Ruth Ann Nordin's Blog, page 9

The Earl’s Jilted Bride is now available!

After what seems like forever, I finally have a new book out. I am hoping to get four books out total this year. Let’s hope the writing continues to flow so I can do that.

I want to take a moment to thank Shelley, Bonnie, Erica, Eris, and Lauralynn for helping me get this book together because they had to do the heavy lifting of polishing this book up in order for me to protect my eyes from too much strain. Thank you, ladies, so much!

The Earl’s Jilted Bride is Book 3 in the Marriage by Obligation Series.

Worth the Risk is currently in edits. I am writing Anyone But You. I am hoping to have these two books out this year.

Now for The Earl’s Jilted Bride:

Lady Carol was supposed to marry the Duke of Augustine. Then, shortly before the wedding, the duke committed suicide, citing her for the reason he couldn’t go on living anymore. While there was no love lost between them, her situation is not any better when her guardian threatens to send her off to a convent unless she finds someone else to marry. Marriage to a gentleman she barely knows is a risky venture, but with nothing to lose, she accepts Lord Wright’s hasty proposal.

Grant Carnel, Lord Wright, did everything he could to make everyone think he had a wonderful first marriage. He did it to protect the young child that isn’t really his. He is determined that no one learn the truth. Her life will be free from scandal. With his first wife gone, he is free to marry again. But marriage would mean opening up old wounds that he thought he left behind.

If interested, you can find it here:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Apple

Google Play

Smashwords

Everand (used to be Scribd)

Radish (in serialized fiction form) – episodes start today

Note: I am currently getting it into a digitally narrated audiobook on Google Play and Apple. I will post links to those when they’re up.

A Cute Idea Janet Syas Nitsick and I Had

Janet and I get together quite a bit, and we thought it would be fun to create a blog together. I don’t know how often we’ll post in it. The current goal is once a month. We wanted to offer something short to read that would be like a “tabloid” sort of thing. That idea evolved into a short post that would feature one character per book we have in the works. That character is allowed to say whatever they want about the book. Maybe seeing it would be better than explaining it.

Let me link to it below:

What the Characters Are Saying (February 2024 Post)

If anyone has anything they would be interested in seeing us do on that blog, please let me know.

Updates on What I’m Doing

I’m going to have to dust off the cobwebs of this blog. I know I’ve made a couple of posts, but it feels like it’s been forever since I really did anything over here.

The long and winded version of how I dragged my way through the past year

I’m finding that my burnout is going away. I guess there are some situations where you just have to take a complete break from writing. The process took a long time. I was burned out for probably two years before I finally gave myself permission to quit. I think God sent me the dry eye thing to force my hand on the issue. All of last year, I pretty much didn’t write anything. I might have gotten 20,000 words in so I could finish up The Earl’s Jilted Bride and Worth the Risk. I even added a couple of thousand words to two new books. Overall, that was essentially writing nothing because the year spans 365 days, and I was used to writing at least 20,000 words a month up to that point.

I think when an author starts to come back from burnout, it’s slow. I would get a spark here and there, but it wasn’t anything that led me to the computer. I decided to let these moments flicker then fizzle out. The more time went on, the more sparks would come, and without realizing it, they stopped going out so fast. I dictated a couple of chapters in Tagalong Bride and one chapter in Anyone But You during these moments.

Necessity is a good kick in the pants that brings me back to seriously writing

I’d love to say that money doesn’t influence a writer’s motivation. It’s more romantic to think of authors writing books solely for pleasure. But I guess we live in the real world, and in the real world, money matters. I am fortunate enough that my writing brings in enough to take care of the house and car repairs. And I have had to take car of two cars last month. This month, I discovered stains on my bedroom ceiling that made me call a roofing company. I don’t know if there’s something serious going on or not yet, but my dwindling savings account alerted me to the fact that I need to work. In this economy, my husband income just isn’t viable. So I decided to stop feeling sorry for my dry eye situation and the fact that I was in burnout for a long time. It’s time to get to work. And if I need to work and if I can do work I love, then I might as well get back to the computer. Perhaps the repairs are God’s way of telling me it’s not time to retire the writing gig. I do believe God uses circumstances to give us a message.

But I need to be smart about this because I don’t want to aggravate my eyes. They are doing great. I have barely had any issues with them. I occasionally will have the “sand in the eye” sensation or a day where it waters up more than usual, but considering where I started, this is a huge improvement. I haven’t needed eye drops in about a month. I’d like to keep that up. The son who is in college is using my laptop that has the microphone feature on the keyboard. So I have decided to try my hand at typing with my eyes closed. I am typing most of this post that way. Once in a while, I open them to make sure I’m not messing things up, and the strategy seems to be working pretty well.

I still need the help of the people who have graciously offered to help me. I can’t do the edits like I used to, and I’m afraid if I were to try to do them, it would set my eyes back to where they were last year when I had to quit. It’s possible to listen to books as a way of editing, but you find a lot more when you can read the content. Listening doesn’t find punctuation issues, improper spacing, or homonyms.

Anyway, to sum an exhaustive tale, I am getting back into a writing routine. Here is my plan moving forward:

The Earl’s Jilted Bride (Marriage by Obligation Series: Book 3) still comes out on the 15th.

I have most of the stuff done to get it ready for its release day.

I need to get Worth the Risk (Marriage by Obligation Series: Book 4) ready for the editor.

I will have to ask my editing team what their timelines are like to determine when I will put this up on pre-order.

I have gotten to Chapter 3 in Anyone But You (Marriage by Obligation Series: Book 5)

And I discovered that the heroine of this book isn’t as nice as I originally thought she’d be. I was surprised, but I think it will make for a much better story because I will have to work with redeeming her and Felix at the same time. I am still working on how much he damaged her reputation. I haven’t decided how far to go in how much she’s been tarnished. I have to balance the two out so that they’re on equal “footing” with what needs redeeming.

While writing in it, I also discovered two (possibly three) gentlemen I want to write about in a future series. Their stories just popped in my head while I was writing. I was originally tempted to let Horatio (the brother of the heroine in Secret Admirer) remain single forever, but, deep down, I feel like he needs a story, too. I thought it’d be fun to do a series where characters are using a lab to find a “love potion”. Yeah, it’s farfetched and make corny, but it’s something that piques my interest, so I’m going to run with it. I’m hoping I can put a lot of humor in this series.

I am in Chapter 5 (almost at Chapter 6) in Tagalong Bride (Love Under Desert Skies: Book 1)

I believe this is going to be a funny book. The hero is nice to our heroine, but he only married her for her family’s fortune. They are now in Arizona to find his sister. (They had to leave right after their wedding because the sister was kidnapped by bandits.) I’m at the point where they are an the inn where he is having to confront the official wedding night. He really doesn’t want to do it. And because it’s fun to build up the sexual tension, he won’t have to because a brawl is gong to erupt downstairs where men will start shooting. However…(and this is where my sense of humor kicks in)…there will be a time later in this book where the hero will want to consummate the marriage but won’t be able to because of all of the circumstances that will pop up. I’m looking forward to watching him squirm. But it’s what he gets for being so reluctant to do things to begin with.

I am not going to have the sister fall in love with one of the bandits. I haven’t decided who she should end up with yet. It’s either the clumsy but lovable deputy who only has his job because he’s related to the sheriff OR the man she was supposed to marry (because she is a mail-order bride). There’s a possibility that I can work with another character I introduced, but I have to see how things go between her and the deputy before I settle on that decision. I would like to make this series three books.

***

I am going to start posting on the monthly blog that I haven’t touched in much too long again. I’ll start on that when The Earl’s Jilted Bride comes out.

BookFunnel Promo: February Historical Romance

This month, I have chosen to join the February Historical Romance promotion on BookFunnel.

I have to say that I am really impressed with the covers that authors are making for their books. They are gorgeous. Some of these look like exciting reads.

I chose to put Breaking the Rules in for this promo.

In case someone reading this post hasn’t read this book yet, it is a second chance at love romance. Miss Lilly Lowell’s biggest regret is that she rejected the only gentleman who loved her unconditionally. Now she sets out to win him back, but it will take breaking some rules to do it.

Here is the direct link in case the one I put in the header doesn’t work: https://books.bookfunnel.com/historicalromancefreebooks/i45s2ohy0m

I hope you find a fun new read from this promo!

A special note: I am going to put The Outlaw’s Bride and The Rancher’s Bride in my next BookFunnel promo. I was going to do it this month, but I ran out of time because I was sick and dealing with getting taxes ready for the accountant.

Heads Up to All of You Authors Who Have an LLC

I recently received a notice from my accountant that a new reporting rule went into effect January 1, 2024. I no longer own an LLC. Years ago, I did, but I found it to be pointless so I dissolved it. However, I am aware that many authors still have LLCs, so I thought I’d pass this information along in case you weren’t aware of this. (I spoke with an author the other day who didn’t know about it. That made me wonder how many others might not know.)

Basically, you are required to to file a form with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. The information is pretty basic. Your name, birthday, address, a picture, etc. (There was no link offered in the letter. I suppose you have to search for it or ask your accountant about it.) Anyway, I scanned the notice in and will post it here for you to read the details.

If you are a sole proprietor, you do NOT have to worry about this. (I double checked with my accountant on this one. Yeah, I know it specifies in the letter that this is only for LLCs, but I like the verbal assurance of the person who files my taxes. I’m the kind of person who will ask the dumb questions, but I have also been on the IRS’s bad side in the past so I get paranoid with this type of stuff.)

I’ll be publishing The Earl’s Jilted Bride in February and other minor updates

I was originally going to publish this book in January, but I realized that I need a full month to get this uploaded and ready for release. Long story short, my eyes need the extra time. I have set the release date to February 15.

The ongoing saga with my eyes

And I’m having trouble finding a happy medium between giving my eyes the break they need while also maintaining this whole “writing business” thing. I have already cut off social media. This blog, my website, my email list, and BookFunnel are all I’m doing now to get word out about my books so people know what books I have. That takes up a surprising amount of time for what I need to do with my eyes. You really don’t know how much you do with your eyes until you’re unable to do it anymore. It doesn’t help that sometimes I need the computer and my iPhone for things that aren’t even related to my books. It’s frustrating, to say the least. I am on this computer for the entire morning as I’m trying to get The Earl’s Jilted Bride uploaded, and I can already tell I’ll need a full week away from the computer after this to give my eyes time to recover from the strain.

An update on Worth the Risk

I do have Worth the Risk with a beta reader (who has become a friend) at the moment. After that, I am sending it to another friend. And then it’ll go to my editor. I don’t know when I’ll get this out. A couple of months ago, I thought it would be out in June, but given how slow I am at everything these days, I wouldn’t be surprised if this won’t be out until 2025. We’ll see how things go.

Scribd is now Everand

I keep forgetting to address this, but Scribd has changed its name to Everand. I wish these companies would pick a name and stick with it instead of changing names after we have all gotten used to the old ones. Facebook changed its name to Meta. Twitter changed its name to X. And now this. I have about 100 books in all, and it would be a huge pain in the rear to change “Scribd” to “Everand” on all of my links, especially given the situation with my eyes. I checked a few links, and they still take you to my books on that site. That’s the important thing. I can’t afford to pay someone $30 an hour to take care of this stuff for me, and I’m not going to waste the little computer time I have in changing the links myself. So for the people out there who like to tell me things that are “wrong” on my site, the Scribd name is going to stay “Scribd” on my previous books. I’ll change the Marriage by Obligation “Scribd” links to match Everand’s new brand, but that is the extent of the work I’m doing with it.

The next BookFunnel Promo will be in February

Since my attention is going to getting The Earl’s Jilted Bride up and ready for publication next month, I don’t have the time to work anything out for BookFunnel. I thought I could run something in January, but I’m already straining my eyes enough as it is. I do have something planned for February, though. If anyone has a book I’ve done that they would like to see in a BookFunnel promo, let me know.

Once Upon a Tryst BookFunnel Promo

This is the last promo I’m participating in for this month. It looks like most of these are Regencies, but a few seem to feature other historical romantic genres. Some of these look like awesome reads.

I put in one of my Regencies (The Marriage Contract) and one historical western (Nelly’s Mail Order Husband). In addition to having my two books in BookFunnel for free for you to check out, I also have them on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, Google Play, Scribd, Smashwords, and other smaller retailers for free if you are not on BookFunnel.

Click here to see the promo!

If that link doesn’t work, here is the direct link you can copy and paste: https://books.bookfunnel.com/hisromnldecjan/lyy803dx8k

Stages in the Author Journey

Introduction

Today I am going to discuss the stages of being an author. These stages are my opinion. These stages may not be true for every single author out there. I realize every author is going to have their own journey. But when I think over my own author journey, these are the stages I noticed. It may be that you will notice yourself somewhere on this journey as well.

While it may take one author a year or two to get through one stage, it could take another author 5 to 10 years to get through the same stage. Each author’s journey will be unique to their own situation. Some of us will need more time in one stage than another. It’s even possible that an author might bounce back-and-forth between stages. For example, an author may be in stage three but then reverts back to stage two or an author in stage four may find they have gone back to stage three. I have noticed the progression was not linear for me, so it may not be linear for everyone.

With that said, let’s get into the meat and potatoes of this post.

Stage one: Novice at Play

During this stage, all of the story ideas are fresh and brand new. Writing is complete play at this level. The author has not thought of things like word choice, passive versus active voice, repetition, and other elements that come into the nuts and bolts of writing a story. The author at this stage may understand concepts like plot, character development, foreshadowing, and other storytelling elements, but these will be raw in form.

Some authors will give little thought to an audience. Back in 2007 to 2010, the thought of making anything with your writing as a self published author was foreign. I think that was to the benefit of many authors, especially me. This is my opinion, of course. Some may argue, and rightfully so, the thought of having an audience as a new writer is better because it forces you  to pay careful attention to polishing up your story early on in your author journey. I, however, believe that the joy of simply writing out a story that stems from the heart is far more important. The passion is what will drive the author to naturally develop compelling stories. The author will want to fine-tune the craft elements to make stories even better. When you are doing what you love, you will improve without being told to.

Stage two: The Mechanics of Writing

This is when the author realizes they have an audience. Suddenly, the author realizes that someone out there is reading their books. For me, this was the most frightening stage of all. I found it much easier to write when I believed I was the only person who is ever going to read the story I wrote. Some people wonder why I bothered publishing books when I didn’t believe they would ever find an audience. I published my books because I wanted an easy format to read them in. I wanted them in paperback and e-book so I wouldn’t have to lug around a computer or notebook whenever I wanted to read my book. Today, most authors are looking to make money, so they will go in to this with the expectation of finding an audience. Because of that, finding an audience will not scare them away. Knowing you have an audience puts pressure on you to pay attention to the way you are writing your stories.

This is where the critique groups come in. I realize not every writer is going to join a critique group, but authors will want to polish up their stories the best that they can. After all, if the goal is money, you want to present a professional product. Books that are haphazardly written and thrown up onto a retailer do not make the most money. There has to be some compelling element to the story to get a reader to invest their money into the book. And let’s say your goal is not money. You still want the reader to enjoy the story. Loving the process of writing will make you want to sharpen your skills as a writer and that will make you grow exponentially in your storytelling.

Writing at this stage is still fun, but it is more challenging.

Stage three: The Heights of Success

This is where you make more money or you develop a larger reader base than you dreamed possible. There is a lot of enthusiasm and excitement at this level. There is also quite a few low points because while you are receiving praise from people who love your work, you are also receiving criticism from people who hate your work. Most likely, you will be tempted to change your book to appease the critic.

I have done this, and all I can say, is that it’s a pointless endeavor. I do not believe there is any point in trying to please the critic.  I spent a couple of years changing a few of my books, and I never once heard a critic say they reread those books and were happy with the changes that I made. The critic is not likely to stick around or care. Or if the critic does stick around, all they do is read your new stuff and find more reasons to criticize your work. That has been my experience. Maybe there’s an author out there with a different experience. All I know is that I had readers who genuinely loved my work, and they were disappointed in the changes I made to the books. So in the end, I change those books back to their original form.  I learned that it is far more important to focus on the people that love your work than to chase after pleasing the critic.

With that said, this stage is a lot of fun because you are reaping the rewards for your effort. The praise will outweigh the criticisms. If you’re in this stage, enjoy every moment of it. It’s a natural high in the author journey.

Stage four: What Goes Up Must Come Down

No author will ever stay at the top forever. This is some thing I believe with all my heart. Sooner or later income drops. Sooner or Later, you’re not growing readership as quickly as you were before. Sooner or later, it gets a little harder to keep up the momentum for writing. Sooner or later, the highs wain. I think it’s a fact of life. There is not a single creative person who has stayed at the top forever. Someone else will come in and take your place.  This stage is probably the second scariest one because you start to believe you have lost your edge. You start to wonder if you’re doing something wrong. You think that it used to be easy, or at least easier than it is now. You didn’t change anything, so why is the stuff you used to do no longer working?

This is a stage where I tried everything I could to get things going again. I started chasing different marketing fads. I tried to write faster than I did before. I even wrote to market. I pushed aside passion projects, believing that if I wrote to market, I would get back to stage three. I was afraid if I didn’t keep the momentum up, I was going to lose my readers. I was also afraid that I was going to lose my clout as an author in the writing community because I no longer had the sales to back up the stuff that I was saying.

This stage, to me, is the hamster in the wheel stage. Basically, you throw everything and the kitchen sink at the wall and hope something sticks. Sometimes the effort will work, and you’ll see a boost, but sometimes you will see no reward for your efforts at all. It’s unpredictable. And that is what makes it so stressful.

This is when you truly understand how much writing has become a business, whether you went into this intending for the writing to be a business or not. The business side ends up taking a toll on your emotional health.

Stage five: The Great Depression

For authors who sincerely cares about what they’re doing on an emotional level, watching your income drop means that you are not succeeding in pleasing your audience. Now, I realize that you are pleasing the readers who have loved your work the entire time. I hate to say it, but it is easy to lose sight of those people when you start to think of reaching more and more people. You see, making money is more than a financial goal. The goal is to get more more readers for your books. When an author makes more money,  they are assured they are finding a wider audience. So, when income goes down, what it really means is that less people care about our work. That’s what makes this stage so depressing.

After stage four, the author comes to realize there is nothing that they can do. A lot of this stuff is out of our control. We can’t control who sees the book. We can’t control who takes an interest in the book. We can’t control who decides to buy the book. We can’t control who decides to review the book. We can’t decide who tells other people about the book. so much of being a published author is outside our control.

At this stage, the author has to decide whether to keep writing or to quit. If they keep writing, do they keep writing the same genre, or do they move on to something else? There’s a lot of back-and-forth between continuing versus quitting. There would be days during this stage that I would cry for hours at a time because the whole thing seems pointless. I would just dream of quitting. I imagined how much less stress I would feel in my life if I could simply not be a writer anymore. When I was just a stay-at-home mom, I didn’t have the kind of stress I did as a published author. I didn’t have to meet deadlines, I didn’t have to keep up word counts, I didn’t have to keep coming up with new story ideas, and I didn’t have to worry about managing a business that I had to report every year to my accountant.

There are valid reasons an author may just want to throw in the towel and walk away. Writing is a creative process. That creativity takes a lot of work out of an author, and there are times when it can be draining. This is an aspect that is rarely ever brought up in the writing community. Most writers just want to act like writing is always easy and fun. I know there’s the saying that goes something like, “you bleed words onto the page.” But it is very hard to keep coming back to the page when almost every single day it feels like you are pulling teeth to get every word down. You go through this struggle for a good year or two and it leads to burnout. You can only fight burnout for so long before it finally catches up to you. And then you hit rock bottom. That is where this stage leads if the author chooses to keep writing in spite of it being so hard and painful.

Looking back, if I had given myself permission to slow down, or at least take an extended vacation from writing, I could have saved myself a lot of grief. There were a couple of author friends who advised me to take a break, but the reason I told myself I couldn’t was because I was the primary breadwinner in my household. My husband and my children depended on me to keep bringing money in. I felt trapped, so I kept on writing.

Stage six: It All Comes Full Circle but with Some Benefits

I feel like this is the stage where things take a turn for the better. I believe I am just now entering this particular stage. I knew I’d been carrying the weight of stage five years, but I didn’t realize just how heavy that weight was until I made the decision to walk away from writing. Suddenly, I felt like I could relax. And in relaxing, my mind was finally able to rest. Then a spark came to me. The spark was brief, but it was there. I didn’t do anything about it. Then I felt another spark, and this one lasted longer. This happened for quite some time. I didn’t do anything with these sparks at first because I really wanted to give my mind time to decompress from everything. I just let the sparks come and go, but then I felt that longing to get back to the page. And I hadn’t felt that longing since stage three.

I am still figuring the stage out, but I suspect that this is the stage where the enthusiasm for writing returns, and when it returns, it will bring wisdom. When I say, wisdom, I mean that I am aware there’s an audience out there, I am aware the critic is out there, I am aware that income goes up and down, and  I am aware that there are times I need to slow down and take a break. I am no longer under the illusion that money is easy to make and that income will always go up. While that might seem depressing, I find it freeing. Now, when I publish a book, I am not under the weight of having to sell a certain number of copies in order to validate myself as a published author. I don’t feel that I have anything to prove to myself or to anyone else anymore. I have come to the point where I don’t care what the critics say about my work.  I am still concerned about what the people who love my work think of my future books, but since they have been so supportive and encouraging in the past, I am confident that they will be pleased.

I believe this is the stage where authors get to play again. I am looking forward to entering this stage. This time, validation of the work does not come from income, nor does it come from the number of readers I have. Validation comes from the story itself. As long as I am living out the adventure in the story, that will be the reward.

BookFunnel Historical Romance Giveaway

For the month of December, 53 BookFunnel authors are running a promotion called Historical Romance Giveaway. I have added my book, The Earls Inconvenienced Wife, to this giveaway. If you haven’t read it yet, now is a great time to do so.

In addition to my book, there are other romances that look like they’ll make good reads. I encourage you to check it out you might find your next favorite author.

Click here for the link

If you’re having trouble with the link above, here is the full link: https://books.bookfunnel.com/awesomehistoricalromancefreebies/ts7ygd5ux4

Setting Up for a Book Signing at a Craft Show

I finally remembered to take pictures of Janet Syas Nitsick and I setting up a table at a craft show. I thought it might be fun to show you the process.

Before anything is done:

In the background, we had the poster for Janet’s book, the stand, the suitcase full of her paperbacks, the bag containing materials to set up books and her purse for giving people change when they bought her books.

Setting the skirt around the table:

This is my least favorite task because you need to tape it down, and you have to do this every couple of inches for the skirt to stay in place.

Laying the rest of the cloths on top of the table:

There is tape under the coverings, but since you’re not trying to hold the skirt up in place while setting them down, it’s not so bad to deal with.

Setting the poster up:

Janet has always done this in the past, so I didn’t really pay attention to what she did. This last time, however, she had to run back to her home to pick up some of the items we forgot. It took me about a half hour of browsing through You Tube videos to figure out how to set up the easel.

During the time I was trying to figure out how to set up the easel for the poster, I set all of the books on the side of the table. Janet was getting the items we needed to place the books on display.

Table ready to go for the next day:

At this point, all of the books are set up. I love setting the books up because it’s always fun to see beautiful covers on display.

The day of the craft show, Janet is wearing her historical outfit to go with her books:

I enjoy being at these craft shows. I get to sit and talk with Janet. I get to talk to people who are passing by. Sometimes I’ll come across something to get from another vendor that I can use. I have lost count of how many people come by seeing if Janet has a new book out. (She will when we go the craft show in April.) These are people who have bought her other books in the past at the craft shows and have come to love her books. So I would say these craft shows end up being a good thing if a local author can keep going to them.

In my opinion, it’s more satisfying to talk to people who enjoy the books than walk away with the money. (Janet is a good saleswoman, so she makes back more than the cost of being the vendor, but really, these craft shows are not going to earn a lot of money.) It seems that the main payoff to doing these shows has to do with the interaction an author gets from meeting readers face-to-face. In a world full of screens, it’s nice to make human connections. One time I was fortunate enough to have the pleasure of meeting someone who recognized my name. (This was someone who reads both my books and Janet’s books.) I can’t tell you just how thrilling that was for me.