Ruth Ann Nordin's Blog, page 27

Forever Yours Trivia

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Dave and Mary have been married for 10 years, and I used the way marriage has been for me (20 years now) as a basis for a realistic view of marriage. Your average day isn’t going to be the drastic ups and downs of how things seem when you first fall in love and wondering if the other person loves you back or not. After you’ve been married for a while, you settle into a routine, and things have a natural flow to them. The love is still there, and deeper, and you really do feel like your spouse is an extension of you.

People had a mixture of thoughts on this book when I announced I was writing it. Half of the people were excited, and the other half were like, “Not another Dave and Mary story. Haven’t you already done two?” But I always felt they had a trilogy to write, and the series would not have been complete without it.

The original plot idea came to me in 2013. It was much different from the way things turned out to be. Originally, Dave was supposed to injure his leg and be unable to do any work. That was the only part that stayed the same. One of Mary’s brother-in-laws (whom I introduced in To Have and To Hold) was Bert. I don’t know how many people remember him, but he drank a lot and would pretend to shoot himself because he was miserable in his marriage to Mary’s sister. Anyway, Mary’s sister was going to die, and Bert was going to leave Maine with his son to make a new life in Omaha. He was to spend time with Dave and Mary while he figured out what to do, and as payment for staying there, he was to do the chores around the place that Dave usually did. Anyway, long story short, Dave was supposed to worry that Bert and Mary were getting along too well, and Dave was also supposed to have trouble maintaining an erection and such. There was also a part in the story where Dave was supposed to fix the fence in the pouring rain to stop the cows from escaping. (This was when everyone was gone.) As a result, he was supposed to get seriously ill and almost die. As you can see, this was intended to be a serious story. However, Dave didn’t care for that plot, so I opted to go in a completely different direction, and the story ended up being light-hearted comedy instead. Dave is much happier with this version.

Also, here was the original cover I had planned. (Thankfully, I never used it.)

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The things that happen with the kids like when Rachel pushed Adam to get him away from the spilled milk, the impatience Isaac had over the cornstalks not growing fast enough, and Rachel forgetting to tell Isaac not to go to the barn while Mary talked to Dave are all incidents based on real life with some minor tweaks.

The purpose of the scenes when all of the Larsons are together in any Larson book is to give an update on how the family is all doing. I know there’s a lot of people to keep track of, but this is for the benefit of people who have been reading my books over the years. They aren’t necessarily important to the plot.

When Tom throws the roll at Joel, it’s my reference to when Joel threw the biscuit at him in The Marriage Agreement. (Unlike Joel, though, Tom wasn’t able to hit him.) Sometimes I like to draw on something from another book I’ve already done for fun. Another example, Joel’s reluctance to do any laundry or cleaning stalls was a reference to how he was in Eye of the Beholder when he used every excuse possible to get out of the chores.

I thought it would be nice to show the transition Richard and Amanda went through in living in the small apartment and getting their first modest home (in Wagon Trail Bride) to when they became wealthy, so I chose that to replace the original plot with Bert in it. At the time, I didn’t know what I would do with it. Thankfully, while I was writing the scene where Dave and Mary were eating at his parents, the idea of Dave getting jealous over Isaac’s sudden admiration for Richard came to me. I was so relieved I nearly jumped for joy because I felt like I was starting to write the book with no sense of direction.

During the writing of the book, I switched the two horses (Jack and Susannah) around so much that it took several read throughs to get them right. In one scene, Jack was the horse Dave been on when he fell, and in others, the horse was Susannah. I also kept changing the position of where Jack was at after Dave fell off of him. One time, he was standing close by, and at another time, he was near the barn. The whole thing with the horses was just crazy.

Mary could never sell the apple pie recipe. I did fiddle with the idea of having a bad storm ruin half the crops, but I can’t think of Mary without her apple pie, so she kept telling Maureen and Connie no.

This is a side note that has nothing to do with this story, but Jacob Larson (the kid Mary and Dave had after Adam) took over Ralph Lindon’s mercantile when he grew up. I like the idea of doing Adam’s and Jacob’s stories, but I don’t know when I’ll get to them.

My Thoughts on Joanna Penn’s Lessons Learns from Her 500 Creative Penn Postcast Episodes (Part 2) (A Post for Writers)

I’m just going to pick up where I left off in the last post.

Joanna’s Lesson #4: Try different strategies for marketing and branding in order to find the ones that work best for you.

My thoughts: This is largely dependent on the genre you write, your personality, and your budget. Also, nonfiction will market a lot differently than fiction. There are a lot of different methods for marketing out there. There’s no way I can list them all.

What I will say is that if someone suggests a marketing strategy to you, and your initial reaction is, “I’d rather poke my eyeball out with a fork,” then this strategy is not for you. I don’t care how well it works for other people. You are not them. You are you. You will be better off seeking out writers who share your marketing preferences and talking to them if you’re looking at a way to fine tune your marketing skills. How do you find writers who share your preferences? This is going to be trial and error. It’ll require you to get on social media and go to writing groups. There are a lot of writing groups on Facebook. I tried MeWe, but they don’t have the quality of writing groups that Facebook does. That is the best place I’ve found for author interaction. If anyone wants to know what groups I find helpful, let me know in the comments. There are also author blogs, but Facebook groups will cover a variety of topics that are most helpful, and your range of people will be broader.

As a general rule, long-term marketing is thought of as “long term”. This is not about getting rich fast. It’s about the steady movement of activity that you can see yourself doing on a regular and consistent basis for years to come. You want something you can stick with. That’s why it has to blend well with your personality. For example, some people like doing videos, and they’re really good at it. They have a flair for it, and you can tell they’re having a good time. These people don’t usually care for blogging. They’d rather talk instead of write. But for me, I’m much happier blogging because I think much better when I type than I do when I talk in a video. Also, I hate selling in person at craft shows. You have to be really engaging in person to pull this off, and in person, I am the person who is in the corner of a room, not front and center stage. Online, I’m a different person. I have no trouble at all joining in conversations. So just consider the kinds of things you naturally lean toward. What are your strengths? What would get you excited? (Or, if nothing else, what doesn’t make you want to run into a hole and hide?) Marketing can be fun if you pick the right activity.

Joanna mentioned content marketing. I also like this type, and it works really well for introvert types. Content marketing involves anything to do with your stories. For examples, I have a lot of Book 1’s in my series for free. Other authors like to do short stories or extra scenes to go with a story. Some people might even pretend to be a character from a story. There are many ways you can work around this. It’s basically looking beyond the book itself and adding to it with fresh new content.

Some author prefer ads. Now, this all depends on your budget. Never go into debt to market your books. (Also, I would never advise anyone to go into debt for covers, editing, formatting, audiobooks, etc.) Ads can be fairly cheap ($15 or so) to expensive ($1000+ a month). For example, you can have a one-time ad where you pay for it and then go your merry way. Or, you can have a pay-per-click ad like on Amazon or Bookbub, and these can be a lot of money. I’ve heard of authors spending $5000 a month on ads. You have to make sure you’re making more money than you’re spending to make this strategy worth it because not all ads will yield a profit.

In addition to overt marketing strategies, it’s important to look at “branding” when you’re building up your author platform. This is all in line with long-term thinking, and it’s the mindset that makes you a professional author. This all takes time. I don’t think anyone settles into their “brand” right away. I think this, like marketing, is some trial and error as you figure out who you are as a writer and how you present yourself (and your books) to the world.

The nice thing is you don’t have to appeal to everyone. I don’t believe you can appeal to everyone even if you tried. Our brand is going to separate us from other writers. The way we engage with people in real life or online will reflect our personalities. We might try to imitate someone else’s style as we’re trying to figure out where we fit in, but over time, our real selves is going to develop as we get more comfortable. I think it’s best to embrace yourself as you are. We all have strengths and weaknesses, and being aware of those will help us figure out the way that works best for us as we engage with the world around us. For example, I have always been best at one-on-one interaction. I’ve been that way since I was a kid. I prefer to sit and listen to other people, and when I’m comfortable, I’ll start volunteering information. So it’s pointless for someone like me to have a brand where I’m front and center in a group leading the discussion or running the Facebook parties. I do think it’s much easier for the outspoken authors to sell books because they are outgoing people. They are naturals at drawing people to them. But it’s not impossible to reach people if you’re more of a quiet person like I am. I think for quieter people, the content we create (along with things like ads) will be our main strength, which is why I’m inclined to focus more on creating new books than I am on any other form of marketing. We all have our strengths, and it’s worth taking the time to evaluate those strengths and figure out how we’re going to use those to the best of our abilities.

At the 51 minute mark in this video, Joanna has two authors featured that discuss the importance of having a core audience who wants our books. What I like most about this is that it’s not so intimidating to think of all the people out there and trying to find them all. I like the idea of focusing on a smaller group. It’s a much easier process when you are looking at reaching one person at a time. (I admit this goes along with my personality.) The way I see it, getting out there with my books is really about building relationships with other people, whether they read my books or not. I do think it’s important to appreciate the people who currently love our books. I know we are always looking at ways to expand and reach new people, but I don’t think it’s wise to lose sight of the people who are currently with you. Back in 2008 or 2009, there was an author who seemed really nice and seemed to be sincere in engaging with me. I bought her book and, as she asked, I left her a review. Well, after that, she pretty much ignored me. It was like I no longer existed. That hurt. They say that people might forget what you say, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel.

Joanna’s Lesson #5: Think like a professional author. (This starts around the 59 minute mark in the video.)

My thoughts: She’s right about life being short. We need to make the most of the time we have. It’s up to us to decide what we’re going to do with the time we’re granted. So basically, being a professional author is about showing up for writing even when we’d rather watch a movie or go to the beach. I don’t think it’s wise to write every single day, but there is something to be said for having a habit of writing on a regular and consistent basis. I’ve been at this seriously since 2008, and it really is all about embracing the habit of writing.

I also love the idea of the reward being the story itself. We tend to get this turned upside down in the writing community. The writing community says the story is not enough. The writing community says that the reward is the money, some award, or hitting a bestseller’s list. This is very unfortunate. Because of this thinking, books (by themselves) do not have value. Writing a story is not valued, either. The writing community says the only thing that matters is how “successful” those books are. From personal experience, I can tell you those things don’t satisfy in the long run. They offer temporary boosts of pleasure, but the pleasure quickly passes because no book stays at the top forever and there is always someone more “successful” who comes along.

If you want to truly be happy as a writer for the long term, it’s best to reject the writing community’s opinion. Let the story be the reward. Write the book you most want to read. Write the book so that you can go back to it over and over again, and, after reading it, you can think to yourself, “I’m so glad I wrote that.” That is the key to having a kind of joy that never goes away. You can’t control who reads the book, who will review it, how it ranks, or how much it makes. All you can control is the story itself.

My Thoughts on Joanna Penn’s Lessons Learns from Her 500 Creative Penn Postcast Episodes (Part 1) (A Post for Writers)

I thought I’d discuss this today. I love Joanna Penn, and I enjoy her Creative Penn podcast. I don’t get to listen to every episode these days, but she was instrumental in helping me get started with indie publishing back in 2009. She’s also a very lovely person. I’ve had the pleasure of actually meeting her, though it was all online. Someday, I hope to attend a writing event and get to meet her face-to-face.

Joanna’s Lesson #1: Write what you love.

My thoughts: Is it any wonder why I enjoy her as much as I do? If you’ve been on this blog for any length of time, you know I have ditched the write to market mindset and have fully embraced the writing for passion one instead.

When your heart isn’t in something, it is much harder to write it. Even writing from a place of passion has its problems. I can know what comes next in the story and I can be excited about the story, but there are days where the motivation to write isn’t there. I’ll sit down and try for 250 words. Usually, once I get past the 250 mark, the motivation starts to come to me. There are times, however, when it’s like pulling teeth the entire time I’m getting those 250 words out, and when that happens, I do other things for the day. I’m not of the mindset that we must write every single day. I think that’s a faulty mindset because the brain needs to take a break from time to time. Physically, we need sleep. Since we allow our bodies time to rest, we should let our minds have rest, too.

Also, I think writing the kind of books you want to read is the perfect reason to write. When you’re the one in control of the story (or let’s say your characters are in “control”), you will produce something unique that no one else will. This is why even if you were to select 100 authors and give them the same scenario (for example: “a mail order bride steps off the train and finds out the man she came to marry died the other day”), you’ll get 100 different ways of telling that story. There are many ways that specific idea can go. You have tons of variables to work with. The main characters’ personalities, what happens when she finds out the man is dead, secondary characters, and the conflict will all build a unique story.

I started writing romance because I had a specific book in mind to read but couldn’t find it. I’ve enjoyed reading romance since I was in the 8th grade. I mostly read teen romances, but I read some adult ones, too. Through college, I focused on my studies, so I didn’t get as much reading in as I used to, but after I was married and my kids were still all in diapers or pull ups (I had them all back-to-back like stair steps), I had the urge to return to reading romances. After a while, I began to want an author who kept all sex within marriage. I found one, but I realized I wanted certain plots and character types, too. So I broke down and started writing the kind stories I most wanted to read. I never expected anyone else to want to read them. I uploaded them to Amazon because I eventually wanted to buy a Kindle. Well, the rest just snowballed from there. I never imagined that I’d end up where I am. But it all started out with writing what I loved. And it continues because I keep writing what I love. Writing what you love means you will get through the ups and downs of the indie publishing business. Believe me, there is a lot of drama with publishing.

Joanna’s Lesson #2: It’s okay to suck in your first draft. Editing will turn your book into a finished product.

My thoughts: This is one thing I had trouble grasping when I was doing the first draft blog back in the 2010-2012 (I think those were the years). A couple of people didn’t seem to realize the first draft wasn’t supposed to be perfect. Most people did understand that. But there were a couple who made it a point to tell me the flaws in the story. It actually killed my enthusiasm for the blog. I felt like I had people with their red pens out ready to circle all of my errors. These days, I prefer to keep the first draft to myself.

Now, I didn’t stop writing the first draft posts on that blog because of the critics. I actually quit because that was the first time I ran into someone/some people who stole three of my ebooks and published them as their own. It’s much easier to go to a retailer with a takedown notice for copyright infringement if the book has already been published than to prove ownership over a first draft. But I think it was just a matter of time before I would have shut down that blog anyway. No matter how much I told these people I was doing a first draft and that it wasn’t supposed to be perfect, they still insisted on playing critique partner. If I wanted a critique partner, I would have asked for it. If I wanted to write for a critique group, I would write to market. But I want to write for passion, and that being the case, I am not inviting anyone to come in and tell me what to do with my story while I’m writing it. I know that sets a lot of writing-to-market authors on edge, but my reason for writing is not driven by sales. I want sales, of course, but my primary reason for writing is to produce the book I want to read years from now. To do that, it has to be authentic to my vision, and yes, I’m willing to give up on more sales to make that happen.

As a final note: perfection is a myth. No book will ever be perfect. And no book will ever please every single person on this planet. Just do your best and move on.

Joanna’s Lesson #3: We are independent authors. We create and license intellectual property assets.

My thoughts: This is why copyright protection is so important. This is why it matters if a scammer/pirate/thief takes a book and steals it for their own gain. The author is not compensated when these people come in and steal something they did not create.

Now, if someone were to work out a contractual arrangement where money is given in exchange for creative intellectual property, then that is fine. For example, I paid Stephannie Beman for the full creative intellectual rights to the Wyoming Series. We created a contract, signed it, and now the characters, the world, and everything in it, belongs to me. I can do whatever I want with the series. I can make ebooks, paperbacks, audiobooks, foreign versions, and more. That is a legal and moral way to conduct business in a way that protects the author’s copyright. Publishers work in the same way. Authors sign a contract granting publishers a certain amount of rights to their stories. Some publishers only want ebooks, but some want more than that, and this is all spelled out in the contract the authors sign.

Now, if someone decides they want to take a book they find and republish it as their own, create an audiobook with it, create a foreign version of it, TV/movie script, etc without getting the author’s permission, this is theft. It is wrong. I don’t care if the person stealing this book puts it up for free. If the author did not give their permission, this is a violation of copyright law.

That all said, creative intellectual property (like a book) can be broken up in many ways. It can be an ebook, paperback, and audiobook. This can be broken into different languages. This is why you can’t use the same ISBN (for example) for a Kindle (ebook for Amazon), an Epub file (ebook for B&N, Kobo, and Apple) a paperback book, and an audiobook. Each different version needs its own identification number because it is a different version.

For a more information, be sure to listen to Joanna’s video up above at the 19:30 mark.

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Joanna gives three more lessons, and this post is already longer than I planned. I’m going to divide this post up into two parts.

Coming Out of the Political Closet

Quick note: this is the only post I intend to make on this blog about my political views. This blog is dedicated to my books and writing-related issues, and I plan to keep it that way.

If politics isn’t your thing, please skip.

That disclaimer aside, here we go:

I have been bogged down by fear for a long time because I know it’s not popular to be a Trump supporter. It’s popular support other people, but he’s not one of them. But it’s true. I am a Trump supporter. I voted for him in 2016, and I plan to vote for him in 2020. I understand why people don’t like him, but I do.

I’ve decided to come out with this because I’ve been stuck in fear for the past few years, and I need to get past that. I’ve been afraid that people will no longer want to read my books. I’ve been afraid that I’ll lose friends I’ve made online. I was listening to Rush Limbaugh (yeah, I like him, too) this past week, and he said that the majority of conservatives are afraid to speak up. Then I’ve been watching videos from people like Tim Pool and Karlyn Borysenko (whom I don’t see eye-to-eye on everything but enjoy the perspective they bring to the table). These three make valid points on the importance of speaking up. I’ve decided this is the time I’m going to do it. I’m worried for the future of the United States. I don’t want to see it go in the same direction countries like Cuba and Venezuela did. I like the US Constitution. No country is perfect, but freedom of speech, freedom to peacefully assembly, freedom of religion, the right to bear arms, and law and order are things I value. I want these things to pass down to my children and their children.

The country is in serious trouble. People are divided (and some can argue that I’m attributing to that, which I’m not trying to do). Respect has flown out the window. I see the way some people talk to others, whether it be online or in person, and I am seeing how quickly things are unraveling. Some people aren’t even trying to be nice anymore. They’re screaming or throwing or hitting, and that is terrible. We are in a spiritual war. I study the Bible, and I see a lot of parallels between the nations that fell in the Old Testament and the things that are happening in this country today.

The thing that strikes me as odd, however, is how global the unrest seems to be. This puts a different aspect to things. I didn’t grow up believing that there was anything like the “end times” where things come together toward a one world government where everyone is forced to take some kind of mark in order to buy something. I came to believe in the Biblical end-times prophecy when I was in my 20s. I live in a small area, and right now, there are places where I can’t use cash. I’m also told I have to wear a mask in order to buy something in a store. I don’t know if we’re about to head into the end times scenario mentioned in the Book of Revelation, but I can see how that will all come into play. It used to be theoretical. Now it’s realistic.

I don’t know how things will go. A lot of this depends on prayer and what God’s people are going to do. I believe that President Trump is the best candidate to preserve the US Constitution. That’s why I’m voting for him.

I don’t get “messages” from God. I read the Bible, and I use that as my compass. There is an incidence, though, that might have been a time when I got a message from God. I had a feeling back in my very late 20s/very early 30s that the rapture was going to happen in my lifetime and that it was going to happen sooner than I expected. That “sooner” part was weird to me, but since this virus broke out across the world. I keep thinking everything is happening too soon. Things I never imagined last year are happening right before my eyes. Now, I don’t know if what I felt back then was really a “word from God” or not. I am not a prophet. This could have just been a random feeling that came upon me. I don’t know. I’d like to be right because I don’t want to be around for all of this, but if I’m wrong, it means I am wrong. God is always right, and the one place that is trustworthy is the Bible.

Anyway, I’ve been in a lot of turmoil since March over whether I should say something or just keep quiet, but over and over again, I keep getting this feeling that if I am going to be able to overcome my fears and live by faith, I need to come clean. And now that I have, I can move on.

If you decide that I’m crazy or that you don’t want to deal with me anymore, I understand. I’m not going to argue or debate with anyone. If you want to have a sincere discussion with me, I’m open to that. But I’m not going to go down the rabbit hole of name calling and personal attacks.

I’ll be going back to my usual blog posts from now on where I focus on my books and writing-related stuff. On Facebook, I still value that platform for the writing groups, so I’ll stick with writing and book stuff there, too. I have decided I need an outlet to express myself spiritually and politically, and I’ve chosen MeWe and Parler to do that. I put all that information in the “Where to Find Me” page on this blog.

The Earl’s Wallflower Bride Trivia

It’s long overdue, but I’m finally doing a trivia post. Today, I’m diving into The Earl’s Wallflower Bride.

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The idea for this book originally came to me while I was writing His Wicked Lady. I introduced Lady Iris in a scene where the hero and heroine from His Wicked Lady went to a dinner party at Lord Steinbeck’s residence. In it, the heroine warns Lady Iris that Lord Steinbeck didn’t return her affections. Lady Iris decided to take the heroine’s advice. Naturally, I HAD to match Lord Steinbeck and Lady Iris up after this because of the one thing each book needs: conflict. That’s why by the time Lady Iris realizes Lord Steinbeck was her match, she wasn’t happy about it.

Lord Steinbeck is probably the stuffiest character I’ve ever created, but I didn’t realize the extent of his stuffiness until I wrote this book. Because of this, if there’s a character who pops up who in my Regencies now who thinks all of the rules in London are unnecessary, I’ll try to either bring Lord Steinbeck in or make a reference to him, and these characters are often making fun of Lord Steinbeck. At first, I thought Lord Roderick (hero of The Earl’s Inconvenient Wife) was going to be the standard of stuffiness, but Lord Steinbeck officially took his place in The Earl’s Wallflower Bride.

Iris got her interest in finances from me. She got her love of collecting old money from one of my children who went through a phase where he kept a binder of old currency from the United States and Canada.

In this book, I really thought Lord Steinbeck was going to end up creating another gentleman’s club where gentlemen like Lord Steinbeck would be safe from having to associate with cads on a regular basis. The story, however, never went that way because none of the other characters would have supported this move. In the end, Lord Steinbeck remained at White’s and is still there to this day. (About 3/4 of my books end up differently than I think they will when I start them. This is a classic example.)

I introduced Miss Celia Barlow and Miss Loretta Bachman in this story. They were there to represent an example of how most people in London thought of Iris as a wallflower. That is why they were so mean to her. Celia’s brother was Lord Worsley, and I had already slotted him to be the hero for the next Regency series I was going to write. The secondary purpose of having Loretta there was to hint to the reader that Lord Worsley needed to do everything possible to get out of being trapped into a marriage with her. To me, writing often involves weaving in snippets of stuff relating to the characters and other book plots because I love it when people pick up on these “Easter eggs”.

I love all the bickering that goes on at White’s between the scandalous cads and the rule-abiding gentlemen, so I’ll bring it up whenever I can. And my two personal favorite cads are Mr. Christopher Robinson and Lord Edon. This is the only reason I had Christopher pester Lord Steinbeck in this book. It did nothing to advance the plot. It was just there for my amusement.

When I first introduced Opal, I planned for her to be just as bad as Byron, but as I continued writing her character, I thought it would be more interesting if Opal was only pretending to be insane because she was terrified of her brother and mother.

My favorite scene in this book is when Byron realized his mother poisoned him right after he arranged it for her to fall down the stairs. My mind kept going back to the Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe while writing the scene. I know I write romance, but it’s always fun to throw in a highly suspenseful scene in a book from time to time. I find it strengthens my skill as a writer.

I’m not 100% sure, but I think every funeral I have in a story is on a cloudy day.

At the end of this book, I was afraid I’d lose the flavor of Opal’s character, so I started the Marriage by Fate Series even though I knew I wasn’t going to be able to write the rest of it for a while. That’s why the release date of Book 1 in the Marriage by Fate Series is so far apart from the rest of the books in that series. My focus was spent on the Marriage by Bargain Series instead. I was also finishing up the Pioneer Series and the Chance at Love Series during this time.

Starting Out as a Writer (A Post for New Writers)

My friend, Stephannie Beman, sent me a link to look at for running an Etsy Shop. Since looking over a few of these videos, I was surprised to find that a lot of the advice they tell craftspeople in order to boost sales is similar to the kind of advice you could give authors. The video is under 7 minutes, so it’s not going to take a lot of time to watch it if you want. This video is the inspiration for today’s post.

Have Books Ready To Go (But Don’t Publish Them All At Once)

In the video, she mentions having “items” ready to go, but you can insert “books” here. A mistake I think a lot of new writers make is that they don’t take time to write several books before they start publishing. Instead, they publish that one book and neglect to write more.

If someone reads your book and loves it, it won’t do you much good if you don’t have other books out. The best time to attract a reader to other books is when they’ve just discovered you. Yes, discovery can happen at any time, but retailers tend to offer a little more “love” to a new book than an old one. So if you can merge a retailer’s extra push (because the book is new) with other books that are available, you have a better chance of leveraging your promotional efforts.

My advice is to have at least one series completed before you start publishing anything. Then when you do publish the series, plan the releases out, and remember to promote the other books you will have coming out.

So let’s say you have Book 1 just published. Let people know about Books 2, 3, etc in that back matter of Book 1. Have Books 2, 3, etc on pre-order so people can reserve their copies while the book is fresh in their minds. Not everyone remembers to go back and check on your books or website. Pre-orders offer the advantage of getting a reader’s attention as soon as possible. By having your entire series done first, you can maximize the effectiveness of pre-orders. (If you have a long series spanning more than five books, my advice is to have at least four of those books done before you publish Book 1. Put the books up on pre-order that are done and make sure to mention those pre-order books at the end of Book 1.)

If you write standalones, you can use the same strategy, but be aware that series do tend to sell better overall than standalone books do. It’s just the nature of the publishing business.

Now, the question is this: how much time should you give between book releases? The answer to this depends on your writing speed and how much time you have to write WHILE promoting your books.

The faster you can write, the shorter time you can go between releases. Some authors write a book a month. In that case, they’re able to publish books closer together than someone who takes 3-4 months to write a book. Also, can you write more than one book at a time, or do you need to write only one book at a time? The more books you can write at a time, the faster you’ll be able to get books out. The length of books also play a role in how fast you can publish the next book. If you write 30,000-word stories, you can get more out than someone who writes 60,000-word stories.

Also, the more free time you have, the better you can balance writing and marketing. If you have a day job and a husband and kids, you’re not going to have much time to write and promote your books. In that case, you’ll need to have longer times between book releases so you have more time to market and write the next book. Let’s say you have a job and a family and you can write one 60,000-word book every four months at a comfortable pace. If you have a four-book series ready to go when you publish Book 1, you can publish a book each book a quarter. This frees you up for an entire year to work on the next four books (which you’ll publish in the next year) while marketing the books you currently have done. On the other hand, if you have a spouse that works or if you’re a single person who doesn’t have a family to take care of, you will have more time to write and market, so you can get books out faster while promoting your books.

The main advantage of having an entire series (or 4-5 books done) before you start publishing anything is that you’ll be set to pace yourself so you can avoid burnout. If you publish just one book, frantically work to promote it while working on Book 2, and you publish Book 2 then frantically work to promote it (and Book 1) while working on Book 3, it’s going to end up taking a toll on you. Or, in some cases, some authors never write Book 2 because they focus on Book 1 all the time. The best thing is to find a balance that works best for you and your situation.

The More Books You Have, The Better Your Chances Are Of Being Found

This is why backlist is so important. Authors rarely make it on one book. Sure, there are the few who do this, but most of us need a lot of books in order to get noticed. Every new book you have is another tentacle you have out in the world. There’s probably a better word than “tentacle”, but I couldn’t think of one. Just think of the books as your reach out into the internet. People might not find the 20 books you have, or even care if they do. But if you have the 21st book that suddenly catches their attention and their interest, that’s an “in” you have that you didn’t have before. The wider your net, the better your chances are of being discovered.

That’s why this is a long-term game. That’s why you need to pace yourself so you can survive the long haul. It’s easy to have a lot of energy and enthusiasm in the beginning when this is brand new. Over time, the process of writing, editing, getting a cover, formatting, publishing, and promoting can lose it’s “brand new” vibe. This is why writing sometimes feels like you’re pulling teeth. It’s not always exciting and fun. If you don’t rush the process but take the time to establish a pace that works best for you, you’ll be more likely to stick it out and end up with a lot of books, which will lead you to a better chance of finding new readers and establishing a career as a writer. Income doesn’t always remain consistent, but if you can build up your backlist, you have a better chance of weathering the low periods.

Figure Out What Kind of Books You’ll Write

To me, this is branding. Branding does entail your social media persona to a point, but I think branding is really about the kind of books we write. If you are writing a variety of genres, it’s going to be harder for someone to know what they’re going to get when they pick up your book. There’s nothing wrong with writing a variety of books. But when they see your name, it’s going to be harder for them to pinpoint exactly what your brand is if you’re in multiple genres. The brand doesn’t mean you write the same book over and over with different characters and tweak the plot. Branding is an overall scope of the books you are known for.

For example, my brand is historical romance with a male and female couple who only have sex after marriage. This isn’t a mission statement. It’s just the “kind” of books I’m mostly known for. I have dabbled in other genres, like thrillers, fantasies, and even nonfiction. But my brand is the historical romance category, and people know when they pick up my book, they are going to get a male and female couple who wait until marriage to have sex. Under that brand, I have plenty of room for different types of characters and different plots.

That is why the advice is often given to use pen names if you write different brands. Varying too much with your stories under the same name will dilute your brand. I ended up marking my thrillers with R.A. Nordin and the pen name Barbara Joan Russell. I kept the four fantasies under my real name since I don’t plan to write any more and it doesn’t hurt to leave them as they are. But any more thrillers I write will be under the pen name for the sake of my Ruth Ann Nordin brand.

If your genres naturally connect together (science fiction and fantasy are good matches, as are the general umbrella of historical romances), then I think you’re fine under the same name. But let’s say you write erotica and Christian romance. I would separate out those two genres because your Christian romance readers will be pissed if they stumble upon an erotica book. This will hurt your brand. If you were to write children’s fantasy cute stories and adult horror violent stories, this is another situation where I believe pen names will do you a favor. No mom wants to search for a cute children’s story by a certain author and stumble upon a story about a sadistic killer who chops his victim up into bits and eats them. So the bottom line is if you’re going to do extremes, separate out your brands with a pen name. If you want to let people know about your pen name, just do it on your website and blog. As long as your different brands aren’t in the “Also Boughts” on Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple, etc, you’re okay. You want your brands to be separated out in the retailers.

Consistency in Publishing

Pacing is important in indie publishing. Your next book is going to be your most effective promotional tool. You can’t just publish a couple of books, walk away, and expect to keep making money. Sooner or later, the interest in your last book is going to fade. You need another book to get attention again. And this never ends. You have to keep getting another book out. Between book releases, you can run ads and do things to promote your books, but there’s nothing like that next book to get the most attention. You need to give your readers something new.

Since 2009 when I got into ebook publishing, it’s always been a “what do you have next?” kind of game. I used to think there would be a time when I could have a certain number of books out and be able to take half a year or more off while still making decent income. That never happened. In fact, since indie publishing became a huge thing, I’ve had to make sure to keep up a consistent publishing schedule. The longer the time between releases, the less money I make overall. I know there are authors who do fine with releasing 1-2 books a year, but they tend to have very strong marketing skills and have other ways to earn money, such as their You Tube channel where they make money off of the ads on their videos or a Patreon account or a course they sell to authors. In other words, it’s not just their books they are making money from. They have other sources of income.

With that said, pick a publishing schedule that is the best fit for you so you can have a new release out on a consistent basis. Just note, the chances of you making money go up with the more releases you have in a year. That’s not to say there are guarantees of making money if you publish all the time. There are never any guarantees in this business. I’m just saying that your chances of success go up when you have a consistent plan that you follow.

Fall In Love With The Process of Book Promotion

In my opinion, it’s best to pick the stuff you love when doing book promotion.

Some authors love to run ads, tinker with keywords in those ads, and track the effectiveness of these ads. Not me. To me, spending hours messing with ads sounds like a punishment. I’d rather sit in the dentist’s chair while they pick at my teeth and gums. So if you feel like that about a certain marketing strategy that someone tells you to do, just pass it up. Focus on the stuff you like. I know authors who love to take their paperbacks to book signing events and mingle with readers. I know authors who love doing Facebook live events. Both of these also don’t appeal to me, either. So I don’t do them.

The reason this blog is still going strong after I started in 2011 is because I love to ramble in blog posts. This is fun for me. I’m playing when I’m here. It doesn’t feel like work. I also love pre-orders because they help me get everything organized before the book is due out. That way I’m not rushing to get everything together on the day of its release. Then I pass along the information about the pre-order on my blog and other places. I like social media, but I found I prefer to stick with what I’m working on rather than going into personal stuff. So I stick with the writing stuff I’m doing. I leave my personal stuff to private conversations. Some authors, on the other hand, tells stories from their personal lives and sharing pictures. So whatever you like to spend your time on, focus on that. You don’t have to be on every social media platform that’s out there.

In addition to what I mentioned above, there are websites, videos, podcasts, newsletter swaps, email lists, and other things you can do to be out into there in the world. Just be yourself and have a good time. This doesn’t have to feel like work. It can be relaxing and enjoyable. And if you’re having a good time, that will come across in what you do. Plus, you’ll stick with it. That’s another thing with consistency. Not only do you want to be consistent in your book publishing schedule, but you want to be consistent in your promotion, too. Pace yourself in all areas so you don’t burn out.

***

Good luck on your future plans, and if I come up with more stuff to pass along, I will.

Stolen Audiobooks are Now Gone

I’m happy to report that the two stolen audiobooks have been removed!

If you’re an author and have had a scammer steal your book and make it into an audiobook, go to Amazon and fill out the copyright infringement form. Go to this link and then click the blue “form” link if you want to file online. They have a process to mail in a copyright infringement complaint, but I find it easier to do this online.

One of my readers who reported the stolen audiobook on Amazon was told to go to ACX. A couple of narrators I communicated with said they went to ACX. So if you’re not an author, it sounds like going to ACX directly is the way to go.

To all authors, as a preventative measure, claim your books if you can. Unfortunately, there are some authors who can’t claim their books because they live in a country that won’t them get into ACX. I hesitate to say which countries since it might give some scammers ideas on which authors to target. I have a feeling my scammer was following my blog posts. That scammer might still be, for all I know. Suffice it to say, if you’re an author in the United States like I am, you can go and claim your books.

If anyone working at ACX happens to be reading this post (which I doubt is the case, but who knows?), it would help authors a lot if the KDP dashboard worked like the Smashwords dashboard. At Smashwords, I can click on the audiobook link to create an audiobook and it takes me directly to Findaway Voices. If KDP required the author to be signed into their KDP dashboard in order to transfer their book to ACX, that would be a huge preventative measure from future scams. This is a win-win all the way around. One, the book would automatically be “claimed” on ACX when the author transfers it over there. Two, the narrators would be able to trust that the author is really the owner of the book they are going to create into an audiobook. Three, this would also protect the authors in countries who are unable to access ACX. Four, this would establish trust in the ACX brand. Right now, ACX’s reputation has suffered because of this. As an author, I don’t trust it. I’m taking my business to Findaway Voices. I’m sure this has made narrators hesitate to want to work on ACX, too.

Edited to add: I realize authors don’t need an account at Smashwords to create audiobooks on Findaway Voices. I just used that as an example of how KDP (where authors create their ebooks on Amazon) can be used in conjunction with ACX.

In the meantime, all authors can do is claim their books as long as they live in a country that makes this possible.

Reported the Stolen Audiobooks to ACX and They Sent Me Directly to Amazon

I got an email back from ACX today. I removed the name of the representative, but here is what the person wrote:

I am sorry to hear that one of your works is being sold on Audible without your consent. We take claims of copyright and piracy issues very seriously.

As part of the Amazon family, any reports of Copyright issues should be sent to Amazon directly. Please go to https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=508088 and view the section “Notice and Procedure for Making Claims of Copyright Infringement” for the information and form to complete to report infringement.

Please let us know if there is anything additional we can assist with.If you need more help, contact us, we’re here from 9am to 7pm ET, Mon-Fri.
Have a nice afternoon and take care!

So I followed the link, and after going to another link and I think one more, I finally got to the form I needed to fill out. I find it amazing (in a bad way) that they make theft so EASY on the scammer, but they make it HARD for the innocent party to report the theft.

A quick rant about exclusivity on Amazon:

I’ve had readers ask me when I’ll be in KU (Kindle Unlimited). The answer is NEVER. I will never ever in a million years put any of my books in KU unless they remove their exclusive restrictions. I will never be exclusive to Amazon. Amazon has given me the runaround on protecting my own work since 2011. Words can’t describe how upset I am with Amazon. They never should link up books from their site to ACX if they are NOT going to respect copyright infringement claims over there.

Plus, their copyright infringement form is not easy to figure out. I had to tell everyone in my house to leave me alone for a good 30 minutes while I waded my way through the process. But all someone has to do on ACX is click a little checkbox saying they have the rights to my book, and within a second, they can claim it as theirs. I am fed up. This is complete and utter nonsense.

I don’t care how many readers will only read KU books. To me, the money lost is not worth it. I will get a job outside the house before I join KU. I know some authors are afraid to speak up against Amazon because Amazon might hurt their sales by lowering visibility over on their site, but what good is any of this when they are more than willing to hand over money from my work to a thief? When someone steals your book, even if you manage to get Amazon to remove it, you never get paid that money lost. I think Amazon keeps it. I don’t think they ever reimburse the people who bought the stolen book. So what has Amazon to lose if they let scammers do this crap?

The best way authors can vote against this nonsense is to avoid putting books in KU. Put your books on all retailers. Build up the competition. If the competition goes away, imagine what Amazon will be like. They’re already doing this other stuff. They make innocent authors jump through all these hoops to protect their books. To date, I have spent almost $10,000 registering the copyright on my books. That includes the registration fee, buying the two paperbacks per registration, and mailing it to the US Copyright Office. I have almost 100 books out. This stuff adds up. I never know which book the thieves will target, so I have to do this for every single book.

Alright, to filing the copyright infringement complaint on Amazon itself:

Anyway, I did fill out the form. I went to the link the ACX person sent me to:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=508088#GUID-32F0D8DC-150F-4394-921F-77B2DB58A4F8__SECTION_61204EC3A0D64C09820BE2BC332A4AFA

I had to scroll all the way to the bottom to get to this:

NOTICE AND PROCEDURE FOR MAKING CLAIMS OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY INFRINGEMENT



If you believe that your intellectual property rights have been infringed, please submit your complaint using our online form. This form may be used to report all types of intellectual property claims including, but not limited to, copyright, trademark, and patent claims.

I clicked on the “form” link, and it took me to this url: https://www.amazon.com/report/infringement

Why couldn’t the ACX rep just send me directly to that link? Why make me wade through all of the other stuff to get to the form I needed? I think I know the answer. They just threw up a canned response they give everyone, whether they are claiming infringement on a trademark, a patent, copyright, etc.

Anyway, I filled out the form.

I gave them the US Copyright Registration numbers for both books, and then I added this message:

I am Ruth Ann Nordin. I wrote the two books An Unlikely Place for Love and A Most Unsuitable Earl. I have registered these books with the US Copyright Office. Someone who is going by “Leon Publishing” on your site has scammed two narrators into making audiobooks off my work. I did NOT give “Leon Publishing” my permission to do this. “Leon Publishing” has stolen my work and has done this without my permission. I ask that you remove these books. I do not hold this against the narrators. They honestly believed it was me.

Here is the link of the stolen audiobooks: https://www.audible.com/search?searchProvider=Leon+Publishing&ref=a_pd_A-Most_c1_publisher&pf_rd_p=52918805-f7fc-40f4-a76b-cf1c79f7d10a&pf_rd_r=AFGD7C0REVEVXP40MQHC

Here is the fake profile “Leon Publishing” created pretending to be me: https://www.audible.com/author/Ruth-Ann-Nordin/B002BM2VVQ?ref=a_search_c3_lAuthor_1_1_1&pf_rd_p=e81b7c27-6

I then linked to the direct links on Amazon in the form since they wanted the ASIN:

Stolen Audiobook direct link to Amazon for A Most Unsuitable Earl: https://www.amazon.com/Most-Unsuitable-Earl-Marriage-Scandal/dp/B08B77J33C/

Stolen Audiobook direct link to Amazon for An Unlikely Place for Love: https://www.amazon.com/Unlikely-Place-Love-Virginia-Collection/dp/B08BX7Q391/

Final thoughts:

Now, I didn’t add this in the form, but I did notice something of interest while on the audiobook description pages of the stolen audiobooks.

At the bottom, the thief put this: ©2012 Ruth Ann Nordin (P)2020 Leong Singh

I suspect that person is following my blog posts because they actually told one of the narrators that “I” decided to make audiobooks to stop the thief from stealing them. This narrator reported this incident to ACX, which I am thankful for. I think this bought me time to claim my books as soon as I realized I could do that.

Well, I am going to publicly make an announcement on this blog. I have decided to go into making audiobooks, but I’m not going to say which ones until they’re done. I have contacted two narrators who I met along the way of this whole ordeal that I decided would be wonderful people to work with. The other narrators were all great, too. But I can only handle two with my hectic schedule. On top of writing, I also have a husband and kids that need my time. So I had to choose which ones to go with. But I’m not doing it to stop people like Leong Singh. I’m doing it because I love my books and I like these two narrators, and I figured, “Why not?”

For me, this pursuit is not about money. It’s about doing something that probably will be enjoyable. Writing is why I started this. I love writing. But in the process of publishing books and getting out there, I have met some incredible people along the way. I met cover artists, editors, other authors, beta readers, readers, and now I’m meeting narrators. To me, the relationship factor of getting to know these people have been deeply rewarding. I value those relationships, and I will take on projects for the opportunity to work with wonderful people.

Check ACX to Make Sure Your Books Haven’t Been Scammed

I went to Facebook and told other writers that scammers were taking my books and pretending to be me in order to trick innocent narrators into making them into audiobooks. I added a warning that narrators have told me this has happened to them by scammers who were pretending to be other authors, too. So I knew I wasn’t the only author hit by this. I was shocked, however, to find out how often this scam occurs over there. Indie authors aren’t the only ones hit, either. Even major publishers have fallen victim to this.

One author in a writing group on Facebook recommended that I “claim” my books in ACX so that scammers can’t take them. I had no idea I could even do this. So after some back and forth in the group, I figured out how to do this, and I’m going to pass this information along to anyone who might want to go to ACX and claim their books so scammers don’t get them.

I have been able to claim most of them. There were two situations where I couldn’t claim them. 1. Two of my books have been stolen and made into audiobooks. I reported those two books to ACX already. 2. The others I was unable to claim have been disabled from being able to be made into audiobooks. These were the same titles narrators had told me were up for auditions. I had contacted ACX about them, and I think this is why those are disabled. At least ACX shut those books down before the scammer could get away with doing those. Also, I think it helped that at least one narrator contacted ACX. I don’t know if more than one did, but I know one who did for sure.

Anyway, it appears that ACX automatically puts our books on their site. I didn’t realize this. All of my books were over there. Other people’s books are there, too. All a scammer has to do it claim the book they want, and then they can arrange for it to be auditioned. This is how easy the scam is. I suspect the scammer has to have a copy of the book to send to the narrator (though I am not familiar with the process since I’ve never been through it). In my case, the scammer was only picking my free books. I noticed that none of the narrators who contacted me were approached with my paid books. The scammer(s) only seemed interested in the free ones. So that was interesting to note.

Claiming the books is a tedious and long process, so if you have a lot of books, set aside a few hours. I had so many books that I had to break my time up. I claimed the ebook and paperback version of my book. All claiming a book does is put your book in production. So you have started the process of making an audiobook, but you haven’t finished it. So your book will be stuck “in production”. If you ever decide to have an audiobook made, this will at least get you started in the process.

If you want to claim your book in ACX so a thief can’t get to it, I’m going to tell you what to do. An author on Facebook was kind enough to explain how to do it to me and a few other authors because we didn’t know what to do.

The first thing you need to do is sign up for an account at https://www.acx.com/. I use the same account for publishing my books on KDP and for buying things off of Amazon, so I was able to connect up to ACX easily. ACX is an arm of Amazon.

In this example, I have two books I took screenshots of while claiming the book. One went through easily, and the other required more work.

When you find your book, look for the “This is my Book” option to the right of it. This is in purple. (In this case, I already had the ebook version claimed. Now I was claiming the paperback.)

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This is what shows up next:

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Since I have no intention of ever making an audiobook on ACX, I picked the second option (which is saying I already had the audio files). This is what the other author on Facebook said she did in order to keep her book in “production” status, so I did the same thing.

This is what happens next:

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I selected non-exclusive even though I’ll never use ACX. Then I clicked continue.

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Next, I got the page that asked me to say, “Yes, this is my book.” Then I clicked “agree and continue”.

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Most of the time, this is all it takes to get the book “claimed”, but ACX is a bit wonky, so sometimes I had to keep going in order for the claim to “take”. (Make sure search ACX to see that you get the statement saying you claimed it.) This is what it should look like if it worked. In this case, I got my ebook and paperback covered.

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In the case of Mitch’s Win, the “easy way” didn’t work. I clicked, “This is my book”, went through the exclusive or not page, and verify your rights to the book page. (I showed those above.) But when I went to check on Mitch’s Win in the search results, it still was not claimed.

So I went through the process all over again, but this time after I verified I was the owner of the book, I kept going. If you keep you, you’ll come to a page like this:

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Sometimes the description comes up and sometimes it doesn’t. But then you have to fill out all the required boxes. This is what I did.

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I listed myself as the narrator since it doesn’t matter what is in the box. I had to fill everything with the red asterisk in.

And at the bottom of the page, I clicked continue. That took me to this page:

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I clicked to start adding my chapters. Then it takes you to a screen to list out your chapters or import them from the ebook on Amazon. I only put “C1” “C2” and then hit continue since I am not actually going to make this into an audiobook.

That took me to this page:

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Now it’s verified that the book is in production. I checked the book on ACX and saw that it was claimed properly this time, too. I still like to double check. So now the book is in production. I think of this as a placeholder so that no one else can take it.

This is the only way I know of to prevent a thief from coming in and claiming our books as theirs. It’s really sad that authors have to go through such ridiculous hoops to protect their books, but thieves don’t care about stealing. To them, easy money is easy money, and they have no qualms about their shady dealings.

I guess my advice to narrators (if any are reading this) is to check with the author of the book to make sure the author is the one who set the book up for auditions. One of the narrators I came in contact with who spent her time into actually creating one of my books was heartbroken when she discovered what had happened. I was unable to find the other narrator to tell her that she’d been scammed. I searched online, but there was no easy way to find her. So I had to let that one go. But for the one I was able to communicate with, that was her first book, and she was so excited about it.

These thieves really upset me. I’ve had books stolen from me before. I remember how devastated I was when it happened. Now I just get pissed. I have to pay $55 for each book I publish in order to register them at the US Copyright Office. That adds up when you have almost 100 books. The US Copyright Office probably recognizes my name by now. I know some of you can’t afford to do it, but I feel like I have no choice. The US Copyright Registration letter was the only proof Amazon would accept last year when someone claimed that I stole my own book. For me, theft is a way of life in this indie world. I feel like I got a target on my head, and on some days, it is exhausting. I press on because I love writing. If I didn’t love it as much as I do, I’d be done with it. But this is my one real passion. I feel like God has put me here to write these books. So I continue. And I continue with the knowledge that there will probably be a next time. I don’t spend my days worrying over it happening. I just do what I can to be as prepared as I can be so that I have what I need to resolve the issues in my favor.

Regarding that narrator, though, I felt sick to my stomach. Innocent people shouldn’t have to go through this kind of thing. Honest people who are trying to make an honest living should be able to do their work without having the rug pulled out from under them. I can only hope that by claiming my books on ACX no other narrator will have to go through this with any more of my books. I’m hoping that claiming the books is the key to keeping writers and narrators safe.

Caught a Scammer in the Act

Just to alert everyone, I caught one of the scammers (or maybe even the same one) in the act of their theft. Today on Facebook, a narrator shared “my” audiobook with me on my timeline. I notified the narrator that this scammer did not have my permission to make my book into an audiobook.

I feel really sorry for these narrators. I assume they don’t ask for money upfront since the scammers keep going to them in order to make these audiobooks. Scammers aren’t inclined to pay for anything. All they do is steal. And in this case, they are stealing my book AND stealing these narrators’ talent and time. This is not fair to me or the narrators.

You have to watch out for these thieves. They’re in abundance. I’ve have ebooks stolen and/or plagiarized. I’ve had a paperback stolen. Now they are convincing narrators to make audiobooks.

To set the record straight so there are no misunderstandings: I am NOT making audiobooks. I already explained why in a lengthy rant, so I won’t do it again. You can read that post here. After I wrote that post, a narrator contacted me and a scammer must have read my blog post because the scammer actually told this narrator, “I decided to make audiobooks to stop people from stealing my books.”

Nope. No, I did not decide to make audiobooks.

A quick not to narrators (if any are reading this): If I ever decide to make audiobooks, I will pay upfront for your services. I would never ask you to do anything for free. I value people’s time. I would not do a royalty-split because there would be no guarantees that the audiobook would sell. I want to make sure everyone who works for me (editor, cover artist, etc) gets paid. I don’t believe in asking for anyone to do something for free. I will offer something in return.

Back to the post…

Up to now, the narrators caught onto the scammer before the audiobook was created, but in this case, this scammer got away with it from two different narrators. I don’t know if it’s the same scammer who contacted the other five narrators about making my books into audio. This could be a group of them for all I know.

So, assuming that this scammer(s) is reading my blog post right now, I contacted ACX about this, and I let the narrators know they have been duped. You have stolen my hard work, and you have stolen from the time and talent of narrators who are trying to make an honest living. I realize you don’t care. I know this means nothing to you. For all I know, you’re laughing and thinking this whole thing is cute. But my message to you is this: there is a God in Heaven, and He will judge between you and me, and since you are in the wrong, He will deal with you. As the Bible says, He will avenge my case (and the narrators’ case) on my behalf. I’m leaving this at His feet. He has heard my prayer, and He will take care of things for me. You might get away with this for a while, but a day of reckoning will come, and you’ll be held accountable for your actions.

Regarding the scam, this is what the scammer(s) has been able to get away with so far:

The person (people) are going by the publishing name “Leon Publishing,” and this here is the page on Audible: https://www.audible.com/search?searchProvider=Leon+Publishing&ref=a_pd_A-Most_c1_publisher&pf_rd_p=52918805-f7fc-40f4-a76b-cf1c79f7d10a&pf_rd_r=AFGD7C0REVEVXP40MQHC

The person (people) also make a fake profile of me here: https://www.audible.com/author/Ruth-Ann-Nordin/B002BM2VVQ?ref=a_search_c3_lAuthor_1_1_1&pf_rd_p=e81b7c27-6880-467a-b5a7-13cef5d729fe&pf_rd_r=G4RKZA50D41RSDT7XKD9

Now to ACX, what is wrong with you? I notified you two weeks ago that I am not making audiobooks, and you still let these books go up? Is there no way you can vet the people coming to your site? Why is it that I have told you what is happening AND a narrator also alerted you to this, BUT you haven’t done anything to keep watch over this?

I bet a lot authors are getting scammed, but they just don’t know it. I bet a lot of narrators are getting scammed, but they also don’t know it. This can’t just be happening to me. It’s impossible to think that I am so incredibly special in this whole entire world that I am the only author who got picked for this nonsense. So for authors and narrators, be careful out there. There’s a lot of slime dripping all over the place.