Ruth Ann Nordin's Blog, page 3

Take Reviews with a Grain of Salt

This is primarily for writers, but if you aren’t a writer and find this topic interesting, welcome to my ramblings!

The person might be reviewing the wrong book.

Sometimes a person will confuse one book for another. I don’t think this happens a lot, but it is something to be aware of since it’s happened to a couple of people I know.

One person had just published Book 1 in her series. She hadn’t written Book 2 yet. The reviewer left a 1 or 2-star review on her book. At first, the review seemed to be for her book until the reviewer ended with, “And I also don’t care for Book 2.” (That’s not the exact wording, but you get the meaning.) As soon as we saw the comment about Book 2, we knew this wasn’t the book the reviewer had in mind. It couldn’t be. Book 2 wasn’t even published yet.

Another time this happened was for another author I know. I don’t recall the details on this one. I think it had to do with the wrong plot. The author knew it wasn’t her book because the plot was wrong. (If it wasn’t the plot, it was the type of character featured.) All I remember is how this review brought the author’s book rating down with that 1 or 2-star review.

Not everyone knows the grammar rules.

Sometimes people think they know the grammar rules but don’t, and when they review our book, they are giving the book a low-star rating due to “poor editing”. The problem is that people reading the review haven’t read the book, so they will assume the reviewer knows what they are talking about. In another video I went into a longer example of a complaint I received about a decade ago now where the person said I had no idea how to properly use commas. It turns out she was the one who was wrong. Since then, I have wondered how many people believe certain rules about grammar that are not actually correct. Whenever I see a review that mentions “poorly edited”, I will read the sample to get an idea of how accurate that reviewer is. That is how I get around the issue as a reader. I don’t think most people will do this, though.

And before anyone thinks I am the “Queen of Grammar”, I have a couple of people who go over my stories before they are published who have strengths in the grammar area. They will point out areas where I get things wrong. I am aware that it’s very easy to get this stuff mixed up. The English language can be tricky.

The person might not be a fan of the genre you’re writing in.

When a person who is a fan of a particular genre, they will read the book through the lens of that genre, even if they are reading. I don’t know if this can be helped. We all have certain character types, plot devices, etc that we lean toward. I don’t think we are aware of this. But these things will establish expectations we have while reading a story. I honestly believe this happens on a subconscious level. So I don’t think anyone is wrong when they are disappointed in the story when it doesn’t live up to their expectations. The problem comes into play when the reviewer puts the expectations of their genre into a book that is in a different genre. Because it’s very possible that this book did meet the expectations of the genre this author wrote for.

Let me give an example I did not think of in the video. (It piggybacks off of it, though.)

We have a romance reader who is reading dystopian fiction. There is a love story in this dystopian fiction, but one of the main characters dies. That romance reader will be disappointed because a romance reader wants the “happy ending for the couple in love”. That is an expectation in the romance genre. However, in dystopian fiction, this is not an expectation. The romance reader might 1-star the book because of the main character’s death, but this does not mean the book is bad. This book could have very well delivered on its promise to people who love dystopian fiction. After all, dystopian fiction tends to be darker and more on the sad side. I mean, there can be a happy romantic ending, but it is not an expectation of that genre. So reviews from romance readers who are unhappy with the book should be taken with a grain of salt.

Now, I did use an example in my video that flips this scenario around. When would the 1 or 2-star review be appropriate? If someone writes a book with a love story where one of the main characters die, divorce, or break up AND this person labels this book as a romance, the romance readers will be very unhappy with this book. It is not a romance. Romance has two main rules: the characters in love end up together AND they are happy. It doesn’t matter whatever else you throw at them. They just need to reach that happy ending together. I hear quite a few authors who want to label their stuff as romance but they want the tragic ending. This will not work. It is a love story.

Each genre has its own set of rules, and when writing the book, it’s important to stick to those rules. You have flexibility within the rules, however, and that’s where creative expression can come in. But if you get a reader who isn’t familiar with the rules of the genre you’re writing in, it’s possible they will leave you a 1 or 2-star review, and sadly, there is nothing you can do about it.

The person might not like the specific niche within the genre.

It’s possible that you are targeting the people in your genre, but the genre heading can be a pretty big umbrella. Usually, under the main genre heading (let’s take romance), there are ways to break it down.

So Romance is the main category. Then you have contemporary, historical, fantasy, science fiction, etc. Then you break down historical. You have western, Regency, Victorian, Scottish, etc. It keeps breaking down, and even from there, you will get different heat levels. Erotic, steamy, mix between steamy and clean (which is a gray area), and clean. So you find yourself narrowing down your books to a more “niche” kind of audience.

The better you can market your niche, the better you can ward off 1 and 2-star reviews because you are alerting people in advance of what they will get themselves into when they read your book. Marketing in this sense is more along the lines of packaging your product. I didn’t go into this in the video, but this is where you want to consider your cover and your description. Those two things will help to gear the right type of reader to your book. It’s not foolproof, of course, but all you can do is your best.

I don’t know how many times I have warned people that my books contain sex in them. I have the warning on the top of my blog, I try to find models who are in time period appropriate clothes (that fit the characters) who are in a more passionate embrace, I put “steamy” in the keywords, and I have experimented with different phrases in the description that won’t throw Amazon into a tizzy. If I’m running promotions, I give the alert the best way I know how. But even after all of this, I will get someone contacting me out of the blue about how shocked they were to read a sex scene in my book. I know I get the 1 and 2-star reviews about this, too, because I’ve used snippets from them to help run ads to warn people in advance. And yet, with all of my efforts, my books find their way to the wrong niche reader.

So it’s possible that you are doing everything right, and for whatever reason, the person misses it and reads the book–and leaves their review–anyway. You can only do so much.

Don’t be afraid of the bad reviews.

We all want people to love our books. We would be weird if we didn’t.

But I think it’s good to have the 1, 2, and even 3-star reviews because it helps to weed out the people who will not enjoy our books. I also think that the broader range of your reviews, the easier it’ll be for people to determine whether or not your book is their cup of tea.

In the past, I have been more likely to buy a book because of a 1 or 2-star review. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s true. Sometimes I read horror. If I see a review that reads, “This was far too disgusting for me. Nightmare for a week!”, I will want to read the book. I know, it’s nuts, right? But I grew up on horror (thanks, Mom!), and some of that horror was dark. It takes me back to my childhood. Sometimes I like going there. If I read a review on a romance where the 1 or 2-star reads, “Total smut. Author should be ashamed,” I will probably read the book because I happen to like sex scenes when I’m reading a book. (I didn’t get that trait from my mom. My mom hated romance. (She was okay with little kids killing people or people dying in some horrific ways, but she drew the line at sappy romance.) My dad was only into science fiction and satire movies like Spaceballs by Mel Brooks. I love satires to this day. So I will happily read or watch something that most people find “immature and stupid.”

My final thought:

I encourage you to look up your favorite books. Maybe pick 3-5 of them. Look at the 1 and 2-star reviews. Do those reviews change your mind about those books? Do you now hate those books because of those reviews? Or do you still love those books?

This is what I mean by taking reviews with a grain of salt. One person’s trash is another person’s treasure. Your story has a market. There is someone who will enjoy it. You are not the only person who wants the specific story you are writing. I would be more inclined to pay attention to the positive stuff people are saying about your books because that lets you know what your specific audience enjoys. What is it about your books that connect you to those readers? That is your strength. That is an area worth your time and attention. That is something you can get better at.

Updated on What I’m Doing

Here is the video to go with the post if you’d rather listen to me ramble.

First things first, I am happy to say The Hero Least Likely is FINALLY (and for real) done!

This is Book 2 in the Love Under Desert Skies Series.

(Book 1 is Tagalong Bride.)

You’d think about writing over 100 books that it would be easy to finish one, but this was one of the most challenging books I’ve ever had to wrap up. The good news is that the main characters survived. I was tempted to send an asteroid at them for giving me so much grief. That would have meant killing them on the spot and relieving me of having to write the ending. But since this is a romance, I resisted the use of the asteroid. (This method could have worked for any other genre. But it will never work for romance. First rule of romance: main characters stay alive. Second rule: they are in love and happy.)

Now, I did plot the last two chapters. This involved the gunfight scene. I thought this plot thing was going to work all the way to the end. I only had four pages of plotted content. Well, halfway into the four pages, the characters went in their own direction. I didn’t mind. At least they were telling me what to write. The main thing is that the main characters survived the book, and we can move on to Book 3 in the series. Book 3 won’t be out until next year. I have too many other projects going on for the time being.

Things are heating up in The Earl’s Bluestocking Bride

This is Book 1 in the Marriage by Chemistry Series.

I’m happy to say that the progress is going smoothly here. (Let’s hope that continues. Given what happened with The Hero Least Likely, I’m not taking anything for granted.)

We are finally at the “big blow up” moment. I’ve been looking forward to this since I started the book. Adam (the hero), if you’ll recall, has an alias who is Jefferson Crowdy (an actor). Emma (the heroine) is using her brother’s name for the plays she’s writing. At the beginning of the book, Adam rejects Emma’s play. The two don’t know their real identities when they meet and fall in love. Well, at long last, the wait is over, and they are about to discover the truth. I’m really looking forward to watching the sparks fly.

The Preacher’s Wife is on hold. I have to work on Masquerade Bride.

Masquerade Bride is a Halloween story for my Regency holiday series. It needs to be out this fall. I’m hoping for a September release but will accept an October one.

I’m finding that I can’t write books as fast as I used to. My guess is that this is the result of the burnout I went through. The plus side is that I feel like my storytelling and the characters are stronger since I am allowing myself to take more breaks. I’ve also noticed my stories are longer than they used to be. That does add to how long it takes to finish them, of course.

For Masquerade Bride, I had debated swapping Marie (the heroine of this book) with the heroine of Book 2 (Diane), but that didn’t feel “right”, so I am going with the “what if Marie had been born socially at ease with others, beautiful, easy to get suitors, etc.

The reason why The Preacher’s Wife is on hold is due to some fan fiction I started writing.

My brain does not seem to have the capacity to focus in on one story at a time. I usually have a few stories going on inside my head all the time. The exception to this was when I was in the middle of burnout. That was the only time I can remember where I had no ideas at all. But since coming out of burnout, I am finding that ideas are just popping up left and right, and it is hard for me to pin one down to work on that. So I have chosen to pick three ideas and write those. I have tried two. I have tried four. Three seems to be the sweet spot since I naturally lean into that amount. I’m not going to fight it. I’m just going to accept this is how I am and run with it.

(As an aside, I would recommend any author who might be reading this to embrace how they are wired. We are not all meant to write books the same way. We each have our process, and that’s okay.)

I’m just going to come out and say it because I’m sure someone is going to ask. The fan fiction I started is based on the Hunger Games series. I love the series. I have loved reading the fan fiction already out there based on this series. I’ve been exploring different “what if this had happened instead?” ideas, and while most of them fizzled out, there was one angle that took root–and it is NOT letting me go. I have tried playing out this scenario in my head when I’m drifting off to sleep. The other “what if” scenarios I’ve ever done based on other books/movies/TV shows have been successfully snuffed out by this method. It is why I have never felt the urge to write fan fiction before. But this time is different. I have not been able to write anything in The Earl’s Bluestocking Bride or Masquerade Bride. I thought the hang-up was because I couldn’t finish The Hero Least Likely, but I have finished it, and the fan fiction idea is still nudging me. It wasn’t until I started writing the first scene to the fan fiction that I could finally write in The Earl’s Bluestocking Bride and Masquerade Bride. So, I will run with this fan fiction thing. Don’t worry. This is not going to be something I’m publishing and claiming as my own. It will probably just go on Archive of Our Own since that is where I’ve been reading fan fiction. I like that site because you don’t need to create an account to read the stuff on it. I don’t know about anyone else, but I am tired of keeping track of usernames and passwords for every single thing I do.

The Progress of my YouTube and Rumble audiobook adventures.

Tagalong Bride Chapter 17 is now up. It’ll be finished up by the end of this month. I am currently working on Eye of the Beholder since a lot of people seem to like that book a lot. If anyone has a book they would like for me to put up on those sites, let me know. I’m up for suggestions.

I am reading these myself. I am not hiring someone to read these books for me because I know where to take out the “spicy” content better than they would. I can also afford my prices (free). I also don’t want to take the time to modify AI narration to remove spicy stuff because as I’m reading the book, I can just adjust things as I’m going along.

At the end of the day, I have decided I will only do things I enjoy

Worrying about making money led to my burnout. For other authors, thinking about the money might inspire them and make them better at this stuff. It’s not like that for me. I am tired of trying to be a circle that needs to fit in a square hole. I need to do the stuff that best aligns with how I operate. When I started writing and publishing in 2009, I was doing things I enjoyed. Then everyone realized there was money in this business, and over time, I think it sucked the life out of me. I’m not saying the money isn’t nice. Of course, it’s nice. But I’m learning that it can hurt some authors (like me) to focus on the money part of things.

I have discovered that I love making these videos. I love reading my books. I love rambling on about things that I’ve learned or things I think about writing, publishing, and marketing. (With any luck, I have helped other writers like me.) I have learned I even enjoy sitting down and verbally saying what I’m working on as if I’m sitting in someone’s living room having a conversation with them. Very low key. I’m not into the bells and whistles that some videos have, but my goal isn’t to be “professional”; it’s to have fun.

An update on my eyes

I can’t believe what a difference avoiding stress has done for my eyes. A large part of it was the “fear” factor. I swear, the news runs on instilling fear in people. Another big part was worrying about making money with my writing. Focusing on factors I can’t control (like whether people buy my books or even see them) don’t help my eyes at all.

This is why I’m focusing on things I enjoy. Ever since I’ve made this mental shift, my eyes are normal again. The only things I struggle with are reading paperbacks and magazines. I suspect it’s because I have a Reticare screen on my computers and my iPhone. But who knows? I’m just happy to feel this good again.

A Post For Writers: If Someone Wants You to Change Something About Your Books, Should You Do It?

I have included this information in this video if you would rather listen to it:

For those who prefer reading, let’s get to it.

Regardless of what you write, there’s probably going to come a day when someone lets you know that they want you to change something about your book. Once upon a time, I did do some write-to-market books, and I think if you are writing to market, then you need to be more willing to accept this feedback IF this person represent the audience you are writing for. If you are writing for passion, then you have a lot more flexibility because you are your primary audience.

Let’s consider the factors that go into making the decision on whether to change things or not:1. Is the person a fan of the genre you’re writing in?

If the person isn’t a fan of the genre, they might think they know what to best do for that genre when the truth is, they really don’t. Only someone who is a fan of the genre understands why people love that genre. Understanding why people love the genre is key. They will be reading your book through the lens of what makes the genre great.

For example, I was recently taking to a Historical Fiction author. She’s got talent. She’s also pretty impressive to listen to. She takes journals written in other languages and translates them to do her research on royal families who have lived in the past. (You know what? I’m going to give her a shout out in this post in case anyone reading this enjoys Historical Fiction that features royal families. So it’s fiction based on real events. She’s taken some liberties to craft her stories. Her name is Luv Lubker. This is her website.) The problem here is that I am not a Historical Fiction reader. I am primarily a romance reader (though my second love is horror). So my advice for her was wrong because I wasn’t looking at her story through the lens of a Historical Fiction reader. I wanted the main characters to go in a certain direction that would have been great for a romance novel, but it would not have fit into the real life events she needs to build around. It took me a while to figure out I wasn’t helping her. I was only going to get in her way. So I backed off.

Now, if you come across someone who understands your genre and what makes it work for its readers, then that advice would be worth taking into consideration. I’m not saying you have to take it. Just consider it. Just because the advice might be a good rule of thumb, it doesn’t mean it works for your specific book.

2. Is the person nice or a jerk?

In my opinion, rude people don’t deserve your attention. I automatically delete and block these types of people. I don’t bother answering them. If you want to reply to them, you can. I just have never found a situation where things ended up better because I answered a rude person. For me, silence has been the better option.

I will, however, listen to the nice ones. Maybe the advice is something you don’t want to put into your book, but I would acknowledge the advice, thank the person, and politely decline if you want to keep your book as is. If you end up changing something, then I would still thank the person and then let them know what you decided to change based on their suggestions.

3. Is the person right?

If the person is nice and if the person is right, then I would seriously consider their advice.

If the person is nice but the advice is not right, then I would say no.

I go into two examples in the video, and I don’t think I was that clear on what I was getting out with the comma thing because I was just going off my notes. But essentially, the example with the comma is as follows:

Two independent clauses need to be separated by a period, a semicolon, or a word like “and”, “but”, “so”. This person thought the independent clauses should be joined together with a comma instead.

So I was writing this: “I went to the store. I bought bread.”

She thought it should be this: ” I went to the store, I bought bread.”

I do not know what they are teaching people in school today because my oldest kid thought the same thing she did. I took a look at his writing and saw the teacher was okay with all of these commas instead of putting in the period, the semicolon, or adding a word like “and” with the comma. My kid knows better now, but I don’t think I can blame this person completely on believing what she did with the commas because she probably had a teacher like the one my kid did.

I made a brief mention of an independent clause and a dependent clause but got sidetracked. Essentially, this is what I was getting at in this case:

So let’s say I write this: “I went to the store and bought bread.”

This is correct because you don’t need a comma. The subject goes for the “went to the store” and the “bought bread”.

This person thought I should write the sentence like this: “I went to the store, and bought bread.”

Again, my son would have agreed with her.

But they were wrong. So it would be wrong for me to take this advice.

(As a disclaimer, I am not an expert on grammar. I will still consult a grammar guide from time to time.)

I didn’t think of it in the video, but let’s say someone is telling you that your character should not be a certain way. Well, this is your character. Who better knows this character than you do? Maybe the character IS supposed to be that way. You will have to disregard that advice because it doesn’t fit what you intend for this character.

I’ll give an example. When I wrote Eye of the Beholder, Chapter 1 ended with the heroine’s parents shaking her hand when they were saying goodbye to her. Someone told me the parents should not be so cold. That person wanted the parents to hug my heroine and tell her how much they would miss her. But that was NOT who these parents were. These parents were cold. That was my point in writing them the way I did. So if you run into a situation like that, then you will need to go with your instincts and let the character be the way that character is.

This could go for anything in the book, of course.

Let’s say they are right, though. If they are correct, then their advice is worth considering.

For example, years ago, I remember writing the phrase “for now on…” I thought that was the right way of doing it until someone pointed out (nicely) that it supposed to be “from now on…” I have since changed to writing the phrase the correct way.

Here is another example I didn’t think about while making the video:

I’ll give an example on one of my characters where I did decide to make the change. I have some help with my first draft. I trust two people to go over it while I’m writing it to give me their thoughts. One person did not like the way the hero was acting. Since this was early on in the book, I had enough time to look at him, examine the plot, and what my goal was for him. It turned out to be very helpful. I adjusted the plot, tweaked his personality, and the story is stronger for it.

As an aside, I also decided to let a character who was never actually IN the story live so that he will get a story later in a series I’m working on. That is because one of those two readers told me they would like to see a reunion between father and son.

I do think it’s helpful to get feedback, and there are times when the changes are for the better.

4. How much work is this person asking you to do?

Unfortunately, time is a finite resource. You can’t do two things at once. In this case, you may hire someone to do that second thing for you. If you hire someone, you will need to pay them. Do you have the money for that? And if so, can they correctly do the task? Or will you need to hold their hand through it?

If you need to do this change yourself, is the change something quick? It’s easier to fix a typo or a small inconsistency issue than it is to do rewrites of your book. The more time and effort you need to spend on making someone happy, the less inclined I would be to do it. I mean, if someone doesn’t like my plot or my character (and I have already finished the first draft), I am not going to take the time to rewrite the book. When I finish the first draft, I am done. I’ll do small changes, but I won’t do big ones. Rewriting a book means I can’t write a new one, and since I write for passion, I prefer to focus on new “shiny” projects.

Now, some authors will rewrite the book. You certainly can. There is nothing wrong with that. If you want to rewrite the book because you will be happier with it, then I think that’s a good reason to invest this much time and effort into changing the book. But I’m not a big proponent of rewriting an entire book because someone out there doesn’t like it. Chances are, you can find someone who likes your book just the way it is. Taste is subjective. You will always find some people who love something that others hate. Take a look at the reviews on your favorite books and movies. You’ll find a wide range of opinions on them. It doesn’t make those books or those movies bad. It just means that those books and movies did not please everyone.

5. What do YOU think of the book?

Are you happy with it? If so, there’s no reason to change it…as long as this is a passion project. The rules of writing for passion are different from writing to market. When you are looking at passion, you have the luxury of doing things your way.

Now, if you are doing this for the market (which means you are writing books in order to make money, rather than to write stuff you love), then I would ask, “Are your sales number making you happy? Is your income where you want it to be? If you change the book to fit what the market wants, is there a chance you can make more money?” When you are writing to market, I don’t think your opinion on the book itself is the driving factor. I think the driving factor is how happy the target audience is with the book because that is who you wrote it for. I didn’t think to specify this last point in the video, so I am doing so now.

March Historical Romance BookFunnel Promo

I have joined other authors on BookFunnel to run a promo where you can get free historical romance books until the end of March. There are two books I have put in this promotion, and I decided to pick one Regency and one historical western romance.

For the Regency, I picked The Rake’s Vow.

I had someone request a romance where the hero has a broken past and the heroine makes him whole with her love. The heroine is a virgin. The hero used to be a rake, so he isn’t. However, he is reformed and has taken a vow of celibacy. Given that this is a romance, and I write spicy content, we all know there’s going to be some spice.

For the historical western, I picked The Convenient Mail Order Bride

Someone else requested a mail-order bride story. The hero and heroine in this one are both virgins. The hero’s half-brother posts the mail-order bride ad on the hero’s behalf–something the hero did NOT want. When the heroine shows up, the hero doesn’t know what to do with her. This is a spicy book. There are a couple of sex scenes.

Of course, there are other great books in this promo, so I encourage you to check them out, too!

You can find the promo here at this link or by going to this url: https://books.bookfunnel.com/marchfreehistrom/ob04m6bwvu

Writing Income Goes Up and Down (And That’s Okay)

Well, I had intended to make this a short post, and yet, I wrote an entire book on the topic. (You can’t get me to shut up sometimes.) At least I created a video to go with it so you can listen to it instead of reading it.

Years ago, I made a post on a different blog where I mentioned the fact that writing income doesn’t always remain steady, nor does it always go up. I don’t have this post on hand anymore. I don’t remember the year I made this post, but it was at the point when my income peaked. There was a tipping point for me. Do all authors have this? My bet is no. We are all going to have different experiences. But what stuck out to me was how quick a couple of authors were to blame me for the fact that I was seeing a decline in income.

One said that I should get on Kindle boards where other authors hang out and mention my books to them. Because writers are readers, too. Yes, I understand that writers are also readers, but you can’t just market your book to anyone and expect you book to please everyone. Your best bet is to reach people who read the kind of books you write. For example, a science fiction lover probably won’t enjoy a romance. I know I don’t enjoy reading science fiction. And besides, there are divisions within a genre that narrows down the specific type of book the person will want to read. For example, if you’re thinking of marketing your historical western romance book to a person who loves contemporary billionaire romances, that person probably won’t enjoy it. There are also other factors that play into a person’s enjoyment for a book. Some people want a literary style of writing. They want flowery, poetic words. Some people want a lot of description so they feel more immersed in the world these characters are moving around in. Then there are people like me who would rather get to the dialogue and action. That’s why some books resonate more with certain people instead of others. That doesn’t mean the book is bad. It just means the book targets a different audience. There are so many nuances within the fabric of storytelling that makes it challenging to find the right kind of reader for your books. However, I do stand by my point that other writers not buying your books is not the reason you’re not making the kind of money you want to make. So I would not suggest hitting up other writers to buy your books.

Another author said I wasn’t writing good books, and therefore, I wasn’t selling. That’s fair. My books are not good to everyone. I have enough 1 and 2-star reviews proving that. The reasons I mentioned above help to point out why. I do believe there is a book for everyone. I think that whatever an author writes has an audience waiting for it. I don’t think we should think of our books as something that will appeal to everyone. I like the idea of niche marketing. This is where you narrow your focus. But to do a general marketing approach where you figure “there is something in my book for everyone, and that means everyone will enjoy it if they just give it a chance” is flawed. My suggestion, for what it’s worth, is to not worry about the people who don’t like your books. Instead, connect with people who do like your books. Find out why those people like the books. Then you can better fine-tune your storytelling to pleasing them.

Now back to the income side of things…

A lot changes in the publishing industry, and these changes can impact your income. For example, back in 2009 when I started publishing books on Amazon and Smashwords, there were very few ebooks out there. Kindle had just come onto the scene. People were buying Kindles and needed content. I put up books that were $0.99, and I didn’t have to do anything else to get noticed. I mean, I had a website, a blog, and a social media presence. I uploaded some of my books available for free on some “free ebook” websites. I honestly didn’t think I’d ever make money but still wanted to share my work with the world. But the money came. And it didn’t just come for me. There were other authors I knew who made some pretty good money back then. Then word got out across the writing community that self-publishing wasn’t where books went to die, and even traditionally published authors jumped onto the self-publishing back wagon. That meant more books. That meant lower visibility. And that’s fine. I think the more books, the better because when I was a teenager, I got upset in bookstores and libraries for not having the specific book I wanted to read. I don’t have that problem today. You can find just about anything these days. Kindle Unlimited came along in 2014, and that is an industry change that did shift income around for a lot of authors. Some did very well with it. Some didn’t. Two of my friends who were making a living at it, no longer made a living with their writing. I still made a living, but in the subsequent years, my income did steadily decline. I had some years where it would go back up, but then it dropped again. So it’s been like a rollercoaster, but I will say it never has been what it used to be.

As the industry changes, the way we promote the books is also changing. There are a lot of places where authors can run ads. Then there are the one-and-done ads, which is where you pay for the ads to run on a certain day (or days) and that’s it. Then there are keyword ads that you have to constantly adjust and watch every day. There are videos you can make. There are graphics you can create. There are podcasts, blogs, etc, etc. Really, there is no end in sight to all the different marketing strategies available to authors these days, and it would be too exhausting to go through them. Quite frankly, my strength (and my interest) isn’t in this area. I am the wrong person to look to for this stuff. If I enjoy it, I do it. If I don’t, I avoid it. Life is too short for me to spend time doing stuff I dread. I get enough of that when I have to manage my bookkeeping for tax season.

And now we are being told that no matter how much we do, it’s not enough. I’ll tackle this in other posts (and I already have tackled it before, really), but I’ll say something about it here since it does coincide with the topic. Rapid release of books used to mean getting something out once a month. Then it became twice a month. Last I heard, some author was putting out a book every week. Then I listened to an audiobook last month where the man said to make social media posts and videos all the time. Like several times a day every single day. And another author was saying if you want to make money on YouTube, you should upload one audiobook a week. Let that sink one. One complete audiobook. Every single week. I mean, all of this is crazy. When are authors supposed to have time to relax?

But I guess we aren’t supposed to relax. We’re supposed to put out more and more content because the income has to either be steady all the time or the income has to go up.

That’s a lot of pressure to put on someone. Maybe you can get by with hiring help, but the moment you hire help, you have to make more money so you can pay them and make a profit. To me, that ends up spinning the hamster wheel as much as doing everything yourself. Because when you have help, you’ll probably want to do more. And the more we do, the more we feel like we have to do. More means money. And when we’re in the mindset that we need to make money in order to be successful, we can’t afford to stop.

I hit burnout back in 2018-2019 or so because of this “more and more” mentality. I wrote through some of that burnout, but the day came when I couldn’t write anything else. My entire creative well had dried up. I had no choice but to stop. I didn’t get the ability to write with enthusiasm again until Spring 2024. I am still recovering from burnout. My income has significantly dropped, and I have had to let it drop. I don’t have it in me to fight this slide down. I’m doing good just to write again.

If you haven’t ever hit burnout, I hope you never do. It’s the worst. Seriously, nothing is worse for a writer to hate the one thing they used to be most passionate about. You feel like you lose a part of yourself when that happens. My advice is to let go of this belief that you always have to make more money in order to be worth something as a writer. Once you do that, you’re able to relax and enjoy the process of creating stories.

Updates on What I’m Working On (March 10, 2025)

Video to go with the blog post so you can listen to it. (I will condense the information in the video since I did ramble like a crazy person in the blog.)

The Hero Least Likely (and the story of writer’s block that goes with it)

So I sent out emails to my email list on MailChimp, and I made a blog post in my monthly newsletter blog where I said I had finished the first draft of The Hero Least Likely.

Well, here’s the thing: I wrote those in mid-February and scheduled them to go out around March 1. At the time I wrote those, I only had 2-3 chapters left to write in that book. In the past, I haven’t had issues with getting 2-3 chapters done in two weeks. (I mean, you think after writing 101 romances, you’d get the hang of what you can and can’t do, right?)

However, there is a first time for everything, and I hit a major writer block. It wasn’t that I didn’t know what I needed to do. It’s that I didn’t want to write the climax of the story. This is a historical western romance. The romance part was easy. The action western scene I have to come up with to wrap the story up is not the least bit interesting to me. I have watched action western films, and it is painful (to me) when the gunfights come up. But I have to include the gunfight scene in this particular story because I have built up my character’s journey for it. The hero of this book can’t be the “hero” without it.

So after twiddling my thumbs with a mind that went completely blank on how I was going to come up with this scene, I went to others for advice. Some people were authors. Some were my readers. In the end, I came across a game plan that led me to do something I have never done before:

I plotted!

I think now I get how authors plot. I have never been able to grasp how authors ever successfully plotted before because all of my past attempts to plot have failed. Once I start writing, the characters have always gone off course. But in this particular instance where we are talking about a scene that I don’t want to write, the plotting method has helped. At least now I know where I am going with this.

The first thing I did was consult my husband and sons who love the western action stuff. I asked them what makes for an exciting scene. Then I took notes on stuff they liked. Then I came up with a map of the town this scene is set in. My son helped with this. I spent some time figuring out where the key characters need to be for this scene to work. After that, I listed out the stuff that needed to happen and the order it needed to happen in. One author I talked to said when she’s stuck, she will do a basic sentence for each paragraph, and then she’ll go back to flesh things out. This is what I’m doing. I have five pages worth of notes that dictate what needs to happen and who needs to do it. Today I fleshed out half a page, and it took about 1,000 words to do it. Quite frankly, I’m surprised that much got fleshed out from the notes, but at least I’m finally getting words on the paper.

I don’t know when I’ll finish this book, but at least I have a roadmap to go by. It’s a lot better than the blank screen that was in my brain for the past month. I still prefer to go by the seat of my pants while writing, and I’m hoping I never have to plot again, but in case I have to plot, I have the tools to do it.

The Earl’s Bluestocking Bride (so far, flowing smoothly–let’s hope it stays that way)

I’m at the 40,000 word mark. The big reveal about these characters’ aliases is about to come onto the page. I’m looking forward to that. It’ll be fun to watch the sparks fly.

The Preacher’s Wife (might not come out until 2026 and why I can’t set deadlines anymore, except for the holiday books)

I’m pushing this one back. All of my books are turning out to be longer than I originally plan, and this has made it harder to get a firm schedule in place on when you can expect my books to be published.

Having gone through burnout for so long (I think it was like 3-4 years total of going back and forth in burnout before I finally came out of it), I am surprised that I am so excited about writing. Happy, but surprised, too. You know?

One thing I promised myself was that I would not rush anything, and I would also focus on stuff I enjoy, whether that be writing or marketing. (I get the irony in that statement in light of how much I don’t want to write the action western scene, but that is only one scene in the entire book. I have enjoyed writing the book. I just can’t skip out on the one scene because that scene is crucial.) I would never write an entire book that I dread. That will kill all of my enjoyment for writing.

So anyway, since I have this renewed enthusiasm for writing, I’m finding that my books are longer than they have been. Typically, my books have finished at about 60,000 words. These last couple of books that I’ve been working on have been between 70,000-80,000 words. The Hero Least Likely is already at 70,000 words, and I’m not finished with it yet. The Earl’s Bluestocking Bride might finish up around 60,000, but I am at 40,000 words right now, and the big reveal hasn’t come yet. I am already 15,500 into The Preacher’s Wife, and I don’t know if I even got 1/4 of the way into this one yet. I feel like I’m still building the foundation for this story. The Wilderness Bride turned out to be about 74,000 words (when you tack on the front and back matter). These stories just seem to want to go on and on. I don’t want to rush them just to get more books out a year.

So this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to let them play out as they want to play out. If I have to go longer between book releases, I’ll go longer. When I say I don’t know when a book will be out, I’m not trying to be difficult. I really don’t know. Even when I finish the first draft, I have other people I work with, and it’s hard to say what their schedules are like. I guess I’ll know for sure when a new book will be out when the final draft is up on pre-order.

Okay, so why might I push The Preacher’s Wife to 2026? Because I am working on a holiday series this year.

The holiday series covers Halloween, Christmas, and Valentine’s. Halloween book Christmas book Valentine book

Given how long it’s now taking me to finish a book, I am starting on the Halloween story right now. I need to start the Christmas one next month. I have no idea how long each book will take to write. It could be on the shorter side (40,000 words) or it could very well be over the 70,000-word mark. Until I’m hitting the halfway point and know what is going on with these characters, I don’t know. So I am getting a head start on this stuff before these deadlines force me to rush the books.

Masquerade Bride is a spin-off of the idea of “living a different life”. Kind of a “what would your life be like if you were someone else” situation.

A Wedding Carol is a spin-off of A Christmas Carol where the heroine (our “Scrooge”) will get to do the whole Christmas past, present, and future thing.

It’s a Wonderful Marriage is a spin-off of It’s a Wonderful Life where Mr. Christopher Robinson (remember him?) will get to see what life would have been like if he’d never been born. I’m really looking forward to writing about him and Agatha again. Those two were so much fun together.

I don’t expect most people to be interested in this Marriage by Holiday Series, but I’m excited about it. I kind of like doing things that are different from time to time than the standard romance. It keeps my creativity fresh.

Traditional vs Indie/Self-Publishing and Author Income Surveys 2023 and 2024

Today, I thought I’d take a moment to look at the realistic vision of what it means to be an author. This is based off of my conversations with a brand new author I met early last year.

Like last time, I also made videos so if you would rather listen to my (beautiful) voice instead of read the text, you can. But I’ll keep the information less of a ramble in the text.

Pros and Cons of Traditional and Indie Publishing

Basically, the best route depends on your goals and comfort levels.

Pros of Going with a Publisher

1. If you want someone else to handle the cover, the bulk of the edits, the description, the formatting, and getting them on retailers for you, then going with a publisher might be your best option. When you indie publish, you have to either do all of these tasks yourself, or you will have to hire people to do this stuff for you.

2. It is also nice to have a publisher take on your work because it validates that your work in good in someone else’s eyes.

Cons of Going with a Publisher

1. You have to make sure your book fits what the publisher wants. The publisher has to stay in business, so they will think of your book’s marketability.

2. The book will probably take longer to get out there into the world because you have to wait on their timeline to get things done.

3. Issues with intellectual property rights may arise. What happens if the publisher goes out of business? How will you get your rights back? Can you take a secondary character in this book and use it in another one to self-publish? Can you go with another publisher? What formats will they publish for you? Can you share anything from your story online and share excerpts from it? Etc, etc

Pros of Indie Publishing

You control everything. You pick the cover, the title, the content of the book, description, timing of publication, where you publish, what format your book is in, etc. (I went into a tangent about Draft2Digital being a distributor.)

Cons of Indie Publishing

You control everything, and that can be overwhelming.

Regardless of how you publish, keep in mind that:

1. You will have to promote yourself because visibility is a pain in the rear to get.

2. Keep your expectations for money realistic. (This is where I give outdated information from a Wide for the Win YouTube video that is no longer available. It is now marked private. I have made another post which I am linking to below with more current information.) However, the fact does still remain that this is not a “get rich quick” endeavor.

3. Someone will hate your book. You can’t avoid it. Whatever you do, keep yourself professional when in the public arena. Any crying, yelling, etc should be reserved for private.

4. Some people will only want free books. Don’t expect that everyone will want to buy your books. And that is okay.

5. Focus on the people who enjoy your work and connect with them. Those relationships are the best kind in the world. Don’t underestimate the value in personal connections.

Author Income Surveys 2023 and 2024

A note before we get into the numbers:

Be mindful of how much authors are really earning. These results cover gross income, not net. This is an important distinction because net is what matters. If an author makes $100,000 gross a year but spends $80,000 on ads, virtual assistants, editors, taxes, and other things, that author is really only making $20,000 profit. On the other hand, you might have an author who makes $30,000 gross a year but only spends $10,000 on expenses. So that author also profits $20,000. Profits matter more than gross. Profits allow you to pay the bills and invest.

I didn’t ramble about that on the video, but I did mention how income isn’t always just from selling books on retailers like we assume. A lot of authors making good money are selling courses, doing Kickstarter campaigns, selling directly from their website, etc. So take the “book selling” portion of their business with a grain of salt. Some really are just making money selling their books, but some are adding other things into the “six-figure income” basket.

Here is the breakdown from the Draft2Digital Blog Post Episode 128, June 15, 2023 (https://www.draft2digital.com/blog/?s=EP128)

Just over 2,000 authors participated in this survey, and these authors spent at least 50% of their time with author-related duties.

The median revenue for 2022 was $12,749.

1/4 of these authors made $0-$1,000 a year.

43.8% of these authors made over $20,000 a year.

28% of these authors made $50,000+ a year with 1/5 of that number earning “six figures”)

Now for the survey Written Word Media conducted. This post was published on Oct. 24, 2024. (https://www.writtenwordmedia.com/2024-indie-author-survey-results-insights-into-self-publishing-for-authors/)

This was a wider group of authors. I’m not sure of the exact amount. I might have missed that information in the post. I did participate in this survey. I am wide. I am not in KU at all. KU, for those who don’t know, is an exclusive program that Amazon set up for authors to make their ebooks only available on Amazon.

87.5% of authors in this survey have at least one book in KU.

Over 75% of the income reported in this survey were from authors who made their money on KU. I feel this skews the results a bit on how much authors are selling because KU is a library platform. Readers aren’t buying those books. Readers are borrowing them. KU pays authors based on pages read. Readers pay Amazon KU a subscription service and can access as many KU books as they want.

Here are the stats:

46% of authors make $100 or less a month.

17% of authors make $251-$1,000 a month

17% of authors make $2,501-$20,000 a month

It’s interesting that there’s a gap between some of those numbers, but I take it to mean they were statistically insignificant. Therefore, they weren’t worth mentioning. (Who knew that one day the three statistics classes I was forced to take in college would one day pay off because I actually understand this stuff.)

Authors whose goal is to make money, made more money. Authors whose goal is to write for enjoyment, made less money. I’m sure that shocked everyone. (I’m joking, of course.) It’s natural that authors who treat this more as a business have a better chance of making money at this thing.

The Frustrating Side of Writing

For the past week, I have been having such a difficult time writing. As some of you know, I write three books at a time. I do this in hopes of being able to work on at least one book if I get stuck in one or two of them. Working on more than one book doesn’t always work, though.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been trying to strategize how I’m going to get the main characters in The Hero Least Likely to apprehend the outlaws who are terrorizing Arizona. I realize I’m stuck on this point because I don’t plot. But I can’t plot like some authors can. Every time I have sat down to plot out a book, the story goes off the rails within a chapter or two. It’s as if the characters are saying, “We will not follow your orders, Ms. Author.” My characters are a lot like my kids. They have minds of their own and will do whatever they want. I know that sounds crazy to some people out there. I’ve heard the videos and have read the posts where other authors say, “Authors who claim that characters have a mind of their own are crazy because that mind belongs to the author.” Well, yes, it is my mind, but I swear, these characters feel like they really are separate people who will do whatever they want.

When I write, the story plays out like a movie in my head. As long as I write what is happening on the “screen”, things flow smoothly. I never know how a scene is going to play out until I’m writing it. I can guess. Sometimes I have a better idea of what I’m getting myself into when I sit at the computer, but I really never know how things will go. And this is why I’m surprised when people tell me something in my book was “predictable”. Except for the characters falling in love and ending up together, it wasn’t predictable to me. I wish I had seen this stuff coming because it would have saved me a lot of time while I waited for the characters to clue me into what they were planning.

Like this book I’m trying to finish up, The Hero Least Likely.

Not only was the cover a pain in the butt to finally get right, but now I’m at a standstill in the final two chapters. I think I only have two more chapters to go. Three at the most. I should have known when I had to go back and rewrite part of the beginning that this was going to be one of those books that is painful to write. I know where I need to end up, but I don’t know how to get there. I’ve been creating a map in my head of this town and laying out where the key characters need to be. I know there is one character who will be tied up. Another is going to need help with the rescue. Then there’s one who has to end up saving them all–not outright saving the day but doing enough so that these outlaws will finally be arrested.

I think a lot of my frustration comes from the fact that I am not an “action” kind of writer. These scenes are not that interesting to me. This is like a western movie. While the grasp of the time period is good to see, I honestly am not a big fan of western action-packed films unless it’s heavily laced with romance. Which most are not. But the plot demands I do this. And the characters are not helping me figure out what to do in order to get past this block.

The worst part is that since I’m stuck here, my creativity took a huge nosedive. It’s impacting my ability to write the other two books I’m working on.

Ironically, I’m not stuck in these other two books. I know what the characters want, though I am hitting a crucial element in The Earl’s Bluestocking Bride. I have to get the right balance between teasing the reader about the “big reveal” while satisfying the romantic requirements that come before “the big reveal”. In The Preacher’s Wife, I have figured out the hero–his motivation for what he does and what he most wants. But now I have to start layering the foundation for the romance between him and the heroine so that they fall in love before I disrupt their world. I don’t know why, but because I can’t finish The Hero Least Likely, I am unable to proceed with the other two books.

I think I have to step away from all writing in order to see things more clearly. So I’m going to do that. I was originally hoping to have The Hero Least Likely out in May, but that might not even happen at the rate things are going. This will push back the other books as well. I really need to get started on the Marriage by Holiday Series because those books need to come out for Halloween, Christmas, and Valentine. I don’t have the luxury on delaying those. I’m thinking The Preacher’s Wife will have to take a bit of a backseat.

One of the myths about storytelling is that it’s easy. Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes it is. Sometimes the words just flow. But there are other times when it’s like pulling teeth every single step of the way to get something out, and when that happens, it can block all other creative efforts.

I’m not going to force this. I would have forced it in the past, and that helped lead to burnout. One thing I promised myself when I got back into writing was that I would never do things that lead to burnout ever again. I’m slowly learning what things trigger burnout. Forcing one’s way into finishing a story that isn’t ready to be done is one of them. Doing things you hate for a long period of time is another one. Rapid releasing is another way to burnout. This isn’t just rapid releasing for books. It is rapid releasing for anything–like blog posts, social media posts, ads, and videos.

If you’re going to survive this writing thing for the long run, you have to do stuff you love and you have to spend time doing stuff you enjoy. I am tired of chasing the latest marketing trends. I am tired of trying to sell books. All I want to do is write them. I want to have fun with this. I love blogging. I love being on Facebook with people who have become my friends over there, though I do get drained when I put myself out there too much on social media. It takes a lot of me to be socially “on” with others. The truth is, I’m an introvert who is pretty awkward in social situations. I feel like what I say is stupid, but I realize I have to put myself out there anyway, so I do. I do it because I want people who enjoy the kind of books I write to find them. There’s magic when someone comes across an author who writes stories that speak to them. Case in point, I recently discovered a fan fiction series by someone who gets the mindset of the characters in a popular series. It’s been so rewarding for me to read these stories. I read the published series, and I have seen the movies. But this fan fiction work has added more layers to the whole scope of the characters, the world, and events that take place. And that has created a kind of magic that reminds me of how important stories can be. It reminds me of why I fell in love with reading when I was 12. If you can get someone excited about reading, you’ve done your job as an author.

So anyway, to wrap this up, we’ll get there with The Hero Least Likely. One way or another, it does always work out in the end. I have 101 romances under my belt. This isn’t the first time I’ve run into this kind of frustration. I’m tempted to bring the characters in on the blog and ask them what they are thinking by holding things up. We’ll see if that will help things come along, but I’m not ready to make such a post today.

Finally Getting Use Out of YouTube and Rumble

It’s been forever (two years really) since I last did anything with these channels. I ended up dropping Bitchute because it was too difficult to upload things over there. YouTube and Rumble, however, are simple enough to use.

The plan that failed

My original plan was to have my oldest son read my books and upload them for me. He read the entire book for Nobody’s Fool, and at chapter 15 in edits, something happened to the file, and he was unable to open it anymore. He does not have a Mac. I think I will die on the “Apple makes a better computer” hill because I haven’t had the issues other people have had with losing files on other computers. I know Apple is pricey, but in my humble opinion, the cost is worth it.

I was depressed when my son’s attempt at making audiobooks didn’t work out. I still wanted to get these books into audio form. The main way I have to consume books is to listen to them these days. My eyes are much better, but I want to save them for writing new books and working on blog posts, updating my website, etc. I can’t overdo it.

What I am doing about it

I have decided that I will narrate my own books, and I will upload them using my computer. I found a program called “Voices” in my Application folder, and I downloaded the iMovie app to my computer. I use BookBrush to make the graphic to go with the video. It’s a simple graphic. Here is the one I made for Tagalong Bride.

I am not going to worry about using a microphone or trying to do anything fancy. I am not making money with this, so I am not going to spend any money making these videos. I am also not going to worry about how “professional” these will be. Recently, I have been listening to audiobooks on YouTube from people just sitting down and reading the book, and I figure if I can be happy listening to books “unprofessionally” done, then there will be people out there who won’t mind my approach.

Essentially, imagine I am sitting in the room with you and reading the book. That’s how I imagine it as I record the files. I am doing a light edit to remove glaring errors, but I have decided to let a couple of stumbles as I’m reading pass through. I don’t want to spend more than 30 minutes on each chapter. When I did Meant To Be, it took me about 2-3 hours to edit each chapter. I’m not putting myself through that aggravation again. I want this to be a fun project.

I am currently uploading Tagalong Bride

My plan is to keep reading and uploading chapters of all of my books. After Tagalong Bride is done, I am going to put up Eye of the Beholder. If anyone has a request, I will happily work on that book after I’m done with Eye of the Beholder.

I am removing all spicy content in order to keep my videos on YouTube and Rumble. They have this policy where spicy content can get books (or the author’s channel) banned. Even if authors put, “Not meant for kids”, they risk video removal. So I’m going to play it safe and make these all PG. I want the books to be available for many years to come.

I will be posting the book chapter by chapter

I made a post not too long ago about how crazy I felt that authors are pushing to get a complete full-length book out every single week on YouTube. I won’t rehash that. I’m just going to say that I will be uploading one chapter at a time, and I am going to do this on a consistent schedule. Right now, I have picked Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I need to give myself time to record the chapter, turn it into a video, and upload it to YouTube and Rumble.

Now, I am able to put each chapter into a Playlist on YouTube. That way you can go to the Playlist, and after one chapter is done, the next will automatically play if you have your settings set to “autoplay”. I am not sure I can do the same thing in Rumble. I have done a lot more on YouTube than I’ve done on Rumble. I will see if I can get the chapters together.

I will try to make a file with the entire book on it after I finish uploading all of the chapters in case people prefer that way to listen to a book

I am going to see if I can merge all of the chapters into one file (in case someone does want the entire book in one video), but I will try that after I get all these chapters uploaded separately. I am also going to keep all the separate chapters on YouTube and Rumble. That way if people prefer the chapters to be separated out, they can have that. Personally, I prefer to listen to books chapter by chapter. I don’t like having to go back into a file to find where I left off, even if there is a way to mark it. YouTube does not always give me the video I had to pause and come back to later.

It really isn’t difficult to combing audio files in iMovie. It just takes time to do it.

My goal is to have fun and enjoy this

My goal is not to make money with this. To make money, I would have to rush these out. My goal is to have fun. I do want to make money with my writing, but I don’t want to kill myself while doing it. I need to have some things that are fun to me. I love reading my books. I would hope that any author would love their own content. I find that when I spend time doing fun things, I am a lot more creative, and it’s easier to write new books. The business angle plays a part at times, but I think there’s something to be said for not worrying about money if you can. Fortunately, my husband is the main breadwinner, so I do have the luxury of making this choice. I realize some authors don’t.

Side note: If you’re an author reading this and want to make money by posting your books on YouTube, here is what I advise after listening to tips from authors who are making “three to four figures a month” off of YouTube. Get one new book out a week, put the entire book into one video, make sure to monetize the videos when going through the ad revenue portion while you’re uploading the video, remove any R-rated content (maybe even tame the book to a PG rating to be on the safe side), and engage with your audience. I can’t guarantee this will work for you, but it has worked for other authors who’ve done this. (If you would like to actually take the course that walks you through the steps, let me know in the comments, and I’ll link to it. I think the course was $199. I thought it was worth taking even though I decided not to do this path.) Rapid release works just as well on YouTube as it does on Amazon, which is why you see content creators posting new videos all the time.

Links to my YouTube and Rumble channels

I waited until now to make this announcement because I wanted to make sure that I was getting the videos uploaded correctly. Like I said in the beginning of the post, it’s been two years since I’ve done this. I was a bit rusty. But now that I have a few chapters up, I feel safe in pointing people to the channels in case anyone wants to listen to me read. By the way, I am not going to try to do different voices for the characters. My son has that gift, but I don’t. Plus, I have trouble remembering which voice to use for which character. It’s easier this way.

YouTube Channel

Rumble Channel

Quick note about YouTube ads

I have paid YouTube to remove ads, so I no longer get them when I am watching videos over there. Because of that, I have no way of knowing if these chapters will be having ads attached to them. (In the past, I noticed that some videos had ads, and some didn’t.) In the course I took about YouTube books, someone was saying that YouTube runs ads every three minutes on a video. This is even if the author isn’t paid. If you notice that happening on my videos, please let me know. I will sort through the settings in my videos and see if there’s a way to lengthen out the ad spacing. That is an option they discussed. I just haven’t thought to do anything about it since I’m not worried about making money. I think what I’ll do is look into my YouTube channel the next time I upload a video to see if I can find that spot and preemptively arrange for the ads not to come every three minutes. I’m not a fan of ads. Since I have so little followers and views, I am thinking that the ad thing isn’t an issue. But please let me know if you’re finding an ad coming up every three minutes, okay? You can leave the comment in any of my blog posts or contact me through my contact form.

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I apologize that this turned into such a long post. I honestly thought it would be a lot shorter. I hope all of that was clear. I didn’t have time to go through here and edit. I had to run out to the accountant to turn in some tax information and then pick up my deaf son from work. (My deaf son was unable to get his driver’s license, so I’m his ride.)

The Wilderness Bride is Now Available (and Joel Larson is here to introduce it)

Here is The Wilderness Bride:

If you want to skip the long-winded post below, you can click directly here for the book info. (Description and links are included there as well as at the bottom of this post.)

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Joel Larson (hero in Shotgun Groom) enters post: Hi, everyone! It’s been a long time since I’ve been on this blog.

ID 14776353 © Jason Stitt | Dreamstime.com

Some of you may not even know who I am, but at one time, I was pretty famous among the people who read Ruth’s books. In fact, some people preferred me to Dave Larson, if you can believe that. But for those who have no idea who I am, I am one of the Larson brothers in the Nebraska Series, and I was the hero in Shotgun Groom.

Anyway, since this is a historical western romance in a brand new series, Ruth thought it would be fitting that I introduce it. She would have done it herself, but let’s face it, the characters an author writes is far more interesting than the author herself. It’s no fault of Ruth. It’s just that she leads a very boring life. Who wants to hear about her day of cooking, doing laundry, picking up after the people in her house, grocery shopping–

Ruth enters post: I think they get the point, Joel. We’re here to introduce a new book, not to give details about my personal life, boring as it may be. So let’s return to the book, okay?

Joel: Okay, okay. So I’m here to announce a book set along the West Coast in a small Oregon town. You have a hero who’s pretty much a loner living in the hillside. I, myself, envisioned my life going that way before Ruth forced me to marry. Except, of course, I was going to be a doctor. Hunting animals for food and chopping wood was never my interest.

Ruth: This isn’t about you, Joel. It’s about Ashley and Lisa who are main characters in The Wilderness Bride. Now I have to work on the next book which is The Hero Least Likely. I’m close to the end and don’t need to lose momentum. I’ll trust you can handle it from here.

Joel: I can handle it from here. This isn’t the first time I’ve been involved in enough books to know how to introduce them.

*Ruth leaves*

Joel: Alright, alright. The hero is named Ashely. He’s a loner who lives in the hillside in a one-room cabin. He’s living a life to be envied by men everywhere when Ruth interrupts his life by throwing an unconscious woman in his path.

Tom Larson (hero in A Bride for Tom) enters the post:

ID 7420165 © Imagery Majestic | Dreamstime.com

Tom: I can’t read to this anymore. Joel doesn’t have a romantic bone in his body. It’s a good thing Joel’s wife isn’t here for this. She would string him up by the boots and let him hang upside down all night for this nonsense. Let me introduce this book. So there’s this guy named Ashley who is miserable because he’s all alone. He might not realize he’s miserable, but he is because I was single once, and I remember how lonely I was before Jessica came into my life. This poor man needs a good woman to come into his life and make that one-room cabin he lives in a home.

Joel: I’m not saying that Ashley won’t eventually be happy with the marriage a preacher is going to force him into. This is a romance, after all. But as things are at the beginning of the book, he is content with being alone. I think there’s nothing wrong with that.

Tom: You should just leave. You are offering nothing of substance to this post. All you’re going to do is dissuade people from reading the book.

Joel: How so?

Tom: Who’s going to read a book about a man who isn’t looking to get married so he has to be forced into it?

Joel: *points to himself* That’s what happened in my book, and people read that one.

Dave Larson (hero of Eye of the Beholder, To Have and To Hold, and Forever Yours) enters the post:

ID 43983249 © Wally Stemberger | Dreamstime.com

Dave: Why didn’t anyone ask me to come here to introduce this book? I can sum it up the best. This is a story where Lisa, the heroine, believes she has no reason to live until the hero shows her otherwise through his care and love for her. It’s the kind of story that I can give my seal of approval on.

Tom: Ruth asked Joel to introduce this book. No one knows why. He has no connection with it. If anyone has a connection to this book, it’s me. When my third daughter, Erin, got married in Suitable for Marriage, Ruth wrote into the story that there was a young woman who had been forced to give up her baby for adoption. We all wondered why that woman had been forced into that situation and what happened to her. Jessica speculated about that one for months. It’s about time Ruth satisfied our curiosity. Plus, we always thought it would be nice if the poor young woman could get a happy ending. I know I would want that if she was my daughter.

Dave: We all want this woman to have a happy ending. This woman has a name. It’s Lisa.

Tom: Did you get a chance to read this book?

Dave: I might have sorted through Ruth’s files and found it while I had some free time.

Tom: I can’t believe you did that. You aren’t supposed to go around snooping in her computer.

Joel: Yeah, I think there’s some sort of code we characters have to follow when it comes to books pre-publication.

Dave: But if we don’t read it, how can we tell people why they should read it?

*Joel and Tom grow silent for a long moment*

Tom: I suppose Dave has a point.

Dave: Of course, I have a point, and it’s a good one. If people liked our books, they’ll like this one, too. I think we’ve said enough about it. While I read it, I don’t want to spoil it.

Joel: At long last, we come to the cover and the links on where you can find the book:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Apple

Google Play (ebook)

Google Play (audiobook)

Smashwords

Everand

Radish