Nicole Pyland's Blog, page 7

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This blog goes out to all the reviewers out there.

Authors constantly ask for reviews because we want people to hear how you feel about a book in order to, hopefully, drive more people to pick up a copy. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if all reviewers understand the weight of the words they type and put out in very visible places like Amazon and Goodreads.

Recently, a review caught my attention, and I just can’t stop feeling upset about it. I rarely get upset about negative reviews; I usually mov...

Flashback: Fresh Start

FRESH START was the first book I started writing and actually finished. I’ve been writing forever but struggled finishing the things that I started. Technically, I finished other things before FRESH START but this was the first book that I wrote and published. It’ll always have a special place in my heart because of that.

It all started because I was watching a documentary on Amanda Knox around the same time I watched one on Casey Anthony. I watch a lot of true crime, as you can imagine. I was ...

It's been 5 years!

I can’t believe I’ve been publishing books for 5 years now, but I double-checked the calendar, and it turns out, I have. I published FRESH START (Chicago Series Book #0) on November 15th, 2017, and ALL THE LOVE SONGS (Celebrities Series Book #2) just two days later, on November 17th, 2017. (I wrote a prequel later, which is why it’s book 2.)

So, it’s been five years, and I’ve been publishing like crazy ever since...

To thank everyone who’s ever bought my books, read them on KU, listened to m...

New Release: The Misperception

Paisley & Trinity's book is out today!

Paisley’s story finally gives us a little more on the woman who’s always working and can’t be around for every friend hangout. She’s hardworking and dedicated and not at all interested in Trinity, the new client she doesn’t remember going to school with. (Talk about awkward)

For the first time, Paisley has someone who challenges her and doesn’t just let her off the hook, and Paisley is finding that to be surprisingly sexy.

Check out THE MISPERCEPTION ...

Flashback: A Shot at Gold

Spoilers ahead, as usual. If you haven’t read the book yet, you might want to wait to read this post until you do.

When I first outlined A Shot at Gold, I knew I wanted to write an age-gap book about archery, but that was about it. I outline in bullets and keep things pretty open for myself, so an outline might say, “Madison is at college and saying goodbye to friends, about to start her archery camp thingy.” And yes, it would have said ‘thingy.’ Then, I fill it in as I write the chapter. Since...

Flashback: Pride Festival

This book almost didn’t exist. I had my books planned for 2022, and there were already a lot of them. 8, to be exact. That’s more than I usually publish in a year, so I was good to go. But, TB Markinson reached out and asked if I’d be interested in participating with a group of authors in writing a novella about Pride. It needed to be between 30-50K and had to have the theme of Pride, but the rest was up to me.

At first, I wasn’t sure what I’d write about. Not much for a parade, parties, or lar...

New Release: The Sweet Escape

Eleanor & Carmen's book is out today!

THE SWEET ESCAPE is about what happens when you meet your friend's girlfriend's friend and have a tiny crush on her. Okay, it's not a tiny crush… It's a big crush, and Eleanor can't stop going to Carmen's bakery to pick up her favorite cupcakes and stare at Carmen.

Ellie has to watch Carmen figure things out a little more slowly while her own kid brother is also in a little trouble and in need of a place to stay. Taking in a teenager in his time of need me...

Flashback: Macon's Heart

I remember an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where they all get their SAT results back, and Cordelia gets a pretty high score. They’re surprised because Cordelia isn’t the kind of person they’d expect to score well on a standardized test. She says, “What? I can’t have layers?”

When I write my characters, I’m often searching for their layers. What is the thing that everyone just assumes about them? What’s one layer under that? What’s a layer deeper? And so on. What can their soulmate in the...

Flashback: The Moments

You've all heard me say that I like to challenge myself with my writing. So, today, I thought I'd tell you about my inspiration for a challenging book I wrote a few years ago now.

The Moments was one of my first releases, and I remember sitting in my desk chair, thinking about doing something that was a little “younger character” than I'd written before. I got this idea about a teenager wanting to ask someone out on graduation day now that high school was over. I thought about what might happen...

Flashback: Time of Day

When I first decided to take Kellan to Tahoe and make it a series, I knew I’d start with Kellan’s book, but after that, I wasn’t sure what order to go in. As I was writing Morgan, I knew people would want to read about her, but I wanted to bring Kinsley into the fold, so I decided to write her story first. I wanted to give Kinsley the kind of story where she’s settled in her life as much as she could be, and someone from her past just walks back into her life. I actually had the idea for Kinsley...