Tracy Cooper-Posey's Blog, page 6

Weekly Update: New Boxed Set, Discord, and join my Street Team

If you’re reading this post as an email and the formatting is weird, try the blog post instead.

In today’s update:

Aiming for Less EmailsScandalous Scions Four Now on Pre-orderJoin my Discord ServerOpen call for Crossroads Magic Street TeamI’m Aiming for Less Emails

In a further attempt to reduce emails, I’m also going to go back to grouping news items together once a week.

The prevailing wisdom for many years has been that sending an email/posting a blog with multiple items in it (like a traditional newsletter) was wasted because we readers don’t pay any attention to items beyond the first one. Therefore, the wisdom decreed, authors must send multiple emails with just one message per email.

And I’ve been following that wisdom for years.

But I’ve had a lot of emails from readers lately (especially after announcing I was going on a BookFunnel Promo vacation) about just how many emails you get, in general, from all the author email lists you’re on.

It’s scary.

So I’m trying to reduce my contribution to your inbox overwhelm.

But that means my emails and posts will be a bit longer, in future, because I’ll be cramming in news and announcements. You’ll have to make sure you read all the way to the bottom, or you might miss something good!

Scandalous Scions Four now out for preorder everywhere

The last Scandalous Scions boxed set is now available for pre-order. This is the historical romance series for which the first in the series, Soul of Sin, recently made #2 in the overall Romance category on Amazon, which is amazing for an “old” book.

It shows that there’s still a great many readers out there who haven’t heard of me or my books.

The final four novels in the beloved historical romance series in one set.

The historical romance series, Scandalous Scions, brings together the members of three great families, to love and play under the gaze of the Victorian era’s moralistic, straight-laced society.

Ashes of Pride
Married in haste, to the wrong man…

Risk of Ruin
Now she belongs to another, he realizes too late that he wants her.

Year of Folly
All Emma wants is to belong…

Queen of Hearts
In America, she met an Indian called River.

You can pre-order the book from me, on Stories Rule Press, or from your preferred retailer.

Scandalous Scions Four will be released on May 23rd.

I’m opening my Discord server once more.

I’ve honestly had enough of Facebook. There are numerous reasons why the network irritates me, and many of them affect you directly. In particular, Facebook will refuse to deliver my updates to your newsfeed even if you’ve subscribed and indicated that you want to see them.

I have to pay to reach more readers with my Facebook updates, and even after paying, Facebook will not deliver to everyone who follows me.

In addition, in groups and normal posts, comments get buried. Facebook decides what you and I “should” see and everything else disappears. You have to go through three clicks and drop downs to see everyone’s comments.

Then, if you leave a comment for me, I must use the “business” dashboard to even see it. The business dashboard is confusing, counter-intuitive, and also hides reader comments. I recently found a comment that was over a year old that I had completely missed!

So, I’m opening up my Discord server once more. It sort of fell into disuse a couple of years ago, but I’ve brushed off the dust and I’m encouraging everyone to subscribe to the server, instead of Facebook. I’ll leave the Facebook group and pages up, but bear in mind that even if you’re a member of the group and/or subscribed to the page, you may still not see my updates there.

But in Discord you get notified if there’s new posts. You can see *everything* without having to click mystery menus. You can even mute channels that are of no interest to you. And Discord is free.

And so far, Discord has zero advertising, which is worth the ticket price alone.

Join my Discord channel

Join my Crossroads Magic Street Team!

The best for last.

I’m opening a general call for street team members for the retail launch of Crossroads Magic on March 21. This will be a three week long team party with swag and prizes…and of course, a chance to read the book (plus, review it).

If you’re interested, fill in the Google Form you’ll find here.

And if you know of any readers who would also be a good fit for the Team, give them the link to the form, too. Here’s the link is open format: https://forms.gle/A8VUeSKLVLYiZpt48.

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That’s it for this week. (I hope!)

CANCER CURATED is a B&N Indie Favorite!

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A quick note to let you know that Cancer Curated has been chosen by Barnes & Noble as a Top Indie Favorite.

You can check it out among the other top picks here.

If it doesn’t show on the top page, you can choose the “biography” category at the left, or pick the “See All” link at the top of the page.

New Look for the Interspace Origins SFR Series

I find it super interesting the way book covers can suddenly look “old”.

They don’t have dust on them, but they might as well have.

You as a reader are likely aware of this very subconsciously. You just know if a book looks old. But if you were asked to point out why, you probably couldn’t say why you think this is so. You just know.

This happened to me a few weeks ago. I happened to be looking at the three covers for the Interspace Origins series, featuring Cat and Bedivere, and suddenly realized they looked old and, well, dusty. And out of date.

So I got new covers made.

And while I was getting new covers made, I also updated the interiors and blew the dust of those.

If you already have copies of the three books, then you can update/reload your books via the archives of the store where you bought the books. If you got the books from me, you can re-download the books via your library shelf on BookFunnel at https://My.Bookfunnel.com.

So here’s a look at the new covers!

If you like science fiction romance without the green alien hero and endless steam, give the Interspace Origins series a try. It’s an award winner.

And the first book, Faring Soul, is free.

Find out more about the series here — there are buy links there, too.

BOGO Sale at Kobo, and I’m In It.

Kobo are holding a Buy One, Get One Free sale for romances throughout February.

Three of my romances are in the sale, too.

The sale is showing on a limited number of countries:

https://kobo.com/p/february-romance-au

https://kobo.com/p/february-romance-ca

https://kobo.com/p/february-romance-nz

https://kobo.com/p/february-romance-uk

https://kobo.com/p/february-romance-us

Kobo say that if you live in a country that isn’t included in this promotion, you may have trouble accessing the sale link. If this happens, change the flag at the top of the Kobo homepage to one of the included countries to see the sale link properly. 

The sale ends on February 29th.

Romance and Feminism…This could change how you think of the genre!

The romance genre often gets a bad rap–usually by men, but also by pretty much everyone in traditional publishing, and a large group of industry professionals who look down their noses at the “women’s genre”.

Which is sometimes hard to take, because I’m sure that many of the people disparaging romance have never read a romance book in their life.

I even once had a man who, when I said I publish romance, came back with, “Oh, female fuck books.”

Yeah. Seriously.

So when I read Aurora Ascher’s post on Books by Women, I wanted to cheer.

The site is aimed at authors, but the post itself is something I think you’ll really appreciate. Check out “Romance Books Made Me A Feminist” here.

Then tell me and everyone else what you think about the romance genre and Asher’s post in comments, here.

CANCER CURATED is now out everywhere.

This morning, Cancer Curated, my memoir, was released on all retailers, everywhere.

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Cancer is also a mental game…

Because I am an author, when I was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma in 2022, I unintentionally lived through my treatment, the ups and (some of) the downs, in a very public way.  Then something strange happened.

I began to get messages and emails from strangers.  Lots of strangers.  My posts and public updates, they said, were helping them deal with their own brush with cancer—as survivors, patients, caregivers, friends, family and, sometimes, as victims.

The public updates were necessarily short and severely edited.  This book is an unedited chronology of everything I dealt with to arrive where I am today. Woven through the public posts are the raw facts and events I didn’t include in the updates.  I’ve also included my hugely subjective opinions on some of the extremes cancer patients and their caregivers go through and how it changes you.

Looking for a different way to think about cancer?  Try mine.

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You can buy Cancer Curated at my shop, Stories Rule Press, or your preferred retailer. If you buy from me, you can pick it up for 10% off, by using the first time customer coupon code on the front page of the site. Or you can use your reward points to earn a discount, if you’ve previously purchased books from me.

Buy from me at SRP

Buy from your preferred retailer

Reading Goals for 2024

Reading Goals for 2024Fun Ways to Whittle Your TBR Pile (Or Add to It)

It’s just gone the middle of January, which means that if you’re a perfectionist, like me, started a year-long project now will make your skin crawl.

But that’s actually a really good reason to start now. Projects and plans aren’t ruined if you don’t start on the first/Monday/8 a.m. precisely.

And by now, you’ve read through any Christmas gifts, the Christmas tree and decorations are put away, and you’re facing the rest of the year.

Here are some fun reading goals that you could adopt or adapt for the rest of the year, or for the first half, or for however long you’d like to stick with them:

Nothing But TBR Books.

This doesn’t mean you can’t add books to the pile, but you need to put new acquisitions to one side and only read from the TBR pile as it currently sits.

So, no reading of old favourites, no keeper shelf reading. Just new books in the TBR pile and that’s all.

This will force you to start books whose covers and/or blurbs just don’t appeal to you right now. As I’ve learned, the covers of books, and the descriptions, can often woefully under-represent just how good the book is.

And vice versa. But if you DNF a book, you’ll at least get it off the pile.

Nothing but Old Favourites.

This is a good challenge if you’re on a budget, or have no budget for new books. So: No new books at all, not even books borrowed from the library. Just books that are on your bookshelf, that you’ve read and adored in the past.

This is also a good challenge for when you’re burned out on reading. You get to wallow in comfort reads, with no pressure to open books that might or might not work out for you. Every book is a good read.

Start at the bottom of your eReader and move upward.

Most eReaders sort books by the most recently opened book. Which means books that you’ve acquired and haven’t got around to reading for one reason or another tend to drift down into the depths of your ereader, often never to be seen again.

So, scroll down to the bottom (or reverse the sort order, if your reader allows it). The trick here is to read the very last book listed. No quibbling, no “but that one looks better!”

As I’ve mentioned, you’ll come across a lot of surprises, doing this. Some good, some bad. Plus, removing all choice out of what you read also removes an amazing amount of pressure to find the perfect book for your mood.

Try it. You’ll be surprised. And you’ll get some good reads out of it, too.

Read in strict alpha order

This is a variation of the challenge, above. If your reader doesn’t sort by most recent, but does sort by alphabetical, head to the “Z”s, and start reading from there.

Read ALL the books in xxx series/by xxx author.

If you’re on a budget, you can pick a series or author you’ve already acquired. The really prolific authors are great for this.

I’ve made challenges for myself to read every book Anne McCaffery ever wrote (not just the Pern books). Ditto, Robert Heinlein. I had a Shakespeare month (I could only last a month), reading all his plays, with a good guidebook to one side.

A Non-Fiction challenge

Take a break from novels and read self-help, inspirational titles, books about your other favourite hobbies, and whatever interests you. Make the challenge at least a month, and check in with yourself at the end of the month. How did it go? Glad to get back to fiction?

Only short stories and anthologies

This can be tricky, because romance authors don’t put out a lot of short stories, as readers just don’t seem to like them. But if you like to read a different genre, such as science fiction or fantasy, or MST (Mystery, Suspense and Thrillers), short stories abound. They are often sold as standalones, and you can pick up anthologies with mutiple authors’ stories, or collections of a single author’s shorts.

Set yourself the challenge of only reading shorts for, say, three months. Keep notes, and record the stories you like (does that author have novels available?).

Short stories are great when you’re feeling a bit browned out with novels. You can get through a short story in one sitting, and get the pay-off of a full story in an hour or so, compared to slogging through a novel for days or weeks.

No Reading at All.

If you’re seriousy burned out on reading, then not reading is a natural response. I’m not proposing this challenge for when you are in need of a break.

This challenge is a short one — only a week or two — to show you the role that reading plays in your life. In particular, it will make you pay attention to the world around you a little more closely.

Keep a journal while you try this challenge. Record your thoughts and feelings about not reading as you move through your days.

Read the Great Classics

This is only for the super readers. Many years ago, Encyclopedia Britannica compiled an index of Great Books, that they considered held all the wisdom of human history. The list of books is here. And all the books listed can be picked up for free via Project Gutenberg.

This is a heavyweight challenge, that could last longer than a year. But if you’ve ever wanted to stretch your mind, this is one way to do it.

Empty your reader

If, like me, you keep all your books on your computer hard drive (in, perhaps, some type of management app such as Calibre), then what is on your reader are books that you intend to read. Someday.

Make your reading challenge simply to clear out your reader. Period. Read every book on it. You can combine this with starting at the bottom, or going strictly in alpha order, too.

Don’t add any more books to the ereader until you’ve read the last one on it.

Keep a reading diary for a year.

You can continue to read whatever you want, whenever you want, but you record what you read, and when, and your thoughts and feelings about the book.

You can add a layer of complexity to this, too: Whichever author you’re currently reading, reseach them: Find their website, list all their currently published books. And if you’re enjoying the read, sign up for their newsletter.

At the end of the year, you can review your diary, and enjoy visiting the books you loved.

There are all sorts of reading challenges you can make for yourself. These are just eleven challenges for which there are infinite variations.

Enjoy!

More Than You’ll Ever Want To Know!

The Internet as we know it was created by scientists at CERN in Switzerland, and at first, it was used only by academics and scientists.

It was opened to the public in 1992, and I joined in 1994, to find out what this Internet thing was all about. I joined a number of writing groups, including a group dedicated to discussions about screenwriting.  

I didn’t pursue screenwriting for a number of reasons, but learning about screenwriting techniques revolutionized my novel writing.  The first book I wrote after learning to plot out a screenplay, with character arcs, etc., won a national writing award.  That same book and the next book I wrote both sold to different publishers in the same week, a few years later.

You could say that the screenwriting group was a major influence in my life, but not just for what it did for my writing.   In early 1996, I started chatting with a Canadian in that group.  Nine months later, me and my two children moved to Canada, and I married Mark the next February (on the day that is both our birthdays).

But that’s not all.  There was another writer on that group, Diana Stout, who also wrote romance novels (at the time).  Diana has remained friends with Mark and I ever since.  We’ve Zoom-chatted at Christmas time, and emailed.   But we’ve never met in person.  (Yet!)

Diana has a Ph.D. and a Masters in Fine Arts.  She recently released a book that speaks to the creative inside everyone;  Finding Your Fire & Keeping It Hot:  Discovering Your Why, Your Passion, Your Purpose in Life.  Actually, she released this book on nearly the same day I released my own first non-fiction book:  The Productive Indie Fiction Writer.  Neither of us knew the other was releasing a non-fiction book, either.

So we laughed about the coincidental timing, and Diana offered to interview me for her Featured Guests blog. 

You can find that interview here:  https://dianastout.org/2023/12/28/featuring-tracy-cooper-posey-author-indie-publisher/ 

It’s worth clicking through even just to see what I look like as a Jedi. 

Why Reviews Are Important–for readers AND authors.

If you’ve ever not left a review for a book you’ve loved (or hated!) because, well, who cares what you think?–then you should have a read through Kristen Lamb’s post “Book Reviews: Why They Matter SO Much“.

It’s a really good overview of why reviews matter for both authors and readers. Even if you never intend to ever be an author, you might like reading through the author section of the post, too. It will give you a lot of insight into the author dilemma over reviews.

Sick of Christmas Romances yet?

Christmas Day might be done and gone, but if you love the season, or if you have a new ereader that needs filling, I have two Christmas romance titles that you might want to consider picking up before the Christmas tree is pulled down.

Home for the Holidays

This is the first anthology I’ve edited, and some amazing writers contributed to the collection.

All the stories in this anthology are “sweet” because I wanted the anthology to be readable for any Christmas Romance lover.

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Heart-rending, happy-ending romances to enhance your holidays!

Family get-togethers for the holiday season can soothe our emotions or savage our souls.  No one knows us better than the family and friends we choose to share such times with.

In each of these seven delightful short romances, our heroes and heroines find going home for this season even more of a heart-wrench, for true love challenges their deepest held beliefs.

Going home for the holidays has never felt so wonderful.

Burying His Ghost of Christmas Past

In 2022, I broke out the story I added to the anthology, above.

Unlike the other Christmas stories full of snow and mistletoe, mine is set in Western Australia, where I grew up experiencing Christmases in one of the hottest months of the year

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Just in time for Christmas, “masterful” (Romantic Times Magazine) author Tracy Cooper-Posey gives us a Christmas romance story that only she could write.

Nearly twenty years ago, Dane walked away from Narelle on the eve of their wedding.  To escape the humiliation, Narelle fled from outback Australia to big city New York, to focus on her career.

Now she’s back home for Christmas, with every intention of burying the last of her feelings about Dane by good, old-fashioned confrontation….

A Christmas-in-Australia, second chance romance short story that you really don’t want to miss from an Amazon #1 Bestseller in Short Fiction.

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You can pick up the anthology here. Because of the multiple authors, I can’t sell it directly on Stories Rule Press (not yet, at least), so this link will take you to the Books2Read page where you can pick your preferred store.

You can pick up Burying His Ghost on Stories Rule Press here. And if you use the coupon code JFRGGM3G, you can get 10% off. I’ve left the coupon usable with other discounts, too. So, if you’ve never bought from SRP before, you can pick up the 10% off discount on the front page for first time customers and get 20% off. If you’ve bought from me before, you can use your reward points to deepen the discount.

Coupon expires midnight January 2nd.

What’s your favourite type of Christmas Romance?

If you like Christmas Romances, what’s your favourite type?

I didn’t write a Christmas Romance this year, as I was too challenged just getting normal books out (long story — if you’re not familiar with my history, see here). But I’m right in the middle of planning for 2024, and I’m thinking a Christmas Romance, perhaps a novel this time, would be a good thing.

What do you think? What length, what sub-genre, how steamy?

If you’re reading this in an email, because you’re a subscriber, you can hit reply, or you can click on the link at the very top of the email to jump to the post on the blog, where you can leave a comment.

If you’re reading this on my site, you can scroll up to click on the Comments link or scroll down to the comments themselves and add your opinion.

As my long-time readers will tell you, I *do* pay attention to what you tell me are your likes and preferences (and dislikes). Crossroads Magic is the perfect example.

So don’t hesitate to share your opinion.