Ruth Ann Nordin's Blog, page 25

Fun Equals Good Work (A Post For Writers)

I came across a quote Stephannie Beman included in her 2021 Writing Planner. It’s a quote by David Ogilvy. That quote has a slight variation on the internet when I looked it up, but in a nutshell, the quote says, “When people aren’t having any fun, they seldom produce good work.”

Now let’s flip that to the positive. “When people ARE having fun, they MOSTLY produce good work.”

In the last post, I was talking about making money writing books. Back in 2008-2010, the focus was mostly on writing for enjoyment and publishing books for the personal satisfaction of seeing one’s name on the cover. Then word got out that there was money in indie publishing, and now money seems to be the main reason most writers are publishing books. As I said, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to get paid for your writing. But, in my opinion, when the focus is on money, authors are ultimately going to sacrifice writing a story that is going to stand the test of time in its value to the writer and to the reader.

The appeal of subscription services like Kindle Unlimited, Kobo Plus, and Scribd is that you can read as many books as you want for a monthly fee. Every book offered in a subscription package feels free. There is no risk involved. If you don’t like the book, you just stop reading it and return it for another. Or you can finish what you read, return it, and pick up another one. It doesn’t matter how many books you read or even whether the books are any good or not. The only thing that matters is that the books are all “free”. I can see why this is enticing to readers, and I think subscription services for books are only going to grow in popularity in the years to come. I think this is going to lead to writers making less money because retailers who cater to voracious readers will lose money if they keep paying authors the 35-70% royalty rate authors get when they sell an ebook. For the retailer to make a profit, they will need to either limit how many books a reader can read in a month or they will need to pay the authors less. Most of the time, they err on the side of paying the authors less because a happy customer is a paying one.

Now, there is good news in all of this. People reading books will still want books that take them on an emotionally satisfying experience. They want to get lost in the story. They want to be right there with the characters, sharing their ups and downs as the story progresses. These are books that will still have purchasing power because the readers will want to keep them. They aren’t going to want to return them. I might watch a movie on Amazon Prime, but if I love it, I buy it because I want to be able to download it and watch it again. Books are the same way. If someone falls in love with a book, they’ll want to read it more than once.

Books that are “meh” are a dime a dozen. They’re replaceable. One is pretty much as good as another. I can’t tell you how many times someone’s told me something like, “I can’t remember what the title of that book was or who wrote it, but it had a woman who became a mail-order bride and married a widower with kids. It took place somewhere in a cold part of the country out west.” Well, that could be any number of romances out there. That is a very popular trope. You can’t narrow something like that down without more information. Some people have told me they know they read a certain book, but they don’t remember what happened in it. I’ve read books like that, too, and I have no desire to own such books. If a reader loves a book, they’ll buy it. They won’t just read it in a subscription plan and tossed it back into the virtual bin of books. My gut tells me that the best books being written are those written for fun, and I believe, in the long term, this is the method that will pay off. I don’t think it will pay off as in you’ll be making a ton of money, but I think it’ll pay off in that it will be on a reader’s “keeper shelf”. These are the books readers will be recommending to other people years from now.

An emotionally satisfying book can come in any genre, so don’t think that you have to write in something like literary fiction to stand the test of time. For example, when you’re looking at romance, you want to give the reader the uplifting experience of falling in love. When you’re looking at horror, you’re aiming for the reader to be so freaked out that they keep looking over their shoulder to make sure something spooky isn’t in the room with them. (If they have trouble sleeping, it’s a bonus.) When you’re writing science fiction, you want the reader to have a sense of wonder about the possibilities that exist on this world or beyond it. Every genre has a purpose, and the goal of the writer is to dive deep into that purpose so you can give the reader a satisfying emotional experience. The only way I think a writer can successfully write this kind of story is by diving so deep into the story they’re writing that they feel everything the characters do. If the character is scared, your heart needs to be beating faster. If the character is amused, you need to be laughing. If the character is angry, your adrenaline needs to be pumping. You, essentially, become the character you’re writing.

I don’t see how a writer who is rushing a story just to get it published can devote the kind of emotional work that the story needs to do it justice. Books that are rushed and thrown into the world are more like products on an assembly line. They lack heart. That’s what passion brings to the table. That’s why books written for fun matter. Anyone can sit down and write out a bunch of stuff that happens to a character, and they can tell us what a character is thinking and feeling. But if they aren’t emotionally invested in the journey the character is on, it’s going to show up in the final product. I’ve read a lot of these books. They’re just “meh” kind of stories. They pass the time, but they aren’t memorable. And to be honest, I skim them.

Before anyone thinks I’m being hard on other writers, I used to write “meh” books. Under a pen name, I recently republished one of those old books, and one of my readers told me there was no “connection” between the characters. The story was just okay. See? My lack of passion showed up in my work. In the past, I spent a lot time writing genres outside of romance because my family thought that romance was “trash”. As long as I was writing other genres, they were fully supportive of my writing efforts. Finally, I broke down and stopped writing for them. (And yes, they stopped reading my books because of it.) But in the end, that didn’t matter because once I started writing for me, I was having a lot of fun. And as a result, everything else fell into place. I had no trouble connecting with the characters on an emotional level because I loved what I was writing. This is why passion is important. It’s why writing for fun produces good work.

So if you want to write books that will have long-term meaning to yourself and to your readers, I highly recommend writing stories that are fun for you to write. If you’re having fun, you will end up producing good work. The reason it’ll be good work is because you’re going to give it everything you’ve got.

A Strategy for Making Money as An Author

Today’s post is inspired by a new author who was on Facebook and wanted to know how to be successful.

Successful in this case means “make a lot of money”. Very few authors actually ever come right out and say this, but that’s what “success” and “successful” mean. So that’s the approach I’m going to take in this post.

First of all, I see nothing wrong with a writer who wants to make money. What other profession out there will demand someone do the work for free? A book is a product the customer can consume. The author is providing something someone else can either learn from or enjoy. And authors have bills to pay just like everyone else. So there’s no reason to shame any writer for wanting to make money. Also, there’s no reason to shame any writer for wanting to simply have fun writing and publishing without giving any thought to money. I get tired of these endless debates over whether writers can be called a “serious” writer if they make money or not. A writer who is serious about writing is a “serious” writer.

Alright, that mini-rant aside, let’s get to my advice to new authors whose goal is to make money. I really only have two main points.

1. Write what will sell.

This means you have to think of the market when you create your book. Yeah, I know that sucks for some of us who are driven by passion. This is why my mission isn’t to focus on writing for the sake of making money. I used to do that, and I made way more than I do today, but I wasn’t happy writing for that reason. So I shifted to writing for fun. My income has taken a drop because of it. I still make some money, but it’s nothing like what I used to make. The kind of books you write will impact your potential for maximizing your income. In addition to writing books that are popular in your genre, you will need to get an awesome cover and an awesome book description. Also, the book will have to be good. It has to be interesting enough for readers to keep reading. So you need to hit multiple levels in this approach.

There are a lot of You Tube videos, articles, and books on how to write to market (some will call this writing to trend). You can also browse bestselling books in your genre. What things do those books have in common? Remember, NEVER copy anyone. Plagiarism is wrong. But there are some general tropes and story themes that are used so much that they’re fair game. Plenty of people have already done the work narrowing down how to write to market, and this information is free if you take the time to search for it. You don’t need to spend a ton of money on courses to learn how to do this.

Now, I will add that while looking into writing what is popular in your genre, you can look for ways to mix in stuff you enjoy. This is a way to merge writing to market and writing for passion. Some authors do this very well. It’s the angle I went for, and it did yield good money. It also helped to sustain me for the long term, though eventually I ran out of ideas I was interested in and had to switch completely to writing for passion. Your mileage will vary. You might be able to do the market/passion blend indefinitely. No two authors are alike.

2. Publish fast.

Unless you have income coming in from other sources, you will need to get books out frequently, especially if you’re in a genre where readers read fast. The faster they read, the quicker you should be. I’m in romance, and those readers tell me they can read 2-3 books a day. So if I were to publish a book a week, that would work just fine with them. However, there is no way I can write that fast. I’ve tried different ways of increasing my word count, I settle on 6 (maybe 7) romances a year that average 60,000 words each. That’s only a new book out every other month. That is SLOW in romance. There is an author who writes 120,000 words a month, and she finishes three or more books in three weeks. I think she has full length novels and novellas. She makes a lot of money. I don’t. We’re both in romance. Speed is a factor in making money. You’ll have to research your genre to figure out the right amount of books you need to produce in order to maximize your income potential.

If you are unable to write at a speed that all will allow you release books at a consistent and fast pace, then I recommend hiring ghostwriters. I don’t hire ghostwriters because for me, the goal is to have fun creating the story and working with the characters. That is the payoff for me. The money is just icing on the cake. But if money is something you are most concerned about, I see nothing wrong with having help. Ghostwriters could use the money, and they’re willing to do the job. As long as readers enjoy the books, that’s all that matters. I know this is a sensitive topic in the writing community, but we’re talking about how to make the most money possible. This is a business decision. If you can’t write fast enough to make the kind of money you want, then this is a method to help you get more books out.

I have an author friend who uses ghostwriters. She comes up with the story idea and outlines it. Then she gives the job to the ghostwriter who writes it out for her. Afterwards, she goes through it to make sure it’s something she’s happy with, and then she publishes it. She does this while writing some books, too. She can’t keep up with the pace in her genre. Her words of caution, for anyone thinking of going into this, is to make sure you get a sample from the ghostwriter first. Give the ghostwriter a prompt and have them write a couple of paragraphs to give you an idea of their writing skills. Then you also want a ghostwriter who can work on a deadline and turns in work that doesn’t have a ton of errors in it. She also has more than one ghostwriter so that she always has a new book coming in to polish up and publish. She doesn’t have an assistant to help with this, but if you make enough money doing this strategy, I think an assistant to help with this would help you be even more efficient.

While I’m thinking of assistants, a lot of authors have them. Even ones who write all of their own books hire them. Assistants do a variety of jobs. They can upload the book, maintain the blog/website, post to social media, sort through emails to eliminate junk, and any other task. Assistants can help you in your quest to publish books faster. So that would be something else you can look into if it interests you. When looking at assistants, I would recommend getting personal recommendations from other authors they’ve worked with, if possible. I’ve never had an assistant, but it should be someone you can trust and be comfortable around.

***

That’s it for my strategy for the authors out there. There are other things like advertising and such to help with the money side of things, but I don’t feel like going into the weeds on that. Without a good backlist, the ads and other forms of promotion won’t get you very far. If you do have a good backlist, then I would combine this information with other marketing strategies. There are plenty of books out there on this, and I personally hate marketing so I have no desire to write a post on it.

Elana M Johnson has written a Indie Inspiration for Self-Publishers series on rapid releasing, writing cover copy, and marketing. I have all three books, and while I’m personally not interest in doing over half the stuff she mentions, I did like the information she provided. These are books meant for writers who are looking to make money. This series is available across multiple retailers. I’m not going to take the time to put down all the links. Just go to your preferred retailer and search for her. She’s easy to find.

Perfectly Matched and An Earl In Time

Book 2 in the Husbands for the Larson Sisters Series

I’m 34,000 words into Perfectly Matched right now, and this book is NOTHING like I had planned. It’s a good thing I didn’t spend time writing the book description because I’d have to go back and change the entire thing.

So my original ideas was to have this be a romantic comedy where Jim marries Patricia Larson (that’s Tom Larson’s 2nd daughter) and takes her to downtown Omaha where he lives in what he believes to be a haunted house. The house, of course, wasn’t haunted, but he was supposed to think it was, and this was going to be the avenue where there was a lot of humor.

Remember in Nelly’s romance (pictured below) how her sisters were all excited to have her get married because then it meant they could start getting husbands?

Book 1 in the series

Well, Val’s friend (Jim) got off the train, and Nelly and Val brought Jim out to Tom Larson’s farm to stay until he got a job and place to live in town. All at once, two of the three remaining unmarried sisters started to compete for his attention, leaving poor Jim overwhelmed and unsure of what to do.

This angle was turning out to be so much fun that I decided to keep going with it. I’m over halfway into the book, and we’re still at the point where Patricia and Erin don’t know which of them he’ll pick. Daisy (the youngest at 16) is convinced he’s fallen in love with her despite her attempts to stay out of the way. Now, Jim’s never told Daisy he’s interested in her. That’s something she came up with all on her own. And since it adds to the humor of the story, I decided to roll with it.

These girls are a hoot to work with. I had a lot of fun writing the scenes with Tom and Joel, and these girls are just as fun.

Now, the way this book has progressed, I had to throw out my original idea. Instead, the book is going to end at a wedding. This is one of the few books I’ve done where I don’t feel a sex scene would add anything to the story. I could throw it in, but there’s really no purpose except to let new readers know that I don’t primarily write “clean” romances. Most of the time, I feel a scene does add something, usually to the development of the relationship between the hero and heroine. In this case, a sex just wouldn’t have added anything to the story, so I wanted to leave it out.

I wasn’t sure if this would be disappointing to people who do read my books, so I posed the question on Facebook. I do want to make people who take the time to read my book as happy as I can. I realize I can’t please everyone, but I do try. Thankfully, people said they’re fine if ends at the wedding scene. This puts a lot of pressure off from trying to wiggle in some way to make a sex scene fit into the story.

I would like to have this book out in March, but I can’t promise that since I went through 2.5 months where I was unable to write more than a few hundred words on any one day. It’s only been since the past two weeks that I finally got the “spark” back. I think I can still make it for a March release as long as the momentum keeps going.

***

One of the things that gave me the “spark” back was giving myself permission to write something different from what I typically do. An Earl In Time is going to be different. It helps me to dive into other genres.

While I was in my writing funk, I was browsing pre-made covers on The Book Cover Designer. I found that one above. It was love at first sight. But I couldn’t see buying it unless I could write a story for it. I spent a week or two thinking over what kind of story I could write to fit that cover. Obviously, the cover isn’t your typical historical romance. The mirror is separating the hero and heroine. It appears as if he’s stuck in it. So that gave me the question, “Why is he stuck there? What happened to cause him to be there. How is she going to cross the divide and be with him?”

I had other things I wanted for the story to hit in order for it to be something I could get excited about writing. I wanted something along the lines of the Grimm stories, not the light Disney adaptations. I wanted something that would allow me to break outside the box of realism. I wanted the possibility to work with magic and curses, and I wanted something dark. I wanted to be able to take the limitations off of historical romance. I wanted my imagination to be able to go in any direction it wanted to.

After working with several ideas, I settled on a time travel romance that starts in our current day. The heroine has inherited an English estate, so she leaves the United States to go there in order to sell it. Yeah, she could have stayed in the US, but for the sake of the story, she goes to England. Once she crosses the moat (I decided on adding a moat after finding out that a property over in that area actually has one), she’s going to be unable to leave. The moat contains the magic that keeps her there. Other people can come and leave, but she’ll be unable to. I want there to be some creepiness feel to the story, so I’ll have her be alone. Things always feel creepier when people are alone.

Here’s what I know so far:

The curse started in the early 1800s when the earl lived there, and there’s a mirror on the second floor that is a portal between our current day and the past. He can’t go to the present, but the heroine will be able to go into the past. When the curse was set, the hero and the servants were transported into a state of suspended time. For two hundred years, he’s been having to live the same day over and over. The servants, however, aren’t aware of it. To them, no time has passed at all. That’s the setup on that side of things, and I have no idea what caused the curse or why the heroine is the key to breaking it. And for some reason, the curse only effects the hero and the heroine. No one else in the family line was touched by it because the person she inherited the estate from came and went without any problems. The only thing is that no one in the family had ever been able to sell the place for some reason, which I don’t know yet. This is a story where I find out the answers as I write the scenes.

Right now, I’m at the point where she’s about to notice something moving in the mirror that’ll totally freak her out. She hasn’t passed through the portal into his time yet. That comes later. At the moment, she thinks everything is normal. She doesn’t even realize she’s unable to leave the property. That’s coming soon, and I’m excited. I enjoy writing the high tension stuff. I feel like it flexes my writing muscles.

Bottom line, if you don’t like dark/spooky fiction, you’ll want to avoid this book. The goal is to do a fairy tale with gothic elements.

Tips on Writing When You’re Facing Burn Out (A Post for Writers)

Writing is one of those things that demand a lot of energy. I’m talking about creative energy. Words just don’t pop onto the page. They need to be created in the mind first, and these words need to be strung together in a way that tells a compelling story that will keep the author, and hopefully reader, engaged all the way from the beginning to the end.

The longer the story, the more writing the story is going to feel like a marathon. I know we’re not out running or lifting heavy weights, but we are using our creative muscles. We still need to be disciplined in our goal of finishing a book. We need to stick to it even when the story isn’t as bright and shiny as it was when we started it. This involves a lot of pacing on our part. Long-term writing, especially, requires a good schedule that you can stick with.

Over time, however, even the most disciplined of writers who have a solid writing schedule that gives them a realistic publishing schedule can face the dreaded burn out. Today, I’m going to offer some tips on how to deal with this when it comes knocking at your door.

1. Take a break.

I’m not a fan of writing every single day. I think the creative mind needs a breather. We would never tell a doctor or a teacher they need to work every single day or they aren’t a “real” doctor or teacher. So why are we doing this to writers? Writer is a person who writes. It doesn’t matter how little or how much the writer writes. As long as they are writing, they are a writer.

And it’s healthy for people to rest. Not everyone will need the same amount of time to rest. We all have different things happening in our lives. Someone who is taking care of an elderly parent or young kids will have more already on their plate to deal with. Also, people who work can’t use a “full 24-hour day” to fit in some writing. Or maybe you have health issues. Perhaps you’ve been steadily writing and publishing a book or more a month for a year. That kind of pacing will wear anyone out.

The more exhausted you are, the longer of a break you’ll need. Don’t let anyone tell you how much of a break you should take. You take all the time you need.

2. Set up a realistic pacing system for your life.

I know some authors brag about writing 5,000 words a day and publishing 2-3 books a month, but that’s not realistic for everyone. Some authors do one book a year, and there is nothing wrong with that. My advice is to tune out authors who make it sound like you’re a failure if you’re not rapidly writing and releasing books. You are not a failure. Your lifestyle is just set up in a way that doesn’t make 5,000 words a day the best option for you.

I think it’s a good idea to track down how you use your time for one month. Then at the end of the month, take a look at what you’re doing. Are there areas where you’re wasting time doing something that could be spend writing? Then fill in that slot to write instead. Until you know where your time is going, it’s hard to figure out when you can write. Not everyone has the ability to sit down all morning and write. Some people need to wiggle in 30 minutes here and there. There’s nothing wrong with that. As long as the free time is there and you want to spend it writing, go ahead and do it.

3. Eliminate as many stressors as possible.

This is probably the trickiest part since we can’t always control the stressors in our lives. My advice is to look for moments in the day where you can get away from everything else and just relax. Give your mind a break from all the noise.

I have music to help me with this. When I sit down to write, I have a playlist of music ready to go. Sometimes I put on headphones to tune out everything else around me. I don’t let myself get tangled up in social media or anything else during this time. All I do is write. I’ve also had to start going to bed without listening to anything negative. The negative stuff at the end of the day makes sleeping more difficult, and the harder it is to sleep, the harder it is to be well-rested and ready to go for the next day. So those quiet times, however you can find them, are extremely helpful to being in a restful state. The better rested you are, the happier you are, and the happier you are, the easier it is to create stories.

4. Exercise

Sometimes getting out and physically moving can help. The endorphins created during exercise offer a natural boost of happiness that can help offset the effects of stress, and burn out is a major source of stress.

5. Eat Well

There is definitely a connection between what you eat and how you feel. We all know what foods are healthy and which aren’t, so I won’t before anyone with a list.

6. Do things you enjoy.

Just because you have a day where you can write, it doesn’t mean you have to do that. You can give yourself permission to engage in other activities you enjoy. The story will always be there when you get back to it.

But just make sure you aren’t using those other things as an excuse to put off writing the story forever. The goal of starting a book should be to finish it.

7. Ignore the blog posts and social media threads on how to make more money as a writer when you’re feeling down.

In my experience, this is one of the biggest sources of stress. You can’t control how sales go for you. If you’re feeling exhausted or stressed out already, this is only going to pile on the negative emotions. My advice is to worry about marketing when you have a ton of creative energy already flowing through you, and writing is coming fast and easy. If you’re focusing on marketing where you’re struggling with enthusiasm, it’s only going to make things worse.

8. Write what you love.

When you’re writing what you love, it’s much easier to get words down on paper. Maybe this is something you have to do while writing on the stuff that makes you money. There’s nothing wrong with carving out some time for a “guilty pleasure” that only you will enjoy. It could be the very thing to help fill up that creative well within you.

There Is No Magic Bullet in Self-Publishing

Today’s post is based on this video I watched yesterday on You Tube:

I really like Dale’s videos. He’s usually quick and to the point, and I find that he does a good job of offering a balanced view of things.

That in mind, he also did a video on why you SHOULD publish on Amazon, too. Here it is so you don’t have to rush over to You Tube to find it:

For today’s post, I wanted to piggyback off of the first video because a few thoughts came to mind as I was watching it.

Quick disclaimer: I believe you should be on Amazon with ebooks. Dale brings up a situation where the author did better not going on Amazon, but most of us will have ebooks under $9.99 to sell over there, and in that case, it’s wise to be on Amazon.

That disclaimer aside, let’s get into the content of this blog.

There is No Magic Bullet in Self-Publishing



1. Just because you write it, it doesn’t mean people will find it.

I know this isn’t exactly breaking news, but there’s still this idea floating around out there that if you’re on Amazon (especially KU), you’re going to be earning a livable wage in under a year. Yes, there are people who are killing it on Amazon. I’ve met them. But it takes work to get noticed.

Dale is right about 2015. Before 2015, it was super easy to get noticed over there. You pretty much could write the book, publish it, and go off to write the next book. The algorithms on Amazon pushed you up without much effort on your part. It was a beautiful thing. Early on (like 2011 to 2012), Kobo and Barnes & Noble would push up indie books, too, but that lasted for maybe a year. So Amazon was definitely the indie author’s friend.

Despite everything, Amazon is still the friend of the indie author because even if you aren’t in KU, it’s still easier to get noticed over there. There are some authors who make more wide, but a lot of authors still make more money on Amazon than the other wide retailers. I’m one of them. Even not being in KU, I still make more on Amazon. That’s why I suggest being on Amazon with your ebooks. It’s one more piece of the pie you can have.

However, you have to do some marketing to get noticed. You can’t write the book, slip off into a corner, and watch the money come in. You have to work at it. The term “pay to play” fits. I don’t run a lot of ads. An author friend I have ran Amazon ads on her KU books and her wide books, and she found that Amazon pushed the ads with the KU books a lot more. So I don’t bother with Amazon ads.

I do, however, find success with Freebooksy ads, and I’ll run those to help give my backlist a boost. The first in a series free strategy still works, thankfully. I’m not a heavy marketer. That’s why I don’t make the kind of money I did back in 2013-2015. But the ads and permafrees do keep me afloat.

I’ve also found some success with pre-orders on Apple. This isn’t a big and wild success, but it does help to pay the bills. The longer you can have a pre-order up at Apple, the better. I even find that I make more on a new release on Amazon if I have it on pre-order for at least one month before it comes out. But again, you have to let people know about these pre-orders. You can’t just put it up and never mention it.

You should pick the marketing method that best appeals to you. I hate marketing. I find it physically draining. That’s why I use the path of least resistance. (Freebooksy ads, permafrees for Book 1 in a series, and pre-orders.) And guys, my strategy doesn’t yield megabucks. It’s enough to get by if you are getting books out on a consistent and frequent basis. The minute I go longer than two months between new releases, my income takes a nosedive. In my opinion, fresh and new content is a necessity if you’re not very good at marketing. If you are good at marketing, you can utilize your backlist to your advantage if you don’t want to be writing all the time.

2. Amazon has strict and ambiguous guidelines. Being on all retailers is, in my opinion, the best strategy.

Dale mentioned this in the video at the 3:49 mark, and he’s right. Things change. Nothing stays the same. You have to be flexible.

One of the benefits to being in this business for a little over a decade now is that I’ve seen things change across multiple retailers. I remember when Barnes & Noble wouldn’t publish an indie book. I remember when Kobo was created. I remember when you could make paperbacks on Amazon using CreateSpace. I remember when Amazon didn’t require exclusivity in order to get special visibility on their site. I also remember when authors weren’t able to do pre-orders unless they were with traditional publishers. Heck, I remember when traditional publishing was considered way better than indie publishing. I’ve been around so long, I even remember when MySpace was the place to go!

Forced Into Marriage Trivia

[image error] This is Book 4 in the Pioneer Series.

While I was writing Groom for Hire, I had a secondary character who had to be dropped off in a small town in the middle of nowhere because he was unfit to help lead the wagon train. In the back of my mind, I thought, “It’d be a shame to leave the poor guy there forever.” And so, I decided to write another book in the Pioneer Series.

In the book, Brandon is an alcoholic who needs to overcome his dependency on liquor. I grew up in a home with an alcoholic father. He was a functioning alcoholic, meaning that he was able to hold down a steady job despite his addiction. My mother almost left him because it put a strain on their marriage, but in the end, he was able to quit drinking. My dad was the quiet type of alcoholic. He never screamed or threw things. I did some research into alcoholism during the writing of this book. Mainly, I was interested in what alcoholics go through as they stop drinking, and the symptoms widely vary. So I picked the stuff that best fit Brandon’s personality. My dad never talked to me or my sister about what he went through, but I imagine it wasn’t too different from what Brandon went through. (Side note: my dad went to be with the Lord years ago. Even if he had been alive when I wrote this book, I wouldn’t have asked him about it.)

I got the idea for Lokni’s character after all of the spaghetti westerns my husband watched. These westerns are more nitty gritty than your typical western. There are a lot of brutal scenes in them. (Brutal for the 1960s and 1970s.) I have yet to see one of these movies end with a genuine happy ending for all of the main characters. I mean, they might live, but the main love interests never ended up together. One movie in particular involved a white man with a Native American woman who fell in love. Being a spaghetti western, they didn’t end up together. The romance writer in me hated that ending. So I decided to write this book where a white man and Native American woman would be forced together and end up together. This was my own “spaghetti western” without getting too far into the brutal aspects of it, though I did give Lokni a nitty gritty backstory.

While I did have characters on the wagon trail in two other books in the Pioneer Series, I wanted just the hero and heroine to be out in the wilderness as they made their way to the next town in this particular story. I thought it would be the best way for the two to get used to each other.

In some instances in my romances, I use the birth of a child to represent a fresh start in life. These are typically for characters who are struggling for a second chance but are unable to find the hope for a second chance any other way. The other book where I used this strategy was The Marriage Contract. In that book, it was the hero who needed it. In this book, however, both the hero and heroine needed it. This was why Lokni was pregnant at the beginning of the book, and she had to be ready to give birth.

In my research of the Wyoming Territory, I found out that there was a good mix of white people and Native Americans, and quite a few of these people married and had children. The stigma associated with whites and Native Americans marrying didn’t exist in these small towns. So this book had to be different from the Native American Series in how interracial couples were viewed. What I couldn’t do in Bismarck, North Dakota for Chogan and Julia (in Brave Beginnings), I could do in this book.

I’ve been in hotels with my kids when they were babies, and it’s a huge pain in the you-know-what. I never want to go through that ever again. It’s so much easier when they’re potty trained and old enough to sleep in a bed. Every time I wrote a scene with Lokni and the baby in that hotel room, my mind went back through all of those past trips I had to take because my husband was still in the Air Force, and we had to move around.

I felt it was important to give Lokni the option of being able to leave Brandon at some point in the story, so I did plan for that scenario when I started writing the book. After everything she’d been through, she needed to have a moment where she could finally pick what course she would take in her life. Since this was a romance, I already knew she’d stay with Brandon. The question was “how”. The “how” is what makes writing fun.

Though it wasn’t intentional, Brandon’s middle name “Clint” now makes me think of Clint Eastwood.

Random Stuff

November Newsletter on my newsletter blog is “missing in action”.

So a long time has passed since I’ve posted anything. I didn’t even realize how long it was until I checked my calendar. I even forgot to make a post for November on my newsletter blog. I’ll try to remember to do the blog post for December.

Writing discrepancies might lead to pre-order dates moving back.

I have done very little writing. This has been the case since mid-September. There’s been a lot of back and forth with whether the kids are home or in school, and on top of that, I have the one I’m homeschooling. Plus, we’ve have two snowstorms in the past month. Since we live off of a dirt road outside of town, the snow drifts can make it impossible for us to get anywhere until someone plows us out, so I’ve had everyone here on and off during the last few weeks. I think all of that just threw everything up in the air.

So if I end up pushing a pre-order back, this is why. I’m on track for publishing A Deceptive Wager on January 17. That book is already done, and I just need to give it another round through in edits. The other books, however, are up in the air. I have tentative release dates on them, but if I have to, I’ll move them back. I refuse to rush a book. I want each book to be the best it can be.

I won’t be putting any more audiobooks on Amazon or Audible.

Over the past few days, I’ve been studying up on Audible’s return policies. I already mentioned this on Facebook, but for those who haven’t seen it over there (or aren’t on Facebook), Audible is allowing its subscribers to return any audiobook for up to a full year for any reason. Audible will then return the credits (or whatever those things are called) to the customer.

Authors in a Facebook group I’m in have said they’ve noticed up to a 50% return rate on their audiobooks. A couple of them say they average that 50% in returns. So last month, I made $30. What if, in February or even June, 50% of the people who got my audiobooks decided to return them? That means I would then owe ACX (which uploads to Audible and Amazon) $15 because they already paid me the $30 back in October.

I get that they’ll probably wait until I sell $15 more worth of audiobooks to collect on that money, but the point is, they will demand I pay them that $15. This is like being in debt, except I have no control over who buys or returns my audiobooks.

What Audible needs a more author friendly return policy. There are two requirements I would like: 1.) The customer did not get to listen to the entire audiobook. I’d suggest no more than 40% listened to. 2.) The customer should be required to return it within 2 weeks. Two weeks is plenty of time to decide if someone likes the audiobook enough to keep going or not. Plus, I wouldn’t have been paid already for the sale. Then I don’t have to owe ACX anything in some unknown future.

Until there’s a more author-friendly situation for authors, I’m done. But I’ll still claim my books over there to stop thieves from taking them.

Speaking of audiobooks, it’s slow going on getting one done.

It looks like I can’t do more than one per quarter. My focus needs to be on my family, and after that, I need to write new books. That puts audiobooks at #3 on the list of priorities. I enjoy doing them, but I find the more I do this, the more I pick up things I didn’t before. I’m hoping that the new microphone I got will be way better than the one I used on Meant To Be. If it’ll cut down my editing time by half, then it’ll have more than paid for itself. On average, each chapter is taking me 6-7 hours to do.

Unfortunately, I got into this after I put out over 100 books. As of right now, I have 105 books and 6 short stories. This includes all of the genres I’ve done. I have done 91 romances (including A Deceptive Wager) so far. So basically, this means I’ll probably never be able to do my entire backlist. I can only do my personal favorites.

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I’ll leave it here for now. I’d like to get another trivia post up next. I think I’ll do Forced Into Marriage for that.

Isaac’s Decision Trivia

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The cover was made by Bonnie Steffens (one of my awesome readers).

Update on A Deceptive Wager and I Got the Hero for A Perilous Marriage

I plan to get A Deceptive Wager out in January. That will finish up the Marriage by Design Series, which I have to say is one of my favorites. I’m very pleased by the way the whole thing turned out.

Here’s the series for quick reference:

[image error]  [image error]  [image error]

In a previous post, I wasn’t sure if A Deceptive Wager was a more dramatic romance or a romantic comedy. Now that I have gone over it after taking a couple of weeks away from it, I can safely say that is a drama type of romance. It’s more like Breaking the Rules.

Nobody’s Fool has comedic tones to it that make me think of A Most Unsuitable Earl, His Reluctant Lady, and Kidnapping the Viscount.

A Deceptive Wager makes me think of Love Lessons With the Duke, The Perfect Duke, If It Takes A Scandal, and The Earl’s Secret Bargain. These are all books where there was tension between the hero and heroine to some degree, and they had to work through it. So if you enjoyed those books, you’ll probably enjoy A Deceptive Wager.

Now I’m done with A Deceptive Wager (and moving it into edits), I am starting a brand new Regency series. This series will fall between the Marriage by Fate Series and the Marriage by Fairytale Series. I know some authors can write books and series in specific chronological order, but my brain just doesn’t work that way. Sometimes I have characters I want to write about, but it’s best I wedge them between series or even within a series. I’ve given up trying to be like other authors. I’m just going to write the series as they’re ready instead of the exact order they come in.

I looked at the year on Kidnapping the Viscount (which is the end of 1819) and the year The Marriage Contract begins (which is the end of 1824). I want to bring in some side characters from earlier in the Regency timeline, and it’s easier to do that between 1819 and 1824 since those characters are all in the ideal marrying range.

I just went in and updated my Regency timeline. Here’s my Regency timeline so you can see the order things are.

[image error] Marriage by Necessity: Book 1

Regarding A Perilous Marriage, I want Miss Tumilson to be the heroine, and yesterday I finally decided who the hero will be. I’m going to bring in Mr. Charles Duff. I need the kind of hero who is on the serious side, and he qualifies from the things he did in Kidnapping the Viscount.

[image error] Marriage by Fate: Book 5

For those of you who read Kidnapping the Viscount, Charles was the heroine’s brother. He’s not a bad guy. He wasn’t the villain. But he was so sure that Gill didn’t want to be with Heather that he thought he was helping Gill by dragging her back to London. So, I saw his role as a very serious person, and once he thinks something is a certain way, it take a lot to change his mind. That is exactly the right kind of character I need for A Perilous Marriage. I need a hero who is convinced that his friend died because the new wife (Miss Tumilson) murdered him.

I just need to come up with who Charles’ friend was, how he was murdered, and how Charles is going to work his way into the “good graces” of Miss Tumilson so he can get close enough to her in order to find out how she did the crime. Of course, she didn’t. I have no idea what really happened, but I’ll find out when I write the book.

I expect this book to be similar to The Earl’s Scandalous Wife in the tone and feel of it.

Making Audiobooks

I’m still in the process of working on the first audiobook I have narrated myself, and it’s been a lot of fun. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but once I got into it, I found myself in the story and acting out the characters as I read the dialogue.

I never thought of narrating fiction as a form of acting, but that’s what it is. I’ve heard radio shows in the past, and that’s what this reminds me of. You’re not on the screen, but you’re still acting out the role of the characters. And yes, I was moving my arms around, using all sorts of facial expressions, and really getting into it. I didn’t expect that to happen. I always wondered why people who speak roles in animated movies moves around and altered their facial expressions to match the mood of the characters. Now I know. When you put all of yourself into the character like that, you can’t help but “be” the character, and your body goes right along with it.

Anyway, this trial of narrating a book has been a lot of fun, and I feel like I added another dimension to the book that I didn’t have before. For that reason, I have decided to keep narrating more books.

As I wrote out this blog post, I realized there was a lot of information in it, so I’m adding subject headings to help make it easier to follow everything I’m throwing out there to those of you reading this.