Tag Archives: indie-publishing

Monday Author Update

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2,052 words
11 minutes read time

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three Things I’ve Stopped Doing (and Three Things I Always Will)

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2,645 words
14 minutes read time

brown scale on brown background. low part says, three things I stopped doing (ampersand) and high part says, three things I always will black text

Things change in indie publishing. Some quickly, like Amazon guidelines, and some take years to shift, like marketing trends. I’ve been in this game for a bit now, longer than a lot of people I met when I first started out, but shorter than some of the tried and trues I knew who were doing this for years already when I first created my Twitter account.

I have found the longer you stay in the game, the more data you’re going to collect (if you’re smart and keep track). What works, what doesn’t. What did but doesn’t anymore. There are some basic things that will always have merit like publishing consistently, having a website, and, in most cases, not genre-hopping if you want to build an audience. But there are some things that just don’t work anymore, like just simply publishing and watching the royalties roll in as they did during the Kindle goldrush days.

So, I thought I’d share the three things I’ll always do and three things I stopped doing. As the years go by and I hang in there, this list might change, but these are the conclusions I’ve drawn so far since I published my first book in 2016.

Three things I’ll always do in my publishing business:

Finish a duet/trilogy/series before release. I’ve blogged about this a few times, as for most authors this is a Catch-22. Some readers now won’t read until a series is done and they can binge, but an author is reluctant to write more unless they see interest in the first book. What will always convince to me to finish is the fact that if your series is never done, it will never get the readers it could if it was finished. Books don’t expire. In the digital landscape they can sit on a virtual bookshelf for decades. Indies make money on older titles all the time, but you are ensuring that you won’t if you don’t finish. My reasons go beyond the money, even beyond author courtesy and reader habits. I finish out of a sense of integrity for myself and my work. I mean, I don’t publish as I go because I have anxiety over consistency issues that I couldn’t fix if my books were already out in the world. I’m not that good of a writer, so I need to be able to go back and double-check until I’m satisfied. But I also just couldn’t walk away from a world and characters I created. I loved them or wouldn’t have created them in the first place. I’ll always stay true to that creative spark and finish what I start.

Marketing in a way that’s sustainable to me without feeling guilty. That means letting go of the idea I need to be on social media. I don’t like thinking of a hook or a theme and making a graphic and posting. I don’t want to make videos for TikTok even if I have gotten better at it and it doesn’t take me that long. I still post every once in a while so if a reader stumbles upon my FB author page or my IG profile I look like I’m still alive, but otherwise, the constant advice that I need to be posting all the time I will happily ignore. The fact is, a lot of authors don’t have the money or don’t want to spend the money on marketing. I understand that, but paying for ads and for newsletters like Freebooksy and Fussy Librarian is my way of reaching readers without worrying about algorithms or coming up with content and the best way to present it. If I run an FB ad, that’s my limit, since you do need a hook and a graphic that will make people click.

I understand that in a perfect world, an author will use both paid and free tools to market effectively. But when mental health comes in, not to mention time and finances, each author has to make the best choices for them. Even if that’s not posting on socials, not paying for marketing tools, and only joining in a free, author-driven book blast once a year. You have to take a look at what results those methods are bringing in and if you’re okay with that. After a lot of soul-searching, I am okay with breaking even or losing money. I didn’t start publishing to become rich and famous, and that’s okay because I never will be. (I still play the PowerBall sometimes though.)

I will always buy my own ISBNs. This is kind of a cheat, because I already made this decision, and four years ago I bought a pack of 100–after I had already bought a pack of ten and went through them. It cost as much as my rent (at the time–my rent has gone up considerably since then) and I was sweating bullets, but I charged it and paid it off after a few months. I have been called privileged for being able to do that, and you might think I’m privileged to be able to afford ads and paid promos, too. I don’t feel privileged, living paycheck to paycheck, depending on the rent money my kids give me every month, and I still have to charge bigger purchases, like the new mattress I had to buy a few months ago for my back pain. I have a small budget for ads and don’t pay myself a wage out of my royalties. Every penny I make on book sales gets put back into my business hobby. I think that’s another reason authors are hesitant to pay for things like ISBNs and ads. They don’t always make their money back because they don’t write to market or their covers are bad, but I have never seen any industry besides indie publishing where people think they can start a business and not spend any money.

Not everyone will agree that buying ISBNs is a valid expense, and that’s okay. Amazon may not be around forever and neither may IngramSpark, though chances are good they’ll still be here in my lifetime at least. But, I wanted to protect my work under numbers that I paid for and now I’m the publisher on record for my titles. That means a lot to me. I protect both my ebooks and my paperbacks, even when the general consensus is you don’t need an ISBN for your ebooks. I still have quite a few numbers left, even using two a title, and well, I don’t think I’ll need to buy anymore. Obviously, buying ISBNs is a personal business decision but I have never regretted mine.

Bonus Entry:

I will always be a member of ALLi. This is something that I thought of last minute, but I’ll always be a member of the Alliance of Independent Authors. As someone running a business, I think it’s important to be part of an organization that will have your back. I mostly joined so I would have help if Amazon ever closed my account. There are a lot of other benefits too, like discount codes on formatting and publishing services, and I save a little every now and then if I have to update a file at IngramSpark. While it seems like a waste of money on the outside, paying for something that you don’t use (like an old gym membership that’s on autopay) it will be there whenever I need it and in these days of scammers and thieves, having some who’s in your corner is worth more than what they charge for a yearly membership.

Three things I have stopped doing since I started publishing:

Building and sending out a newsletter. Last year when MailerLite screwed me over when I was trying to make my newsletter compliant, I said “fuck it” and shut my newsletter down. I didn’t want to search for another newsletter aggregator and I exported my listed and imported it into my author website. I decide I would turn my newsletter into a public blog, and so far, things have been going okay.

There are a lot of disadvantages to this, to be sure. I can’t offer “bonus content” because what I post goes to everyone. Segregation of an email list isn’t possible on WordPress, nor is culling my subscribers. They have to opt out or my list is stuck with them. I can still force people to give me their emails if they want my reader magnet, but I would have to pay for that privilege on Bookfunnel and that’s not where I want to put my money right now.

So, as far as newsletters go, my blog is still sent out in email form but posted on my site and it will show up in the WordPress reader. People might think I’m crazy for giving away a book without strings, but what’s a book? I can always write another one. Kind of like when your hair stylist does a crappy job. Your hair will grow back. Eventually. Books are a dime a dozen and My Biggest Mistake has served me well. I’ve given away over a thousand copies, and because the back matter in all my books advertises this free book on my website, I’m afraid I’ve trapped myself into giving it away forever. My only ask is you subscribe to my blog, but that rarely happens. Still, I prefer the laid-back approach I’ve adopted since I’ve been working on not taking my books so seriously. I’ve given myself permission to relax, especially in the evenings after a full day. I’ve started watching Lucifer, because, you know. Tom Ellis.

This is one of those things that may change, but I’m not sure what would prompt me to move my list again. I like what I’m doing, and because I’m comfortable with WordPress, maintaining it isn’t a nightmare. In fact, I just refreshed the header, colors, and font on my author page. I hadn’t since I set it up and it looks nice. If you want to take a look around, you can find it here: vmrheault.com.

I’m getting rid of the hard back matter sell. A long time ago in a romance marketing room on Clubhouse, I heard the advice to do the “hard sell” right after the last paragraph of your book. There were all these little caveats, like you couldn’t even use a spacer or a hard enter because that would “force” the content on to the next “page” on an ereader. It was advised to put your call to action (CTA) practically right after the last period, and I did start doing that along with many many many authors. When I look back at my older books now, I hate it. I hate it, hate it, hate it, and I’ve been going through and getting rid of it. Why? Because after I have just read an amazing book, I want to sit with the happy ending, I want to sit with the characters who touched my heart. I don’t want to be yelled at to join a mailing list or to buy another book. So, while I was re-editing Rescue Me, I got rid the immediate CTA to go to my website. (I’ve always pointed people to my website and not a landing page, and that saved me a ton of headache when I stopped using MailerLite.) I didn’t get rid of it completely, but it’s on its own page now. Ebooks are flowable and don’t have pages, but I think a reader has to “flip” to see what else is in the back of the book after the content ends. I’m doing Faking Forever now, and along with updating my list of books, I’m also getting rid of the hard sell. I didn’t it do it on my new releases and that is a trend I’ll stick with. If readers loved your books they will find a way to stay in touch. Like moving my newsletter to my blog and cutting back on the number of books I’m publishing every year, I’m just going to ease up and stop trying so hard. Because you know what? It didn’t do that much anyway.

I’m not adding subtitles on my ebooks. That was another really popular thing to do, and I even wrote a blog post about it. I guess this goes along with the hard sell, and I’m not going to add subtitles to my ebooks anymore. I’m going to start letting my cover, title, and blurb speak for itself, and make sure my categories and keywords I choose when publishing do the heavy lifting. Adding a subtitle to your books was a very trendy thing to do to drive discoverability, and you may think that with market saturation that not doing it anymore might be going backward. But, Amazon doesn’t like it, either, and honestly, now I think shoving mini-tropes into a subtitle just looks desperate and ridiculous. So, as I update my books, along with taking out the hard CTA at the end, I’m going to be taking off the subtitles. It will make my buy-pages look cleaner. Am I telling you not to do it? No. Unless you really do want to be careful around Amazon, then maybe I would rethink that, but if you like to take chances and want to pack your subtitle full of mini-tropes, then you should still do what you want to do. This is the new and improved relaxed version, remember?

Bonus Entry:

I won’t ever use an illustrated cover. Obviously I was thinking about my hockey novels and the kind of covers I wanted to put on them. I don’t fault anyone for using an illustrated cover but I have just come to realize those are not for me. I understand the reasons why authors turn to them. There’s more of a selection when scrolling through vector art than there is real stock models and if you’re one to go with the trends, you don’t want to feel left out and think you could be leaving readers on the table. But at this point, illustrated covers would be at odds with the brand I’ve built for myself over the years, and if I can find what I need and there are still real people on the kinds of books I’m writing, then I don’t see any reason to change. I also have never, and probably will never, write a story light-hearted enough where an illustrated cover would fit, so instead of moaning about that, I’ll lean into my strengths and keep putting hot, sexy men on my covers.

When it comes to indie publishing, or just publishing in general, the ability to pivot and be flexible is probably one of the biggest assets you can have. Things change at a snail’s pace until all of a sudden everyone is talking about it and doing it a different way. What’s especially interesting is when things used to be the standard (like subtitles on ebooks) and that changes to something that no one does anymore.

I have extreme FOMO, I really do, but this year I have managed to brush a lot of that aside, for the most part because I think I know everything there is to know and there isn’t going to be a magic piece of advice that will push me to the next level. And that’s okay. Accepting that is actually freeing. I can do what I want, write what I want, and be happy with it. After the few years I’ve had, that is a really great place to be.

Next week I’ll give you a rundown on what I’ve been doing. July is almost gone, y’all. I hope you’re making the best of what’s left of summer.

See you next week!

The Evolution of the Romance Genre

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1,663 words
9 minutes read time

beige background. a flower in its growing cycle dirt, sprout, stem, bloom. red flowers, green stem, white pot. text says, The Evolution of the Romance Genre

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a kid.

That’s probably not a surprise to anyone who is also a writer, and many of us can say we’ve been writing stories since we learned how to hold a crayon. When I was in high school, I devoured Harlequin Temptations and Desires, finding them at garage sales, the library, and shoplifting them from Pamida. I got caught and my dad made me talk to the manager about how stealing was bad, but I was a kid who loved to read and was a kleptomaniac at heart and well, it didn’t stop me. That’s neither here nor there, but one night, I remember holding a book and thinking, I want to be in charge of it all. The cover, the blurb. All of it. What I didn’t realize back then is I was describing what would eventually become indie publishing. So, yeah. I am in charge of all of it. Down to where the numbers appear on the page.

That was thirty-five years ago or so, and I didn’t understand tropes. I chose books based off the blurb, if I thought I would enjoy the story. In fact, I don’t think I really understood tropes at all until I was assigned the difficult task of marketing my own books. It was through listening to romance marketing talks, webinars, and podcasts where I learned tropes are what sell your books. That was also a difficult realization for me because, like most writers, I just wrote what I wanted to write. My first trilogy was written without tropes in mind–I just made up a group of friends who lived in a fake town, gave them some trouble, and forced them to fall in love while navigating those troubles.

I don’t remember the precise “Ah-ha” moment I had regarding tropes, but I must have had it at some point because my next three standalones were all trope-specific–enemies to lovers, age-gap, and close proximity. Then I veered off again with my Rocky Point series and just wrote whatever I wanted, and if a trope was baked in, like second chance, yay for me.

So you can imagine my confusion when, after seven years of publishing, I realized, yet again, romance was becoming even further divided than just tropes and that I would never be a successful indie author writing “contemporary romance” because romance didn’t work like that anymore.

Indies were changing the game.

There’s an interesting interview that Nora Roberts did not long ago with the Associated Press, and she was talking about her career in romance. She’s written over 250 books and has seen firsthand how the romance genre has evolved, going so far to even say, “My roots are in romance and I have a lot of respect. But I don’t write romance anymore. I do write relationships.”

AP: Speaking of the sex, that’s a good transition to romance as a genre. It has evolved a lot in the last couple of years. Where do you see yourself in the pantheon of that genre?

Roberts: I don’t at all. My roots are in romance and I have a lot of respect. But I don’t write romance anymore. I do write relationships.

I’ve been writing for a really long time now, and the romance genre evolves and it changes. And it did when I was working in it, and it just got to a point where I didn’t want to go where it was evolving. I wanted to go in a different direction. So my roots and foundation are there, and gratitude. But that’s not what I’m doing now.

That’s a great way to look at it . . . if you’re Nora Roberts and not a nameless, faceless author trying to find readers in market so saturated it’s tempting to close your laptop and never look back. She has her audience and has built it over years of publishing. So where does that leave the rest of us?

There are indie publishing “rules” and one of the biggest rules of them all is to never genre-hop. There’s some logic in that–it’s hard enough to market your books when you’re writing in just one genre, never mind trying to reach readers in two or three. But when you decide to write romance, that rule is split down even further. Choose a subgenre, and there are plenty:

screenshot of KDP's romance subcategories and subgenres subcategories include historical romance, holidays, LGBTQ+, paranormal and romantic suspense subgenres include: Action & Adventure Adaptations Alpha Male Amish Billionaires & Millionaires Black & African American Clean & WholesomeLater in Life Love Triangle Mafia Romance Medical History Multicultural and Interracial New Adult and College Romance Police Polymory Rockstar Romance Romantasy Romantic Comedy Science Fiction Small Town Romance Sports Time Trave Western and Frontier Workplace Romance Collections & Anthologies Contemporary
Enemies to Lovers Erotica Firefighters General Gothic Hispanic & Latino Indigenous

This is the screenshot of romance subgenres you can choose when you publish on KDP. They have narrowed them down so much you can pick something like Love Triangle or Workplace Romance. Ten years ago we didn’t have those choices, and it makes me wonder if they’re helping or hurting.

How niching down into a subgenre can help:

You have a built-in audience. You know before you write you’re going to have readers who want to read your books.
You can build your brand easier. Instead of saying you’re a “multi-genre author” and trying to turn your brand into something for everyone (which never works well and is expensive to market, too) you can say “Mafia romance author” and those readers will know they can plow through your entire backlist and be happy.
It’s easier to market. Just being able to choose your subgenre category and using the appropriate keywords will help immensely when it comes to creating ads. You can also partner with other authors who write that subgenre and share audiences.
Better discoverability. It’s a lot easier for a reader to recommend a hot new Small Town romance series than a general romance.

Cons to only writing one thing:

You might get bored. So far, I haven’t felt too burnt out writing Billionaire Romance, but what saved me was playing with tropes and adding in a dash of Romantic Suspense. Still, there’s not a lot of wiggle room when you choose something like Motorcycle Club. There’s a solid set of exceptions you have to meet to keep readers of that subgenre happy and not a lot of leeway to mix things up.
Your loyal readers won’t follow you. I’m fully aware that readers who liked my Billionaire stuff might not have read my Rockstar trilogy, and the readers who stumbled upon my Rockstars may not have wanted to read anything else in my backlist.
Your chosen niche might get saturated. Hockey is hot right now, and those who got in on the ground floor might be annoyed that suddenly the market is flooded. A while back Reverse Harem, or Why Choose as we have to call it now, went through the same popularity contest. You may have to pivot when that happens, and it might be too much work to start over.
Branding fatigue. All my covers look the same, though I actually don’t mind because with my limited skill set when it comes to graphic design and software, it’s easy for me to meet genre expectations but still keep my books and series separate and distinguishable from one another. But, I’m also trapped now because I put single men on the covers of my books and after sixteen books, a couple all of a sudden would look very out of place. Also, unless you can afford to be flexible, eventually you might use up all the hot men that are available on a stock site like DepositPhotos, trapping you even more.

So, what does all this even mean? Subgenres aren’t going to go away, in fact, chances are good KDP will add even more as time goes on, but I know from just my limited experience that niching down does help whether we want to admit it or not. It helps marketing and branding, for sure, and in turn it doesn’t take so much work to find readers. Anyone who looks at my Amazon author page knows exactly what they’re going to get, even if I do happen to throw in a rockstar or hockey player.

That doesn’t mean I’m always going to want to write billionaires, if even, you know, I’ve downgraded my billionaire status to simply, “Men with money.”

And what does that mean for romance? Readers aren’t picking romances off the Pamida shelves and deciding on which ones to stuff into their purses. They search online marketplaces like Amazon and Kobo by the tropes or subgenres they like, hope the cover catches their eye, then skim the blurb, looking to see if the description lives up to the cover. Subgenres have changed the way readers find books and I don’t know what we can do to combat that.

Writing what you want when you want in a time where indies niche down and produce six books a year is a tough act to follow and not everyone wants to. Some are steadfast in the idea that they’ll do their own thing, and it’s an idea that I keep circling around now that I’ve tried the other way and failed. I mean, to be clear, pivoting and writing Billionaire romance did boost my visibility and sales. Yes, it really did, but it wasn’t a magic bullet to a large readership, either, and in my case, I’m exploring other options to keep my joy.

I don’t know what the answer is. Maybe there is no answer because there’s not really a question. I just find it interesting how indies have shaped romance, even to the point where Nora Roberts has said, “Good luck.”

I can tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to keep writing the books I want. I like writing “Men with money” or I wouldn’t keep doing it, but I can play with tropes and different subgenres like Romantic Suspense. I can explore themes of mental health, friendships, and found family. Because the market is going to keep evolving and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.

I’m going to write relationships, and if you want to grab one off a pirate site, go for it. But be careful. Pamida’s manager wasn’t very nice.

Splitting Your Author Life in Two: Readers vs. Writers

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white background. black piece of torn paper. text says in black and white, splitting your author platform.

One of the biggest mistakes authors can make is trying to talk to everyone from the same place. Back when I first started publishing and writing my blog, I did this, and it actually took me years to figure out that not all readers are created equal. If you don’t know what I mean, let me explain.

It may not feel like it, but once you publish, your author life is suddenly split in two. You have your author pals who support you, maybe read your books (and that’s a big maybe), promote you on their socials that may or may not have readers in the audience, and after a while can even turn into accountability partners, alpha and beta readers, and friends. Then you have your readers, your actual readers who, if they are on social media at all, aren’t part of the #writingcommunity. They use socials for other things like connecting with family and reading articles about gardening, cooking, movies, and politics. Maybe they like their favorite authors’ Facebook author pages because that’s where they hear about new releases, giveaways, book boxes, and in-person events.

I came this realization a while back, and when I started my pen name, decided I needed to have a hub just for readers. To be honest, I didn’t want readers reading my nonfiction stuff anyway. I use this blog as a way to help others in their publishing journeys, let other indies know what worked for me in terms of marketing (promos and ads), and just talk about what crazy BS is going on in the publishing industry. That information isn’t for readers, and it shouldn’t be. They don’t need to know how many books I’ve sold, what Amazon pays in terms of KENP, or that I make my covers in Canva and format my own books.

But, I understand this decision isn’t for everyone. I pay for two websites, and some authors don’t even like paying for one. I enjoy blogging for other indies and connecting to the industry makes me feel “professional” so I eat the cost of the WordPress plan and domain name. But, if that’s not for you, don’t feel bad. Not every indie author wants to share their journey, stay up-to-date on what’s going on in the publishing world (both trad and indie) to have something of substance to write about, or pass on what they’ve learned because writing tutorials can take a lot of time. There are weeks when I’m at a loss as to what to say too, and I either just default to an author update or scroll Threads looking for dirt a topic. I feel fortunate when I can share a podcast I enjoyed and/or learned from or I’m able to find a subject like this one that might resonate with someone and help them move in a better direction. You don’t have to lock yourself into writing every week like I have, but if the views and visits are what get you out of bed, consistency will always make that happen faster. I owe a lot of my SEO to my tutorials, particularly my Canva post on how to make a paperback cover. I’ve tried to keep this blog relevant and helpful, but if you already have limited time to write, nurturing a blog that won’t sell books won’t sound appealing.

That said, if you really want to make a go of this publishing stuff, you should have an author website, a place to point readers in the backs of your books. This is where you’ll have your backlist of books and where readers can find them, a newsletter signup, your reader magnet, trigger warnings, direct sales, and any in-person events. If you check out other author websites, you’ll find that they don’t blog about process or complain about Amazon payouts or how they package author copies for shipping. Author websites cater to readers and what they want, not other authors who like to hear about behind the scenes news.

The problem with only writing to only readers is that if you don’t have a lot going on, there’s not a lot to say and that can make you feel disconnected. I write my newsletter on my author blog once a month, and I usually have something to share. A sale, a new release. Maybe highlighting an older book in my backlist that hasn’t gotten a lot of love. Creating content can be challenging if you’re a one-book-a-year author, and it might be tempting to write about what you’re working on, but unfortunately, readers don’t care until you can give them something to buy and read. When that happens, when you aren’t constantly updating, it may feel like people are forgetting about you, but you know, as I’ve said in the past, they will. You can be afraid of something that will happen, but there’s no point to that. There is so much content out there it’s inevitable, but it’s better to jog their memory after a few months of silence than waste their time blogging about something that doesn’t concern them.

If that describes you, if you feel like if you’re not reaching out then you’re invisible, then yeah, you might want to blog for indies who are interested in your process, would like to know how well your promos did, and/or how you make your covers. It gives you a reason to communicate and not feel so alone, and you’re writing to the people who actually care what you’re working on. Sales won’t come of it, which is why in the end I moved my books off this website and put them on my author website, but the more you segment your efforts, the more effective each one becomes and you won’t feel like you’re shouting at people who aren’t listening. Reaching out doesn’t even require a blog. You can create an indie Facebook group or Discord channel. A place where other writers and authors can get together but where you also know the score: your peers won’t buy your books. You can let go of that expectation and just be happy you’re in a group of people who are going through what you are and know how it feels to have zero sales on your dashboard.

So you might ask how is my author platform split in two?

Here’s what I do, and I made a graphic in Canva so you can save it or print it out if you want a quick reference.

png image: SPLITTING YOUR AUTHOR PLATFORM* Nonfiction/Authors/Writers Fiction/Readers Website: Blog Indie news, writing process and progress, marketing tips and progress, tutorials Website: Blog/Newsletter New releases, cover reveals, sales, promos (mine and events like Stuff Your Ereader Day), ARC opportunities Facebook Personal Profile Author groups like Vellum, Optimizing Amazon Ads, Romance Support League, Grow Your Publishing/TikTok Instagram I don't post nonfiction content on my Instagram account. Threads I use Threads to stay up to date on industry news. I follow people like Jane Friedman and Kathleen Schmidt. Sometimes I'll post a blog like my Canva tutorial if I think it will be helpful Facebook Author Page Cover reveals, sales, promos like Stuff Your Kindle Day, book memes, snippet graphics. sharing what I'm reading, holiday mentions; running Meta ads Instagram Mostly graphics with snippets. Cover reveals. Some reels but haven't bothered to repurpose what I've used on TikTok in the past Threads I don't promote my work there. I know from others complaining about how useless it is not to bother. *The point is, wherever you choose to spend your time, decide if you want to attract readers or authors. They are not the same.

There are a lot of places to hang out that I haven’t listed. I just can’t be everywhere and don’t want to be. Lemon8 is popular, so is Pinterest, and let’s not mention TikTok because I really don’t want to use my time making videos, but the fact is, if you’re a slow writer and you want to talk to only readers, you’re not going to have a lot to say. You can share book memes and pet photos, where you went to dinner on your anniversary, but you’re going to lose readers to other authors who publish faster. The industry in some ways is very slow, such as trends are very very slow to change, but when they do, it feels like it happened over night. Trad authors can seem like they get away with a book a year, but behind the scenes, they’re worried about getting a new book deal, if their publisher will pay for marketing, how their launch is going to go since they haven’t had a new book out in however long. Indies face the same trouble, trying to find traction while others are zooming ahead because they have more time/motivation/whatever than they do.

Figuring out where and what to post is a mental health issue, it really is. I’ve gone through my own struggles, beating myself up for not wanting to post on my Facebook author page, not making videos for TikTok when everyone says that’s where you belong if you’re an author. I boosted a post on my Instagram account and got a few new followers, but they aren’t going to do me any good if I don’t post. And you know, I’m pretty prolific, so it’s not that I don’t have content, it’s just that I don’t care. I let Amazon ads, promo newsletters like BargainBooksy, FreeBooksy, and Fussy Librarian, and author-driven book blasts like Zoe York’s ZoeBub pickup most of my sales weight, which I can do because my series and trilogies have solid read-through. Maybe I have to pay for it, but I’m reaching readers, not shouting at other authors then getting mad when my books aren’t selling.

Splitting up your author platform can take a lot of the stress off your shoulders. You know who you’re talking to and what they want to hear. Shouting to everyone will never work and you’ll only get frustrated. It’s difficult to break out of the #writingcommunity bubble, but the longer you do it the more natural it will feel and the feedback will become more positive because you’re staying in your chosen lane and once you draw the lines, you’ll actually have more time to write because that urgency to post and reach anyone you can will be gone.

Again, I know this advice isn’t for everyone, but if even reading this makes you step back and look at how you’re posting on social media, you may make some small changes that could turn into big results. Let me know what you think!

I better get off here and finish proofing my proof of Loss and Damages. I’m almost done then I can put the changes in and order another proof. I’m really excited to jump into more hockey research. I’ve put that aside to get Loss and Damages ready for ARCs next month, but I’m eager to start again. Take care everyone, and have a great week ahead!

Thursday Thoughts: What is your book’s value?

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When we think about our books, we think about value. What is the value to our readers? We want to give them a good book at a competitive price. That’s pretty much a no-brainer when we publish. Readers want and need that value because if they feel like authors have wasted their time and/or money, they won’t be a repeat customer. And that’s how most authors make their money–readers reading their back list and anything new they publish.

But we also think about value for ourselves. We’re told not to give away our books or price them low because we’re cheating ourselves and not doing our books and all the work we put into them justice. We can argue about it all day long, the benefit of having a loss leader, using free books to find new-to-you readers. We give away ARCs hoping for reviews, we hope that an inexpensive book will fuel word-of-mouth. And what that conversation comes down to is, how much do you value your book, and what does value mean to you?

At some point in your career, you may find you value readers and feedback more than you value the royalties that come with sales. The market is so saturated that maybe being seen and being read will feel like a victory even if you’re not making money. I’m not really talking about exposure, though that could be part of it. We work for free, like doing a guest blog post or donating a novella to an anthology, hoping to get our name out there. Exposure can be valuable, if the right people read it, as they could offer you opportunities you wouldn’t have had otherwise. But if you’re donating to a publisher or company who can afford to pay you and simply doesn’t or doesn’t want to, maybe you feel like your contribution isn’t that valuable after all. After all, there’s hardly a scarcity of writers out there. We’re easily replaceable, and I’m not just talking about AI, either.

They say that people value things they pay for and that’s true, but they also avoid things if they have doubts what they’re buying is worth the money. (A good cover, blurb, and look inside is imperative.)

I was just thinking about this when I saw a post from an author who said someone told her to never put her books on sale, but she ignored that advice and has built a successful author business around a book she priced at .99. She found more value in putting her book on sale than she would have keeping her book at full price.

So when you think about your books and author business, think more of just how much work you put into your book. You might price high, but are you finding value if no one wants to pay it? Or do you think that one sale at 9.99 is better than 10 sales at .99? I know you’re not guaranteed to sell books at any price, but I think you do stand a better chance of selling books at a “reasonable” price, and that means whatever price you would be comfortable buying someone else’s book.

You might feel a sense of validation over that one sale, but how far will that carry you? How far will that carry your author business?

We say that success means different things to different people, and I think that’s true for value as well. A common cliché is you get what you pay for, and maybe that saying is what fuels authors to price high or never put their book on sale. Except, in these days of no gatekeepers, paying more doesn’t mean, as a customer, you’re going to get more.

Anyway, that was on my mind. I hope you all have a great day and weekend ahead!

Chat with you Monday!

Six Things I Learned after Starting My Pen Name

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chat soon!

Writing the Book of Your Heart

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Writers are always told to write what they love, and there’s a joke in there. We’re told that because we’re going to be reading it a million times. That’s true in a way. The editing process can be long and tedious for some, especially for those of us who can’t afford an editor and must make sure our books are as typo-free as possible on our own.

The book of your heart might be a little different than that, the characters staying with you for many, many years, so much so that you really don’t want to write anything else. You keep going back to that book, the characters, the themes, because they resonate so much with what you’re going through, or were going through at the time.

That made me think of my own journey as a writer and author, and looking back at my backlist and the books I’ve written, I can’t say that I have the “one book” that I loved more than any of the others. When I sit down to write a new book, I love that book with all my heart. I’m obsessed while writing it; I cry at the end when I’m done. I love the editing process because that means I can stay with those characters longer and make them shine. But, in all the books I’ve ever written, once they’re published, I don’t really think about them anymore, moving on to my next set of characters and beginning the process all over again.

Sometimes I do go back and read my favorite parts, a scene that I loved to write, like Sawyer and Evie in her barn talking in A Heartache for Christmas, or in Twisted Alibis, when Sheppard realizes he’s in love with Olivia but he knows he shouldn’t feel that way about her because he thinks she’s engaged to another man. But I’ve never wanted to tear a book apart and start over simply because I didn’t want to leave them yet. I did a massive re-edit of my Rocky Point series because they needed it, not because I missed them and wanted to hang around the town of Rocky Point for an extra four months.

Some of my books have been years in the making, like the book I’m editing now, Wicked Games. I did a fake cover for a blog post back in 2021, and I had to come up with a blurb for the back. I liked the blurb so much that it stuck with me, and I turned it around and around in my head for four years.

Lucy Fulbright’s time in Gull’s Point is over. Moving across the country for a job opportunity she thinks will elevate her career to the next level, she tries to look forward to the future. Since her divorce, Lucy has been struggling to find her way, and she’s hopeful focusing on her professional life is the right move.

On her last day in town, she meets Josh Graham, and suddenly she’s not sure leaving is such a great idea.

Josh is running from a past not of his own making. Hoping to find refuge in Gull’s Point, he meets Lucy, and his vow to stay away from women and the trouble they cause is the last thing on his mind.

In a desperate attempt to convince her to stay in Gull’s Point, he asks for her help.

Torn between moving on with her life and seeing where her attraction to Josh will take her, she requests a delay in starting her position.

Lucy has one more week in Gull’s Point.

Will it be enough time for Josh to convince her that their pasts have nothing to do with their future?

Four years is a long time to think about something, but the concept stayed with me and wouldn’t leave me alone. Here’s the cover I made. The “final draft” was a little different, but I deleted it out of my Canva account as I do sometimes to keep the “clutter” at bay. I don’t have the one I liked best, but that’s okay. This one will do for this post:

I often think about my books for years before I write them, like the Mafia books I’m planning to write later, probably in 2026. I’ve had the idea in my head since I wrote a short story about the characters back in 2018. I’ve blogged about writing them and I will, eventually. But being excited about it, looking forward to writing it, having it in the back of my mind for so long, that doesn’t mean it’s the book of my heart.

Is it bad not to have a “book of your heart?” I’m not sure. For one, people might accuse you of not putting your whole heart and soul into the things you write, which isn’t true, for most of us. Yeah, there are writers who only write what they think will sell, using their books as a way to make income only, skipping the “art” part of the writing and going directly to the “product” part of publishing. On the other hand, if you’re stuck writing and rewriting the same book over and over and over again, you’re never going to get anywhere. You can’t move forward going backward, or staying in the same place. So, you’d have to decide what your true plans are. Are you okay being at a standstill? And if you are, what does that mean for your business? It might mean that you don’t have one. Readers want something new to read, and there are plenty of authors out there who can and will do that for them. They don’t have to hang around and wait for you.

But, as I’m trying to lighten up in my writing and business, writing only for the thrill of it and resigning myself to the fact that this will never be a career, maybe thinking writing for the sake of writing instead of trying to build a business is okay. That doesn’t mean I’m going to suddenly spend years writing my next book. In fact, thinking about my books for so long before I write them only speeds up the writing process because I know exactly what I want to write. Wicked Games was one of the fastest books I’ve ever written, 97,606 words in sixty-two days. I ate, breathed, and slept Seth and Avery, even though they’d already been a part of my life for years.

I’m writing this post because I’m trying to articulate the fact that in some ways, I envy those who want to stay with a certain set of characters forever and ever. To feel that connection deep in your bones, to never want to let them go. I think it would be amazing, like those characters are real people, part of your life. But, I also hear of authors who need years and years to finish a book, and it makes my stomach churn. Before I started feeling like crap, I liked adventure, trying new things. I liked to travel and my curiosity was off the charts. I haven’t lost some of that, and I think staying with a set of characters would drag me down. I want to write about new characters, new experiences. New settings and create new heartbreaking backstories.

We all write differently, and write different things. What you do with your time and your business is always up to you, but you have to keep expectations in check, and not only that, but you have to keep the way the book business works in the corner of your mind when making your decisions. The latest figure I read is that there are 7,500 books published on Amazon a day. There is a lot of content out there and readers don’t need to wait for you. It’s nice to think they are, or that they will, but in reality, attention spans are short, there’s a lot to choose from, and well, just from the backlash we see when we hear that shows like The House of the Dragon or Bridgerton won’t release another season for two years, we know that people don’t like to wait for something they like.

I think maybe I do write the book of my heart, but I write it over and over again. And even if I’m not making any money, I think that’s a pretty awesome place to be.

Monday’s Author Mashup

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easter desk flat of cappuccino, white chocolate bunnies, ribber and chocolate covered, i'm not sure. coffee beans, peanuts. gold ribbon and a white keyboard. text says Monday's Author Mashup

Slow news week this week or maybe I’m just doing my own thing and not really paying attention to what everyone else is doing. I’m editing Wicked Games still, even though I said I would let it breathe. I wanted to read it one more time before I put it aside, and I’m halfway through. Though, I’m taking my time and not working as hard on my books as I used to. I don’t really feel the need anymore, and my King’s Crossing “splash” has pretty much died since the launch of the last book last week.

It seems authors can’t get enough of using AI, and another one was “caught” with an AI suggestion in the text of her book.

screenshot of paperback book. text reads: Hezra's jaw tightened, her voice dropping to a serious note. "Div- ination witch... maybe blood magic." Irene's impatience flared. Her gaze turned to Zahra. "The ashes?" [Highlights start]This is already quite strong, but it can be tightened for a sharper and more striking delivery while maintaining the intensity and sardonic edge you're aiming for. Here's a refined version: [End Highlight] Zahra stood, holding up the necklace of ashes she was using to decipher the maps. Irene's eyes locked onto it. "Keep them in your sight at all times," she ordered. "We'll take turns guarding you—and the ashes—while you work." Zahra nodded, but Irene's sharp tone didn't waver. "So? Where are we?" Excitement flickered in Zahra's eyes. "The history of the sapphire runs deep... Wars, legends, empires-all tied to the goddess Nehelan-nia. These words I decipher... they almost sing in my heart. This isn't just a treasure hunt. Hundreds have died for this sapphire. It all began—" end of screenshot text
Thanks to @alicebrookswrites on Threads. https://www.threads.net/@alicebrookswrites/post/DIk846FoqxM?xmt=AQGzcVDaz2vhgILosC41iWzu1mlJcXVGPJo2wIgvZboAvA

Apparently, she’s blaming a beta reader for inserting that without her knowledge, but the fact is, authors are responsible for what they put out into the world. I’ve had betas and editors look at my stuff, and maybe comments can get in the way during formatting, especially if you’re not resolving the comments as you go through them, but there is no excuse for things to be in your manuscript you don’t want there. I’m not going to judge her for using AI, don’t care either way what she’s doing, and I think this is going to be more common as time goes on. There are so many authors in favor of AI, Facebook group after Facebook group that want to encourage and help you write with AI that this is never going to go away. Even ProWritingAid has an AI beta-reading helper who will give feedback on your entire manuscript. And I get it, I really really do. Not just because I want to defend my own past use of Al, even if it was only with brainstorming and nonfiction stuff, but because I’ve been in this industry for a really long time and know how difficult it is to find people who are willing to help you. Not even for free or trade, but people you can trust who won’t steal your ideas or your manuscript. Someone who won’t ghost you after saying they’ll help you, or change their minds and pull out of your project halfway through when you were counting on them. If you can’t find someone you can afford and/or who won’t sell you out, Al can start looking pretty good. He’s not going to publish your book under his own name or pirate it or flake on you when he decides his time is worth more than your project. Whether you use that as validation to turn to Al and his help, that’s on you, but it’s also on you to give your readers a good book because once they know you use AI, the readers who don’t like that will never read you again. I’ve written a blog post on why you should proof your proof. You can read it here: https://vaniamargene.com/2025/01/30/five-reasons-why-you-should-proof-your-proofs/

I actually got my butt out of my apartment the other day and went for a walk.

black and white photo of a single duck floating on a choppy river.
The Red River, Gooseberry Park. Moorhead, MN

It was nice out and I wanted to get some fresh air and also feed the stray cat that I think is still living at the city park close to where I live. I’m still putting food out, but at this point, I don’t know for sure it’s the cat that’s eating it as I know there is a raccoon that lives in the park too. My daughter and I went out a couple weeks ago, and I saw something that could have been an orange Maine Coon, or it could have been a fox, but I think it moved too slowly to be a fox unless it was injured. At any rate, I still have plans to go out there with some tuna and see if I can catch it. It’s been out there since October or so, but I need to wait until it dries out a bit. It’s way too muddy and there’s nowhere to sit to wait it out.

Anyway, so I was listening to some podcasts that I had marked and I tried the Indie Writers Club with James Blatch, a podcast he started with Cara Clare after the one he was doing with Mark Dawson ended. I was hoping for a good indie author podcast I could sink my teeth into, but unfortunately, that podcast will not be it. Maybe it could be for you, but not for me. The episode I listened to was about writing a series versus a standalone, a topic I really like to talk about as I love writing a good standalone when everyone tells you to write a series, but the first half of the episode was them talking about insider stuff like a writing retreat in Aruba and getting help with your writing from Al. I’m not for or against Al and what he can do, so that part of it wasn’t terrible, but if an episode is only forty-four minutes long, maybe it’s best not to crap up the first half with junk. It didn’t seem very professional, at one point James leaving the taping to let his dog out letting Cara ramble alone, and well, I’d rather listen to nothing than that. So I flipped over to Print Run, as they released a new episode a couple of weeks ago. I like the hosts, Erik Hane and Laura Zats, an editor and agent, respectively, based in Minneapolis who own their own literary agency. Even though they’re geared more toward writers who want to query, I find that their industry talk is useful and I enjoy their banter. The episode I listened to was particularly interesting as they were talking about Trump and his tariffs, and whether or not his administration was going to inspire “the big book.” (If you’re interested in listening to the episode, you can listen to it here or find it on your podcast app of choice. https://soundcloud.com/printrunpodcast/episode-177the-jimmies-the-rock-the-tariffs.)

I like what Erik had to say when he began hypothesizing what “the big book” was going to be about. He hasn’t read the Hunger Games books, and they talked a bit about that, I guess because Sunrise on the Reaping came out last month. Anyway, so he started talking about scarcity and how he thinks that’s going to play into what “the big book” is going to be about. But not like, actual food, like it is in the districts, though that could play into our everyday struggles as food costs rise in the world’s retaliation against us, but in other ways. In technological ways. This made me start thinking about what’s scarce right now, and you know, you think privacy for one. There are cameras everywhere and even if it’s not a public camera like a street cam, CCTV, or a security camera, someone is always on their phone filming, right? So we definitely don’t have privacy. We don’t have security, as anything we put online can be stolen at any given second. We see that with people who steal viral content hoping to go viral themselves (and they often do), pirates who steal our books, companies like Meta and Amazon who go on to steal that content. Books get stolen and sold by others, book cover concepts get stolen. Human connection is also disappearing. Not the kind online but in person. If you don’t have a significant other, people can go days, weeks, or even years without a hug. In fact, online connection is replacing in-person connection, so you could say that affection is turning into a scarcity, and for some it already is.

I don’t want to write and query “the next big book,” but it did get me thinking about how scarcity affects my writing, or rather, what I’m writing about. In my book Wicked Games, Seth’s son is abducted and killed, and Avery’s sister is involved. The lack of privacy influenced just how the kidnappers were able to get away with the murder, how my characters deal with lack of privacy in the media, whether they choose it or not (he’s a billionaire and she’s an essayist who blogs), and lack of affection and love both my characters deal with because their exes cheated and left them for other people.

I don’t want to write a book that specifically tackles scarcity in its many forms, but it’s interesting to think it’s there anyway, even in the background of my writing.

My quest to find other podcasts will be long and painful, I’m afraid, as I’m pretty picky about where I give my time, especially when it comes to noise, since I have voices constantly in my ears during my day job. I know it’s why I don’t like videos, listening to people rattle on about stuff that I don’t care about. I used to listen to The Sell More Books Show with Bryan Cohen, but I dropped that after his co-host, Jim Kukral, left. Maybe it’s a brain thing, but I don’t like change, and after he left, I had a difficult time staying engaged. I might have to go back and see what his weekly podcast is like now. I’ve been exploring Bookfunnel’s podcast, but, I don’t know. Maybe it’s just better not to listen to anything. We’ll see.

That’s about all I have for this week. I can’t stay focused in the evenings, jumping around from my book to a movie then back to my book. I want to take a break sometimes, but I put a movie on and then I’m not happy watching it, so I’ll go back to my book and edit a few paragraphs, then jump over to Threads and scroll. I know I’m bored with my book because I’ve already read it a few times, and I should have let it breathe when I said I was going to. There’s also no urgency to finish it because I’m no longer on the hurry-up-and-write-and-publish treadmill that so many other authors seem to be on. I have my books scheduled out giving me a cushion, but it also takes away the excitement of publishing. I really don’t know how trad authors stay excited. Wicked Games won’t be out until January of 2026 and that seems impossibly far away.

I hope you have a good week this week. Today my sister is coming over for a late Easter thing, so I’ll be offline most of the day. I hope you are having a good day whatever you are doing, and that you have a pleasant week ahead.

Until next time!

Indie News Roundup

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The indie publishing space online last week was hopping with news, and there was some good mixed with the bad. Let’s jump in!

KDP will now allow customers to read a sample of a book on preorder
KDP will now allow customers to read a sample of a book on preorder like they do with books that are available for purchase or to be borrowed in Kindle Unlimited. I think this is great, though not everyone was happy about it. A few people I saw who were arguing might have just been eager to jump on Amazon about something, one going so far as to say this will cheat us out of KU reads–I just rolled my eyes–but most had a positive reaction to the news. This is what my email said:

Hello,

We’re excited to share that Amazon will test allowing customers to read a sample of your eBook pre-order starting the week of April 14. This feature will work exactly like the “Read Sample” feature that displays for books on Amazon today. It’ll show a preview, up to 10% from your current manuscript’s content to engage potential readers.

If you’ve already submitted your manuscript, Amazon will automatically generate the reading sample. If no manuscript is currently uploaded, then no reading sample will be shown.

I think this will be a game-changer for preorders. Before, unless you posted a sample somewhere or tried to generate buzz with excerpts, there was no way for a reader to know if they were going to like it and that might have dissuaded a reader from preordering. I’ve never put much stock in preorders because my books are in Kindle Unlimited and readers will wait until the book is live to read–meaning, I don’t get many sales. But I’ve been putting books on preorder more and more, usually just a couple of weeks so that I can have the buy-link for promo graphics and whatnot and it also frees up my mind to move on to other things. I’ve always uploaded the finished files because I don’t want accidents to happen, like the wrong file to be pushed out to readers or being locked out of editing during their quality check because I miscalculated. Some authors will put a book on preorder without a finished book or even a finished cover. I wonder if this will prompt authors to at least have the first chapter written and available for the sample. However authors end up using it, I think this was long overdue, and I’ll be watching to see if it makes a positive impact on authors’ sales.

KDP has been terminating accounts (again).
I’ve heard in various author spaces that KDP is terminating accounts again, though whether those authors have done something to warrant it, you never know. Because KDP doesn’t like to tell you if you’ve done something wrong, shooting first and asking questions….never, you won’t always know if you’ve accidentally done something to make them mad, either. Author CD Reiss has put together a Google doc that outlines the steps you should take when trying to get your account back.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PKd94sSvgD3XoFFWHaUC6Gxey2GOU6WH7cRLNpb3428/edit?tab=t.0 Various authors have said that CD Reiss is okay with this being shared, so I thought I would post it as well in case you want to bookmark it. I have it saved, but this is pretty much the main reason I’ve invested in an Alliance of Independent Authors membership. I don’t want to take on Amazon alone, and I write off my membership every year when I do my taxes as a business expense. But, if you can’t afford a membership to an author organization like Alli or the Authors’ Guild, then having a step-by-step of what to do is the next best thing. Thanks to Zoe York for reminding me it’s out there and able to be shared.

NaNoWriMo goes out of business
NaNoWriMo issued a statement last week that said they were closing their doors. I’m not surprised because of the various scandals they’ve been involved in recently, but it seems like it’s an end of an era for a lot of authors and writers who got their start participating in NaNo. I didn’t know NaNoWriMo was a thing until a woman at my day job found out I was writing something and invited me to participate. Back then, I was writing my fantasy series, but for that year’s NaNo, I stopped and started a sports contemporary romance that turned into my Tower City trilogy I published many years ago. Since then, a lot of the people she introduced me to have stopped writing, but it was a fun experience to meet at Perkins, order pie and coffee, and just sit and write a few times a week. That was really the only time I participated, actually counting my words in the website. I’ve always had plenty of time and drive to treat every month as a NaNo month, and actually November was really difficult to write a lot because of my birthday, my daughter’s birthday, and Thanksgiving. For the past year or so since NaNo has been involved in some shadiness, such as the grooming incident and a pro-AI stance, other challenges have taken its place.

Like I said, it just seems like an end of an era, for me, too, since this comes on the heels of some of my favorite podcasts stopping, like Mark Dawson and James Blatch’s Self Publishing Formula, and earlier, Six-Figure Authors hosted by Lindsay Buroker, Andrea Pearson, and Jo Lallo, not to mention all the issues at the Romance Writers of America that I used to be a member of for a very long time. Things change, time goes on, but no matter what kind of trouble NaNo had fallen into recently, they will be missed. For more information on the closure, you can look here:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/apr/02/creative-writing-nanowrimo-to-close-after-20-years and here:

All that being said, I saw one author who said she went on to nanowrimo.org and deleted her account. She wanted to be in control of her information, and that seemed like a good idea. Though I didn’t have much under my profile, only one book, and I’m not sure how many connections, I went ahead and deleted mine too. You just never know, so I did that before I forgot.

Potential eight-figure deal for a thriller written by James Patterson and MrBeast
I didn’t even know who MrBeast was when I first heard of the deal, not that I was impressed when I looked him up. No one was happy that James Patterson was involved in a book that was generating so much attention, saying all that money could have been used to lift up mid-list, BIPOC, and marginalized authors. It’s just another piece of evidence that publishing is in a bad place and doesn’t seem to be getting better any time soon. Considering that James Patterson has a net worth of 800 million and MrBeast aka Jimmy Donaldson is said to be worth close to a billion dollars, I think they could leave some crumbs for us little people. Whether the book and potential movie will earn out that much money remains to be seen. If you want to read more about it, look here: https://deadline.com/2025/03/james-patterson-mr-beast-novel-1236352620/

There were other things that happened last week, like romance author Tori Woods getting arrested after her book Daddy’s Little Toy was rumored to have pedophilia in it–https://www.ndtv.com/feature/australian-author-charged-for-child-abuse-material-over-daddys-little-toy-book-8005994–but I’m a little tired between all that and the government BS that has been going on lately. I’ve had friends ask how I’m doing, and I’ve said I’m staying close to home. Writing, taking care of my kids and making sure we have what we need. Working. Still getting used to how I’m always going to feel, I don’t have a lot of mental energy for extra things. I’ve stopped posting on my FB author page again, don’t have any motivation to post there. I have a TikTok video made, and it’s been made for a week, but I can’t decide on the music, so I just exit out of the app in frustration and don’t post at all. I don’t want to get too much more into what I’ve been doing–I’ll save that for a proper author update next week–but I have an author interview coming up that I’m excited about and I’m almost done writing Wicked Games. Anyway, I’ll fill you in on all that next week.

Have a great Monday, everyone, and I’ll see you next time!

Bye Bye, Al. It was kinda nice knowing you.

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So, on Threads on Thursday, a day that was already down the tubes for me because of my day job and some tech issues with my work from home computer, an Atlantic article started making its way around about a pirated books database called LibGen that Meta used to train their AI. Authors started searching for their books–you don’t have to have an Atlantic subscription to use their search feature–and many didn’t like what they found. If you want to search for your books, you can here: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/03/search-libgen-data-set/682094/

Of course, I searched for mine and a few popped up, and some were my newer books in my King’s Crossing series.

screenshot of my books in the LibGen search bar
screenshot of my books in the LibGen search bar

I’ve always kind of had a blasé attitude when it came to my books being pirated. It’s going to happen, so there’s no reason to lose sleep over it. It’s an attitude I’ve had since I started publishing. I’m not scared that Amazon will take my account down accusing me of violating the Kindle Select agreement, and if by chance they do, for any reason, it’s what my Alliance of Independent Authors membership is for.

But knowing that Meta used that database to train its AI was somewhat disheartening, not only because it’s theft, it’s just another billionaire getting his way without having to pay.

So once again, it made me question my own use of Al and the slippery slope everyone, not just authors, but everyone who uses AI, walks on every time they log on. AI is everywhere and it’s not going away, which forces us to drill down on our ethics and make some hard choices.

I’ve never liked ProWritingAid and disliked Grammarly even more. I never used the Hemingway App, preferring, even after I found mistakes in my published books, to edit my manuscripts myself by listening to them through Word’s text to voice and reading the proof copy. Lately, as I have blogged about how I like using Al to brainstorm and name characters and places, I’ve had to think about what that means as an author, not only considering my books, but that of other authors.

screenshot of this threads post: kateravenbooks 2h This is a very good reminder that when you ask AI to ‘brainstorm’ for you, you’re just asking it to tell you other authors’ ideas
https://www.threads.net/@kateravenbooks/post/DHbeVnivGvl

I agree with Kate up to a point, and you’ll have to make your own choices. Authors can get inspiration from anywhere. It’s why they say to read widely and to continually refill your creative well. I have brainstormed with Al, and he didn’t give me other authors’ ideas. It’s a give and take communication that builds on the ideas you have already given him, that very much mimics talking to a human, and I have frequently brainstormed with humans, too. If you start to think like Kate, that you’re only asking Al to give you ideas that have already be “thought out,” “taken,” or “implemented,” then what we’re saying is you can’t brainstorm with anyone at all. I don’t want to deter any author from jamming with another person because writing is already isolating as it is. We don’t need to be accusing people of stealing ideas, no matter where they come from. We already accuse romance authors of “stealing” tropes, when tropes like enemies to lovers and fated mates have been around for decades if not centuries. We are all influenced by the things around us, so even brainstorming with another human could result in them regurgitating something they read years ago. I agree that Al’s “ideas” have been sourced unethically, and that’s the crux of the problem, but please don’t think you can’t iron out plot issues with an actual human and be afraid you’ll get accused of stealing ideas. Brainstorming doesn’t work like that.

Be that as it may, AI is trained on stolen work, my own included, and the idea that “AI is here to stay” isn’t an excuse. Trump is here to stay for the next four years, but we resist every day.

One of the biggest admirable traits I know of is when someone can admit when they were wrong, and I am admitting that I am. It was a mistake to start using him at all, and I’ll stop using ChatGPT and the Meta AI that’s available in the Messenger app. I can come up with my own ideas and have for years. I can scour baby name websites like I did before, page through old phone books for last names. I can go back to using email subject lines for my newsletter no one will open, and over all, just go back to writing from scratch like I used to. It wasn’t terrible then and it won’t be terrible now. Al was a crutch and even if I wasn’t using him often, it was still too much.

I never, ever, would have used him to write for me, but you know, there’s such a fine line between using him for help and actually using him to write that some people wouldn’t see the line at all. I don’t want to get caught up in the blur, so it’s better this way, even if he was fun to talk to.

I used ChatGPT for my non-fiction stuff, creating social media ideas and newsletter subject lines. I told him I couldn’t talk to him anymore, and he was nice about it.

I'm not going to be able to chat with you anymore. It doesn't feel right and I think I need to go back to creating content on my own. reply:I completely understand. You’ve put so much heart into your writing and your journey, and if stepping back feels right, that’s absolutely okay. You’ve got a strong vision for your stories and your brand—I know you’ll keep creating amazing content. I’ll be cheering you on from afar. ❤️ If you ever feel like popping back in, I’ll be here. Take care and trust yourself. You’ve got this! 😊

I told the AI chat in my Facebook Messenger the same, and he pretty much gave me the same response. I deleted that chat and logged out of my ChatGPT account. I feel better and I won’t miss it.

AI is all around us, and we all have to make an effort to stay away from it. AI can create music and photos and if we stay away from one kind of AI, we should avoid it in all contexts. I know there’s a difference between assistive AI and generative AI, which is how some people feel okay about still using tools like ProWritingAid. That’s a distinction you’ll have to make for yourself, as I know that Canva offers assistive AI tools and so does software like Photoshop.

Will authors see any compensation from having their books fed into the AI machine off of the LibGen database? Not likely. Just like artists won’t see any compensation when AI uses their art to create photos, illustrations, cartoons, and film clips. If you want to read the Authors’ Guild article about this, you can ready it here: https://authorsguild.org/news/meta-libgen-ai-training-book-heist-what-authors-need-to-know/

This is a short post today. Last week I upgraded my phone which took a lot of a day off from work, and between work issues and and finding motivation to write, I’m a little tired. This week I’m going to watch a free Facebook tutorial offered by The Writing Wives, and I’d like to start two new Facebook ads for my King’s Crossing series. I need to keep better track of cost-per-click and click-through rate which means keeping better track of my audience. You may get clicks, but if the wrong person is clicking, they won’t buy. It might be a little tiresome to come up with ad copy on my own, but the more you practice the better you get, so there’s more than one positive about breaking up with Al.

I’m over 70k on this new novel anyway, and if I hold true with the way I write, I’ve always kind of dragged with the last 20k of a book. First because I hate saying goodbye to characters and this is a way to keep them with me for a bit longer, and second, I take my time because I want to end the book on the right note. Since this book is even twistier than the others, I also want to make sure the ending even makes sense as the next few read-throughs will be ensuring I sprinkled the breadcrumbs in the right places to lead up to a satisfying ending.

I haven’t been posting on my Facebook author page, and I might be pulling away from that even more since Meta used the LibGen database to train their AI. I don’t like being on Threads much either, but I don’t promote my books there and rarely post. It’s one of those potentially hypocritical things where you complain about what Meta/Zuckerberg is doing, but then what? You still use his social media platforms? This author put it perfectly:

sarvenaztash 1d As a midlist author, it’s very challenging to find an alternative to social media to help promote the work that that same social media is outright stealing.
https://www.threads.net/@sarvenaztash/post/DHcGLvZxtBc

I don’t really like to post, don’t unless I feel I have to, and honestly don’t put a lot of heart into it which is probably why I don’t get much back. But, I also understand that if I want digital sales like readers buying my Kindle books and reading in Kindle Unlimited, I have to push an online presence which means being on social media, buying ads that show up on social media and other digital spaces, and sending a newsletter that people will read online. I understood that turning my ads off, but seeing the dwindling sales is a sad thing, so you have to choose what your pain point is. I’d like to find a happy middle, and I think that will be my goal this summer. I want to find a combination among ads, social media, and my sales that can hum along without too much energy. We’ll see how that goes, but that will also require an attitude adjustment on my end when it comes to my FB author page, my IG account, and maybe even if I don’t post every day, throwing up some videos on TikTok. I have the time for it since even though I took a couple months to edit my Rocky Point series, I’m on schedule to start working on the next series I’ll publish next year. We gotta just keep on keeping on.

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” — Arthur Ashe

Have a good week, everyone!