R.J. Blain's Blog, page 14

And the Writing Community Implodes Yet Again…

Scandal.

This word has, increasingly often, gone hand in hand with the publishing industry. It has gotten so bad over the years that I wish I wasn’t part of this community, and I often do everything I can to avoid the toxicity of the masses. However, I like helping people, so I end up wading through sludge regardless.

That’s not my favorite thing in the world to say the least.

This week’s incident begins with this reddit post.

The author in question, Mark Dawson, has been a figurehea...

Whiskers on Kittens has released!

The next time a friend dared her to steal something, Kelsie would say no. Should the friend also be a succubus, not only would she say no, she would run for the nearest border faster than a bat fleeing the dark depths of hell.

Under normal circumstances, she didn’t even mind serving community service. It added spice to an otherwise boring day and gave her something productive to do.

Hoping to contain her prankster ways, the judge teams her up with a grouchy wolf of a cop with an attitu...

Author/Artist Beware: Shutterstock’s Marketing Team Uses Shady Upselling Practices and Scare Tactics! (Do not be scammed by these people.)

I normally do not like calling people or businesses out, but there comes a point where it is necessary. The first time this happened, I let water run under the bridge. But, as this is the second time that Shutterstock has attempted to coerce me into unnecessarily “upgrading” my account for “Corporate compliance”, I’m putting this shady af company on blast.

Here’s the situation:

My designer used stock elements purchased from Shutterstock for some of my covers. When I want to make stickers, ...

Strange Things People Believe Because I Wrote a Book…

Dear reader,

This is one part a window into the reality of writing books and one part a serious level “what the actual fuck???” associated with writing books. Here is a (shortened) list of things people genuinely believe about me because I wrote a book.

1: People believe I am a member of the BIPOC community.

Reality: Yes, I write characters who are not white. I have a lead character who is Asian. I have a Mexican (Nahuatl / Irish) mix. I have characters of varying skin colors who are ac...

REAM update: 19 Books Now available! (Plus some other stuff.)

Greetings, folks!

Before I disappear from the internet (for the most part) to enjoy the holidays, I have a few little bits of business for you lovely readers out there!

Subscription Services News

To open the show, my REAM now has eighteen novels for readers to enjoy on the $5 per month tier. The $10 tier has access to the first Royal States novel (Susan Copperfield.) REAM is my solution to giving people a legitimate way to read my novels for a low monthly fee if reading on Kobo Plus isn...

A little Bit of News, a Fun Promotion, and Whiskers on Kittens is Coming!!!!

Obligatory kitten picture. Because look at those sweet little kittens!

I’ll try to keep this somewhat brief.

1: Life-Debt is involved with a sampler promotion to help you find new books! All of the books (should be) in the Kobo Plus program, so if you’re looking for some science fiction romancey type books, please give this a click!

This promotion basically takes you to the retailers the books are sold at, so you can shop around for the books that look interesting. Check out the Kob...

A Love Letter to Other Writers

(Sorry, readers. This one isn’t for you… but you’re welcome to stick around and continue to read if you would like!)

Dear writer,

Let me open with a “Happy Holidays!” because life is hard, our choice to write often makes it harder, and spreading good cheer is never a bad thing. Right now, a lot of you are probably looking over your year in review and wondering what has happened? Where has time gone? Why didn’t things, like our writing, work out quite like we planned?

Here’s my year ...

You want to be an author? A Not-So-Quick Guide to the Self-Publishing World… (Late 2023 Edition)

Being an author is hard. Life, the universe, and everything can make it harder. This post is my attempt to give new writers a glimpse into the publishing world, all in one space. You’re going to find some information on the different types of publishing, the various paths available to you… and why NONE of the paths are the “right” one. It’s a personal decision.

Readers, if you’re interested about the ‘behind the curtain’ stuff writers/authors deal with, grab yourself a cuppa, make yoursel...

Some Tips for Authors! (Amazon Preorder Cancellations and how to dodge them…)

Sorry, readers. Today’s post is very much geared for those who are authors or wish to be authors.

A lot of my friends have been having their preorders cancelled at Amazon lately, and all of them have had one thing in common: they’ve only put in one (maybe two) files with the corporate giant before their lock date.

What is happening is a rather nefarious bug where the file, instead of being loaded into the system, is being sent to “null”, which is essentially a data black hole. Once somethi...

There is a tiny error in Whiskers on Kittens’s description. (I’m fixing it.)

During writing/editing, the number of kittens kidnapped was adjusted. The number is no longer six. I am removing the number of kittens from the description. Because reasons involving I changed the number of kittens. (This update will go live at the same time the finals of the books are uploaded to vendors.)

Reason why number of kittens changed: the size of laps within the book could handle only so many kittens, so one kitten was edited out to be the perfect number of kittens for the size of l...