Romance with a Body Count, Issue 1

Welcome to author Elizabeth Barone’s reader newsletter Romance with a Body Count, and welcome to 2025!

I’m really happy to be home, in my real life, in my spiritual life, and in my author life. Did you notice my website is now ElizabethBarone.com? When I published my debut novel back in 2012, my name .com wasn’t available, so I had to get the .net domain. I felt so unprofessional, I eventually switched to elizabethbaronebooks .com. It’s such a long URL, though, and I still really wanted my name .com. Over a decade later, I finally got my wish, and it feels like a sign to keep going.

I don’t know why a domain mattered so much to me. I think it comes from my days as a web designer; in the business world in the early 2000s, it was like a death sentence if you couldn’t get a .com. More than likely this was a marketing tactic employed by Big Domain, and I definitely gulped down that Kool-Aid. So silly, looking back, but noticing this made me realize I’m still waiting for a lot of things to be perfect before I feel like I can do the thing (or like I’ve made it). Imagine if I’d waited until I got the domain I wanted to publish my debut novel?

I’ve been doing a lot of inner healing while recovering from my big lupus flare in 2020, working on getting better so I can “get back to” my life. Except my life, it turns out, is right here, right now, regardless of whether it looks like I envisioned.

If you’re like me and waiting for the right time, the right conditions, the right tools, the right whatever—perfect may never come. So start now, right where you are, and grow accordingly.

Thank you to all my readers, whether you’re a diehard, auto-buy fan or subscribed to this newsletter, supporting me with your eyeballs, likes, and comments. This month special thanks goes to my premium subscribers Dee, B., Lauren, Vanessa D., and Vanessa A.

A Disturbing Prospect is free everywhere

The first book in the River Reapers MC series is now free and wide, including in serialized episodes on my website, so tell a friend! You can download the complete, free ebook from all retailers or directly from me.

A Disturbing Prospect, Chapter 1 by Elizabeth Barone A Disturbing Prospect, Chapter 2 by Elizabeth Barone A Disturbing Prospect, Chapter 3 by Elizabeth Barone A Disturbing Prospect, Chapter 4 by Elizabeth Barone A Disturbing Prospect, Chapter 5 by Elizabeth Barone A Disturbing Prospect, Chapter 6 by Elizabeth Barone A Disturbing Prospect, Chapter 7 by Elizabeth Barone A Disturbing Prospect, Chapter 8 by Elizabeth Barone A Disturbing Prospect, Chapter 9 by Elizabeth Barone A Disturbing Prospect, Chapter 10 by Elizabeth Barone A Disturbing Prospect, Chapter 11 by Elizabeth Barone A Disturbing Prospect, Chapter 12 by Elizabeth Barone A Disturbing Prospect, Chapter 13 by Elizabeth Barone A Disturbing Prospect, Chapter 14 by Elizabeth Barone A Disturbing Prospect, Chapter 15 by Elizabeth Barone A Disturbing Prospect, Chapter 16 by Elizabeth Barone A Disturbing Prospect, Chapter 17 by Elizabeth Barone A Disturbing Prospect, Chapter 18 by Elizabeth Barone

I just restocked paperbacks in my shop, so if you’ve read it and would like to put Cliff and Olivia on your shelf, order a signed copy before they sell out again!

Stickers Have Landed

How fun is it that we can slap stickers on our ereaders and phone cases? I’ve been working on bookish sticker designs that are small enough to play nice with other stickers on your case, yet still vibrantly stand out.

My new 2.5″ vinyl A Disturbing Prospect stickers are small enough for your ereader case and also look great on a book page in your reading journal. They’re also waterproof and weatherproof, so if you spill some coffee on them, NBD.

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More sticker designs are on the way, so stay tuned!

Amazon doesn’t want you to learn this trick

Ebooks are great, except for when you get a new ereader or phone or whatever, and you have to buy all new ones because Apple Books won’t read Kindle files and vice versa. Or your favorite author (hi) is exclusive with a specific platform but you really, really want to read her new series.

Reader Katy Y. has the solution!

Since reading on her iPad gives her headaches, she couldn’t use the Kobo app to read my Stagwood Falls: Love in Ink series. She explains she buys the books in the Kobo store, then uses Calibre to convert to read on her Kindle, where she reads headache-free.

This is not illegal; you’re still purchasing the book, you’re just converting to another format. As an author who used Calibre to format my ebooks back in the day (before Vellum came along and changed the game), I approve of this workaround. Thank you, Katy!

What’s coming in 2025? I’d tell you… but then Cliff and Olivia would have to take ya to the river!

In all seriousness, I’m using this month to get organized and back on track. I fell down hard in 2020, and have been plummeting since, bruising myself to bits as I go down. November 15th was my rock bottom, per se, and so now it’s only up from here.

I’m taking back my life.

Thanks to your support and the support of Mike, my family, and my friends, I’m getting back on my feet. There are so many things I want to do this year, like resuming lives on Instagram and actually publishing something. Step by step, I’ll get there.

And so will you! What are you looking forward to in 2025? What are your goals?

Until next time, happy reading!

Photo by bady abbas on Unsplash