Jen Black's Blog, page 2

So screwed up

Prudhoe Castle main entrance I may have complained about Good Reads in a previous post but I am not apologising for doing so again. It is the most infuriating site I know.

I saw a post on Facebook  recently that someone is prepared via a webinar to explain how to use Good Reads, so I thought I could at least watch and listen and maybe enlightenment would strike. 

Seems I cannot get into the Good Reads site any more. My User name, password, etc, do not foot the bill any longer.  I asked to change the info and  was told (eventually) to contact my admin supervisor  (or some similar term). What it fails to do is give me any clue How To Reach that person.

 So I guess the helpful webinar is going to be missed by me because Goodreads  is so screwed up I cannot use it.

Romantasy

I read that there is a new sub-genre on the romance /historical fiction scene. 

This one is called Romantasy. It first appeared in 2023. Some say the genre appeals to those who grew up with Harry Potter - young adult fantasy -  and want similar fantasy elements but with sex and romance thrown in.

All the core tropes for romance feature in romantasy and the main plot focus is romance but the setting is  some imaginative world often with mythical creatures and epic quests. It should tempt all those who  like dragons...but you need a vivid imagination for this kind of thing.

I guess the Regency purist readers will avoid it like the plague and so for them can I recommend my latest offering  - definitely no mythical creatures, but lots of romance! in The Duke & Two Sisters.

I'm working on it!

 Corrections done! I am always amazed at how little things get missed until the published book pops up on my ipad!

 "brough" instead of brought, a period where it should not be, little, insignificant things...

All caught and corrected now. Not that there were hordes, but perhaps half a dozen things to alter. So now I suppose I must concentrate on getting the word out that it is available. The downside of the job, if I'm honest.

Once that is done I can get on with other things. Dusting, perhaps. Wiping off dirty finger marks on doors and other exciting things. Not very enticing, so maybe I'll do a little editing on an older book. I enjoy that when I start because it tells me that I have learned something about writing over the years! I seem to remember that when I first wrote my book about Finlay, it was something like 160,000 words. Right now it is down to 105k, and I'm still editing. I was very wordy at the start of my writing journey. Look out for a new edition of Alba is Mine soon. 

That's the cover, over there on the right!Launch date: 2...

 

That's the cover, over there on the right!

Launch date: 20th June

Time for a last read through to see that it's perrrrrfect!

When almost-sixteen Becky confesses that handsome rake about town Roddy Trevelyan is pursuing her, elder sister Laura is wary enough to visit Roderick's older brother and demand that he forbid his brother to see Becky.
At the ball, Becky is discovered in Roddy's arms and a clandestine relationship begins. Her blue eyes are the sort a man could drown in - if it wasn't for her imprudence. They elope, leaving Laura and  the Duke to follow them.

Laura faces her own problem when Lord Raven proposes marriage and will not accept her refusal. Torn between saving her sister, escaping the clutches of Lord Raven and his mad plans, she slowly realises the man she wants to marry is already at her side. When he faces danger, she must risk everything to save him. 

Any comments, improvements, send them to me!

How long can this go on?

 Ten days later and I am still struggling to finish the latest wip! The tale is nearly done but the word count is rather lower than I am used to. Perhaps it is really not necessary now to go the whole 70k words in a historical romance, for I have found a lot of books I have read lately in that genre have ended before I was quite ready for it.

Some of these stories now seem to rely on whole episodes describing sexual encounters - pages and pages of it! It's not that I'm 'disgusted of Chichester' complaining but the pages have an unhappy habit of being so like other author's attempts on the same subject that it becomes a tad boring. After all, there are only so many ways a couple can copulate and I'm beginning to feel cheated of story. 

But then again, perhaps the authors have found a similar problem with their stories as I have - they struggle to find something new to write about! The genre has been popular for such a long time and finding a new plot is a struggle. Every author can write a popular plot in their own style and come up with something that seems new and fresh, but eventually the new and fresh becomes old hat too.

I do wonder how long this can go on.

Make a few hearts flutter

 

The new Regency is going well - 49k words so far. Possible title : The Duke and the Ballroom, but that may change. So may the cover!

I am hurrying with this, I want it finished and up on Amazon to see if it changes anything as far as sales go. I appreciate that everyone - well, almost everyone - is having a hard time and maybe can't buy books these days. If people are abandoning  pets because it costs too much to feed them, what hope have authors got?

I keep changing my hero's name. He's had 3 changes so far, started out as plain Mr, became an earl and on the last change is a duke. They seem very popular in Regency books though I doubt there were ever that many of them at one time. And even fewer young, handsome and unmarried ones!

But we are dealing with fiction, so no worries. There will be a young handsome duke to make a few hearts flutter.

One last effort

 If anything can tear me away from my pc, it is good weather. 

It seems we are in for some good sunny days so I guess I'll be out there with everyone else enjoying it.

I have never enjoyed weeding in my own garden as much as I do now with the sun on my back. Usually the weeding I've done has been in France, where stay too long in the sun and you go inside looking  rather pink and suddenly discover it hurts to touch your skin.

I am putting one last effort into a) writing a new Regency and b) using Amazon ads for my back list. I dropped the ball entirely in January and didn't do anything at all to promote my titles. Naturally ,my earnings totalled something like £5 for the month, so I'm at the point where I give it up for good or I get back into action. So far, I'm working on keywords....for regency, and vikings. I paid lip service to the idea of researching 100 plus keywords in the past but now I'm putting the effort in. We'll see how it goes.

KENP

 A little while ago I bemoaned the fact that I had made one of my books free and it got no read figures via KENP. 

Well, today, scratting around on among KDP notices I found one that told me Amazon no longer give KENP stats for free reads. If you don't pay for it, they don't track any reads for you. So I guess there's not a lot of point in making my books free any more.  I wonder when they changed that?

People say it pulls in new readers because they try you for free, decide they like you and go buy some of your other stuff. I'll believe it when I see it.

The pic on the right was taken in Hong Kong some years ago.  It still looks astonishingly modern and very stylish. A far cry from other parts of  the city - I don't know how those poor trees survive!

Hard slog

 Some chapters absolutely beg to be written -

while others can be hard slog.

I have made two starts on a new book and ground to a halt on each of them because writing the next chapter was unappealing. Now I have begun a third story, and same thing is happening; loss of interest, or should I say other things in life are more appealing? Whatever the reason, the end result is the same. Even with a chapter outline 1-35, I still lose interest. Maybe  its a natural process, maybe it's because sales are dropping (and everyone wants encouragement to carry on) maybe my urge to write is waning. Whatever the cause, it is happening.

For a long time I've always wondered how Gabaldon managed to write her chapters piecemeal and then stick them in some sort of chronological order. She writes in chunks and then looks for something else and gradually ends up with larger and larger chunks... it sounds like it is something that would stop me getting bored. So far I've never tried her method, but it sounds more and more appealing. I'll keep you posted.

Library Genesis

 https://www.theatlantic.com/.../searc......

Every author should check this link to search for their books.  The Atlantic  (an American Journal?) has a searchable database listing over 7.5 million books and 81 million research papers.

 The database is called Library Genesis or LibGen. Four of mine are there. So are many others, including those of Dorothy Dunnett. It is anyone's guess how much or how little of it has been used to "teach" Meta's AI systems to write books. 

You should read Jessica Redland's thoughts on the matter: https://www.jessicaredlandauthor.com

"The billionaires, the pirates , and the great book heist."