Stephanie Van Orman's Blog, page 2

Born in January

Hi Ink Drinkers,

Sometimes, I don't write a novel.  Sometimes, I write a novelette.  What is a novelette?  Basically, it's what beginner writers write when they think they're writing a novel.  It's very unfortunate to be the one to tell them that 17,000 words is not a novel.  It is not even half of a novel.  It hurts their feelings terribly because a novelette is a really good length for a particular kind of story.  

I enjoy writing them in the extreme.  I love them because I can drop an idea that is not a full novel and have the satisfaction of communicating my idea without having to turn it into a full-fledged masterpiece.  

A full novel has side characters with whole story arches.  It has a complex world with rules.  It has multiple adventures for the MC has to go on.  Frankly, it has closets.  My books always have closets full of clothes and the clothes have to be talked about and sometimes... that wears me out.  Tee hee!  I have a bible for Octavia Girl.  That's right.  That book has so many characters that I have to have a little book with a tab in it for every friggin character.  Now, don't get me wrong.  I love Octavia Girl.  That thing  is going to be five books long, which will make it the longest thing I have ever written, but... sometimes it is sure nice to write something smaller.

I like to think of L.M. Montgomery.  Sure, she wrote novels, but she also wrote scads of tiny things.  The tiny things she wrote are so fabulous.  I have a huge stack of her short story anthologies.  Some of her best work was in short stories.  

I want to write more of them.  

Here's the deal with Born in January and where you can read it.  Today, I finished posting it on:

Inkitt: https://www.inkitt.com/stories/romance/1135029

Quotev: https://www.quotev.com/story/16116144/Born-in-January/1

Royal Road: https://www.quotev.com/story/16116144/Born-in-January/1

Later today, I'll start posting it to other sites like GooglePlay Books, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, AppleBooks, and the like.  NOT AMAZON.  I do not put my novelettes on Amazon because they will need to be in an anthology for that.  That way I can print a chonky book to put on my shelf.  Later.  I need more of these.  I need it to be at least 120K for that. 

Thanks for reading, Ink Drinkers!

I'll see you soon!

Stephanie

Independent Novelist

Closing My Account on Wattpad

I never thought I would do this.  I never thought I would close my account on Wattpad.  I never, ever, ever thought that I'd close it.  I'm going to close it.  Once I finish typing this out, I'm going to visit my account on Wattpad and close the account.  Here's why:

I don't have any readers.  

Some of the places I post are hotter than others.  I have tons of hits on Fictionpress, but current readers are few.  The reason I still happily post there is that they list their submissions based on WHEN they were submitted.  That means that if you click on Romance, if I have uploaded a new chapter of my story in the last few days, it will be on the first two pages.  If someone is cruising for something to read, they'll see my story.  

It's the same on Vocal.Media.  They list their submissions by date... and a little bit by popularity, but the biggest point is that the story has a chance to be noticed, if only for a few hours.  Sometimes things get whipped out of sight pretty fast if there have been a lot of submissions.

I mention Fictionpress and Vocal.Media because they are the places where my work is noticed the least.  And I'm still satisfied with them.  I don't need much... just a little traction.

On Wattpad, they highlight only their best and brightest... like stuff that has been made into movies or TV shows because everyone and their dog has read it.  For this reason, I don't think there is the foggiest chance in hell of my getting noticed on Wattpad.  No one will ever even see my stories even if they go digging.  My biggest story there has under 400 hits.  Most of my other stories have under a hundred hits.  Some have under fifty.  I've had my stuff there for years because my trying for years has been rewarded elsewhere.  I keep track of my hits and often a month goes by and I get under five hits for my stories on Wattpad.  On other sites, I get thousands of hits to Wattpad's five.  It's horrific.

It's a shame.

But I have been reforming the way I do my writing and I think saying goodbye to Wattpad makes sense for me.  I'm giving up the stuff that doesn't make me happy and licking the floor on Wattpad has NOT made me happy.  

Cheers to you all!  Read my work elsewhere... which means there's no change.  My best readers are already reading elsewhere.

GooglePlay Has Been Good to Me

Hi Ink Drinkers!

Today, I have to say that GooglePlay has been good to me.  So good!  I get so many downloads there a month that it is crazy.  So, since things are already going so well, I think there's room for them to do a little better.  Let me explain.  

On GooglePlay, my book with the most downloads is His 16th Face.  The reason why is obvious.  It's because that book has the most reviews and the best reviews.  So, I was hoping that if any of you have read the books that have no reviews, you could leave reviews and that would help me because there are already people visiting my page and downloading books.   Here are the ones that need reviews the most!

Behind His Mask 
Evander is a complete mystery to Sarah until she's given a spell book he authored.  Is he a tortured prince? A bloodthirsty jester?  The owner of the haunted mansion or the man hired to drive the ghosts out? 

Hidden Library
Veda didn't expect Salinger to fall for her so completely that he was willing to dive into an adventure with needles, crystal balls, spell books, magic circles, and the delicate curtain that separates this world from the next.  

Tiny Wishes
Wyn did not want to live with Raif. The only way to keep him away from her is to make him do an unreasonable task every time he wants to speak to her.  Will she change her mind about him if he grants all her tiny wishes?
There are some of my other novels that only have one review and the stats aren't great.  They need reviews too, but these are the ones that need reviews desperately.  I'd leave a link, but if you read books on GooglePlay, a link isn't a lot of help.  Just go on the app and look for Stephanie Van Orman.  You'll be there in a flash.  
Thank you very much!

Heart's Key

Hi Ink Drinkers!

I shouldn't stack so much on myself, but I really love making stories.  I don't even know where my stories should go, just that I want to send them off into the universe.  

This is a story that came to me very quickly.  It's a fantasy novelette.  Here's the synopsis:

Leander, a knight of the realm, has been sent through slime and muck to a castle on the edge of everything. The ruler of the castle, a red puff of smoke, has invited him to kidnap their most prized possession - the Maiden in the red dress. Can Leander do it without falling in love and making a mess of himself?

I also have a trailer for it!

Here it is:

I have been posting chapters on:

Booknet: https://booknet.com/en/book/hearts-ke...

Inkitt: https://www.inkitt.com/stories/fantas...

Quotev: https://www.quotev.com/story/15730921...

Royal Road: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/677...

Check it out if you have time!

Dead Girls Don't Write Books

Hi Ink Drinkers,

Normally, I make a point to update my blog every month.  I blew it in March, so here we go for April.  Here's the thing... I have spring allergies.  And you can't be allergic if you're unconscious.

It's pretty hard to write when I'm like this.  

Tired

Sleepy

Drowsy

Did I mention sleepy?

I have come to the conclusion that I must have a spirit bear somewhere inside me because all I want to do is lie quietly with my eyes closed.  

I have so much work to do on my writing.  But I find myself throwing a frozen pizza in the oven and dozing while it cooks.  

So, I'm not dead.  I'm just very tired.  

If I'm true to form, I will wake up at the end of April with a whole new lease on life.  

But it's only the middle of April.  I'm going back to bed.

Night, night, little ink drinkers.

Octavia Girl

Hi Ink Drinkers,
Just as I promised, I wrapped up posting If Diamonds Could Talk on all the major sites.  Well, I'm still updating it slowly on Booknet, and maybe a few other tiny places, but the majority is complete.  That means now I get to start posting Octavia Girl.  I'm pretty excited about this.  I don't know why I want to write something this bonkers, but I'm really into science fiction these days.  His 16th Face and If Diamonds Could Talk are both very soft science fiction, beginning in a world we all understand and slowly moving into the world I hope exists beyond the limited vision of our understanding.  Rose Red was not very sci-fi.  Let's be honest.  It isn't, but it gave me the tools to write Sleeping Prince which is very sci-fi.  Sleeping Prince is very heavy in the romance department.  The whole thing breathes and sleeps romance, but Octavia Girl is a bit of a departure from that.  Yes, there is romance.  I'm the author.  There's romance, but the romance is taken to the back burner for the comedy and the drama.  I wanted to write something that represented a woman in a bizarre science-fiction situation.  Embarking on something like this always makes my knees wobble as I worry no one will like the unusual literary contraption I've conceived.  Well, here's hoping.Let me tell you a bit about the cover.  The first thing is the font.  I made the font that says 'Octavia Girl' and by made, I mean that I strategically butchered another font.  I love it so much!  Secondly, the background.  The background art is by Russian artist, Liia Chevnenko.  It seems to me that she mostly makes art that gets printed on fabric.  Isn't her work delightful? And lastly, the picture of Jenna herself is by another Russian artist, Elena Barenbaum.  I LOVE HER!  She provided the central piece for the girl on the cover of A Little Like Scarlett and for my upcoming novelette, Born in January.
Here's the synopsis for Octavia Girl:

Jenna Fairchild has a secret she has been keeping since she was a baby.  Under her headband, under her grandfather's fedora, under her headphone strap, and under her messy bun, she has been hiding a black crown.  No one could understand it, so she had to keep it hidden.

​

That is, she had to keep it hidden until she was abducted by aliens, given riches beyond her wildest dreams, a palace to herself on an alien world, and been tasted head-to-foot by an enormous alien octopus.  Then she was ready to take her place on the political stage of the universe.  Jenna is not a princess, she's a diplomat.  Armed with arms that are less plentiful than an octopus's, with fewer suction cups, and only one person who can help her... Sardius, who is only a voice speaking to her through an earpiece, Jenna has to crown seven more diplomats or blue and red blood will spill.

Also, I've released the trailer on YouTube.  Now, in case you thought that the trailer is just going to be the synopsis all over again... it's not.  It's something else.

 The introduction is available to read on the following sites:
Booknet:https://booknet.com/account/novels/vi...
Quotev:https://www.quotev.com/story/15561209...
Royal Road:https://www.royalroad.com/fictions/se...

A Little Update

Hi Ink Drinkers,

Here's a little update on all the stuff I'm doing.  

I've been working on uploading If Diamonds Could Talk on Booknet, Inkitt, Quotev, and Royal Road.  

The girls on Booknet have been giving me a lot to look forward to as they have shown a lot of enthusiasm for the story.  I've really appreciated that as sequels don't really get much attention.

Things have been quiet on Inkitt and Quotev, but the hits keep going up, so I know there are readers.  They're just not saying much.  

I get into long conversations with readers on Royal Road, so that's nice.  It's really something to look forward to. 

All in all, writing sequels has been rather thankless.  At least, that's what I think until I remember Sleeping Prince which did very well despite being a sequel, but Rose Red is one of my highest-performing books.  His 16th Face didn't do nearly as well as I hoped when I was writing it.  

Moving on... Born in January

This is a novelette I will release this year.  Here's the synopsis:

Annaliese and Trip are best friends.  They've known each other since they were children.  They were best friends through high school and went to university together.  Except, they have a secret that they've never told anyone... until they tell everyone.

This is a project very similar in nature to Tiny Wishes.  Not only was Tiny Wishes really fun to write, but it was also extremely rewarding.  It was a fourth of the word count of a decent-sized novel.  The hit count for it has rivaled much larger projects.  The success of it basically caused a revolution inside me.   I decided to take on a collection of smaller projects.  This is the first completed of the new round of stories from me.  I'm delighted.  

I'm also delighted with the cover.  I have been sampling yellow covers for quite some time and they never have as strong an impact as other colors, so yellow keeps getting overlooked.  But this time, the yellow was strong enough.  I may do a post about the graphic design process and how I got that great cover, but not today.

Moving on... Octavia Girl Vol. I

I have been promising this book for well over a year.  I had a major problem with my male protagonist.  My alpha reader scolded me so soundly over the creation of Sardius that I basically had to rewrite all his dialogue.  It's better now.  However, I am still 1,200 words off the desired 60K.  I have to figure it out before I finish releasing If Diamonds Could Talk because this is the next project I'm going to release come hell or high water.  I have a little over a month.  

I have also written the next two books in this universe, which means that I have to follow my alpha reader's instructions and rip apart a ton of dialogue and realign the plot.  I'm really looking forward to it, but I absolutely can't start that job until I get that 1,200 words I need for the first book.  

Where the crap am I going to find 1,200 words?  I keep adding a paragraph and going, "That's fantastic!  Surely I've added a whole 200 words there!" ... Only to find that it was more like 20.  

Moving on... Sleeping Prince
I have been preparing this book as a full ebook that will be released on all the big sites: GooglePlay, Amazon, Smashwords, AppleBooks, Barnes and Noble, DriveThru Fiction, and more.  I'm close to being finished the first half of the manuscript preparation.
The most rewarding thing about it is how few changes are needed.  I wrote this book in three weeks and it is so good.  How come it is some of my best work?  
So, that's all the books I'm working on right now, except for the two I'm not ready to talk about.  Come back and I'll tell you more updates!
  

  

Cece and Her Scrunchie

Hi Ink Drinkers,

Today, I have the pleasure of announcing my new book.  Though it hardly feels like my book when Kaitlynn drew all the pictures.  This is a 75-page children's chapter book intended for kids between the ages of 6-11.  

Here's the synopsis:

Cece is an ordinary girl with a unique relationship with everything she owns.  Her umbrella talks things over with her when they walk in the rain, her remote control tells her which shows she'd enjoy, and her hair clips whisper different ideas in her ears.

Everything is wonderful in Cece's world until she fails to make a scrunchie as nicely as she imagined.  Watch how the queen of everything dodges hair clips and sets the dust bunnies running.

This year is the last year my sweet daughter, Kaitlynn, is in high school, so we made this book together to celebrate ourselves.  We go to craft fairs together and sell books and bookmarks to grandmothers and their sweet granddaughters.  Making them something like this to enjoy this Christmas was such a pleasure.  At the same time, I am filled with incredible sorrow at the unknown that will come with my little daughter turning into an adult.  We've made many things together with Kaitlynn drawing the pictures while I write the books.  I wish that our partnership could go on forever.  

I never imagined that she would become such a powerful artistic force when she was a little baby with eyelids like dragonfly wings.  

We don't really make babies inside us the same way we make things in real life: putting on ears, curling hair, and shading the skin.  As mothers, we let the seed of life be planted inside us and the rest that happens is the hand of nature, the hand of God, and we show our selflessness by allowing something that is not us to grow inside us.  A mother's heart swells to bursting when she looks at her children because inside herself, she is still a child even though she has become a mother.  We still have silly little dreams we never outgrew.  Like my silly little dream to write books for people who hate reading whether they are an adult or a child holding a reading wand.  I never thought that I'd give birth to a little girl who would become such an indispensable ally in my quest to improve the reading material of all.  

This book was made with love for people who are lonely, who don't easily see the needs of others, who fit in only in the places they make for themselves, for us, and for you!

All profits go to Kaitlynn who is still 17.  $9.99 CAD $7.33 USD

Amazon.ca link:https://www.amazon.ca/Cece-Her-Scrunchie-Stephanie-Orman/dp/1990217125/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=stephanie+van+orman&qid=1667678320&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIxLjk5IiwicXNhIjoiMS40MSIsInFzcCI6IjAuOTcifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=stephanie+van+o%2Caps%2C221&sr=8-2
Amazon.com link:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1990217125/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i10

Veda, Reviews, and Stats

 Hi Ink Drinkers,

Might I draw your attention to the beautiful creation to your right?

One of my beloved readers on Quotev, MemeQueenoftheworld, was so delightful as to put this together to represent Veda in Hidden Library.  The collage is called 'Witches of the Hidden Library'.  There are so many excellent elements of the book that have been added to this beautiful arrangement.  
In particular, I like the shot of the high heels at the bottom, so like the high heels of my imagination as I wrote the book.  Of course, I love the open book with the black rose flower crown.  The crystal ball is better than the one I pictured as I wrote the chapter with the crystal ball in the tea cozy by the front window (remember to keep those covered girls, cause if you don't, it could totally burn your house down).  I also like the headless girl, like a disembodied dress with only hands to spin with, hands to write with.  It's very lovely... like even the pictures are still in the first person.  We can't see her face, we can only see everything around her.  Very choice.

Let's give a huge round of applause for MemeQueen and her awesome vision of Veda!

Now, let's talk about If Diamonds Could Talk.  Though my launch for it was a stinky failure.  I can almost summon tears when I think about Booksprout.  Anyhoo... it hasn't been a total waste as I received two splendid reviews for it on Amazon.  Here they are:

"Well, once I finished the first book (His 16th Face) I thought I had a clue as to what the next book would be like but I was so wrong! Stephanie is an amazing writer! She has such an incredible imagination that she leaves me in awe at her writing! I was floored by what I read because it was not what I was expecting. The author had a way she weaved you into the story line and the chapters kept drawing me further into the story more. The book was not a typical love story but well worth your time in reading it. I enjoyed it and was shocked at several of the events that happened in the story. It's a great book!"
--DeAnn

"The follow-up story for 'His Sixteenth Face", this novel has deeper fantasy elements than its predecessor.  Doing so allows it to explore bigger themes of immortality, love, friendship, and oddly... damnation.  I was captured by its simple but powerful ideas of how immortality and power can be achieved.  Yet the heart of the story is about passionate love and the sacrifices required to achieve and sustain it.  Beth's journey is a worthy read and If Diamonds Could Talk is a romance novel strengthened by the elements that set it apart.  I appreciate that the author felt free to conclude the story on her own terms."
--Rob. S.

Those reviews really helped validate all the work I did on that book.  Thanks to DeAnn and Rob S. for writing such powerful and kind reviews.  Hearts for a week.

Moving on to Sleeping Prince.  I've been posting my stats for it because it's been a long time since I posted a book on the free sites before the full book sites.  I finished posting the book, so let's see how things worked out.  Lowest to highest.  Go!  

#4. Quotev

I let my feathers get quite ruffled before I got angry enough to huff down to the bottom of the webpage to file a complaint.  My complaint was that it was marked as an M-rated piece.  Well, it wasn't!  Grrr!  They didn't even write me back.  They just removed the M rating and we all lived happily ever after.  Except I don't think the piece ever recovered from the M rating.  There are a healthy number of views but it still clocks in at the lowest.

#3. Booknet

I have had quite a lot more reader feedback on Booknet than previously.  Except this really hilarious/not hilarious thing keeps happening.  I keep getting blocked from the site.  I can just hear you in my head asking, "Why would that happen, Stephanie?  You're always so nice when you talk to readers even if you're a complete cow elsewhere."  Yes, I know.  Here's the thing: if you post too much on one thread with too many tabs open, the system blocks you.  So, even though all I'm doing is writing my fans and followers on my own book's thread, I'm still getting my butt kicked.  I have been blocked four times on that site this week alone.  I'm blocked right now because I can't NOT answer the readers.  Dang!  Comments are what we authors live for!  When I'm blocked, no one can access my profile and my view stats stay the same until the admins extend the palm branch to me.  Then I immediately fall for my readers all over again, write them back, and get blocked again.  It's a vicious cycle.

#2. RoyalRoad

This site had the largest hit count for a really long time, but the story didn't seem to build momentum.  I finished the story and no one seemed to notice... not even the people who were reading it.  However, things can gain huge hit counts over years, so we'll do this again with maybe different results later on.

#1. Inkitt

Before I finished posting the book, I was a little cheesed at the lack of success on Inkitt.  When I was choosing the cover for the book, I was flopping between one that would appeal to the readers on Inkitt and one that would appeal to the readers on RoyalRoad.  I decided to go for Inkitt because there is no real reward for kicking butt on RoyalRoad, but there are publishing deals to be won on Inkitt.  So, I was a little sad when the stats were better for RoyalRoad for the whole release period.  When I marked Sleeping Prince as complete on Inkitt, the WORLD EXPLODED!  The hit count there has eaten the hit count on RoyalRoad and now it has my second-highest hit count on Inkitt.  Whenever You Want has the highest hit count, and yes, I got a publishing contract for it.  Yes, that contract didn't last but it did represent some very sweet paycheques.  The popularity has also had some very sweet overflow to my other books, getting some fresh notice for other things.  Yay!  

I'm gonna be straight with you.  There haven't been that many wins this year, so to have things work out on Inkitt really meant a lot to me.  Like... I was starting to wonder if doing any of this was really worth it.  Today it feels less stupid than usual.  For that, I am extremely grateful.  

New Covers for Fanfiction.net

Hi Ink Drinkers,

I started posting fanfiction on fanfiction.net when I was in my early twenties.  That was a really long time ago.   In those days, fanfiction.net did not have a function to give your book a cover, so when I was posting my Vision of Escaflowne and Slayers fanfic, I did not need a cover.  It's also fanfic, so if you want images to support your book, you either need to make fanart or get a little bit thiefy.  They didn't introduce the function to add a cover until I was very tired of trying to keep up with any fandom at all.  I'm not really much of a fan anyway.  The truth about my fanfiction is that most of it is not really fanfiction.  It is original fiction and I gave the characters the same names from the shows and called it 'alternative universe fanfiction' so that I could bum off the show's audience.  It worked well until the shows got too old and I couldn't really piggyback off them anymore.  

I'd forget all about my fanfiction roots, except occasionally, I go to fanfiction.net and look at my stunning stats.  At my peak, I was getting 50 people to write in when I released a chapter each week.  The hit counts are so gorgeous, it nearly blinds me to see them.  And the stats actually just keep going up over time.

Returning to the subject of the covers... I was really lazy.  Shamefully lazy.  I was using the cover of His 16th Face as the cover for every single book and for my profile picture to try to generate some interest in that book.  I don't think it worked.  Not only that but each one of those projects deserves a cover of its own.  So, yesterday, I got all chipper and created new covers for my fanfic, without getting theify, which means that they are somewhat generic, but I didn't steal anything, so good.  

I used Adobe Express, which is a free service where you can pay extra to unlock the awesome features.  When I say the 'awesome features', I mostly mean fonts.  The free fonts pretty much suck, but since everything else Adobe offers in the free version is top-notch, I just ignore the lack of diversity of fonts.  

Let's begin.

When you're designing a cover for a platform like this, you do not have a quarter of the design freedom that you do when you design an actual book cover.  The pixel count is 600x800 instead of 1600x2500.  Yes, those are not the same shape, but with the smaller image, it will always be displayed as a thumbnail--just a tiny little thing.  This means that there isn't room to have a detailed conversation with the audience about what they're going to get.  You are unwise to use more than two people in the picture and actually, just one central image of only one person is better.  You also can't have taglines, reviews, or any other words besides the name of the book and the pen name.  Basically, the size of the images you are seeing here is massive compared to the way they will be displayed on the actual webpage.
Adobe Express lets you use a variety of design elements for free with thousands of shapes that you can stack on top of each other and if you're clever and appreciate the intense beauty of a chess board, you can have quite a lot of fun.
You're noticing the lack of font diversity, aren't you?  The thing that is the most painful about the free fonts is that they don't have any fonts that really sprawl all over the page.  You wouldn't use those for the whole title, but for the first letters of the title words.  Gah... there are ways to get around it.  Not by hacking it, but by moving the image to another site that has a stronger free font catalog.  However, when the image requirements are this small, a sprawling font is not going to help you.  You need something readable.    
I guess I'll tell you a bit about the books.  The most important book here is this one: Mystic Wings.  This was the twelfth novel I wrote and actually, it is the first novel I wrote that was not a steaming pile of crap.  I'm really happy that the simple cover for it turned out so well.  The book that follows it, Mark of a Goddess is perfectly fine.  I had really got the hang of writing by the time I wrote it.  And actually, nothing I have written since has been a steaming pile of crap.  Some projects work out better than others and sometimes I'm surprised at how many mistakes I make, but everything I have written since Mystic Wings has something about it that makes it good.  I'm so glad I didn't waste my time.
Now about the Shadow Magic books above, I'll tell you more about them.  They are not a series.  They have similar subject matter, but they are not connected to each other in any way and I have Zelgadis fall in love with Amelia in one and fall in love with Lina in another.  The one where he falls in love with Lina is my favorite of the Slayers fanfiction that I wrote that is still posted.  I wrote a scene in that book where Zelgadis allows himself to be impaled the long way (which means that he has a sword pierce straight down his vertebrae, breaking one after another).  Naturally, he doesn't die, but is reborn as a monster, and he becomes the perfect person to love Lina.Ah... if I read it now, I would probably die of cringe.  But that was the first time I wrote something that really spoke to me.
Because I have 16 projects on Fanfiction.net, I can't post the new covers for all of them here.  I'll give you the link, so you can go discover them for yourself.  Yes, I was young when I wrote all those things.  Yes, you have to be stupid before you can be less stupid.  Enjoy!
https://www.fanfiction.net/u/586657/S...