My Year-End Recap and What’s Ahead in 2024

Posted on December 25, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

I re-read the blog post I wrote at the end of 2022, and it’s interesting to see how things changed with what I thought I was going to do. My main change was my publishing schedule–back then I thought my rockstar romance was only going to be one book and then out of nowhere it turned into a trilogy. That was a stroke of luck on my part (and for Eddie and Brock who had their stories told and ended up with HEAs I hadn’t planned on) and actually made up the bulk of my sales this year. I have that blog post pulled up–let’s compare.

Books/Novels/WIPs

Number of books written: 3.5
I wrote three and a half books last year, too. I finished Twisted Alibis (I had 58k of it done and the total number of words in that book are 107k) and wrote Twisted Lullabies and Twisted Lies and also, at the last second, wrote A Heartache for Christmas I was able to edit and cover in time for the holidays. Last year, in 2022, I wrote 286,000 words. This year I wrote 340,000. My rockstars are long (the shortest coming in at 92k) and my Christmas romance added to those at 97k. All in all, I had a good writing year.

Number of books published: 4. Wait, no. 8.
I forgot I published my Lost & Found Trilogy in January. That’s three. Then I published Faking Forever in May. I published that as filler while I was writing my rockstars and published those in August, and also my Christmas romance in November for a total of eight books. Sounds impressive, but my Lost & Found Trilogy was written in 2022 and I only pushed Publish. Faking Forever was also previously written and all I did was order a fresh proof and proofread that. My rockstars were the biggest project I completed since pivoting to first person present and I’m really proud of them.

Year-End Royalties: $4,404.19 (This figure will be off by 7 days as I am writing this a week before the end of the year.)

taken from the Chrome extension BookReport

As always, forget about the total number of books there. BookReport crams all the formats together. That is definitely up from the $670.55 that I made last year, and I owe half that to my rockstars and the other half to Facebook ads. Like last year and my disappointment with my Cedar Hill Duet, I’m sad my Lost & Found Trilogy didn’t do better, but that was my own fault–with covers, and more recently, my dismay at having found a writing tic I edited out not long ago. Now that the covers are how I want and the insides are going to be the best they can ever be, I’m going to start running ads to them after the New Year. I’ll report back if I can get them to sell.

As for Amazon ads, I didn’t throw the money at them I have in the past. Last year I spent $112.55 and this year I spent . . . $835.67. Just kidding. As my character, Agatha, in Twisted Lies says, Jesus Christ on a bicycle. I didn’t know I spent that much. I spent $200.00 in June alone, so I guess I better add watching my freaking ads more closely to my 2024 goals. FML.

I knew Facebook ads going in would be expensive (but so can Amazon ads if you’re not keeping an eye on them, sigh) and I spent $1,238.60 (I had to go through my emails and tally the invoices they sent me that I set aside for my accountant, so no screenshots available, I’m afraid.) I actually thought I spent more than that, but I didn’t start running ads until May of this year, and I didn’t crank them up until August when my rockstars came out. I didn’t buy a Freebooksy this year, so Amazon ads and Facebook ads are the only ad spend I had, for a total of $2,074.27.

I had other yearly expenditures like my WordPress fees, my Alliance of Independent Authors membership, BookSprout, my Office 365 renewal, and Canva. I did more than break even this year, and surprisingly I’m ahead by about $1600.00. I’m not going to add up Canva and the rest. That’s just extra fluff I pay for that I would regardless if I was making money or not. I get so much out of Canva (not just covers) that paying is a necessary evil, and I need my Office 365. My Alli membership is just insurance for my author career as far as I’m concerned because I need someone to help me if Amazon decides to think I’m doing something I shouldn’t be doing and suspends my KDP account. I throw money at other things like fonts and my KU subscription, but I behaved myself when the AppSumo deal for DepositPhotos came out last month–somehow I convinced myself the 300 images I still have in my DepositPhotos account is enough. I bought a marketing book and a couple of Alex Newton’s K-Lytics reports, but I’m not going to nickel and dime myself. Like any other *cough* hobby *cough* you spend money. That’s just what happens if you enjoy doing something.

So, my numbers aren’t bad, and I’m finding readers. I think Facebook ads can be profitable if your hook, ad copy, graphic, and your actual book can mesh together into something that your target audience wants. I need to do more research on FB ads and see if I can level up. I have the books to sell.

Website/Blog Stats

My views went up a smidge but my visitors went down, also by a smidge, compared to last year, and I don’t know what the difference is.

I also posted one post fewer and eight thousand words fewer, too. I was so busy writing my rockstars, I think, that I didn’t bother commenting on any of the book drama. I can’t remember what any of it was now, but I’m sure there must have been some. I really just don’t care anymore about authors behaving badly and maybe that’s just a byproduct of dealing with my health issue. I don’t waste time with people who can’t follow through, I stop reaching out to people who can’t be bothered to message me first once in a while. Twitter is still just a pit of people whining because they can’t sell books or get a book deal, but if I don’t keep my ear to the ground, I just do not have much to say. My blog has turned into more of an online journal than an informational blog, but it is what it is. I don’t care if someone is trying to copyright the sun or if a big-time indie is being accused of plagiarism. I just am really tired of people who expect things without giving, but retreating into my books doesn’t give me a whole lot to share, and I would imagine this trend will keep going into later years.

People are still sharing my blog which is great to see. These are all-time stats . . . WordPress changed their platform layout so I had a harder time finding the information and it won’t completely match up with how I gave you my stats last year.

Number of Shares
Twitter
5.2K
LinkedIn
5.2K
Facebook
5.1K
Pinterest
4.8K
Email
8
Press This
7 — all-time stats from december 2016 to december 2023

Posts & pages
Views
Doing a Full Paperback Wrap in Canva for KDP Print (plus screen grabs)
2,781
Home page / Archives
2,502
Updated! Creating a full wrap paperback book cover using Canva (plus more screenshots!)
2,021
Getting reviews and my second try with BookSprout
703
Adding subtitles to your ebook on Kindle Direct Publishing
304
Another case of plagiarism. My question is why?
267
First Person POV Blurbs: A debate?
179
Thursday Thoughts: Claim your book on ACX and where I am right now.
154
Moving my books to IngramSpark. So. Much. Fun.
153
Keywords for your books. What are they and how to find them.
149 — january to december 2023

It’s not a surprise that my Canva how-to posts have the top billing . . . again.

All-time stats
Doing a Full Paperback Wrap in Canva for KDP Pri...
Published Jun 24, 2021
Views
6.9K
Likes
13
Comments
22

I’m glad that post is so useful, and I appreciate everyone who has commented, liked, and shared my blog posts. It means a lot that while I’m struggling I’ve been able to help people too.

Health Update

I still feel like garbage, but I’ve done all I can do on my own and I have to call after the New Year to make an appointment at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. I figure I have access to it, I might as well go to the best of the best and see what’s what. They may not be able to cure me but at least they’ll know how to treat my symptoms so I feel better more regularly. I’m going in March while my daughter is on Spring Break and I have a few days I can be gone without motherly responsibilities. I’ll need to save a little for hotel and gas money as the clinic is six hours away from me, but I’m tired of dealing with the doctors in Fargo who don’t care if they can’t throw some antibiotics at you and call it a day. I’ve been dealing with this for a very long time, and I hope this coming year I’ll see the last of it.

What’s next for 2024?

I’ll be editing my King’s Crossing series until I get them done and ready to publish. That’s my goal–getting them edited, creating covers I won’t have to change, and setting them up on BookSprout for reviews and putting them all on preorder. I plan to schedule them two months apart to give me twelve months to write more books. I was deleting some screenshots off my desktop and I remembered a standalone I wanted to write. I should maybe do that before I forget the plot. So, after I get my King’s Crossing books squared away, I’ll be taking two months to write that out. It will be nice to work on a simple project after six books anyway. I’ll need to go slow, it’s twisty, maybe one of the twistier books I’ll do, and I need to make sure I lay the breadcrumbs correctly. After I write that, then I plan to move into Mafia–I even have a plot rooting in my brain–but after my Mayo appointment, if I can get to feeling better, well, even if I can’t I just hope I don’t have to do this feeling the way I do, I need to look for a different job. I’ve been pretty transparent with my financial situation and only my ex-husband’s alimony and child support are keeping me afloat. That will run out at the end of 2024 and I am grown up enough to know I cannot make it on what my work pays me. My royalties are not steady enough nor enough enough (especially after ad spend) to fill in that financial gap. Once I get a different job, I really don’t know how I’ll feel about writing or how fast I’ll be able to still write books. I’m not a seven-, six-, or five-figure author. I’m a four-figure author who shoved 75% of her earnings back into her business. Instead of being scared of it, I’m trying to look forward to it. I’ve been with my job for twenty-three years and I need the change.

But, if we don’t add a career change to the mix, I’d like to publish my series, write my standalone, and write my Mafia books which may be a duet or a trilogy, we’ll see how the plotting ends up. Those won’t be released until 2025. I have one more standalone on my computer that I wrote in 2020, so if I clean that up and package it, that’s four/five books I have on the docket in 2025. After that, I really don’t know what will happen. I would love for my series to take off and I could drop down to a part-time job somewhere (or even keep my current job), but in terms of more books and ideas, after I write my Mafia duet/trilogy, I have two books written of a six-book series that I would like to finish. They aren’t as complicated as the series I’m working on now, and I don’t think they would take me long, I just need to plan out the four remaining books. I’m not excited about the project, though I would really hate to have those two books go to waste. I haven’t heard of the concept before and I think they could sell well. I just need the motivation to finish them. I like thinking ahead, but 2026 is just a little bit too far, even for me. In the meantime I’m going to deep dive into Facebook ads. TikTok did nothing for me short of just making me mad, but I may give it another try. I don’t spend enough time on there networking and commenting, nor am I reading the books that have blown up, and I need to do that if I want to have anything meaningful to contribute.

I always share this quote from Arnold Schwarzenegger: I will always stay hungry, never satisfied with current accomplishments. It’s a lot easier to stay hungry when you’ve had a taste of what’s possible.

Write books people want to read. Figure out an advertising platform that you like, that you’re willing to invest some time and money into learning. Save for a bit if you have to, be honest and make sure your book is advertising-ready. If it’s not, you’ll waste money and all you’ll do is blame the ad platform instead of yourself where the blame would really belong. You are always in control and you do yourself and your books a disservice when you act like you aren’t. Choices can be made and unmade. Mistakes can be fixed. Learn your craft, meet readers’ expectations of the genre you’re writing in, learn how to make covers if you can’t afford to hire out. People are so concerned about being different, but there is value in sameness. People are comfortable with what they know. Saying your book is “unique” or “different” isn’t the marketing spark you think it is. People shy away from change and they won’t try you if they think your book will be too far off from what they already like. Where would your book go in a bookstore? Write for that audience, find a way to push your book in front of that audience once your book is written. Their readers are yours–there’s no point reinventing the wheel. Someone already did that, so why make more work for yourself?

It’s possible to turn this into a career. What steps can you take in 2024 to do that? Stay hungry. Never give up. One day you’ll reap the rewards. You just have to hang on there long enough.

Happy 2024!

books i’ve written and published (so far) since 2020

Thursday Author Update

Posted on December 21, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

I thought I would write quick update being that this will be the last one of 2023. Next Monday on Christmas Day I’ll post my year-end recap and on New Year’s Day, I’ve decided to take the day off. After that, I’ll post what I want to accomplish in 2024 and fall back into my usual posting schedule.

Mainly all I’ve been doing is editing my King’s Crossing series. I got through number one and added almost two thousand words. Some of the scenes were sparse and I filled them in. That is what is happening with book two–I’m only halfway through and have already added 1500 words. It’s really interesting reading these since they were the first books I wrote when I switched to first person, but not only that, I can tell I pantsed a lot of the plot (she just said what?!). I’m going slower than I’d like, but I have to make sure these are the way I want them to be before I publish. Like my rockstars, I’m not going back to edit them ever again, and though I know perfection isn’t obtainable, I want to make sure they are done to the best of my ability. So even though I said I would like to start publishing them in March, I might not be able to do that. I was hoping to get through each book in two weeks’ time, but there are some chapters that are so long that it takes me days to get through them.

Which leads me to this question: How long should a chapter be?

My most recent chapter I edited was 14,000 words long. There is one chapter in one of the later books that is 21,000 words long, and no, I didn’t accidentally add a zero.

When I started with the idea of dual POV, I didn’t think much beyond that I simply knew what it was, that’s how contemporary romances were being written and that they were selling. I had read books in dual POV like Sylvia Day’s Crossfire Series, and I never thought much about length of chapters. As long as there is stuff going on that moves the plot along, and the chapters are fast-paced and don’t drag, why should it matter how long a chapter is? I’ve read a couple books where the book is “dual” but we don’t hear from the male POV for chapters into the book. There was one book I read that took so long to get to his, I wasn’t even sure if his POV was included and I almost did not finish (DNF). I like the man’s POV more than the woman’s and I always have. I think that reflects in my writing too, where I wouldn’t be surprised if there is more male POV in my books than female. Writing that made me curious, and here’s the breakdown of A Heartache for Christmas:

Sawyer’s POV: 54,114
Chapter one, 1,611
Chapter three, 3,681
Chapter five, 8,152
Chapter seven, 7,266
Chapter nine, 4,894
Chapter eleven, 10,691
Chapter thirteen, 4,354
Chapter fifteen, 10,305
Chapter seventeen, 3,160

Evie’s POV: 43,050
Chapter two, 878
Chapter four, 5,907
Chapter six, 4,355
Chapter eight, 6,302
Chapter ten, 6,772
Chapter twelve, 8,930
Chapter fourteen, 2,750
Chapter sixteen, 7,156

As you can see, I started writing long chapters and never stopped. I gave Sawyer 11,064 more words, but in this case, it makes sense because he was solving a mystery and needed the page time. This also goes along with how I used to write my 3rd person books. I never wrote in chapters, only scene breaks, and then I would chop up my book in editing. I couldn’t think in chapters and maybe I still don’t. I end a POV when it needs to be ended and not any sooner to stay in line with some arbitrary chapter-length rule. Because if you have a POV that needs five chapters to be told, why are you cutting up that POV? It doesn’t make any sense, but then, I guess you don’t have a 95k word book with only sixteen chapters in it. Is there a wrong way? I think the only wrong way cutting up something into such small parts is if the reader doesn’t have time to get invested. Your readers have to care about your characters–that’s nonnegotiable. They can’t do that if they’re not given the time to do so.

Anyway, so when I’m dealing with a 14,000 word chapter where parts need to be beefed up a bit here and there and then I have to go back and read, not only to make sure I didn’t add any typos but to make sure that what I added blends into what was previously there and what came before it, then yeah, the editing process slows way down. Unfortunately. But, on the bright side, I am still loving these books, and I’m enjoying the process. These will probably be the biggest project I’ll ever tackle. I’m not really interested in writing this big of a project again, and I have no idea how these are going to be received. I hope these sell well, even boost-my-career-to-the-next-level well, but these will take a time and money commitment from a potential reader and you just never know. No one wants to write books that no one will read, and there are no guarantees.

As for what else I’m doing, that series will consume all my attention, my every free second, until they’re done. I’m still aware I need to redo their covers too, as the more I read these books the more convinced I am that the covers they have now don’t and won’t do them justice. I’ve been playing with hiring GetCovers to do them. They are inexpensive and after I get my tax refund in February could afford to cover six books, but I’ve heard you get the best results if you find the elements (stock photos) you want them to use. Finding the male models is what takes the longest and if I’m going to do that on my own, I might as well do the whole thing myself. But I have plenty of time to play with that–I just need to remind myself that experimenting with cover concepts is just as important as the editing. Thank God the blurbs are done, though I’ll go over them one more to be sure they sound okay.

Be sure to check next week for my year-end recap. My rockstars boosted me up a bit, so hopefully I’ll have more to report. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas if you celebrate! I’m having my sister and ex-husband over and I’m cooking turkey, cheesy hashbrowns (we had mashed potatoes and gravy for Thanksgiving), green bean casserole, and the yummy cheddar biscuits from Red Lobster you can buy as a mix. It will be a small meal, but difficult to orchestrate as everything needs oven time and I only have one. Oh well. It will work out. I managed on Thanksgiving.

One last thing before I sign off for this week…there has been lots said about Bryan Cohen and his free Amazon ads course that he hosts. Some call him a scammer and only wants to recruit people into his Amazon Ads School, some say he doesn’t know what he’s talking about when it comes to Amazon ads, (calling his method throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks) some say if he’s not selling books not to listen to him (something I don’t believe because a lot more goes into selling books than knowing how to use an ad platform) but I’ve joined in with the challenge many times, and if you want a free way to learn Amazon ads, Bryan is the one to teach you to do it. There are many strategies to experiment with when it comes to Amazon ads, or any ad platform for that matter, and Bryan teaches you one way. For free. He goes into a lot more than just how to set up an ad. He goes through and makes sure you understand if your book is ready to throw money at it (and a lot of times people find out the answer is no) and teaches you how to write hooks and more. I’m not saying his way is the end-all, be-all way. There are plenty of people out there who do ads like Robert Ryan, Janet Margo, and Ricardo Fayet (from Reedsy), but if you join in with the challenge, you have a ton of help and people to bounce ideas off of in the Facebook group. You can use Bryan’s free course as a springboard for getting your feet wet, and then move on to other strategies by other people. Anyway, so I just wanted to throw that out there, and if you were planning to learn Amazon Ads in 2024, then you can sign up for Bryan’s course that’s starting on January 17th and decide for yourself if his spaghetti deserves a plate at your table. You can sign up here. https://learn.bestpageforward.net/jan24/ (These are not affiliate links.)

Enjoy the rest of the week and have a restful weekend!

Reading for pleasure and other things I should be doing

Posted on December 11, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

After a chat with a friend, I realized how little I read for pleasure (well, I knew that, but she makes time to read and I…don’t). I used to love to read–I think most writers have been (or still are) voracious readers at some point, but like a lot of writers too, the moment I sat down to write my own books, reading for pleasure took a backseat.

There are a couple of reasons for this but the biggest one is that there isn’t a lot of time. Once you hop on the indie merry-go-round, it takes incredible willpower jump off. I’ve been running on it since 2016 chasing after that elusive brass ring that seems farther and farther away with every rotation. Doing anything that’s not working on my books feels like a waste of time (and needless to say, it’s what I enjoy doing most when I’m not working) and I know what a dangerous mindset that can be. Deep in my heart I know as a writer (and as a person, really) you need to experience new things, new ideas, meet new people. What is that saying?

desk with old typewriter, espresso cup, camera, notebook and flowers. Text reads, “In order to write about life first you must live it.”

— Ernest Hemingway

This isn’t exactly an argument for writing what you know, but it kind of is, too. I went to Santa Barbara, California, for a writing conference… five years ago I think now. I’ve seen the ocean many times, in Florida and I once went to Cancún for spring break, but until you see the coasts in person, you don’t realize how different they are. It surprised the hell out of me that the Atlantic Ocean was cold. I’ve swam in the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico, but in June, in Santa Barbara, there was no way I would have jumped in (and this is from a woman who’s swam in Minnesota lakes). I was also surprised by how chilly it got in the evenings. I was expecting the Floridian heat and humidity, and I was pleasantly surprised. Fast forward to this year when I wrote my rockstars and Olivia moved to Malibu for the summer to help Sheppard. She was from Minnesota and had never been to California before. It was so much fun to push my experiences into her life. I never would have been able to do that had I not traveled to California for that conference. I met a lot of nice people, scooted out of my comfort zone, and learned a few things too. But, I took the time to do it, something that seems unfathomable now.

Reading has fallen to the faraway wayside, and I need to get back to it. Not only because I enjoy reading, but because you can learn from another person’s writing style, vocabulary, and their own experiences they put into their books. It’s important as a writer to read, especially in your genre so you understand reader expectations, tropes, and what readers are enjoying. I think taking this approach will help me read more. I’ve always been a sucker for research, diving into hours of YouTube videos to write Captivated by Her and looking up plane crashes like JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette’s, when I wrote the series I’m editing now. I can still get sucked into looking at photos of them and reading about their crash. Even when I wrote my rockstars, I watched Lady Gaga’s documentary on Netflix and read Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Daisy Jones and the Six and watch the series on Prime. I probably should have read more rockstar romances before writing my trilogy–I’m lucky they’re meeting reader expectations for that subgenre (At least, I think they are. I haven’t heard otherwise). Do you know the book I fell back on when the plot of Twisted Alibis landed in my lap? An old Nora Roberts standalone about a rock band called Public Secrets. Copyrighted in 1998, I read it many years ago, and no, I didn’t reread it when I was plotting my books.

Photo taken from Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Public-Secrets-Novel-Nora-Roberts/dp/0553285785

I probably shouldn’t feel like I need to look at reading as research, but I think I’m going to have to. I want to read, I used to enjoy it, and I had no trouble reading the book I mentioned in a previous blog post, or the one that came after that. It’s a mind thing, thinking that if I’m not working on my own books (or making graphics for them) I’m wasting time.

There are a ton of other things I want to do–shows to watch, cleaning, putting together bookshelves and weeding out books like the publishing books I bought years ago that are obsolete now. I said I was going to take December off, but I have no idea where that delusion came from–I want to get this series put up because I am really looking forward to writing new books. BUT, I need to research them so I can do the mafia subgenre justice. I need balance, but I feel like there’s lava on one side and a pool full of piranha on the other. I know working only on my own books isn’t good for me, or even my books, but damned if I can slow down for even a minute.

And to make matters worse, I’m not even all that fast. Most of the books I published this year I’d held back, so I wasn’t even really writing for a lot of 2023. Then you hear of the indies who do this full-time who say, “Oh, well, I published 8 books this year, but it was a slow year for me. I usually do 10-12,” and you don’t want to get left behind. What’s funny though, is I’m already behind, so the idea of being left there is just a figment of my imagination.

The bottom line is, I like working on my own stuff too much. All things should be enjoyed in moderation, but unfortunately, I started working on my series, and I honestly won’t stop to do anything else now until they’re ready to go. Tenacity and dedication can help you succeed, but I think you can appreciate it more fully if you take time out.

Not to mention, it’s nice to know what everyone is talking about on social media when it comes to the hottest new thing. It helps you join in the conversation, which is why I started watching Bridgerton in the first place. I wanted to know what all of Romancelandia was talking about. If you don’t know, that’s a different way to get left behind. Also, knowing who does what when will help you build your brand. If you’re an author, promoting books like yours can help build your platform. That’s where breaking out of the #writingcommunity can come in handy. You don’t want to only recommend your friends’ books. You might like reading other genres, but readers can be set in their ways and only read one thing. You can teach them to go to you for book recs and then when you have a new book out, you already have an audience who reads it.

Being this is the end of the year, I can put reading and “experiencing life” on my 2024 New Year’s Resolutions. There are also a lot of speakers I want to watch on YouTube from the 20Booksto50k conference last month. One of my resolutions is to get better with FB ads, and Mallory and Jill Cooper were there. As far as resolutions go, I’m paying off my car this week (YAY!!!), and instead of absorbing the payment into my monthly budget, I’m going to keep taking it out and save up for a BookBub featured deal. I think it’s time I start applying for those, but a Contemporary Romance spot is 665 dollars. I’ll have to save up for four months, but I think my backlist and my pen name are ready for that kind of boost. I have no doubt that my rockstars would give me the read through I need to recoup my fee. But all my resolutions would make for a good post next month, so I’ll stop there.

Next week I have my guest author interview. My year-end wrapup will fall on Christmas Day, but I’ll write it the weekend prior and schedule it. I can’t believe how fast December is going, but I’m hoping to get through book two before the New Year. It’s taking me a bit longer than I had anticipated to get through book one. I’ve read these so many times by now, and yeah, book one is a little slow because it’s setting up the next five books. There’s still stuff going on, but nothing is new to me and I’m dragging my feet. I’ve added 2,000 words already and I have 5 chapters left to go. Mainly just filling in some scenes that read too stark. I’m happy with the changes, and I’ll be very confident putting these out.

That’s all I have for this week. Read something that doesn’t have your name on it, haha.

Until next time!

Author Update…Happy December!

Posted on December 4, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time!

Monday’s Author Update

Posted on November 27, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time!

Brief Author Update and KDP Changes

Posted on November 13, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enjoy your week, everyone!

Monday Author Update

Posted on September 25, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

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

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

made with Canva using stock photos from DepositPhotos.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on September 18, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Author Update and how I’m liking TikTok

Posted on September 4, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

bed flat: tray with coffee and wallet, a bouquet of roses, watch, and laptop on a navy blue pin-striped throw. Text says: author update

Things are about the same here, and as usual, I don’t have much news. I’m still not done with my Christmas novel despite saying I wanted to be done by the end of August, but I only have about ten thousand words left to finish it up. I helped a friend edit her book and that set me back, but my feet have always dragged toward the end of a book anyway. I want to get the ending just right, and while I’m always looking forward to the next project, it’s difficult to say goodbye.

I’ve been having mixed feelings about being on TikTok, mostly because I’m still learning and I’m resentful it takes time to learn things. I don’t know the platform well yet, and I’m more comfortable on my laptop than I am on my phone, which I discovered prohibits me from using some of creating tools like templates. I am 100% about keeping things simple, my greatest takeaway from my HR classes was when my instructor said, “Don’t reinvent the wheel” so of course this probably means I should start using my phone to post and hope it doesn’t aggravate my carpal tunnel any more than it already is. Once I turned on the sound while I was scrolling and I felt like I was listening to someone on crack click through TV channels. I was overwhelmed with music, voices, and noise, and I don’t think I will scroll through TikTok with my sound up again. I like flipping through the book snippets and getting ideas for how to create my own. My first attempts at videos were poor, and anyone who watches them will see that, but I’m getting better and it helps that my friend Sami-Jo and I trade tips. It’s always easier to try things out with someone, and instead of being perfect, I’m just going to try to have fun.

Creating tiktoks aside, I need to get more familiar with some of the newer music, and it seems like Taylor Swift is a good place to start. But, I also need to watch more videos by authors who write more like me, because I’m not sure what hole I fell into (haha, no pun intended), but TikTok likes to show me snippets of female characters losing their virginity, forced pregnancy, threesomes, and plot points that are just not in my books (I don’t know if I’ll ever write a kidnapping book, but it seems like an interesting trope to try). This isn’t a judgment, of course, but picking up tips from authors who write about 18 year olds who are married off by their fathers and losing their “v-cards” in dubious consent sex scenes won’t have the same kinds of videos I want to make. So while indie romance is broken into subgenres, so is indie marketing… at least on TikTok, and that is a lane I do not want to stray from.

I launched Twisted Alibis on August 28th, and the feedback I’ve been hearing is good. Booksprout reviews are not coming in the way they should be, and I’m thinking that maybe the books were too long for certain readers and they bailed after all (which does not bode well for my Christmas novel which will come in around 100k). I’ve found some great fans using Booksprout, but as it’s a business expense, I have to weigh the cost with the return on investment. I did veer off from my billionaire stuff, subgenre hopping like I said I wouldn’t do, so maybe the audience I’ve been cultivating since I published Rescue Me last year wasn’t interested. I’ll be going slightly off-brand again when I publish my Christmas novel, as I know not everyone likes holiday romance. Honestly, I can only write what I want to write, and my rockstars will find readers somewhere even if all the readers who claimed copies don’t review.

I broke even last month with royalties vs. ad spend, my Amazon ads taking off in a way they usually don’t, much to my wallet’s regret. But, I turned off the more expensive ones, and my spend won’t be as much this month. My FB ads are doing pretty good, especially the one that’s advertising my reader magnet (at a whopping .11 per click, that ad is cheaper than any Amazon ad I’ve ever ran). I gave that book away 246 times and gained 151 new subscribers. Due to ads and links in the backs of my books (I grab about 5 organic signups a month) I have 647 subscribers. My open rate hangs in at about 35% so we’ll see how they like being on my list in the coming months. I’ll have a lot of news to share.

Twisted Alibis didn’t have a strong launch despite running Amazon and FB ads, but a first in series, in my experience, never does well until all the books are out, so the true test will be how sales are after the third book releases on the 11th. I didn’t plan my release dates well–Labor Day and the anniversary of 9/11–but I’m hoping neither of those things interferes much with how the books do.

I’ve been trying to post more on IG and my FB author page in general, and I have no idea if that is helping sales, but people know I’m alive at least, which is more than I can say in prior months, or years for that matter. I never realized how little I posted, but it does help I don’t spend any time on Twitter anymore. My time has to go somewhere, and surprisingly, I do enjoy scrolling through silent TikTok and Instagram looking at ways I can create videos and graphics for my own books.

The one thing I have learned not being on Twitter anymore is that it is still difficult for me not to mix my writing with my books–assembly vs. finished product, I guess you can say. I’m thankful I have this blog post to share nonfiction ideas like marketing strategies, how my ads do, and what’s going on when it comes to indie news. It’s easy to want to talk about writing on TikTok, but I have to keep reminding myself that readers don’t care how you write your books, what your weekly word count goal is, what your latest marketing strategy is, or how many hours of scrolling you did to find a man for your cover. (Cover reveals and unboxings, yes, how many times Mr. Five O’Clock Shadow has been on a book cover, no.) It’s a mindshift, for sure, but one I’m enjoying. I think it’s made me slow down a little and have more of an appreciation for my books, at least, I like posting about my rockstar trilogy. Finding new ways to write ad copy and digging for snippets and hooks to share is something I’ve never taken time to do because once a book is published, I don’t tend to think about it anymore. That’s not a great way to sell backlist titles, and I’m still struggling with a “schedule” so I can organize how to create content and when to share it.

But things are moving along–at least, I don’t feel like I did two years ago before I started publishing 1st person POV and niching down. I still think that was a good move and even if I am breaking even with ads, I’m selling books. Building a readership takes time, but I think I finally found the right path.

I hope you all have a wonderful Labor Day! Have a good week!

Until next time!

Author Update (not much going on)

Posted on August 21, 2023 by Vania Margene Rheault

orange flowers tied with brown and white polka dotted ribbon. text says author update, end of the summer news, and what i'm doing for the rest of the year

I really don’t have too much to say this week. I’m at 77k on my Christmas novel, close to being done, but not quite wrapping it up. If I had to guess, I think I still have about 15k-20k, but I’m not sure. Since I already have so many words, it can be as long as it needs to be to finish. At this point, I don’t care–it will just be nice to be done so I can breathe. I was playing around with the cover again, and I’m happy with what I have. That takes some pressure off since covers are my nemesis and I never feel good about a project until I can pin one down.

I don’t have any plans to write anything more this year, instead I’ll be using September and October to edit and package this book and do some things around the apartment that I should have done years ago, and in November and December, celebrate birthdays and the holidays and spend time with family. After that break, I’ll be diving headlong into my 6 book series–the first first-person books I wrote during lockdown in 2020 when I decided to pivot and write under a pen name. I haven’t read through them in a long time, and I haven’t looked over feedback from my proofer, so there might be a little work involved getting them out. There’s no publishing schedule for those yet, but I’ll have published 8 books this year, so I think I deserve a little time off.

Reviews for my rockstar trilogy are coming in from Booksprout and the few I have are favorable. It’s always a gamble writing something a little off genre, a little off trope (say, oh, I don’t know, a baby-for-the-billionaire trope with no baby) and that’s what my rockstars are. I have a difficult time incorporating what my characters’ occupations are with the main story, the romance the main focus of any of my books. Once when I was getting feedback for a blurb and cover in an FB group, one person said, just because you call them billionaires doesn’t mean they’re billionaire books, and well, guilty as charged. My rockstars are rockstars, but I have no idea how much their stories would have changed had I made them something else. I didn’t read any in the genre before I wrote them, so how they measure up to other rockstar novels is anyone’s guess. The book I’m writing now, the main male character who’s a billionaire, could be anybody. In fact, when I plotted this book years ago, he was a private investigator, and honestly, the story hasn’t changed that much. I don’t know if veering off hurts or helps–I certainly don’t look at my reviews to find out.

I’m on TikTok–not posting enough to get anywhere, but having fun and learning new things in Canva. Making videos is different, that’s for sure, time consuming figuring things out. I’m slowly learning, though, my videos are far from perfect. Between Canva and the tools TikTok has, I’ve posted a few to get the feel of it. I don’t mind showing my face, and the author copies I ordered for page flipping videos came a couple weeks ago. My main project when I finish this book is to set up bookshelves to have a more professional background behind me and to buy a cell phone stand for things like unboxing videos. I’ll be able to film one when my rockstars are completely live and I order author copies of the trilogy in a couple of weeks.

Here is a video I made, and I can see why people like TikTok–it has 246 views. I know that’s nothing on that platform, but with all the time I’ve spent on FB, Twitter, and IG, it’s pretty amazing to me.

@vaniarheault
Rescue Me, a standalone, one night stand, billionaire romance. #billionaireromance #romancenovels #onenightstandtrope #onenightstandromance
♬ Angel – Sarah McLachlan

One thing I’m not going to film is an empty KDP sales dashboard. I was scrolling TikTok, they have a For You tab and a Following tab like Twitter, and someone posted a video of their empty dashboard. I thought not being on Twitter anymore would stop me from having to see stuff like that, but I guess authors like bragging they have no sales. I really wish I could tell authors that it does the exact opposite of what you want it to do. When I see an empty dashboard, the last thing I want to do is check out that author. To me, if you’re not selling books, I think it’s because your books are bad or you’re not doing enough to market them, and that’s not a reader’s responsibility. In the amount of time it took that author to create that video, they could have made something positive. There are so many examples of videos that you never have to run out of ideas. It’s no one’s business if you’re not selling books, and if you’re not, do something about it. Yuck.

That’s really about all I have. I started my Facebook ad for newsletter sign ups again and in two days I’ve given away 35 copies of my reader magnet and have had 18 newsletter signups (you don’t have to sign up to download my reader magnet because I hate the hard sell), and I started my Facebook ad for Rescue Me again after my own sales slump (see I did something about it!) and my books are selling again. I think after this book is done and I take a break, I’ll dive deeper into Facebook ads. They might spend my money just a little faster, but the cost per click is lower, and I seem to grab more sales there than Amazon ads. To be fair, all my Amazon ads are old, and I know ads can grow stale. Killing some and creating more would probably help. But what I should really do is write some good ad copy for my trilogies, put the first ones on sale for .99 and see what kind of royalties that read-through will bring in. Selling Rescue Me for .99 has given me some traction, but I only earn 35% royalties on it, and after paying for a click, I don’t bring in much. I know it’s not all about the sales all the time, and I hope I’m finding readers and they’re subscribing to my newsletter when they’re done reading the book.

The marketing game is long, but I’m still doing better this year than I ever have before, and that gives me hope I’m on the right track.

This week my daughter starts her senior year in high school, and I’ll be getting used to a new routine, again. Summer went by in a flash, and I don’t feel like there was much summer at all. I rarely sat on my balcony and baked my brains out, and besides a road trip to Bismarck, ND, and a trip to the zoo last week, we didn’t do anything. My daughter is turning 18 on November 18th, so we’re going down to the Twin Cities for a couple days to celebrate. I’ll have had plenty of ups this year, so I’m going to use the time to celebrate my own wins in 2023. I may not be making enough to quit my job, (or even drop my hours) but you need to celebrate the little things or it’s easy to get burnt out. I’m sure I’ll post again next Monday, but until then, have a great rest of your month!

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Vania Margene Rheault

Independent Contemporary Romance Author & Blogger

Tag Archives: author update

My Year-End Recap and What’s Ahead in 2024

Thursday Author Update

Reading for pleasure and other things I should be doing

Author Update…Happy December!

Monday’s Author Update

Brief Author Update and KDP Changes

Monday Author Update

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

Author Update and how I’m liking TikTok

Author Update (not much going on)

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