Ruth Ann Nordin's Blog, page 14

What I’m Doing

I’m happy to say that I’m finally done uploading my stories to Radish!

That was a project I thought was never going to get done. I just finished last night. I did hold off on two stories because I have a plan to price one of those books differently come January, and I’d rather have that price change go into effect before I put it on Radish. Otherwise, I’d have to contact someone at Radish to get the price change done. That’s an unnecessary step.

Now I have to go into my Book Catalogue and put in the Radish links on the stories that need them. While I’m at it, I plan to put in links for Scribd, too. I’m not sure when I’ll put the links in, but I’ll try to get them done before the end of this month.

I’m still working on getting the AI audiobooks up on Kobo.

I’ve been going in the chronological order that is on my book list, though I did break that to get the entire series in Husbands for the Larson Sisters because of Daisy’s Prince Charming which came out in July. I usually upload the audio files during the day when everyone is at school or at work. That way I don’t have to fight for a good internet connection. The audio files will time out if someone else is using up the internet.

To be honest, the process bothered me at first, but now that I’ve got a routine down, it’s okay. I’m tied to the computer during these hours that it takes to upload each book. It takes about 4-5 hours to get everything uploaded for one book if I keep at it, but during that time, I’m also doing laundry, cleaning a room, cooking, or doing something else around the house. I have also been doing some writing, which brings me to my next item on this “What I’m Doing” list.

I’m working on the Marriage by Obligation Series.

     

I already have the first book done, but I’m just started working on the next three books. These books are all considered “on hold”. I won’t go into a political discussion on this blog, but I’m not very optimistic about how things are going in the country. Because of how uncertain things are, I’m hesitant to make too much out of writing these books. I am going to proceed as if the economy will hold up enough to get these out, but if things take a serious plunge, I’m not going to publish these books. We’ll see how things are in January. At that time, I’ll decide whether to put these out there or just tuck them away.

I haven’t done anything with paperbacks.

Paperbacks are probably the most time consuming of all tasks, and I don’t enjoy working on them. What I want to do is give my paperbacks an overhaul. Amazon used to own CreateSpace, and back then, the quality was excellent. But then Amazon got rid of CreateSpace and required authors to use the KDP dashboard to make paperbacks. Not only did they do that, but now when you order these paperbacks, the quality is not that great. The trim along the cover is “off”, and sometimes the pages aren’t straight like they’re supposed to be. (This is even for the books I made long ago in CreateSpace.) Draft2Digital is what CreateSpace used to be. Also, I have changed some covers since publishing the older books, and I wouldn’t mind updating that, too.

But all of this, like anything else, is going to take time. The downside to starting out in publishing back in 2009 is that you didn’t have all of the things to look professional like you do now. Back then, it was hard to get pictures that featured people in historically appropriate clothes, and it was hard to get books looking like the traditional publishing houses’ books. You also didn’t have the ability to create audiobooks, and your choice of retailers were limited. In 2009, it was just Amazon and Smashwords. (Can you believe that?)

I’ve been doing what I can to keep up with the times, but it has been slow going in some areas. Paperbacks is one of them. Today when I publish a book, I can take care of the ebook, the audiobook, serial format, and the paperback at one time. Today I can get a cover that fits the time period to a T so I’m not stuck changing covers later. Today I can get it on all of the retailers at one time, too. For anyone starting out in this business right now, I understand why you’re overwhelmed. There is a lot involved in all of this. I would rather be catching up on this stuff with my older books than having to learn all of this with the first book.

I’m officially caught up on registering all of my books with the US Copyright Office.

This one was a full-long summer project. I hadn’t realized how many books I didn’t register. 2020’s restrictions and lockdowns put a hold on this task, so there was a list I had to do. I had 13 books I hadn’t submitted yet. Also, when I went through all of my US Copyright Registration forms, I realized I was missing three books from the pre-2020 era. I’m glad I found them so I could take care of them. You never know when a copyright issue is going to come up, and you never know what book is going to be targeted.

Worst and Best Strategies for Selling Books

Today I’m going to make a marketing blog post. We only have a finite amount of time to spend in a day, so if you’re looking at ways to use it productively to maximize your chance of making money, here are the tips I’ve learned over the years.

Waste of time #1: Social Media

Social media sites are about communicating with people. Ideally, these forms of communication don’t result in arguments, but a lot of people argue on these platforms. Personally, I feel like a lot of social media is toxic. As a general rule, I stay away from it as much as possible. I have seen no difference in my income after leaving Facebook or leaving Twitter. Joining MeWe hasn’t made any difference, nor has it made any difference when I stopped posting on my author page over there, either.

Now, keep in mind I’m talking about “sales” when I say social media is a waste of time. I’m not talking about spending time chatting with your friends, family, or readers. Social media can also be a good place to learn from others in your field. I use FB (under my pen name these days) and MeWe (under my real name) to keep in touch with friends and family. I don’t use these to sell books. Sadly, MeWe is lacking with a solid good writing community. I don’t know why, but it is. Most of the authors seem to be back in the 2010 mindset with publishing and marketing. If that’s where you’re at, then you’ll do fine over there, but if you’ve been at this for a few years, it’s not a good place to learn about stuff that is relevant for today’s market. FB is still the best place if you want to keep up-to-date on the current writing, publishing, and marketing trends.

I guess some authors run ads on these sites to boost visibility, but there are a couple of reasons I don’t think buying these ads is worth it. One, I’ve heard of authors getting their accounts hacked into at FB, leaving them vulnerable to thieves who can find their credit card information. Two, FB will turn down ads for whatever reason, and usually, they don’t explain why. Three, it’s dangerous to be dependent on a platform that can censor or send you to “jail” at any time for whatever reason. I realize that authors are vulnerable anyway since we can’t control retailers, but if you need to run those ads on FB in order to make most of your money, I highly encourage you to spread your marketing net wider to buffer yourself.

Waste of time #2: Wattpad

Wattpad readers aren’t buyers. They are there for free books. If all you want to do is share your work, then Wattpad is great. It’s an easy way to reach readers. But if you are thinking that a lot of people on Wattpad will read your free book and go on to buy your other books, think again. That’s not the way it plays out. While the people there are nice, they will message you about posting your other books, and they will message you a lot about this. They want all of your books, and they want it for free. That’s why this platform is a huge waste of time for anyone who is looking to make money from their work. I’m all for giving away a free book, but that strategy should result in you selling paid books.

Waste of time #3: Trying to convince someone who doesn’t read your genre to buy your book anyway

I don’t see this much, but sometimes I’ll see an author who decides to pitch their book to people who aren’t interested in the genre they’re writing in. I don’t care what the book is; it will not appeal to everyone. But some authors will pitch their books as if there’s a little of everything for everyone. For example, if someone is asking for a romance, they are looking for a story where the romance is the main plot, and they are looking for the happy ending. They are not looking for a story where two people meet, fall in love, and go their separate ways (or die). If the two people don’t end up together, it is a “love story”, not a “romance”. I can’t believe how many authors who’ve written love stories will try to convince romance readers to buy their book. Mentioning your book to someone when the story doesn’t fit what they’re looking for is a waste of time. You’d be better off mentioning a book that actually fits what that person is looking for. Also, it would be nice if you helped out another author by pitching their book if it fits what a person wants.

Waste of time #4: Giveaways to strangers

I think most people enter giveaways to get something for free. I realize the goal of giveaways is to reach new readers by giving them a risk-free chance on you, but after doing giveaways to random strangers, I don’t recall hearing from the winners ever again. One author I know gave away signed paperbacks of her entire series, and she later found that this person was selling these paperbacks on Ebay. My advice, for what it’s worth, is to run your giveaways to people who already like your books. These are the people who will appreciate the gift. If you want to give away books to strangers, make your ebook free on the retailers. Regarding the gift card or physical gift giveaway, I still think it’s best to offer that to your current readership. The people who should be your focus are those who already like your work.

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Best use of time #1: Write the next book

The best way to make money is with a new book. You can’t sell something you don’t have. Writing the next book is the priority, so long as your head is in the game and you can get words on paper. You do need to be in the right mindset to write a book. The words don’t automatically come to you, and while people say it’s better to have a crappy first draft than no draft at all, I disagree. I think it’s best to have a good first draft. The better your first draft is, the less pain and aggravation you’ll have to go through in cleaning it up. So don’t force something if it’s not coming. You want your book to please your readers. (No book will please everyone, but those people who already enjoy your work should like the next book you publish.) If you need to take a step back and do something else, that’s fine. But if you have the creative spark flowing, and you have the time to write, the best use of your time is writing the next book.

Best use of time #2: Get your book into a new format or on a new retailer

I think it’s always good to expand your reach if you can. When you’re exclusive, you’re cutting off potential sources of income. Granted, all sources of income are not created equally. You’ll probably make more selling books on one retailer rather than another. You’ll probably also sell more in one format (ebook, paperback, audio, serial) than you will in another format. But the thing is, you never know what venue a potential reader will prefer. I’ll give an example from something that just happened to me as a reader. Now that my eyes are struggling, I am not a paperback, ebook, or serial app reader. I need to listen to books. I have switched from listening to books on my Kindle to listening to books on my Google Play app that’s on my iPhone because my iPhone is small enough to slip into my pocket while I go out for a walk. There are readers like me who have a narrow option for consuming books. If you’re not in audio on Google Play, I probably won’t read your books. Who knows what someone else is going through out there? When you take the time to get your books in multiple formats and on different retailers, you are giving more readers out there a chance to read your books.

Depending on how many books you have, this can be a long process. Not everyone can afford an assistant to do this stuff for them. But let’s say you’re having a dry spell with your writing, or let’s say you just finished a book and need a break. Why not take this time to work on getting your book into a new format or up on another retailer? It’s still a productive use of your time.

Best use of time #3: Answer your blog comments

I’m surprised by how many authors don’t do this. I realize we’re busy people, but I think it’s good to comment when someone takes time to say something nice. I don’t believe in responding to nasty comments. Nasty comments should get trashed. Then the commenter should be blocked. You wouldn’t let someone into your home who wants to tell you how terrible you are. So there’s no reason to do that on your blog. If people want to complain about your books, they can do that in a review or on their own social media timeline or on their own blog/website. You are under no obligation to entertain these people on your home turf.

But if someone has a supportive comment or even a genuine question, it’s always best to answer them. Even if it takes you a week or two to get to them, do it. I understand what it’s like to be unable to get to the computer every day. Not everyone is tied to the internet. So don’t feel like if you were unable to answer the comment within a day or two that it’s not worth answering at all. It is worth answering because those people took the time to communicate to you. If the same people comment, after a while, you’ll get to know them, and when you get to know them, you might end up befriending them. There are a lot of nice people out there.

Best use of time #4: Ads

I’m all for ads as long as you can afford them. My favorite ad site is Freebooksy. They reach out to multiple retailers, and for someone who is wide, that is important. I’ve never been approved for a Bookbub, but I hear that one is pretty good, though some authors are reporting less success than they had in the past. Fussy Librarian and Booksends have a good reputation, too, though their reach is less than Freebooksy or Bookbub. I’ve also done some promos on LitRing. Also, LitRing is a way you can get promoted on social media without spending time there.

I haven’t done the pay-per-click ads. It sounds like you have to continually monitor keywords to view the effectiveness of these on Amazon and Bookbub. From what I’ve heard, the most successful ones are at Amazon. One author ran them on her KU and non-KU books and noticed that the clicks were better on the KU books. Do KU books do better with an Amazon ad? I’m not sure, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Amazon gave KU books an extra boost.

Ads are a good way to reach strangers to your work. If you’re in a genre that moves a lot of free books on a regular basis (like romance does), then running ads on a free book (esp. if it’s the first book in a series) will give you the greatest bang for your buck.

Best use of time #5: Email list

I don’t believe you have to constantly email people on your list with tidbits about your book or your day like some authors do. If you’re an extrovert and love talking to people, you’ll probably want to set up an email list where you send something out every week or so. But I’m an introvert, and it takes a lot of energy for me to communicate with people, even if I know them. I prefer to only email when I have a new book out. I didn’t think this email list was beneficial to me until I got rid of it. I had a reader or two who didn’t read my blog or followed me on a retailer, so the only way they knew I had a book out was when I sent out the email. Lesson learned. I got the email list back. I don’t have a huge email list. My list is under 200 people. It’s not the amount of people you have on your list that matter; what matters is if those people are buying your books.

I don’t do much with the email I send out. It’s pretty much the book cover, the description, and links where people can find it. I used to offer a special epilogue, but I don’t have time to do those anymore. It really depends on your time. If you have the time to add something extra, I think that’s great. But the primary purpose is to let people know when you have a new book out, and this can be put together and sent out in under half an hour, which is great when you’re limited on time.

What I’ll Be Working On

First, I’ve decided to move the release month for Heiress of Misfortune.

It’ll now be out in January. I’d rather not publish anything so close to an election that is making a lot of people crazy here in the US. Books tend not to do well when published during a hectic time. December has always been a black hole month for me, so there’s no point it in doing it then, either. Probably because people need to focus on buying gifts for others. January has historically been better. I guess people are more relaxed and ready to read. Who knows? Anyway, that’s why I’m going with January as my new release month for this book.

I put Secret Admirer on hold.

I’m not convinced this is my “best” work, so I am tucking it away for now. I’ll be putting the other books in this series on hold, too. I haven’t written these other books yet.

I need time away from writing so I can focus on the other projects I’ve been behind on for the past year. This is why authors resort to ghostwriters or letting AI do the writing for them. The duties of an indie author can pile up to the point where an author feels like they’ll never get these other things done. If you get an author assistant, you need one who knows what they’re doing, and those will be pretty expensive. I don’t make enough to pay out for one who is qualified. I also don’t feel like training someone. So I’m just going to take the rest of the year to get to the non-writing related tasks that have been hanging over my head for a long time.

So here is what I’ll be doing:

1. I will finish putting my stories up on Radish. Believe it or not, separating books out into episodes takes up a decent amount of time. Sometimes I have to adjust the thumbnail images, too, or search for a new picture to fit the requirements over there.

2. I will finish putting AI audiobooks up on Kobo. This is the most time-consuming of all the tasks, and about 25% of the time, the file doesn’t “save”, so I have to log out of Kobo and then log back in to re-upload it. I have to upload this chapter by chapter for every book. It’s worth it when it’s done. I’m sure as other retailers open up to AI, I’ll have to upload books there, too. It would be nice if Findaway World would open this up, but so far they won’t. This is just like how ebooks were back before Smashwords came along. Of course, back then, the only option an author had was publishing the book on their site or with Amazon. I figure it’s a matter of time before Findaway, or a suitable alternative, will open the door to distributing AI audiobooks to multiple retailers. This ends up saving authors a lot of time.

3. I need to take inventory of what paperbacks I have and making new ones. I plan to start unpublishing paperbacks I have in my KDP (Amazon) dashboard. KDP’s quality has gone way down after they merged CreateSpace into their system. Draft2Digital (D2D) is way better. But it will take me a significant amount of time to create the full wraparound paperback covers for some books that need them. I’ll use the D2D templates for the others. Considering I have almost 100 books, this will be quite the project to go through. I’ll have to decide if some books are not worth redoing. It depends on how well each book has historically sold in paperback. It’ll take me some time to figure out that, too.

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So that’s the stuff I’ll be doing, and I’ll be surprised if I can finish these projects by December 31. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you have as many books as I do, it is. I think at last count, I have 96 romances done. I just went to my list to check. Yes, it’s 96. With Heiress of Misfortune, it’s 97. Fortunately, I’m mostly done with Radish. The other two projects are overwhelming, but I’ll just take it one day at a time. Eventually, I’ll get there.

What I’ve Been Up To

Mothering doesn’t stop just because kids are growing up

I haven’t been able to do much with edits on the books I already finished. I can only hope that now school has started that things will settle down, but who knows? I have two still in high school, one in college who works part-time, and another who works full-time. I honestly don’t know how anyone can afford to get a place of their own right out of high school with prices being the way they are. So I told my kids they can stay here and save up money so they don’t have to go into debt to be on their own. Anyway, this means I’m still busy with the kids. Even if they are in the 16-20 year range, they like to talk to me about their day and stuff that’s bothering them. I want to be available for that, so I will set aside things I’m doing to sit or walk with them.

Years ago, I was hoping to be close to my nieces and nephews and for my kids’ grandparents to be close to my kids. But life didn’t turn out that way. My parents died early on. My husband’s parents weren’t all that interested in spending time with my kids. As for nieces and nephews, that’s a whole other set of issues I don’t want to disclose in a public forum. But at least I can have a close relationship with my own children, and I’m taking advantage of it. I do what I can to encourage my kids to make decisions for themselves, so I see my role as a listener and a source of emotional support. As they get older, they’re not really “kids”. They’re kind of like friends but the dynamic is a bit different since I used to change their diapers. I’m not sure how to think of the relationship now that I’m not really in the role of doing things for them. I make an effort to encourage them to make their own decisions. This is why I let my youngest go to school instead of homeschooling him. I gave him the choice. I preferred homeschooling, but he’s old enough to choose what works best for him, and it’s my responsibility to honor that.

Haven’t got much editing done and haven’t written anything

My eyes are still giving me grief. That’s nothing new, but I can tell that my days of being able to sit at a computer and type or edit for hours is coming to a close. The more I’m on a computer (even with the Reticare screen), the worse things are for my eyes. My condition is dry eye, and all kinds of screens (computer, phone, iPad, etc) only makes things worse. I live on audio now. I listen to podcasts and AI audiobooks while doing household work or going out for walks. I have made it my goal to get into physical shape and eat better. I go for walks a lot these days. Sometimes I go with one of my kids. Sometimes I go alone. After struggling to lose weight for twenty years, I have finally managed to lose 38 pounds. That took a year to lose. Unlike some people, I lose weight slowly. I don’t miss carbs like I thought I would, though giving up chocolate candy and ice cream was hard. All the walking and diet change has made it so that my eyes aren’t all watery like they used to be, but I’m in no way able to do things at a computer like I used to. I think this is just an aging thing.

Dictation is out for me. I had thought about going back to it, but when I dictate, the program I speak into doesn’t get a lot of things right, such as spelling of words. It can take me about one hour to clean up a session of dictation, which is roughly half a chapter. And even then, I still have to edit the book when all is said and done before it’s ready for an editor to iron out consistency issues or typos. I gain no “off the computer” time from dictation. It only doubles my workload. What this means is that I have to slow down with editing and writing. I’m not sure how long I’ll keep going with this. But that’s okay. I’ve had a good run of this. I have completed over 100 books. Never in a million years did I think I’d ever be able to write that many books, nor did I think anyone would want to read them. I went into self-publishing thinking I’d write about 20 books and have those paperbacks sitting on my shelf. God has been very good to me. I have been blessed beyond my wildest dreams.

Still creating AI audiobooks for Kobo but haven’t added anything new to Radish

Both Kobo and Radish are slow to upload to, and something about the Radish site really does a number on my eyes. I can’t afford an author assistant. Taxes are going up, and anything I make seems to go to taxes or to a repair that pops up. So it all falls on me to do these things with my books. In theory, it sounds so easy to get these things done, but it doesn’t play out that way in real life. This stuff takes way more time than one would think. I am planning to get all of my books up on these sites. It’s slow going. That is frustrating, but what else can I do? I’m only one person, and given the situation with my eyes, it’s just going to be slow.

I haven’t even been blogging as much as I want to. There’s been plenty on my mind. I always have something to say when it comes to writing, publishing, or marketing. Get into a room with me, and you’ll find I won’t shut up. But since I need my eyes to write the blog post, I will usually upload an audiobook, do my record keeping for the accountant, or edit instead. Speaking of which, I just finished getting the audio files ready for the Marriage by Bargain Series, so I can start uploading that series to Kobo now.

Reaching the Point of No Longer Caring (A Perspective on Being an Indie Author)

I don’t know if this is something every author who has been publishing long enough eventually reaches, but I have now reached this point.

When you’re starting out on this author thing, you obsess over every little criticism someone throws your way. Every thing, no matter how small and insignificant, is a huge deal. I mean, authors will argue over just about anything. I’ve seen threads of arguments devoted to word usage (ex. “walk” or “stride”), active or passive voice, plotting or going by the seat of one’s pants, how often to publish a book, whether to use white or cream paper in a paperback, buying ISBNs vs using the retailer’s identification number for a book, and uploading books directly to every retailer or using a distributor to send the book out to multiple channels for you. Back in 2010, authors had heated debates over paperbacks vs. ebooks. This largely went away because of the popularity of ebooks, but back then, it was all, “You can feel and smell the pages of a paperback. Therefore, ebooks aren’t ‘real’ books.” Today the big debate has become, “You need a human narrator for an audiobook. Using AI narration will ruin the listener’s experience.” I already know how the human narration vs AI narration will go. We still have paperbacks, but ebooks are accepted. Likewise, human-narrated books will still be around in the future, but AI narration will become accepted as a whole. It’s the same stupid argument. It’s just a different format we’re talking about. There’s a place for both, but authors will devote a ridiculous amount of time arguing over it. And some authors are not making AI narrated books in order to appease the critic, even though they really want to.

When you’re a new author, acceptance is everything. You want everyone to love you. You want to be accepted by every author and every reader on the planet. You might logically know you can’t please everyone, but your heart wants to please everyone. Feelings are delicate things. I’m sure they’re more delicate in some personalities than in others. I happen to be “softer” in the emotional area than others. I feel things deeply. It doesn’t take much to get to me. But, over time, I have noticed that I’ve been developing that tough shell experienced authors once advised me to get ASAP. I think it was back in 2010 or 2011 when one author said the only way I was going to survive long term in this business was by letting all of the criticisms I was facing roll right off my back. Her exact expression was, “Let it roll off your back like water rolls off a duck.” It was good advice, and it’s advice I’m offering to anyone struggling with the critic today.

Recently, I posted something in a group where I upset a lot of authors. I knew I was planting something unpopular in the group but felt it had to be said because everyone was ganging up on this poor author who didn’t have the experience under her belt that I do. This author wanted to do something a certain way, and everyone was criticizing her. Her idea was just fine, so I spoke up and said something. I don’t believe in engaging with authors in these arguments anymore, so I didn’t engage any of the critics. I just posted my opinion directly to her in the thread. I had a gut feeling other authors agreed with me but were too scared to say anything.

The purpose of indie authorship is to do things your way. If you’re right, you’ll find an audience. If you’re wrong, you won’t find an audience. If you’re wrong, you can change your course and do things the other way. This business is composed of trial and error. You’ll succeed in some areas; you’ll fail in others. But failure is okay. Failure is a learning opportunity. You’re not strapped down to your failure. You can rise above it. Just change course. Simple as that.

If you have it in your heart to do something a certain way, go for it. Why let someone else make decisions about your books for you? They’re not paying your bills. They’re not dealing with your readers. They’re not stuck with your books in their library. I understand wanting to get advice, but you need to take that advice and tailor it to your specific situation and your specific interests. We are not all the same. We are not all meant to do things the same way. Being indie means you are the owner of your business. It means you have to ultimately make the decisions that are best for you and your business. Your business is not meant to be run by these other authors. Too many authors run their business by committee.

It takes time to get to the point where you will do things your way, and you don’t care what some other author out there thinks about it. It took me 14 years to get here. I’m sure if I wasn’t so emotionally wired, it would have taken me less time. The only way to arrive at this point is to make a decision best for you and stick with it. (Like I said, if you turn out to be wrong, change course, but if you’re right, stick with it.) At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what those authors think. The only thing that matters is that you are free to do what you want with your books without the need for someone else’s approval.

Daisy’s Prince Charming is Now Available!

This is the last book in the Husbands for the Larson Sisters Series.

And I’m going to miss writing about this particular family. These sisters were so much fun to work with. Sometimes the dynamic between characters just sparks, and this is one of those series. For the Regencies, I feel that spark with Ethan and Christopher, which is why I keep bringing them back whenever possible. For historical westerns, Tom and Joel were my two personal favorite characters to bring together in the Nebraska Series. In this series, all of the sisters were equally fun to work with. I can honestly say that this is one my personal favorite series.

What this book is about:

This is a cute romantic comedy that was partially inspired by the “frog turns into a prince” fairy tale. This story starts with a trip to Lewistown, Montana. Remember the Montana Collection?

I don’t know how many times I’ve been asked if I ever wrote about Rachel Larson or Eva Connealy, but I have. Since I bring these two characters back in Daisy’s Prince Charming, I’m making a special mention of it in this post. Eva and Rachel get their happily ever afters in Boaz’s Wager.

Daisy’s Prince Charming happens shortly after Boaz’s Wager in my “historical western” timeline. So if you haven’t read Boaz’s Wager yet and want some backstory on Eva and Rachel, that’s the book to pick up.

Daisy’s Prince Charming starts with Daisy, her mother Jessica, her aunt Mary Larson, and Eva’s mother Margaret going to Lewistown to pay Eva and Rachel a visit. Daisy and Eva are best friends; hence why Daisy is tagging along for the ride. Jessica is there because she’s best friends with Margaret and friends with Mary. (If you’ve read all of my books, Mary is from Eye of the Beholder, To Have and To Hold, and Forever Yours. Jessica is from A Bride for Tom, and Margaret is from A Husband for Margaret. So there is some overlap between the series at play.)

Anyway, while they are in Montana, there’s this ranch hand names Otis Mills who takes an immediate liking to Daisy. (I did briefly introduce Otis in Boaz’s Wager. He almost won the race that would have allowed him to marry Eva. Boaz won the race instead. I always felt sorry for poor Otis, so I thought I’d give him his happy ending in Daisy’s story since the timeline happens to match up.)

Daisy has her idea of the ideal man, and Otis doesn’t fit it. If you read Suitable for Marriage, you’ll know what I mean. Daisy does her best to gently let all of the men in Lewistown know she’s not interested in them, but Otis is a bit clueless, though he’s very sweet. He ends up believing she wants to marry him, so after she returns to Nebraska, he shows up at her door, ready for marriage.

I’m not going to say any more than that because I’ll spoil the book. It’s a cute romantic comedy.

If this sounds like your kind of book, you can find it at these retailers:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo (also in Kobo Plus)

Apple

Google Play

Smashwords

Payhip

Scribd

Radish

Audiobook version: Google Play

Finished Two Books

I finally did it. I finished the first draft for Heiress of Misfortune and Secret Admirer.

I’m currently editing Heiress of Misfortune.

This book finishes the Marriage by Necessity Series.

My goal is to have this edited by August 1. After that, I’ll send it to my editor. My plan is to release this in October. I don’t have a date yet.

When I started this book, I expected it to be a comedy, but it didn’t turn out that way. I also expected it to be more suspenseful than it turned out to be. While there’s a glimmer of suspense, it’s not the focal point. I thought the father was going to be doting on his daughter, but he was more interested in how she could help him look good in the Ton. I expected the hero and heroine to end up marrying about halfway into the book, but that didn’t happen, either.

So this is a book that pretty much took everything I thought it was going to be and flipped it on its head. I might not know what is going to happen in any book I start, but this was one of the hardest ones I’ve had to write because of how it kept going off in a completely different direction from what I had planned. This is probably why it took me so long to write it. Would you believe I started this in November? In that time, I have completed The Cursed Earl, The Loner’s Bride, Suitable for Marriage, and Daisy’s Prince Charming. I’m used to a first draft taking me about 3-4 months to write.

Secret Admirer is done too!

This is the first book in the Marriage by Obligation Series. (Below is the order I’ve decided on for this series. I intend to stop the series with Worth the Risk.)

I’m waiting until I finish my initial edits on Heiress of Misfortune before I do them for this book. I might be able to write more than one book at a time, but I can only edit one book at a time. When I edit, it takes me about two weeks per book.

I’m planning this one for January. I have no desire to publish even Book 1 in a series unless I’m confident I can finish the entire series. Any time I start a series, I want to complete it. I hate loose ends. I’m hoping I can finish the next three books in this series by the time January comes. At that time, I should have a good idea if it’s worth getting this series out there into the world or not. We’ll just have to see what the future brings.

Updates on What I’m Doing

I decided not to make a post for my monthly newsletter since I didn’t write more than a couple thousand words in June. I had nothing to really say. So far, it’s looking like that will change for August 1. I’ll do a bit of an update here.

Over the past two days, I actually did some writing! I had a total of 1700 words yesterday and 2500 words today. That’s huge after not being able to write for so long. I’m hoping that this will continue. It feels good to finally write again. They say walking and sleep is good for stress, but I think for writers, writing is also good for it. I feel more relaxed today than I have in over a month.

Daisy’s Prince Charming

(This is due out July 31.)

This is the last book in the Husbands for the Larson Sisters Series:

Book 1: Nelly’s Mail Order Husband

Book 2: Perfectly Matched

Book 3: Suitable for Marriage

Book 4: Daisy’s Prince Charming

I have links now for this book where it’s available for pre-order:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo (will be in Kobo Plus)

Apple

Google Play

A note about Radish, Scribd, Smashwords, and Payhip. These sites are not set up to allow for pre-orders. That’s why I’m not listing those channels right now.

A note about the audiobook version. I am also going to put this book up as an audiobook using the AI narration on Google Play and Kobo, but that is going to be around July 31 to August 3, depending on how quickly I can get the files all uploaded. Kobo does allow pre-orders for audiobooks, but I’m not sure about Google Play. (I’ll look into it. I have to make the audiobook with Google before I can get it up on Kobo.)

Heiress of Misfortune (Marriage by Necessity Series: Book 3)

I’m at the point where I know how things end in this story. I’m 63,000 words into this. My average book is about 55,000 to 60,000 words. I am thinking this will be about 70,000 words when the first draft is done. I tend to lose 2,000 to 3,000 words when I get to the second draft. Then it’s off to my editor. My hope is that the first draft will be done at the end of this month. I’d like to get this book out in October. We’ll see how things play out.

Secret Admirer (Marriage by Obligation Series: Book 1)

I’m not sure if I’m more at the 3/4 point. I’m approaching the critical moment of the story which is where everything is turned on top of its head (so to speak). All I know is that when I started this story, I knew the heroine was going to end up falling in love with the butler, and after this happened, a pivotal moment in the story was going to happen. I’m at this point right now. Once the story goes in that direction, I’m not sure how much more needs to be written to complete the story. If there’s not much more to tell, then the story will be wrapped up pretty soon. So I might really be at the 3/4 point right now. I’d go into more detail, but I don’t want to spoil things.

I started Midnight Wedding (Marriage by Obligation Series: Book 2)

I’m only in Chapter 1 right now. Remember Lord Quinton from The Cursed Earl who was highly superstitious? He’s the hero of this book. I decided to start the book up with his abduction. I build up to this abduction in Secret Admirer. I am not going to rehash events in Secret Admirer, so I guess, technically, this is not a “standalone” book, but then, a lot of my books tend to overlap. Sometimes I’ll even overlap a series.

I think of all of my books as part of a large quilt. They all take place in the same world (whether historical western or Regency), and it takes reading all of the books to fully appreciate the overall picture. I could separate each series out so there is no overlap. I’m sure that would make life easier since people wouldn’t have to piece together how characters and events line up between books/series. A lot of authors do it that way. But I love crossovers. To me, they are like fun Easter eggs that people can discover. So I connect up things whenever I can. Daisy’s Prince Charming, for example, has a lot of Easter eggs in it. That’s part of why I enjoyed writing it so much. The more Easter eggs, the better.

Putting Audiobooks up on Kobo (I’m all done on Google Play)

I’m in the process of uploading AI audiobooks on Kobo. So far, I have The Earl’s Inconvenient Wife and A Most Unsuitable Earl on there. It takes me roughly 2-3 days to upload one audiobook on Kobo. Google Play already has all of my romances on audiobook, but the process was quick and easy over on Google Play. It took about 15-20 minutes per book to create the audiobook over there. It takes considerably longer on Kobo. So Kobo is going to be a slow process. As far as I know, Google and Kobo are the only places that will allow AI audiobooks. (Audible doesn’t, but I know some people have snuck them in. Audible is ripe with theft, so I’m not surprised.)

I am adding links to these audiobooks as I get them up, but since I have 95 romances out, I’m not linking to them out in a blog post. That would be crazy. I am putting the links on the pages with the books. The books are divided up by series.

If you want to check out the audiobook links, you can go to this link and then go to the book you’re interested in.

Things I’m Currently Doing

I’m finally in the process of getting Daisy’s Prince Charming up on pre-order.

I decided to put it out on July 31. I don’t have links yet because the retailers need time to set things up on their end. I am putting it on the retailers that I usually do, along with including it in Kobo Plus. I’m waiting to get close to July 31 before uploading it to Radish and before I create an AI audiobook version on Google Play. It will be on Scribd, too, but that page doesn’t go live until the day the book comes out.

Before someone says something, I need to warn everyone that I had to go back to the $3.99 price. After going through my record keeping for the accountant, I ended up taking too much of a loss at the $2.99 price point. So I had to go back to $3.99. On the plus side, I loved writing this book a lot, and I can honestly say it’s one of my personal favorites. I feel that way about all of Tom and Jessica’s daughters’ books.

Still registering copyrights.

When I went through all of my copyright registration letters to organize them, I found out that I had never registered the copyright on a few of my older titles. I’m currently working on that right now. I figure I might as well while I’m doing all of this. Since I had sent in paperbacks to copyright my books in the past, the US Copyright Office requires me to do that for all of my books now. That required me to go and make some paperbacks. I’m not really a fan of paperbacks since I can’t read them anymore. I’d prefer to stick with ebook or audio, but I need to create the paperbacks, and sometimes making a wraparound cover is a pain-and-a-half to work with. Bookbrush makes it easier, but I still struggle in this area. Sometimes I opt for Draft2Digital’s option of just uploading the ebook cover and going with a plain back cover that only has text on it. That saves on time. If I have someone special in mind when making a paperback, though, I’ll take the time to do a full wraparound cover because it does look nicer.

The paperback book for the family friend has finally shipped.

It took about two months of fighting with formatting issues and the full wraparound cover, but the book finally met with the Draft2Digital’s approval process. It was shipped out yesterday. The sad thing is that I even had my editor’s help because some of this stuff was over my head. She does formatting in addition to editing. If you need a good editor or formatter, let me know in the comments, and I’ll pass along her information. Anyway, I am crossing all fingers and toes that this book is in the “ready to publish” stage. This guy is 91. He doesn’t have a lot of time left to see this thing in print.

Still running around doing errands.

Typically in the summer, things settled down on stuff I have to do that takes me away from writing, but this summer is different. Everything keeps piling on. It’s been any number of things. Sometimes it’s repairs around the house that can’t wait. Sometimes it’s getting IDs or renewing them. Sometimes it’s helping a kid with with driving and (God help me) parallel parking. Sometimes it’s dealing with a program through the school where I find out too late that I don’t have some ducks in a row, so I need to scramble around to get them all lined up. I don’t know why, but I had this vision in my head that when the kids got older, I would end up doing less for them. The opposite is turning out to be true.

Thoughts on technology.

I love the internet. It’s opened a world I never would have had. I don’t think I ever would have published a book had it not been for the internet. But I hate the texting, emails, and dealing with a phone call while I’m out running an errand. All this technology has done is create an atmosphere where I am never truly “away” from it all. I often leave my phone at home to get a break, but when I come back, there’s a text, email, or phone message about something I need to do, and most of the time, it’s something that needs to be done right away. The worst messages are about the things I forgot to do. *sigh* I think back on what my mom had to do, and I don’t recall things being this crazy for her. Maybe it’s me, but this world is just too fast-paced. I can’t keep up.

As I was writing the last paragraph, I realized why I’m having so much trouble writing. It’s not that I don’t want to write. I do want to write. I love what I write. I just don’t have enough time to write. I feel like I’m constantly being handed a To Do List, and the worst part is, the list never seems to go down. As soon as I’m done with one thing, another item pops up. I did manage to get 3,000 words written this week. That felt surprisingly good. It felt like some of the pressure was released. I just wish I could get more writing in. Then I would feel like I’m not treading water in these stories I want to get done. Would you believe I started Heiress of Misfortune back in November, and I’m still not done with it? I can’t believe it, either. I’m just shaking my head in disgust, but I also realize I can’t make more hours pop up in any given day. I have my limits, and I’ll have to learn to deal with them.

What Goes Into Making a Book

Books are not easy to create.

There seems to be a myth out there that runs something like this: it takes absolutely no effort to create a book. I think this myth came about because reading is a passive experience. Reading is also quick. Depending on how long the book is and your reading pace, you can finish a book within an hour to a few days. So if something seems easy on one end, we’re apt to believe it was easy on the other end, too.

Therefore, some people conclude that books aren’t worth paying for. I’ve been publishing romances since 2009, and the most common feedback I get is about price. I get stuff like, “You’re breaking my bank”, “I’m on a limited income and can’t afford to buy books”, “Unless you’re a New York Times Bestselling author, you aren’t worth paying for”, “I love your free books and wish there were more of them”, “This book has been out for a year. Isn’t it time to make it free?”, and “Why aren’t you in KU? I can’t get your books unless you’re in KU”.

Some (not all) of these people have the audacity to turn around and post pictures on social media about their new car, their vacation, their Starbucks drink for the day, the new movie they just saw at the theater, etc. These particular people have the money. I’m not the only author this happens to. Other authors go through the same thing. For some reason, other stuff is worth buying, but an author’s book isn’t.

It doesn’t help that there are videos and posts out there teaching people how to read any book they want for “free”. Essentially, these videos and posts promote a read-and-return scam. So instead of using an online library, which is totally legitimate, these people opt to use a retailer as a library. When someone reads a book from an online library, the author has been paid for the book by the library. When someone reads and returns a book from a retailer, the author gets paid nothing. The same is true for audiobooks on Audible. I stopped putting audiobooks on Audible for this reason. (Though I still claimed my books on there to prevent thieves from getting their hands on my content.)

Yes, KU is legitimate. Authors get paid per pages read, but to be in KU, an author can only be on Amazon. (At least this is true for us indie authors.) Kobo Plus and Scribd are legitimate places to read books under a subscription model, and best of all, they don’t require authors to only be on Kobo or Scribd. Authors are free to be on other retailers. The exclusivity clause in KU is why I am not in KU. KU has shut me out from using their program. But I am on Kobo Plus and Scribd. I’m also at online libraries. I have a way for people to legitimately get my books without buying them. And these places exist outside the US.

I don’t know if people don’t realize this or if they are just trying to get a free book, but when people complain that I put a price tag on my books, all it tells me is that these people don’t value the time and money that went into creating my books. I didn’t just snap my fingers and the books magically created themselves. Every book took work and money to create.

Today, I’m going to share what it takes to create a book.

You need to write the thing in order for it to exist.

I don’t use ghostwriters. I don’t use AI. Every book I write is from scratch. This means I have to sit and think about what I’m going to write before anything gets on the page. I have good writing days and bad writing days. A good writing day is when I wake up ready to write, and the words just flow naturally from the mind and onto the page. This is a no-effort day. I only have these days about 20% of the time. Most of the time, I know what I want to write, but I have to struggle for 30 minutes before the words start to flow. If someone interrupts me during these 30 minutes, I won’t get anything written that day, and a lot of people don’t see writing as “work” so they will interrupt me a lot.

I consider myself to be a fast writer. I have published 6-8 books a year since 2009. This doesn’t count the other genres I’ve dabbled in. I have just over 100 books total now. But that doesn’t mean writing those books was easy. There’s rewriting. There’s stopping the story to figure out what comes next. Then there’s times when I had to swap scenes around and then revise those to make them fit in the story. I might not have put in an 8-hour shift of doing physical labor, but it’s still tiring to write for 3-5 hours a day (five days a week) and then turn around to do the non-writing part of this business. If you totaled up all of the time I put into this writing business between writing and non-writing tasks, I work about 50 hours a week.

Some authors are faster than me. Some authors are slower than me. But we all put in time in order to create the book. The reason some authors use ghostwriters and AI is because creating a story from scratch is harder than it looks. There’s a lot of work the brain has to go through in order to connect the dots from the beginning of the book to the ending of the book. And these dots need to be connected in a way that entertains people.

After the writing comes the polishing process.

I go through every book one time before I send it out to an editor. It takes me about 2-3 weeks to go through this. Sometimes it takes me a full month. I like my work, but I can only handle a chapter or two a day because editing is tedious. I have to look at everything that’s wrong with the book. Also, sometimes I have to listen to any previous books that led up to this particular one. I’ve learned long ago to go through any connecting books to make sure I’m not running into consistency issues. This is all why it takes me so long to go through the initial edits.

Then I send the book off to an editor, and I give the editor a month to work on it. For people who wonder if I use an editor, yes, I do. I am not the only person who goes over my book. I try to make every book free of errors, but something always seems to fall through. I have read plenty of traditionally published books (and even watched enough movies and TV shows) where errors slipped into them. Errors happen. All an author can do is their best. All an editor can do is their best. I’ve been “cold called” by a couple of editors in the past, and even THEY missed something. No one is perfect, and quite frankly, I’m sick and tired of people acting like authors never take the time to have their books edited. Most of us do take the time. It’s just that no one ever finds every single thing. Ironically, those complaining about the error they found often write their comment with an error in it. /rant

The cover is either made by the author or made by a cover artist.

Hands down, the cover artist will do the best job unless the author happens to be familiar with making covers already. If the author creates the cover, that will take time. The author will need to find the pictures, get the right fonts, and then put these all together. This can take anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of weeks. If the author needs to keep tweaking the cover, it can take weeks. (I’ve done this, and it is exhausting.)

I prefer to either hire a cover artist or buy a pre-made cover. This takes the time off of my back, but it does put the time onto someone else. When working with a cover artist, the author has to describe the book, mention what they want on the cover, and clarify the genre. Sometimes the author will submit pictures they already found to the cover artist, but sometimes the cover artist will search for the pictures. Then the cover artist will come back with some mock-ups. This is where the author will either pick one they like or suggest something else. This whole thing can take up to a month. Usually, it’s a week or two, but cover artists have lives of their own, so you have to work with their schedule. This is why I get the cover before I even write the book. If you go the pre-made route, you can eliminate the mock-ups and the “describe your book” process, but even then, you will have to make some touches to the cover or tell the cover artist your title and name. So there’s still some time, but this time is not very much.

Formatting comes next.

Now comes the part where you format for the ebook. If you do paperbacks, you need to format for that, too. I format for paperback while writing the book to save on time. The only reason I do paperbacks these days is to send the book to the US Copyright Office because of the non-ending harassment from Amazon to constantly prove my copyright to them. I create the ebook next. (I think most authors create the ebook first.) To create the ebook, it takes about an hour to format. This is, by far, the easiest part of the process, but I’ve been doing this since 2009 and I format in the simplest style possible to best fit all e-readers. Some authors like to get fancy in their formatting. The fancier you want to get, the longer the formatting will take.

Making the book costs money.

You need money if you hire a ghostwriter, buy an AI software writing program, hire an editor, hire a cover artist, buy pictures and/or fonts for your cover, buy a pre-made cover, and hire someone to do the formatting (whether it’s for the ebook, paperback, or both). If you don’t want to upload the book yourself, you’ll need to pay for that, too.

On average, I spend $300-$500 to create a book. This is why those emails from people who complain about the price of my books is so irksome. I paid a lot more than $0.99-$3.99 to even MAKE the book. Most authors pay way more than their asking price to produce their books, too. The truth is, authors need to make money with their books in order to keep writing more books. Most of us aren’t independently wealthy. Most of us are on a budget. Most of us are struggling to make ends meet. We need people to buy our books so we can pay for food, keep a roof over our heads, and keep our lights on. My internet alone is $85 a month. I need the internet in order to upload my books to the retailers, to communicate with editors and cover artists, and to maintain a blog and website.

Also, authors don’t keep the total price of their book. When you buy a book for $2.99, the author doesn’t get all of that. The retailer gets their cut from that price. Essentially, the author pays the retailer for having their book on the retailer’s storefront. Typically, the retailer’s cut will be about 30-40%, but it can be more depending on the country, the retailer, and the price of the book. If authors sell direct from their website, the cut will be a lot less, but most people want to buy from a retailer. If someone buys a paperback, the cost of printing the paper and cover will be combined with the retailer’s cut. Some might balk at a $14.99 paperback price for a romance book, but I only see about $2-$3 of that amount for the US and less if it goes overseas.

Then after the retailer takes their cut, the taxes come in. Authors are self-employed. Retailers don’t take taxes out for authors. Authors need to figure out their tax burden and pay the federal and state government (at least in the US) themselves. I hire an accountant for this. That accountant costs me money, too. Some authors figure out taxes themselves, but I am not a numbers person, so I hire out. Some authors don’t make enough to even pay taxes, which means they can’t cover their bills and groceries from their book income. They need another source of income to make ends meet. Contrary to popular belief, most authors aren’t making a ton of money. By the time most authors pay to make the books, the retailer takes their cut, and the taxes are removed, they are doing good to stay afloat. (And I didn’t even discuss ads or other promotional opportunities authors pay for in order to get people to even realize their book exists.)

Support the authors you enjoy.

The bottom line is that it costs authors plenty of time and money to get these books out there. If you have an author you appreciate, the best way you can thank them is by buying their books. Words of praise are nice, and we certainly love hearing them, but we also need the money if we are going to be able to keep writing more books. I know some authors who quit writing because they had to use their time to make money by getting another job. If I ever get a “traditional” job, I’m not writing anything because I won’t have time for it. (I barely have time to write as it is.) I understand why these authors dropped out of writing. Authors need financial support in addition to the emotional support.