Tag Archives: mental health

Mid-Year Check-In

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Words: 1802
Time to read: 10 minutes

flatlay desk--keyboard, cactus plant, and calendar showing June 2024. text reads mid-year check-in

I truly cannot believe we’re half way through 2024 already. Time flies, even if you’re not having fun. There has been so much that happened since January, but I think the second half the year will be even busier. Let’s catch up:

Health Update
So, I think you all know by now that I had a really crappy last four years. I had undiagnosed vulva lichen sclerosis, something that I got when I used a certain brand of dryer sheets. My skin must have had a reaction, and for four years, a hysterectomy, and twenty-two visits to the clinic, I lived with it. No one here knew what was wrong with me, and in February of this year, I finally went to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. My nurse practitioner was a star, and she knew the second she looked at me and since then I’ve been on a treatment plan. I’m doing well in a lot of ways, but mentally, I’m still struggling. I don’t want to go into it anymore than that, but I do blog about it, and if you want to follow along there, you can look here: www.chaoscoffeeandconfessions.blogspot.com. Suffice to say, I’m on the mend, and after living so long with that condition, it’s a miracle I can say it at all.

King’s Crossing Series Update
Another topic that is all too familiar, so I won’t spend much time on it. I haven’t published since November, and I think my sales are taking a hit for it. The last two weeks of May were really hard, and the beginning of June isn’t shaping up to be that much better. Amazon has forgotten I exist, but it’s a tough market out there, so I’m not surprised. To catch their attention again, the only thing I can do is publish, and I’m happy to say I’m nearer to that goal. I ordered my series proofs yesterday, and I’ll read through them looking for any typos I missed and formatting errors I have to fix, and that will be that. Reading six books will take me a couple of weeks, but proofreading will be faster than editing and I should be able to put up my ARC copies at the beginning of July. I’ll have to give ARC readers time to read and review, so my first book, fingers crossed, will go live at the end of July or the beginning of August. It sounds easy, but there’s a lot of work that will be involved with that. I’m going to create a separate page on my author website especially for those ARCs, and I’m going to need to list the release dates and the dates the ARC links will come down as they can’t be up when my books drop into KU. There is only one entry point, book one, and not everyone is going to want to sink their teeth into a series like this, especially if they’ve never heard of me before. Also, four of the six books end on cliffhangers, and that will need to be posted front and center because I know some readers won’t read if there are cliffhangers. The short amount of time between releases should help–cliffhangers are the worst if you have to wait months or even years for a resolution. That won’t be a problem here, and listing the release dates and having them all up on preorder so readers know they’re coming should help. I’ll need to make graphics and pull quotes, but once all that’s done and things are posted, I should be able to sit back and let the wheels turn on their own. I’m not going to do ARC forms (you can read my thoughts on them here: https://vaniamargene.com/2023/11/06/arc-forms-creating-a-review-team/) and readers can review in their own time and where they want. I’ll put them up on Booksprout, too, so I guess I’m thinking I’ll give away about 150 copies of each (100 on my website and 50 through Booksprout). That’s 900 copies, but if they can get this series running, it will be worth it. I feel like I just haven’t handled my releases very well and I’d like to do what I can push this series. That will take up my summer and they’ll release six weeks apart through February. After those are done, I’ll have another standalone ready to go, and I’ll release that, maybe in June. I can’t say what will happen after that because what will be published toward the end of 2025 into 2026 hasn’t been written yet. That’s enough for that series, and if you want more in-depth musings, you can look here: https://vaniamargene.com/2024/04/29/author-update-kings-crossing-series/

Ad Spend vs. Royalties Update
It’s probably a good idea I do this because I’m terrible at keeping track of my ad spend. That I have a little to play with and that my royalties leave me in the barely black aren’t excuses. Not keeping track isn’t the best way to level up, so I’ll go through what I’ve made and what I’ve spent so far.

As far as royalties go, I’ve made $3,1839.91 this year. That’s $1400.00 shy of what I made the entire year last year, so unless something serious happens to me, I can safely assume I’ll surpass that. Having so many releases this year will help a lot, I think, if I can give this series some traction and it sells. $2,500.00 of that is from KU reads, $643.00 was from Kindle sales, and there was a handful of dollars from print sales. My top sellers were my rockstars, but that’s not a surprise because that’s where I shove my ad money.

So, speaking of ad money, let me pull up what I’ve spent–more on Amazon ads than I wanted, at $711.83 so far. I think I’ll turn them off and not spend anymore on them this year. I have FOMO, and I give in to running Amazon ads even though I haven’t seen ROI using them in a long time. I panic whenever my sales dip, but sales naturally ebb and I shouldn’t be scared of it. FB ads, at least I can say my $2140.97 brought in what I spent and I still have two that are running with no end date because I get likes on shares on them on a daily basis. Social proof is what keeps them going and at .12 and .8 cents a click, they’re cheaper than Amazon ads will ever be. I have to remember that the next time I want to start my Amazon ads up again. They are too costly to keep going. With all the other extras I pay for, like Bookfunnel and Booksprout, my Canva account that renewed, etc, I’m just breaking even.

If I don’t run Amazon ads for the rest of the year and only leave the two FB ads going, I’m curious what the rest of 2024 will look like for me. It will be a skewed experiment at best because I won’t always have a series to rapid release, but I won’t be throwing money out the window. I’m proud of the books I’ve sold so far this year, but eventually it would be nice not to have to pay for every sale. I may have to start investing more time in social media than ads. You pay in money or time, but I haven’t given much time since I haven’t been feeling well, and while I’m not feeling 100% and never will be, I might have to dust off my social media accounts whether I want to or not. The big players are on socials and that could be a turning point for me–if I can stick with it long enough to see some movement.

Bits and Pieces Update
As for anything else, I’ve been keeping an eye on my Amazon followers for my pen name and I’m up to 266. At least people are reading and liking my books enough to follow me. I’ve said in the past I’ve given away more of my reader magnet since switching my newsletter to a blog format than when I was sending out a real newsletter through MailerLite. I’ve given away 35 in the last 30 days, so I’m glad to know people are still clicking and downloading. Turning to blogging isn’t ideal, but that whole debacle was so heartbreaking and I’m happy it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. At least I had the smarts to back up my mailing list and import them into my WordPress website. I see some authors who don’t back up their lists and something happens and they lose all their subscribers.

There are a few other odds and ends, like my blog posts. The updated blog post I did for my Canva tutorial (Updated! Creating a full wrap paperback book cover using Canva (plus more screenshots!)) is finally surpassing the original (Doing a Full Paperback Wrap in Canva for KDP Print (plus screen grabs)). The updated blog post has been read 2,214 times this year and the original 928. I’m glad those posts are helping people.

I haven’t been on TikTok since December and I haven’t posted on Instagram since March. I was cross posting, so more than likely I haven’t posted anything on my FB author page in about as long. I’ll need to see what I can do about that–especially since things are slowing down with my series now and pretty soon they’ll be done.

That’s about it for my mid-year recap. My health and my series have taken so much of my time that I’m not sure what I’ll do next. I’m working on a standalone I wrote in 2021 to get ready to publish, but there’s no rush to get that done, for obvious reasons. I’d like to read and clean out my TBR list on my Kindle, but I’ll have to charge it. I’ve lost a lot of joy in the past four years, feeling how I am and dealing with some other things, like breaking up with my fiancé, and I know “finding myself” however cliché that may be will take time. It would be nice if I could slow down and just enjoy the summer, but I always say I’m going to take a break and never do. As much as I’m burnt out, writing and publishing has been my safe haven the past few years, and not having to hide will be a change. Not wanting to hide will be a change. I know what my health issues are now, and that’s a big deal, so I’ll take it one day at a time and see where I land at the end of the year.

One thing I know for sure–no more Amazon ads.

Have a good week!

Author Update and Monday Musings

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Words: 1445
Time to read: 8 minutes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hopefully there’s only good things ahead.

Have a good week, everyone!

When Authors Act Out Online

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Last week there was a bit of drama when an author lashed out on Twitter at readers for leaving less than a five star review. Of course everyone was offended, and in true form, went to her Goodreads book profile and slammed it with one star reviews in retaliation.

When stuff like this happens, it’s always a train wreck, and we can’t look away as the author goes down in flames.

This isn’t the first time an author has behaved badly on social media–I recall the author who had their book deal terminated because she tweeted a derogatory remark about a Black woman eating on a train.

We’ve probably all had our fair share of cutting it close on social media–pressing an opinion on someone who doesn’t want to hear it, posting about religion, politics, or a hot take about COVID. Lots of authors say they should be able to post whatever they like, and to a point, I believe that, too. My personal Facebook profile is public and I post memes that have the F word in them–a lot. I have a dry sense of humor, but I try not to share anything that would be offensive (I don’t spread racism or body-shaming and wouldn’t even if I wasn’t an author). I support a lot of wildlife rescues, and if you follow my feed long enough, you’ll see that I love bats and foxes. On Twitter I get into spats–someone called me a twat the other day because I defended Stephenie Meyer and her Twilight series–and if you ask for an opinion, I’ll give you mine. If I hate your cover, yessir, I will let you know. It’s not my problem if you agree with it or not, but I’ll tell you straight.

One thing we don’t consider is the state of an author’s mental health when they lash out. When I read all the drama that author put on herself–slamming those reviewers for less than five star reviews–I didn’t automatically call her a bitch or entitled. I thought, what is that author going through she has to lash out because of a good review? What is that author’s life like? Does she see a therapist? Is she on medication? Did she just go through a breakup? Did the stress of launching of her book make her snap? If you comb through some tweets, someone reveals the author was high and tweeting in the middle of the night. I have no idea if this is true, but it wouldn’t be the first time an author, or anyone for that matter, has been drunk or high and posted something they later regretted. Drunk-texting an ex and begging him to come back isn’t the same as tweeting something so terrible it could ruin your career, but you get my meaning.

Authors are already a lonely bunch, and I haven’t met many writers who are actually in a good place mental-health wise. They’re only good at hiding that they aren’t. Even the woman who called me a twat defaulted to rage someone had the audacity to disagree with her. That’s a lot of anger built up to attack someone you don’t know for having a differing opinion. I would imagine this author has been querying for a while and hasn’t managed to grab a book deal and she’s furious someone like Stephenie could not only secure a book deal, but became an international bestseller and was offered a movie deal, too. Maybe anger isn’t a mental health issue, but anger management is in the behavioral health department, and this author should find some help.

Anyway, I got a little off track there. The whole point of this blog post is that things aren’t always what they seem, and I hope I wasn’t the only one to have given this author the benefit of the doubt. Maybe that’s misplaced and she does feel entitled to 5 star reviews, but I tend to think this last year has been hard on everyone, and not enough people are giving others grace. The world is a huge place, but when we are stuck in our little bubbles, it’s hard to walk a mile in someone’s shoes–especially if we’ve been under lockdown for the past 12 months.

I don’t know what this will do to her career. I Googled a bit, but at the time of this writing, there isn’t a blog post or article I can reference that even speculates. I don’t know what her publisher will do, or if she has a PR manager who can do damage control or if they’re interested in doing that. I do know she’s lucky in that something will take her place–I’ve already heard grumblings about the Vivian finalists that the RWA put out a couple days ago. I didn’t renew my membership so I don’t know what book title is evoking the anger (something about a serial killer romcom?), but #romancelandia will be interesting to watch coming up.

What can you do to keep your social media on track?

  • Pause before you tweet or post. I’m always taken with this poster in my clinic’s office when I check in. If what you’re going to to post isn’t any of those things, maybe you don’t need to put it out into the world.
Think before you speak: Is it True? Is it Helpful? Is it Inspiring? Is it Necessary? Is it Kind?
  • Double check what you’re posting on social media is the message you want to convey to the people who follow you. A lot of authors don’t know what their brand is, and I’m not really any different. To the indie authors in the community, I want to be seen as helpful, kind, supportive. I don’t want to be known as someone who is willing to make a buck off iffy information, and trust me there is a lot of that out there. I’ll tell the truth. If you’re cover isn’t working for the genre, it’s not working. If it looks homemade, I’ll tell you. That may not be seen as kind if it’s not the feedback you’re looking for, but there is a huge gap between Writer Twitter and the professionals in the Facebook groups I’m a part of who are making a living wage with their books. I’m not looking to bridge that gap, but if I can help one person make one more sale than they would have, then speaking up is worth it.
  • What are your social media goals? I’m on social media to have fun, network, learn new things about the industry, and drive readers to my blog. I don’t have a reader group on FB (yet), I post what I want on IG without regard to trying to find readers. There is a strong romance community (that I have found, anyway) but it mostly consists of writers sharing the romance novels that they love to read when they aren’t writing. It takes a while to realize that social media (free book marketing) doesn’t work as well as it used to.

If you’re angry, you may not take that pause before lashing out, or maybe you need to vent and have no where to put it but a long FB post. Censoring yourself may be one the hardest things you can do if you feel passionately about something, but the last thing you want to do is lose out on a networking opportunity or a collaboration, or even a book deal if that’s what you want because of something you said in a moment of weakness online.

Mental health is a serious issue, but if you follow along with that author who lashed out and see what other writers and book bloggers did to her book on her Goodreads profile not everyone is willing to give the benefit of the doubt or a second chance. I realize you can’t live your life in fear, but you can think about what you’re projecting out into the world. That might actually help your mental health in the long run.

Do you want to read more about the mental health of writers? Look here.

The Writing Life: Writers and Mental Health

Shattering the Misery Myth: How to Nurture Your Mental Health as a Writer