I’m in the minority concerning what authors believe in about 99.9% of the time. It’s not that I don’t care about my books, it’s that I don’t take my books as seriously as everyone else takes theirs.

What I don’t mind but seems like everyone else does:

I’ll give ARCs to whoever and don’t check up on them after the ARCs have been sent out. ARCs and forms confused me way before I joined Threads and I even wrote a blog post about it back in November. Authors on Threads take ARCs very seriously and I’m still kind of appallingly fascinated at some of the forms authors ask potential reviewers to fill out. I guess I’ll never be an ARC reader because I’ll never fill out a form for the privilege. I feel readers are doing me the favor, not the other way around, and I would never subject a reader to that. Ever. If you’re interested in that blog post, you can read it here: https://vaniamargene.com/2023/11/06/arc-forms-creating-a-review-team/

I don’t mind giving books away. I get a sense of loathing when we talk about giving books away, though I haven’t come across a thread that expressly addressed that subject (besides the hoops authors make their ARC reviewers go through). But the tone on Threads overall seems to suggest that authors want to be paid for each and every copy and they don’t understand or don’t want to understand the value of giving away free books. I put Faking Forever into a giant promo last December and gave away over 9,000 copies. Since the date I gave it way, that book has made $206.00 mostly in KU reads. Though that may be small potatoes, I haven’t done any other promo on it, so if someone asks me If I want 200 dollars, I say yes. Plus, I’m finding readers. Not the 9,000 people who downloaded my book because I know, just like I have started collecting free books, that a reader actually reading it is slim, but readers saw it, and I have 206 pieces of proof that they did.

Not to mention, I have a free book hanging out on my sister site, and overall, My Biggest Mistake has been downloaded over 1,000 times. I think that number may rise as a lot of my subscribers didn’t even bother to open their welcome email after they subscribed to my newsletter. Now it’s more easily accessible, so I’m thinking I’ll be giving away even more copies in the future.

I don’t care about pirates pirating my book. It’s going to happen whether you like it or not. The only crappy thing is Amazon shoots first and asks questions later, so I’m fully prepared for them to shut down my account at some point because my books are elsewhere, though not with my consent. It’s why I pay for an Alliance of Independent Authors membership. I won’t panic, I’ll just reach out to them and ask them to help me get my account back. I won’t even bother trying to take on Amazon alone. It will be futile and I’ve had enough mental health crises over my book business to last me for the rest of my life. Blasé? Maybe. But I tend not to worry about stuff I can’t control. Authors will watermark ARCs, change one word in their books to try to pinpoint where the pirated copies are coming from, blame being in KU. The fact is, your book can get pirated anywhere at anytime and pointing fingers and throwing out accusations is not the best way to handle this. You could inadvertently offend someone and honestly, it’s not worth playing Nancy Drew. It’s going to happen, so there’s point in being bitter.

I doubt I’ll ever put a PR box together. Ordering author copies, ordering bling, packaging it all up (gotta have a pretty box too) and putting it in the mail to a bookstragrammer who may or may not do anything with it sounds like something I don’t want to do even if I could afford it. I didn’t even know this was a thing–well, I knew it was a thing, but the number of bookstagrammers on Threads and that I have access to them surprised me. Like, if I asked if anyone wanted a billionaire book box there might be some that would actually say yes. You would have to enjoy that kind of thing to bother to do it because with the number of complaints on Threads, the ROI doesn’t seem to be there. Like a book that doesn’t sell but you’re proud of it anyway, you would definitely have to enjoy the process. It did make me think that now that I have more of a brand established I could order some business cards or bookmarks. Stickers, though, I’m not fan and have never put a sticker on my Mac or my Kindle cover–not even the cute Vellum flower I picked up at my last writer’s conference. Now that I have a real bookshelf, I ordered a few author copies of my books to have on hand, so business cards at least would make some sense. I’ll think on it and get back to you. Do you have business cards?

I don’t care about paper. Signings and having your books in bookstores is a big deal to a lot of authors, and I just couldn’t care less. One author was pushing her hardcover, and it was 35 dollars. I have to work two hours to afford a book like that. Readers who can afford to buy paper are not my target audience and I only offer paper as an alternative to a Kindle because some people can afford to buy paperbacks, but that is a very very small percentage of my readers. (I sold 64 paperbacks in 2023.) I think authors who push paperbacks don’t really understand that it’s a whole different audience of readers who have access to expendable cash. The economy is such that people are being priced out of their rentals, no one can afford to buy a house, and grocery prices have not dropped, even though COVID is “over.” You’ll have to decide if the glamour of having your book on a bookshelf is worth the hassle, because for me it is definitely not.

I try not to engage with posts I don’t agree with like the person who’s worried she’s losing readers because there’s 18 months between book two and three of her trilogy. Of course she’s going to lose readers. People don’t wait around that long. There’s a lot of content out there and there’s no reason for a reader to wait for you. If you push book three and let people know it’s finally published, you may be able to corral some of those readers back into the trilogy because they’ll want to see how it ends. But that takes money and a lot of social media posting, and it could have been avoided if she’d just saved up her books. I get people are impatient and no one wants to do that, so you take the pros and cons of whatever choice you make.

I don’t know if I can think of other things off the top of my head, but it’s safe to assume that I’m a square peg of an author trying to fit into a round hole of the writing community. Still, there’s a professionalism over there that I like that Twitter lacked and if you haven’t joined Threads, it’s not a bad place to scroll for book news.

I received an email the other day and the subject line was Vania Margene Rheault featured in Feedspot Top 100 Contemporary Book Blogs. I get stuff like this sometimes, especially to my other gmail accounts I don’t check very often and I usually discount it as spam. I opened it, and it was a legitimate email! It read:

Hi there,

My name is Anuj Agarwal, I’m the Founder of Feedspot.

I would like to personally congratulate you as your blog Vania Margene Rheault has been selected by our panelist as one of the Top 100 Contemporary Book Blogs on the web.

I personally give you a high-five and want to thank you for your contribution to this world. This is the most comprehensive list of Top 100 Contemporary Book Blogs on the internet and I’m honored to have you as part of this!

We’d be grateful if you can help us spread the word by briefly mentioning about the Top 100 Contemporary Book Blogs list in any of your upcoming post.

Please feel free to reach out with any questions.

Best,
Anuj

I’m flattered as this is the first recognition of my blog. If you go onto the site, https://blog.feedspot.com/contemporary_book_blogs/ you can scroll through the rest of them. I did and found some great blogs to follow… I’m in good company! So, thank you, Anuj, for the honor.

I guess that’s all I have for this week. I hope next week I can give you better progress report on my series. Things keep popping up during my days off that cut into my editing time, but I’m going to put my head down and plow through the rest of the month.

Until next time!

Finding Your Place

Posted on March 21, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

This is a whining post. If you don’t want to hear it, check in on Monday for a more grown-up Author Update. 😛

A friend of mine, well, we haven’t been friends for a while now but we’ve remained… acquaintances?, wrote all her friends/followers/readers and told them that she was leaving the writing/author community… again. I don’t mean to pick on her, but she does this every once in a while, and every time she does, I get reflective and think about where I am and where I want to be.

I’ve been writing and publishing for about eight years now, and I have never left, have never unpublished books, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t struggled finding my place. I think we all do, on some level, looking for a community or looking for readers and building a fanbase. We write and write and work and work and we realize that no matter how hard we run on that treadmill, after you turn it off, you’re in the same place, a tired and a sweaty mess.

She’s disappeared a few times now, trying to find her own place in life and in the writing/author community, and honestly, I don’t know what she’s looking for. She probably doesn’t know either, and it’s not so difficult to say if you don’t know what you’re looking for, you can’t find it.

I hate when she does this because I always feel bad for her, though she’s not looking for sympathy. I think she wants to be a writer, wants to be an author who sells books, but I don’t know what’s standing in her way. I’ve never been the type of person whose identity depends on a label. I was never only a wife, never only a mother, never only a daughter, or a sister, or anything else I’ve been over the years, and while I don’t want to assume, it does seem she relies on other people to tell her who she is. I’ve always been my own person and maybe she struggles with that. I have no idea. You have to be selfish if you want to be a writer, work hard on something you love that others deem frivolous and unnecessary. Especially if you’re not making money yet. Maybe she bowed under the guilt of taking time for herself. You have to, or you don’t have time to write.

Whenever she makes these announcements, I wish she would be more forthcoming, not to give us any explanations because she certainly doesn’t owe us any, but so I can pick through whatever I feel whenever she does this. Though, her job isn’t to make me feel better about her leaving. That’s silly.

Sometimes I think a lot of this hollowness I (sometimes) feel is because I haven’t been well over the past three years. Health is can be taken for granted, and it’s only when you lose it do you realize how much you miss it. A memory on Facebook from four years ago popped up on my timeline yesterday, a selfie I took because I was having a good hair day.

twenty pounds, a box of dryer sheets, and almost a pandemic ago….

Of course, a lot goes into happiness than just how you feel. My ex-fiancé wasn’t an ex, so we were probably in an okay place. I hadn’t lost a couple of my cats, and the deaths of Harley and Blaze hit me hard. I might even have still been going into my workplace–though I enjoy working from home now, the transition wasn’t smooth.

While I’m not feeling as terrible as I did before my Mayo Clinic appointment in February, I’m not feeling as great as I hoped either. But, having a diagnosis has helped the mental part of it. Not knowing why you feel like crap is worse than feeling like garbage but at least understanding why–even if there really is no cure.

I can blame working on this series for so long… I’m tired, but working on something new won’t help. Same day, different document. Hoping that maybe this will be the book that will turn the tide.

I don’t feel this melancholy all the time. I’ve actually had to be in pretty good mental health to withstand three years of feeling like I have. I doubt I would even be feeling this way at all this morning if it wasn’t for her announcement, and is it selfish to wish that if she’s going to leave, that she would just stay gone? If she really doesn’t want to write anymore that she would find something else to do? Either that or if she ever does come back, that I’m in a different place so I don’t notice.

I’m not even sure what the point of this post is except I needed a place to put my feelings, and besides a handful of friends who are too busy navigating their own lives to listen to me moan about my “problems” that I admit, aren’t really problems, there really is no one else. I go through this every now and then, feeling lost, but at the same time, walking on a path I know I want to be on, heading in the direction I know I want to go. Can you be lost when you’re doing that?

I have no idea.

Anyway, so when she says she’s leaving, she usually goes all in, and I ordered her paperback just in case she unpublishes. I helped her design her cover, and I’ll just put her book with the rest of my indies on my bookshelf and she’ll turn into someone I used to know along with most of the authors there.

But I do know one thing–I should shower and open my blinds.

I have a roast in the slow cooker and a series to finish.

I know where I’m going, and I’m finding happiness in the journey.

I hope that she does too–wherever it is she’s going.

Monday Misery and Giving Up (Kind Of)

Posted on March 4, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

woman wearing floral dress under water. text says: when nothing goes your way, you can feel like you're drowning

It seems whenever I manage to figure out one thing, something else pops up in its place–which is the definition of adulthood, I guess. I’ve been feeling better, so of course that means another areas of my life have to go to crap.

Ever since we had to authenticate our newsletters and align them with our websites, I have had nothing but problems. From actually taking down my website for twenty-four hours (thank God the WordPress chat was available!) to the newest disaster–broken links in my most recent newsletter I sent out on Friday, this has been one headache after the next. That SNAFU, broken links going to a scary error webpage–

webpage error message. text reads, your connection is not private. attackers might be trying to steal your information from vania.vaniamargene.com (for example, passwords, messages or credit cards) learn more.

–ended up resulting in me having to upgrade my MailerLite plan so I could contact their tech support. Because of the number of subscribers I have, that totaled a whopping 30 dollars a month, and honestly, I knew it wasn’t worth it. I had a 30% open rate, send once a month, and can’t pinpoint exact sales that have come from my newsletter.

So, I did what I tell you not to do–I made a choice based in frustration and anger and deleted my MailerLite account. I didn’t wait for the tech to get back to me, just exported my subscribers, deleted my account, and said screw it. It wasn’t completely spontaneous decision–I have a link in the back of all my books pointing them to my website where readers can sign up to my newsletter and download my free reader magnet. Luckily, the link was to my website and not a MailerLite landing page. I amended my website, said I would be blogging in place of a newsletter due to issues with my aggregator and that they can still download My Biggest Mistake. But instead of having to sign up for a newsletter to gain access, the Bookfunnel link is right there. Giving away a book like that with no strings is probably crazy, and after a while I may sell it, too. It won’t be in KU, but I can price it at .99 and have it pull double duty as a reader freebie and a book in my backlist if they want it that badly. I have choices, at least, but it will have to stay free on my website unless I want to update back matter for 20 books, and I actually do not want to do that.

I just was so tired of all this stuff–I’ve been dealing with the issues this authentication process has brought on since January, and honestly, I couldn’t take it anymore. The last straw was when I sent out that newsletter that had broken links in it. I can handle things going wrong on my end, but I do not want to look unprofessional or spammy to my subscribers. They trust me to keep their information safe, and that error message when they clicked on a link looked terrible. I never want to go through that again. I’ve been blogging on WordPress for eight years now, and nothing has ever happened like that before. All the links work, my site is secure, and I will never mess with the DNS records again.

If turning my “newsletter” into a blog loses me readers or subscribers, so be it. Dealing with MailerLite and the high monthly cost would have been very bad for my mental health long term. I don’t mind blogging, in fact, I love it, and content is content as far as I’m concerned. I was able to upload my MailerLite subscriber list to my author website and my subscribers will get an email when I blog. If they don’t want that, they can unsubscribe, though I’m not sure why they would. It really doesn’t matter where the content comes from.

A lot of them never opened my welcome email though, so that means they didn’t download My Biggest Mistake, and they can’t now unless they visit my website due to the links that probably won’t work even if they kept my newsletter emails. When I write my first blog post I’ll have to remind them to download it. I probably still will only blog for my readers once a month and that was another reason I was okay getting rid of MailerLite. I wasn’t using it very often and it makes sense to stay with a more cost effective alternative.

Of course, I’m like a lot of people and lying in bed at night will think about something humiliating and embarrassing that happened twenty years after the fact. This sting will stay with me for a long time, even though it was a MailerLite problem and not my fault. It helps I’m familiar with newsletter mixups. I’ve signed up for several, and usually once a month someone sends out a newsletter full of links and five seconds later there’s an amended newsletter sent out because the links were wrong, broken, or missing. My readers are probably used to that kind of thing too, but I was so grateful to anyone who gave me their email address that swallowing this humiliation is going to take some time. The only thing that I am happy with right now is how easy it was for me to turn my author website into a blog and that I had the wherewithal to export my list and add them to my website. I paid for a lot of those with FB ads and people signing up in the backs of my books. Those emails belong to me until they unsubscribe and they can do that if they wish. I’m not going to worry about where WordPress’s emails end up–if when I blog the updates end up in their promotions or spam. My site is safe, and I restored all the original DNS records. Maybe my updates won’t land in their inbox, but at this point, I just want to get back to writing and updating my readers when I have something fun to share and don’t care about the rest.

It was a costly lesson, energy and mental health wise, to learn some things just don’t matter as much as some people tell you it should. It was a relief to leave my newsletter groups–people are still talking and doing damage control regarding their own authentication nightmares, and I don’t need to see that anymore. I don’t need advice on what to share with my readers–I’m a writer and creating content is what I do.

I finished editing the 5th book in my series, and now I’m taking a break before I edit the last. I have a lot of admin stuff that doesn’t include newsletter clean up, such as getting my promo list I started a couple of years ago finished. I wanted a comprehensive list of promo sites that included how much it cost, if there was a minimum number of reviews required, that kind of thing. There are soooo many promo sites out there and one of my goals this year was to try the littler ones to expand my reach. I started up a Google Docs, and I’ll have to check over what I have and see if all the information is still accurate or if I need to update some entries. I also have a lot of screenshots on my phone of promo sites people have talked about in various groups and I want to add those as well. David Gaughran has a list that he updated last year, and you can see it here. https://davidgaughran.com/best-promo-sites-books/ I borrowed heavily from it, but there are a lot of promo sites that I picked up just scrolling around in my groups. Lee Hall also has one on his site, and you can look at it here: https://leehallwriter.com/2021/02/23/a-concise-list-of-book-promotion-sites/ I’ll finish it up this month and make it accessible for everyone.

I also would like to add a tab to this website for book covers that I make that don’t have anywhere to go. I like making them when I’m bored and don’t have anything to do, or if I see an author cover that sucks and I redo it just for fun. Sometimes I’ll do a cover for someone without them asking, and as you can imagine, that never turns out well, and they say thanks, but no thanks. I’d like to put them up, free of charge for authors who need something but don’t know what to do or just need a placeholder until they can afford something better. One of the prettiest covers I ever did was this one, but I’ll never use it because I don’t write women’s fiction.

promo graphic of a fake book called the forgotten bride. a blurry woman, back to camera holding a bouquet of lilies.

Anyway, so I’ll do that when my series is all done and up for preorder. I have a lot of mockups in my Canva account, but I would have to download the stock photos and clean them up enough that I would only have to change the author names and titles. They wouldn’t be high-end by any means, but if an author is just starting out and sees a cover they could use, then it would worth it for me.

I think among that, getting my series finalized, and doing my promo list, I have enough going on. I need to shake off what happened to my newsletter. I’m not the first it’s happened to, and I won’t be the last. One of the last posts I saw before I left those groups is a poor woman who lost 800 subscribers because MailerLite got rid of the free classic accounts and her account and all her subscribers were purged. She was upset, to say the least, but MailerLite told everyone over and over again. It’s why I did the migration in December of last year, though that was just first of the headaches that started.

I think that is all I have for this week, but it’s enough. 2024 has started out with a bang, that’s for sure, and though this might be inviting trouble, I just don’t know what else could go wrong. And it’s really weird, I guess because I posted on a Thursday when my subscribers aren’t used to it, but I posted about author transparency last week and no one read it. So strange. If you want to read my goose egg post, you can look here.

Thanks, and have a good week, everyone!

Author Update: I Finally Made the Leap

Posted on February 26, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

picture taken by *moi* when her hands should have been on the wheel. Sunset, Fargo, ND #nofilter

Happy Monday! I hope your week is getting off to a great start, and may that include a bottomless cup of coffee.

Today’s post is more of “what’s going on with me” than anything else. I finally left Twitter for good after a scuffle over a tweet who was calling out authors like Stephenie Meyer and Sarah J Maas (and I think Rebecca Yarros was in there too). The person who tweeted brought race into it, and I scooted my butt out of that conversation. As a white cishet woman who grew up in a middle income family, I know how privileged I am in regard to anything, not just publishing. I’m fortunate I have money to play with ads, I’m fortunate I have a college education. I’m fortunate in a lot of ways, and I have never argued that. I know publishing has a long way to go in terms of marginalized voices. There’s no debating that whatsoever, but I think there’s a difference between hating books that have done well because you think they aren’t well-written and don’t deserve it, and hating certain (white) women authors because of how the publishing industry is. I believed that tweet came from the former perspective when it was the latter, and had I known, I wouldn’t have gotten involved. I’ve always defended authors like Stephenie, EL James, and Colleen Hoover (the vacuum lady, if your nickname can be that disrespectful. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to scrub this joke about her books from my mind: Nothing sucks like a Hoover). We always say that authors aren’t what they write, but then in the next breath we call Stephenie Meyer a groomer supporter because Jacob imprinted on Renesmee when she was an infant. I get tired of the hypocrites, tired of the bitterness. I won’t debate anyone’s experience, and I sure as hell won’t tell someone how to think or feel, so I bowed out. I blanked out my banner, took my personal profile picture down and said in my bio that the account is no longer active. I don’t like that vibe, only because yes, the industry does have a lot of work to do, but screaming about it won’t make change. Attacking people won’t make change. Spewing resentment all over the internet won’t make change. And I see this from everyone. It wasn’t that long ago a white author was editing Rebecca Yarros’ first page, saying what a crap book her Fourth Wing novel is and how it didn’t deserve to be printed. I stood up to her, but right or wrong on my part, when someone is calling me a mad white lady, I’ll graciously concede.

It was a lesson to keep scrolling if you don’t like what you see, and if you’re online you’re going to be tested many times. I joined Threads with the hope that I can stop myself from commenting if something makes me angry (after a week in, there is a lot that makes me angry). I have a low tolerance for stupidity and there is a lot of it in the self-publishing industry. I saw this on FB last week! This is the stuff that makes me mad, and this is the kind of reply that gets me into trouble.

Original post: For all the author's not being paid by Amazon we need to get together and make a move and demand our money.
If you are being told they are probably lying to you like thousands of other author's.
To find out how many of your books have sold do Google your name plus the name of your books PLUS "in stock"
Those words are important because if they are in stock they were paid for by the book store.

My reply:What are you talking about? Amazon doesn't cheat authors. If you don't like how they treat you, don't publish with them. There are a ton of other platforms that will sell your book. And please learn where apostrophes go! — name and FB group blanked out to protect the intelligence-challenged.

I get tired of people saying that Amazon cheats its authors, get tired of being called a sheeple because I like to write to market. Maybe my books don’t deserve to sell either, because I write romance, use tropes, and have fun writing my books (and can write them quickly too, oh snap!). It’s just another form of gatekeeping as far as I’m concerned, but I do understand there isn’t room at the table for everyone, and I’ve been eating my meals on the floor for a long time. At least I have a piece of carpet, and I know a lot of authors don’t. So, I’m trying approach my time on Threads in a more positive way–be helpful if I can, be encouraging. But mainly, I joined to keep my thumb on the pulse of the industry–indie pub as well as romance in particular. Like Tyrion Lannister, I like knowing things, like the RWA embracing AI and hosting classes to teach writers how to use it to write romance books.

Romance Writers of America (I believe this is a Facebook screenshot)

Dive into the exciting world of AI-assisted romance writing with Rachelle Ayala, a multi-published romance author working on book number 100.

Rachelle has been using AI for a year, and she's happy to cut through the hype and show you insider tips--from sparking new story ideas to refining your manuscript, generating scenes or penning compelling market copy.

This session is packed with live demos of how Rachelle uses AI, practical advice on how to get started, and a glimpse into the future of how AI will impact writing and storytelling.

Visit https://www.rwa.org/chapterevents to lear more and view all the upcoming RWA chapter events offered.

Hashtags.

I like knowing things like the cover for Gothikana was made with AI elements and the publisher is claiming “not to know.” You can read the Publisher’s Weekly article here. I just like knowing that stuff because I feel like it’s part of my job as an indie author to know what people are talking about. There was some of that on Twitter too, but there was too much bitterness to wade through to see what I really wanted to see. I could have just started blocking people, but that kind of atmosphere isn’t good for anyone’s mental health. So far, Threads seems to be more pleasant and professional, and that can be a good thing, but also maybe a not-so-good-thing. I do a lot of things that are looked down on, like editing my own books, doing my own covers. Shilling Bryan Cohen’s free ad class when a lot of people don’t think of him as anything more than a hack. You don’t want to be anything less than who you are online because that will always come back to bite you, but I’m going to be a lot more apprehensive and careful about what I share on Threads. Mostly, I just needed a new place to scroll, and I’ll follow people if I like their content without thought of gaining followers. I don’t need them–I’m not planning to try to sell my books on there in any way. If you have an account and want to connect, here’s my profile: https://www.threads.net/@vaniamargenerheault

Speaking of selling books, my Amazon ads are still on fire, and I’m having to keep a close eye on them. Unfortunately, they are doing really well impression- and click-wise, and it triggered my fear of missing out. I don’t want to turn any of them off just in case I’m pausing highly profitable ads. And you really don’t know that until you turn them off and over the course of a couple weeks your sales die. Having FOMO in this industry is terrible. I buy classes, let ads run, join author groups I probably don’t need to be a part of. I probably COULD turn off half my Amazon ads and I would be just fine, but I already compromised and turned off all the ads in the UK, so I’m just going to have to watch them like a hawk. I’ll use this blog as an accountability partner and compare royalties and ad spend on a biweekly basis. I don’t want to do so much of that in real time as I’ve said before, Amazon’s reporting isn’t that great, and a book that looks like it isn’t getting page reads could prove me wrong when the reporting catches up.

I’m on chapter nine of the 5th book in my series. I don’t know if I’ll be able to finish by the end of the month, but getting both done by the end of March seems doable. I should start playing with the covers more seriously so I don’t have a panic attack when the editing is done but the covers are still unfinished. I’m not even sure the direction I want to go in anymore, except I like the frames, and I found some gold filigree that I put together to make them that looks really nice. I still need the men, maybe the backgrounds. I bought a few font duos from Creative Fabrica the other day (thank you Stanee in the Design Resources Hub on FB for posting the sale), and the only way to know if they’ll work is to try them and see. There’s no point to that though unless I can get a template cover firmed up, but I’ve been playing so I don’t feel too lost or like I’m starting from scratch.

Scrolling through my author FB groups made me realize that my email attached to this website wasn’t accepting incoming email. Apparently, it’s an issue for anyone who was messing around with their DNS records. I already knew how to restore records from when a WordPress tech support person helped me get my website back up after I accidentally deleted my A records, so restoring my email DNS records was easy. I was cautioned and was told that my authentication wouldn’t work anymore if I did that, but I reran all the tests, and it looks like everything is still fine. I feel bad that people couldn’t email me for a whole month because I didn’t know, but I’m lucky that not many people reach out to me anyway. Now that I figured that out, I hope all the damage control that I needed to do to get my newsletter and website aligned is over. But, as I’ve said, that is one of the reasons I’m in so many groups. You need that kind of information because you don’t always know what you don’t know.

I’ve been trying to do the things I said I was going to do if I felt better and I do, and I’ve been going on more walks in the evenings. Since I’ve been on my “ovary pills” as I call them, a lot of my negative feelings about going for walks are gone, and I’ve enjoyed my time outside. I guess I was feeling hormonally depressed and those pills have elevated my mood, which is funny because the order that went with my prescription is to “take as tolerated” and I am tolerating them just fine. That’s a good thing–I haven’t felt this much like myself in a long time. I also said I wanted to watch Queen Charlotte, and I have two episodes of that left. I have to force myself to watch TV because it’s not normally something I like to do anyway, but I’m enjoying the show and I’ll be glad to be caught up. I still want to rewatch the first season of Carnival Row on Prime and watch the second/last season. I really enjoyed that too, and I was happy they finished it off as COVID delayed the filming. It will be nice to see how it ends.

I think that is all for now. I hope you all have a great week, and thanks for all your support. I’ve had a lot of people say they are happy I’m feeling better, and I appreciate it a lot. It’s been a long three years, and it’s nice to be excited again.

Until next time!

Monday Musings; Do What You’re Supposed to do Already

Posted on February 19, 2024 by Vania Margene Rheault

Words: 1707
Time to read: 9 minutes

Happy Monday! I can honestly say that because Mondays are my Saturdays, and I’m fortunate I can work through the weekends and avoid them. I always say I don’t have much to say, but this week, it’s really true. I’m only three chapters into the fifth book in my series, and this chapter is 20k words long. It will take a bit to edit it, but getting through these is starting to burn me out, so I don’t mind going slow. It’s a big project anyway, and I should start playing with the covers when I don’t feel like editing. Mostly for now that’s just scrolling through stock photos and that’s becoming more and more disheartening. I can try a couple of different sites like dreamstime.com and 123rf.com. I don’t mind paying if I know I’ll use the photos. I’ve downloaded quite a few with my DepositPhotos packages I purchased through AppSumo, and I don’t end up using all of them. Because they were so inexpensive, it doesn’t matter, but if I’m going to go through a different site, I need to make absolutely sure I’ll use them and so far I haven’t bothered to hunt and peck through those sites.

It’s been a week and a few days since my appointment at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. The good news is she seemed to know what was wrong and I left with a couple of creams and a medication that suppresses my ovaries. This was part of the best news because since I had my hysterectomy in March of 2022, my ovulation cycle has made me feel like garbage every month. She explained why and when she offered me that medication, I jumped all over it. I’ve only taken it for eight days, but I can already tell a difference in the way I feel. The other stuff I’m dealing with hasn’t lightened up, but I knew going in that since I’ve been suffering for so long, there wouldn’t be an overnight fix. My treatment at this point is more of a journey than a destination, and I have a follow up appointment at the end of May. Now that we know what to expect and how to get around, this will just be a quick overnight thing and more than likely we’ll head back after my appointment instead of staying for another night. They were very efficient and she seemed to know what was wrong with me just by talking to me and a quick exam. So, there’s that update. Nothing too new there, but life has been smoothing out for me, thank God. I went and got my teeth cleaned and my oil changed last week, so now that my bumper fiasco is over, besides getting my taxes done (which is tedious because I print out all my book spend and report my royalties to the IRS in case I ever strike it rich), most of the drudgery of adulting is finished for the next little bit.

Even social media has been quiet, not much on Twitter (though I am liking to call it X more and more simply because I feel like it’s a warning to stay away), just some reviewer shaming, some people who are complaining about their books being returned, that kind of thing that I don’t see in my author groups on FB at least. It still is surprising to me how writers think that if they’re querying they don’t have to do anything. Don’t have to edit because an agent/acquiring editor will take care of it, don’t have to market because the publisher will take care of it. Even just today I saw a woman lamenting because she queried too soon (I wonder how she figured that out?), and I mean, if you get a book deal, wouldn’t you want to work your ass off to promote your book? Shouldn’t authors feel that way no matter who publishes their book? Yet it feels like so many writers think all they have to do is crank out 350 pages of brilliance and their work is done. A huge controversy last week (cause by this now-deleted tweet)–

–was over whether querying writers should have a website–some said no, some said yes–but if you don’t want to, is this a hill you’re going to die on? It’s free to set one up. Isn’t it better to have a social media presence before you query so potential agents have something to look at? Querying/having an agent and publishing is a partnership, but it seems like writers don’t want to be a partner, they want it all done for them. Let me tell you, from doing this from the ground up and seeing some of my author friends who have given up their rights to small presses and gotten them back, it’s a hell of a lot easier to be in charge of all your stuff yourself. And this isn’t a debate between querying/trad pub vs. self-pub. This is talking about taking control of your book business in any way you can. To know how to do covers in case you ever want to be hybrid and put out some books on your own, to know how to format, to know the back end of your own website. Knowing how your newsletter provider works. Knowing how to do things for yourself will never hurt you in the long run. Because you know what sucks? Depending on people to do stuff for you. You’re at their mercy . . . if they’re busy doing something else, if your relationship with them goes south, if they simply drop out of the game. Publishing is work. It will never not be work, and I should stop being amazed at the writers and authors who think someone else should be doing that work. Honey, just because you wrote 80k words, your work is only just beginning. Suck it up, pay for a Canva Pro account, and learn how to use it.

I had some super awesome Amazon ads going, so much so I spent 100 dollars in five days. Super good! Not really, because I wasn’t getting the sales or borrows (checking your rank to see if it goes up will tell you if you’re getting borrows. There really is no other way as Amazon sees a borrow as a sale and adjusts your rank accordingly.) Fifty pounds, fifty US dollars. I paused my UK ads because I couldn’t afford it, let my US ads keep going, and they are still rocking forty dollars later. I’m having some good impressions and clicks in Canada, too, but not nearly as expensive at only seven dollars, so I left those alone. Maybe my Lost & Found trilogy covers are working after all. I’m always very very leery of turning off a well-performing ad. Mostly because of ad and royalties reporting. Nothing Amazon does is in real time, and I would hate to shut off an ad only for my sales to die. In fact, they even added this disclaimer to their dashboard: All numbers are based on the time zone of the marketplace where the purchase was made. Please note monthly KENP numbers may change and will be finalized near the 15th of the following month.

text on plain white background says: Dashboard
All numbers are based on the time zone of the marketplace where the purchase was made. Please note monthly KENP numbers may change and will be finalized near the 15th of the following month.Learn more about the Dashboard.

Waiting until the following month for real page reads numbers…..yeah…..so you know not to do anything drastic or be ticked off too soon. You should never make decisions when you’re angry or disappointed. Things can change in an instant and you never want to regret anything. Pausing your ads and then restarting them can make them not turn on again at all, ruining the momentum they had before you shut them off. It’s the risk I took pausing my UK ads, but I’m going to have to be okay with it. I don’t have the cash to pay 50,000 dollars for 100,000 dollars worth of royalties. While that’s great ROI, I need to start smaller, and I’m guessing you do too.

I’m also running FB ads, so I’ll always have something going that costs money, but it sure would be nice if I could come out ahead every once in a while. Not that I’m complaining. Breaking even is fine too–I’m finding readers and that’s a good thing.

That’s about all I have going on for this week. I’m going shopping with my sister on Tuesday so I can buy some bookshelves for my living room. I live like a college student (and a poor one at that) and it would be nice to display my books. Now that we don’t have cats, I don’t have to hide them from a furbaby who wants to eat all my covers. She’s ruined plenty of spines using them as a scratching post, so while they will be displayed in a more pleasing manner, they will look well-loved indeed.

Speaking of querying and newsletters and all that, I must have gotten purged from Jane Friedman’s newsletter. I admit I don’t open my newsletters enough, and I missed hers, so I signed up again. She’s a good source of publishing news and also she hosts inexpensive classes with industry experts. If you want help with your query or first pages, take a look at this class hosted by her with guest Allison K Williams. https://janefriedman.com/get-past-gatekeepers/ (This is not an affiliate link.)

I’ve taken some of her classes before, and if you can’t watch it live, she makes the replay and all the handouts available after the fact, so don’t worry if you can’t fit it into your schedule. Her class with Allison is March 20th, 2024, from 1-3pm. It’s $35.00 and it will be worth every penny if landing an agent is one of your goals for 2024.

I hope you have a wonderful week ahead and good luck with all your endeavors! It’s not too late to hop on my social media calendar. I may end up making one for March. I’ve been able to stick to posting. My engagement isn’t the best, but it keeps my pages from looking so bleak. Nothing works without consistency, so we’ll see what happens in the coming months.

Until next time!

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Vania Margene Rheault

Independent Contemporary Romance Author & Blogger

Tag Archives: author update

Author Update and Monday Musings

Author Update: King’s Crossing Series

Author Update and Vetting Your Book Cover Designer

Author Update and Why I Skip #IndieApril

Author Update and Writing What You Love

Finding Your Place

Monday Misery and Giving Up (Kind Of)

Author Update: I Finally Made the Leap

Monday Musings; Do What You’re Supposed to do Already

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