Words: 1627
Time to read: 9 minutes
Before I get into my post for this week, I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has given me their time reading this blog. I just posted my 500th post, and I have over 700 subscribers. I appreciate anyone who has stopped by, even if it’s just to grab the directions on how to make a full wrap paperback cover in Canva. I’m delighted, truly, that those instructions have helped so many people, and in doing so, brought their dreams of publishing their books one step closer. I know how hard it is to publish without resources, and I am grateful to be a part of anyone’s journey.
In January alone, my updated instructions have been viewed 235 times, and almost 3,000 times since I published it in the summer of 2022. Thank you so much.
I don’t have an author update, but for lack of anything better to title my blog, there it is. I have the hardest time coming up with “clickable” subject lines. I really struggle with my newsletter, too, trying to sound cute and funny, sexy and intriguing, and everything in between so people will open my newsletter and not empty it out with the social and unwanted promotions. You would think that people would unsubscribe if they didn’t want your mail in their inbox, but at the same time, I think I have to delete something for a whole year before I get tired of it enough to open it up and find the unsubscribe link. Maybe they feel guilty they took my free book and think that unsubscribing will hurt my feelings. What I know of the backend of newsletters now, I actively encourage anyone who has subscribed to my newsletter to click that unsubscribe the second they don’t to be on my list anymore. Because you know what? An unsubscribe doesn’t hurt my feelings, but a low open rate does, haha. Okay, so that’s my intro for this post.
Editing my series is slow going, and I blame two things: I’m already so familiar with the story that it’s a drag to read it over again, and these books need work. I’m at one part now where one character is in a room talking to another character and then boom he’s somewhere else a paragraph later. I need him in both places so having to rewrite that scene is kind of a pain, though, to be fair, I’m glad I caught the inconsistency to fix it in the first place. But still. This is what I’m dealing with and being kind of, I shouldn’t say, but I will, bored, isn’t helpful. I don’t believe in belittling your content in public. I think it’s a bad omen to put derogatory comments about your books online. You never know who will be reading, and if the author him/herself isn’t confident about his or her work, then why would anyone want to read it? I love these books, and I do try remind myself that I should enjoy the editing because once I read the proofs as a final check, I won’t be reading them ever again. Though I complain now, it will be bittersweet to say goodbye to characters I will have spent three and a half years with.
So while I should be trying to get these edited as quickly as possible, it was a nice surprise when someone asked me to help her with her series covers and I jumped into the project with both feet and a big sigh of relief. It’s been a welcome break to scroll through stock and experiment with the fonts and the design. I’ll let her do the cover reveals, and maybe after they’re done we can do a collaborative post about working together and bringing an author’s ideas to fruition. I have worked with enough people by now that I know I would never want to do covers for other people as a side hustle. I’m not a perfectionist by any means, but when you’re doing something for someone else, you want to give them the best product possible. It can be stressful, especially if your skills aren’t there like mine. She knows I don’t do this professionally and was okay with that. It doesn’t mean I’m not going to do my absolute best or that I won’t try to stretch my skills. It’s why I like helping others in the first place. Whatever I do for someone else can only help me and my covers later on.
I finally heard about my car and will be driving a rental this week while my bumper is getting fixed. It will be a relief to get that out of the way. Finding the damage and having to make arrangements to have it repaired has been stressful and just when I cross something off the list and I think my life will calm down a bit, something else pops up. Lately after work I’ve been decompressing with a glass of wine and rewatching Bridgerton, but I should be using those hours to edit my series. I know I can’t give them the attention they deserve if I’m stressed out and tired, but the lack of progress is still in the back of my mind and I truly will relax and celebrate when they’re all done. This is my biggest project to date, and I don’t think I have it in me to work on something so huge again.
That’s really about all I have for this week–I know you’ll be shocked that this isn’t another 2,000 word post. Oh, wait. I had a BargainBooksy last week, and you probably want to know how that went. I probably shouldn’t even bother with posting the results because they weren’t great. I always blame the operator, not the machine, so I’m not sure what quite happened. My cover, even after redoing it, maybe didn’t hit the mark, or the blurb wasn’t that enticing. Whatever it was, I only sold 10 on the day the promo ran and 53 over all for the month of January so far because I’m also running a Facebook ad to it. At .99 that doesn’t bring in a lot of royalties, and I’m counting on read-through to the other books to make up that 35% rate on KDP. This is what my feature looked like in the BargainBooksy email. You can say the model I chose still isn’t conventionally handsome, and maybe.
I’ve seen less attractive men on covers, so, like I said, I’m not sure what happened. Written Word Media doesn’t share the click through rate, so it could be I had many clicks and readers didn’t like my whole blurb. I would hate think that these have already peaked, but if they have, I don’t know how to bump them up without spending a lot of money I probably won’t get back. The book has 90 reviews and a 4.4 rating, so it’s not that. I don’t know. I’ve heard overall that newsletter promos like this have lost their luster, but if that’s really the case, then I’m not sure what indies can do besides picking up the TikTok mantel and forging on. Newsletter promos used to be a sure way to nudge your book up the charts and into readers’ hands. I’ll dig deeper, but I can only afford to experiment so often. Facebook ads are expensive, (I’m not losing money, but you still have to budget in that expense) and I’ve been pouring all my budget into those right now. The one for Twisted Alibis has taken off and it has a lot of social proof:
That ad keeps my trilogy selling at a steady, not huge, but steady pace. I haven’t put the first book on a promo yet. I’m reluctant to do so since they’re selling okay without. Maybe at the end of next summer I can do the first one for free for their anniversary.
Anyway, I’ll report the 90 dollars I spent as a business expense to my tax guy and keep on keeping on. There’s not much else I can do. (Well, there is a lot can do but I need to get a few financial things off my plate first before I can try shoving money at a different promo.)
One of the things I was saying I missed most is going for walks and listening to podcasts. BookBub sent me an email with a list of podcasts for writers and authors, and they segmented them by marketing, craft, industry insights, and author life.
Here is the link for the post: https://insights.bookbub.com/podcasts-authors-writing-publishing-book-marketing/
Starting a new podcast is difficult. If you’re like me, you like to start something new at the beginning, but in the publishing industry, old news isn’t always the best news. Plus, if the podcasts have had a long run, there could be hundreds of episodes to listen to. I think I’d like to start a podcast about industry insights, and if I sample a couple, I’ll let you know which ones I like best. As long as it’s above 0 degrees Fahrenheit, I don’t mind being outside, and walking and listening to publishing news is probably better for my mental health than drinking and watching Netflix. I know you need a break every now and then, but as I’ve said, immersing myself in books is what saved me the past few years. If I can get some answers at Mayo next month, I can enjoy all things publishing again instead of using them as a coping mechanism.
I hope you all have a good week, and let me know if you try a new podcast!
Until next time!
Vania Margene Rheault 