Meka James's Blog, page 8

The Real On Reading "Real" Books

Photo courtesy of: Pixaby
I will start this by first saying: WARNING—THIS IS AN OPINION PIECE!

 Why? Because if you’ve been around my blog enough, you know I don’t typically do opinion pieces, but it’s my blog and with all the latest crap going down in Romancelandia, I’m feeling salty.

 The great “debate” over which format someone reads in has raged on in the Twitterverse and Facebook land, and I’m sure other places as well.

Are you really “reading” if you listen to audiobooks?

Are e-books “really” books? (no seriously I’ve seen that question).

Then it’s my fave of “I just like the FEEL or better the SMELL of a ‘real’ book .

I mean the list goes on and on. Putting how ableist some of those come off, there is another issue I *think* comes into play. Before we get to that, I’ll break down ableist if it’s a term you’re not familiar with. When a person is of able body, meaning not having any sort of disability, and they view their world and expectations of others through that same lens = ableist.

So when some “real book” purist comes along and makes their generic comment about audiobooks they don’t take into account people with visual impairments. Inevitably someone will comment on this fact, and the back peddling begins, usually in the wording of “I didn’t mean THOSE people.”

Get the gist? Same will come about the feel of the book and those that have a hard time holding things will have to cut a vein and bleed their pain to make their reading choices valid. It goes on and on.

Elitism! Privilege! Whatever you want to call it, that’s what screams out from behind those “innocent” posts about “real” books.

But oh, it doesn’t stop there. There is also the issue with gatekeeping. So if you’re not part of the romance community you won’t be aware of the current shit storm brewing. Want a peek? Search #Ritasowhite on Twitter. Or go take a look at the Ripped Bodice’s diversity in publishing report. 

Gatekeeping!

How? Those that tout they only read “real” books are basically saying their reading list consists 99% (not a fact based number) of non-PoC (people of color) authors. Because, no matter how some want to bury their head in the sand and pretend racism and/or sexism aren’t an issue, the publishing world still thumbs their nose at people from a marginalized background. It’s one of the reasons the #ownvoices moment kicked off.

But if that wasn’t enough, it also means they are reading about 99% (also not a fact based number) only “traditionally” published books. Because you know there are the snobs that look down their noses at indie publishing.

 And I get it, it has its faults. There have been the bad apples publishing their first drafts. Cutting corners and putting out shotty work in the hopes of making a quick buck. There is a stigma attached to being an indie writer that all indie writers have to fight. And some of us are putting in the time, effort, and MONEY to put out good products.

But you aren’t going to find our books at your local indie bookstore let alone the big box stores. AoC, specifically Black authors, are self-publishing in higher numbers because the publishing industry keeps the doors locked and the lights off.

“Real” book readers are ignoring that fact. And I’m not trying to dictate how anyone spends their hard earned dollars. Do you. But don’t think your choice makes you any better than the next person. Because then your privilege is showing.

Next time you’re out there sniffing your book, think about that.

 Until next time
 ~Meka

Music Monday - Cringe

Happy Monday. I'm so glad it's the start of a new week because last week's was a dumpster fire! Nothing on a super personal level, but I shall explain.

I picked this week's song for two reasons 1) the title and 2) it's my crank it up and rock out song of the moment.

If you're not part of "Romancelandia" you are not likely to be up on the latest drama. It all started with the RWA (Romance Writers of America) RITA (their big award, like the Oscars for romance writers) finalist announcements. When this list came out last year, the hashtag #RitaSoWhite was dubbed. Why? because in it's 20 year history not a single black writer has won the award, and only a handful of other AoC (authors of color) have had the honor.

We hoped this year would be different. It was not. Seeing the list was very Cringe worthy. But oh, it gets better. A discussion was started in the forums at RWA and boy oh boy did that go downhill fast. The issue is in the judging process. It's a peer judged competition and when the judging pool is full of bias, and they don't want to be called on their bias, it gets ugly. And it has been. For a week straight.

All very Cringe worthy to the highest degree!

I've said it before, but I'm an emotional writer. If my head space isn't right I can't write. I don't "push through it" I just wallow until I'm in a better place. It is my process, no I'm not likely to change it. That being said, I do try things to keep me from getting in that negative place when I know I could be heading that direction. Music is one of those ways.

So while in the trenches as Romancelandia is on fire at the moment, the music helps to keep me sane. It's not a lot, but it's something. Plus puppy cuddles, because that's what they are here for. hahaha

Here's to hoping for a slightly better week. Crank up your speakers and rock out.

Until next time
~Meka

"Cringe" by Matt Maeson

Adventures in KU - Month One

This is a different sort of post for me. I'm not one to talk sales, and marketing and things of that nature. Not because I don't want to share, I just typically don't track that information. But I'm trying something new, and I will do the best I can to give an accurate account.


Fiendish was released in 2014 and at the time I was the proud owner of a Nook Color (they don't make them anymore) because of that, I didn't want to go Select with Amazon.

Plus I had that whole fear of all my eggs in one basket sort of deal. I had a Nook. Other people had Nooks, did I really want  to exclude possible readers? No! So I didn't.

When I finally got around to publishing Not Broken, it too went wide because my first was. And that was right around the time all the hiccups with Select and KU were being brought to light. Now don't get me wrong, some LEGIT authors were still doing well with that platform, it just wasn't for me. The Lists followed suit.

So what changed my mind? Two things. 1) My first publisher release was through a small press that did their books in Select. Basically I had no choice in the matter. and 2) I wasn't making a bunch of sales on the other platforms so I figured why not see what the fuss was all about.

After a little back and forth to weigh the pros and cons, and talking things out with my squad, I pulled two of my books from other retailers and made them select. Why only the two? Because Fiendish, with all its newbie issues still is a better seller than the other two.

On to the nitty gritty of month one. I didn't do any sort of advertising. I made maybe one or two posts on Twitter and Instagram, but that was it. I did take part in a reader's challenge on Facebook called Readers Rock the KU. I basically had two takeover days in that group in which to pimp out my books. That cost me $10 because they do a giftcard giveaway to the readers that read the most books or something over the month.

First, for comparison, here are the total sales I've had across all platforms prior to me going into KU.

I'm not buying a a summer house in the South of France anytime soon. LOL It's a little small to see, but I'd only had ONE sale of Not Broken across all platforms. None for The Lists.

Sales on Amazon

Still not buying that house, LOL, but as you can see Fiendish still carries more actual sales than Not Broken, and I didn't have a single one for The Lists.

On to the page reads, as that's the big deal.

Since I have nothing to compare it to, I'm gonna say this ain't too shabby. And mind you I did no advertising that this was even in KU outside of that group takeover. Since Amazon's reporting runs two months behind (something I *JUST* realized) I have zero clue what that translates into money wise. I'll have to wait until my first KU payment is calculated to make a comparison to page reads and books sold. Or if anyone out there has insight, feel free to comment.

That's it. For month two I plan to tackle the dreaded AMS ads to see how I fair with those. I haven't really lost much in the way of sales by having Not Broken and The Lists in KU because those books have sadly been a major struggle, even with me throwing my limited marketing dollars at them. Still a little too early to decide if I've gained anything, but I have two more months to go.

I hope you have a great weekend. And please let me know your thoughts on KU.

Until next time
~Meka

#AuthorToolBoxBlogHop - Playing With Life

Welp it’s a new month, and it brings about my second post for the Author Toolbox blog hop. Like last month I struggled with what I would write about. Again this “giving advice” thing isn’t really for me. But gonna give it the old college try.Anyone that knows me, knows I stumbled into this author gig quite by accident. I’m not a person that lives and breathes writing. Not in the way many will talk about. I started writing for fun. In 2010 I began playing a PC game called The Sims 3. It was fun to have control over the pixelated people I’d created. As I played, little stories about their lives would roll through my head. I mean the tag line for the game is “play with life” and as writers isn’t that what we do with the stories we tell? We create characters from scratch, and give them life.About a year in I discovered Sim Lit, blog stories that were illustrated with game shots to enhance the reading experience. It was an eye-opener for me. The stories that played out in my head with the game could be put into words, and people would want to read it. Let the fun begin right?As I’ve been struggling with direction and the stress of writing I’ve gone back to re-reading my own sims stories as well as ones written by writers that I follow. That prompted the idea for this post. What “playing with life” aka writing sims stories has taught me about writing in general.I know this is something that gets tossed around a lot. Not sure why, but it does. While I’m not advocating for people to run out and publish the first drafts of their books, I do want to recognize that not all first drafts require major work before they are ready for the world. Most sim stories are done in a serial format meaning you get the story spoon-fed to you chapter by chapter on what could be an erratic schedule. Most of those stories are usually the first-ish draft of that chapter. The time to overthink and second guess is taken out of the equation. The writer goes with their gut on the direction of the story and the plot and that’s it. It’s not a bad way to handle things because too often I get stuck in a cycle of second guessing. Having the mindset that the story at its core is solid the first time out aids in taking one less worry off the table. And I’ll say again. Edits are made, tweaks to the plot adjusted, but the first draft isn’t always a complete dumpster fire.In the writing world we are told to not respond to reviewers. Readers and writers should travel in different circles that don’t overlap. That once you put the story out into the world, it’s no longer ‘yours’ and that is all rather sad. One of the joys of writing a sim story was the direct access you had with your readers. They left comments on your blog, you answered it, you knew they were invested. And in some ways, those comments would help shape the story. It was a good thing to get that insight to have that interaction. I miss it. I mean we write to entertain our readers, why is that invisible wall there?When you write a Sim story you aren’t getting paid. You write because you are moved to tell a tale and you post it because you want to share it with others. Sometimes in all the hustle and bustle that is the writing world, writing for the sake of writing can get lost. Writing sim stories reminds me of the joy of creating without all the added worries. Sure I care about what I put out, but it’s in its purest form of simply being creative. Letting the story flow, the characters take shape and do what they please. Just to enjoy the journey.So that’s it. The three lessons doing sim stories have taught me in my authorly journey. And it’s what launched my career. My first book began as a sim story. Jill, who the book is dedicated to in memoriam, was my biggest fan of the story in that format and convinced me to make it ‘real world’ so it could be a book. Without her, I don’t know if I’d be on this path, but I’m forever grateful.I’ve learned and have grown as a writer since this book was released into the world, but as it stands, for my indie titles it’s still my best seller.

Until next time
~Meka

Music Monday - Happy

Good morning and happy Monday. Hopefully you're not too hung over if you partake in St. Paddy's day celebrations. Last week was a long week and I'm happy to be starting on what I hope to be a more relaxing one.

So you guys all know I have spawns out in the world and 3 out of 4 of them are still school age. Last year I got talked into being on the PTA board, and there are days that I regret that life decision. Last week was one of those times. LOL Annual school carnival that the PTA puts on that is basically pulled together by the 6 of us. Long hours at the school to get it all together. LONG, LONG hours.

But it was worth it, the students all enjoyed themselves on Friday and one of the classes all wrote us thank you notes for our hard work. It's really nice to be appreciated. But even today, on Monday, I'm still exhausted from last week, but Happy that the event is behind us.

New week, new outlook and I wanted to kick off with something fun and upbeat. Hopefully it'll set the tone for me for the rest of the week.

Anyway I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Until next time,
~Meka

"Happy" by Pharrell Williams

Music Monday - Too Legit To Quit

Hello. It's that time again. Another Monday. I know typically most people dislike this particular day of the week, but I look forward to it. Not only do I get to share new music, but it marks a day of quiet as the family is all back at work or school.


It seemed like a sign that I should go "old school" with this week's music selection. From those crazy over-sized diaper pants, to the funky dances, MC Hammer was the "it" man of my teenage years. Hearing it again made me think of needing a character that was into all the old school artists of their childhood. But that's for a later day, too many other stories I need to get done first.

Anyway hope you have a great week.

Until next time
~Meka

"Too Legit To Quit" by MC Hammer

IWSG- The Why Bother Monster

Monster image: Image by OpenClipart-Vectors on PixabayHappy March! Can you believe the third month of the year is already here. Not only is today the first Wednesday of the month, but it's also my middle son's birthday. He's 11 today!!! They insist on getting bigger (cue mom tears).


First there was #Cockygate. If you aren't part of the romance community you may not have heard of this, but over the summer an indie author trademarked the word cocky, yes cocky and unleashed a total shit storm within the community. This of course brought out all the troll that that to crap on Indies as a whole as well as the romance genre.

Ignore. Move on. Keep writing.

The whole cocky situation brought to light the book stuffer issues with KU (which is a whole nother beast). At the time I wasn't part of KU, but the idea behind it still pissed me off. Real writers, ones that followed the rules, worked on their books, and tried to be a part of the system were being squeezed out by scammers. Book stuffers, click farms, entire networks that worked to do nothing but take advantage of the system. And Amazon let them. This was a big issue in romance not sure if it carried over to other genres or not. And the clean up they attempted hurt the legit authors more than the scammers. This again brings out the trolls that crap on indies and romance.

Ignore. Move on. Keep writing.

More recently there has been #CopypasteCris. Another indie romance author that was recently outed for plagiarizing her books. It started with Courtney Milan being notified and it quickly unraveled. More authors were hit, big names authors. This plagiarizer apparently hit the USAT best-seller list with "her" books. This brought to light the use of ghostwriters that go back to the scammers. Writers cranking out books at inhuman speeds, dominating the KU with their quickness and cheaply priced books. And can you guess what happened then? Yup, more trash talking about indies and the romance genre. At every turn, when something goes down it becomes and "all indie" issue. It gets tiresome.

How many times can one say ignore. Move one. Keep writing.  Before one asks what the hell is the point?

When these things happen, responders say how it's why they won't read indie, or how they only stick to their 'favorite' authors and either won't or are extremely hesitant to try new authors because those few bad apples have a way of ruining the barrel.  That little mantra gets harder to keep repeating.

When it starts to feel like the odds are stacked against you at every turn the why bother monster moves in and doesn't pay rent. It messes with my head and steals my creative drive. You add in personal issues and it all compounds.

I'm not really a push through it and just write type of gal, so I've been stalled for a little while now. Slowly I've been getting the urge to write again and have even made some progress. There have been good days and bad days. Will the current project get completed? Sure, but it's not without the unwanted guest of the why bother monster who seems intent to hang around.

Have a great month

Until next time
~Meka


The Insecure Writer’s Support Group is a home for writers in all stages; from unpublished to bestsellers. Our goal is to offer assistance and guidance. We want to help writers overcome their insecurities, and by offering encouragement we are creating a community of support.

The awesome co-hosts for the March 6 posting of the IWSG are Fundy Blue, Beverly Stowe McClure, Erika Beebe, and Lisa Buie-Collard!

Music Monday - Perfect Strangers

Happy Monday! I hope you had a fun and dry weekend. We've been getting tons of rain. I miss the sun. Let's brighten up the day with an upbeat selection to kick off our week.


This process has taken a while, but I'm happy to announce today is release day!!!

**CLICK FOR BUY LINKS**Jess and Ryan are moving into an e-reader near you!!
The song chosen fits them and the relationship they form. Neighbors (strangers) to "lovers" but taking it slow and seeing how things progress without a lot of expectations.

Have a great week.

Until next time
~Meka

"Perfect Strangers" by Jonas Blue

Release Blitz: KANE (Cooper Construction 2) by Jen Davis

Title: KaneSeries: Cooper Construction #2Author: Jen DavisGenre: Dark MC Romantic SuspenseRelease Date: February 26, 2019



I know how it feels to lose everything—to watch my world crash down around me, unable to do shit about it. I was a broken man when the Skulls took me in. They helped me pick up the pieces, became my family, earned my loyalty. Then my past storms back into my life with spiky heels and an attitude to match, and my loyalty is tested. Amanda doesn’t just own the company I work for, she owns my heart. She’ll always own it, even though her betrayal sent me into hell in the first placeBut being together now is not as simple as it was back then. We’ve both changed. After thirteen years, we’re worlds apart. I don’t belong in her world, and she wants nothing to do with mine.Problem is, I don’t think I can let her walk away from me…not again.












Jen started her love affair with romance novels, first as a reader, then as a reviewer and blogger. She launched the Red Hot Books blog in 2010 and jumped into Book Twitter shortly after.
She is happily married to her high school sweetheart. Together, they’re raising two kids, a cat, and a dog who is afraid of his own shadow.Jen spends her days working as television journalist and her nights curled up with a good book.





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Music Monday - I Like That

Happy Monday. Did you have a good weekend? Maybe watched the Oscars? I didn't, but I'm not much into award shows. New week. New song.


I'm trying to change that.

Last week I did manage new words. Not a lot, but something is better than nothing right? Trying to get back into the groove means it's time to breakout the playlist for the story again. I've talked about my current project, Being Hospitable, before and yes, it's the same one I'm still trying to complete.

The lack of focus has been terrible.

My CPs are trying to hold me somewhat accountable. We do check-ins and all that fun stuff. So, to get the week started off right, and to kick off what I hope to be a better writing week, I bring you "I Like That" by Janelle Monae. I have her on my list a few times. I'm a fan and she makes great music that is relatable to the ladies in my story.

I hope you enjoy the song and have a great week.

Until next time,
~Meka

"I Like That" by Janelle Monae