Monthly Archives: January 2023
There Is No Algorithm for Indie Publishing
God, I wish there was—I know enough computer people who could work it out for me.
Instead, you have to test and experiment and test again until you find out what works for you. And that testing is vital because what works for one writer most definitely doesn’t work for another writer. For example, I know authors on TikTok who are averaging huge amounts of views for their page flips or their vids where they stand there and be beautiful at the camera while quotes or blurbs from their books appear.
Neither of those work for me (believe me, I tried the page flips, and as for the “be beautiful at the camera” TikToks there isn’t a filter developed that will make me that captivating). As for other forms of social media FB ads don’t seem to work for me (although I’m taking Mark Dawson’s Facebook Ads expedition this week to see if I can figure out what I’m doing wrong), and Amazon ads do work … kinda. But I have to stay on top of them and ruthlessly prune any that are costing me money without garnering me sales or read-through. I crosspost from TikTok to Instagram which is getting some traction (I need to study hashtags and figure out which ones work the best), and Tumblr is fun but doesn’t do much except for allow me to post pretty pictures and snarky commentary.
Much as I hate to say this, I suspect I’d be a lot more successful with social media promotion if I was thirty years younger and a hundred and eighty pounds thinner or so. Yes, I know there are older authors and bigger authors who are mega-successful, but they either write in genres that I don’t do or they have had to work twice as hard to garner their success.
But I am who I am, I write what I write, and I need to make that work one way or the other. I just have to home in on what that magic formula is.
TikTok is Definitely Pushing Sales
It’s time to admit that TikTok does have an affect on my sales, even if I can’t immediately see the link. Before this morning I posted my last TikTok last Thursday, then got caught up in other stuff over the weekend (okay, okay, I was quilting) that meant I wasn’t camera ready. In the intervening four days my KU pages reads dropped precipitously to the point where I am a good fifteen bucks behind where I should be in earnings by this point.
Apparently me acting like a loon on TikTok prompts enough people to check out my profile, hit my LinkTree and take my books out in KU. I know other authors have huge success with page flipping videos (or vids where they stand there and pretty much look beautiful at the screen while quotes from their books appear over their faces) but those don’t do anything for me.
Wearing a teal, green, and yellow wig and pretending to be a Muse or trying on different filters? Those get views, and then I get sales. Go figure. So I posted four TikToks today, and the shortest one where I mention how great it is to start the day off by writing a sex scene is already up to 245 views and four comments. I ask you.
The Gen X Woman’s Romance Hero
Note: the following contains generalizations about romance trends. If you do not fit these generalizations, be content with the fact that you’re a loner, Dottie, a rebel, and you want what you want. Just don’t @ me about it.
I’ve been a good indie author and taking a look at what readers want in their romance heroes, and I’m noticing a definite divide between the generations. Millennials and Gen Z seem to be very big on hot, ruthless heroes who know what they want and take it, much to the delight of their female counterparts. Dark romance, monster romance, bully romance—they adore these subgenres, and the sales of romance writers who work in those subgenres reflect that.
And that’s fine. Romance is all about fantasy, and Millennial and Gen Z readers are dealing with the fact that they don’t have the advantages and rights the generations before them had (not to mention that the world is going to shit) by wanting heroes who are big and gruff, will kill to protect them, happily rail them until they pass out from orgasms, and look damn good in a Henley and a pair of jeans while doing it. They want their stories to feature women being claimed by dangerous, implacable aliens/shifters/monsters/Russian bratva hitmen and swinging from a chandelier in flagrante delicto.
Then there’s my generation. Generation X likes the idea of big, buff romance heroes as well, don’t get me wrong. But we’re also old and tired. A lot of us are in perimenopause or menopause and are more likely to reach for a cast iron skillet than swoon if a man tries to order us around. We like our heroes gorgeous and protective, yeah, but we also want them to know when to back off and let us do shit, and how to do things like clean the house/take care of the kids/do the food shopping without us having to hold their hand through the process.
And that’s kind of a challenge for a Gen X romance writer. Do I write stories that only appeal to my generation, or do I write stories that appeal to readers in their forties and younger? If I write both, do I risk pissing off one set of readers who were expecting hot young bully wizards and got a cinnamon roll hero in his fifties? I’ve already gotten horrified reviews from someone who read my solitary contemporary romance and then read the SF romance that indirectly inspired it (they are … very different in tone and subject matter. Let’s leave it at that).
I don’t have an answer to this, nor do I think that there is one (at least, not one that I would enjoy implementing. Remember, I have problems coloring inside the lines). But it’s one of the things that’s been on my mind lately.
Is It Executive Dysfunction or Do I Have Too Much to Do?
I decided that in 2023 I was going to give myself the weekends off unless I was on deadline and had to deliver a certain date. The goal was that having the weekends to relax and unwind would help my writing.
Yeah, not so much. Yesterday was occupied with taking down the Christmas tree and all the decorations, shopping for the lighted winter garland on the mantelpiece so that JJ has more light at night, doing the endless amounts of laundry caused by His Nibs not making it to the litter box, and doing some work on the quilt, topped off with an impromptu visit to our favorite Mexican restaurant. At 10 PM I was literally in the middle of sewing a quilt square when my body abruptly said, “Yeah, no, you’re going to bed.”
Which I did, only I read until midnight. And woke up at 2 AM, then at 4 AM when I realized the smoke alarm in the bedroom was peeping and I could hear it through my earplugs. Since I’m sound sensitive I was having problems going back to sleep after that so I got up, had a bagel, fed the cats, then took a couple of Benadryl in the hopes that powerful antihistamines would knock my sensitive ass out.
Which they did. Until noon (also, the alarm stopped peeping around 5 AM. Go figure). Talk about screwing up your day. My plan for the day had been:
- Take down the outside Christmas lights and put everything in the garage
- Fix two loose fence posts in the back yard
- Make some blueberry pomegranate ice cream
- Do a test run of my Pizza Chelsea bun recipe
- Do more laundry
- Vacuum the living room
- Pick up some 9 volt batteries
- Finish Motifs Five and Six for Column Two of the quilt and sew both together
But it’s colder than I like out there and I’m retaining water weight from last night’s indulgence at our favorite Mexican restaurant (I cannot eat tomato anything these days without swelling up like the Michelin Man). The fruit for the ice cream needs to be sugared down, the dough for the Chelsea buns needs to be mixed, kneaded, and left to rise, I haven’t vacuumed the living room yet, and I don’t wanna put on a bra and go get 9 volt batteries. About the only thing I’ve achieved so far is finishing Motif Five.
So I’m sitting here feeling fat and pissed off at myself, which I’m sure is entertaining as hell for you, sorry. People keep telling me that I get so much done and they wish they had my energy, and I keep telling them I’m three goblins in a trench coat pretending to be a competent adult so don’t be fooled.
In any case I’m gonna try to fight this feeling by walking for fifteen minutes around the house, then get stuck in on the bun dough, then sugar the fruit while that’s rising. The weather will be warmer tomorrow so I’ll do all the outdoor chores then, and I may send Ramón to the store for the batteries (we need to replace them in all the smoke alarms anyway).
So how’s your Sunday?
Write or Take Down the Christmas Tree? Decisions…
Well, it’s not really a decision—I’m taking down the Christmas tree as soon as Ramón heads off to gaming (it’s easier to do it by myself because I have a system for where everything goes, and I can have him cart everything out to the garage and vacuum the downstairs when he gets back).
But after that I’m torn between getting stuck into Shifter Woods: Claw or doing some more quilting. My goal with 2023 is to take the weekends off and do things like cleaning, crafting, and relaxing. Buuuut—I just finished fixing the issue with the first five chapters yesterday evening (why oh why do I insist on making things more complex than they have to be?) and I kinda want to get back into it while the Muse is still stumbling around sloshing her mojito on the furniture and muttering to herself about American politics.
Must have some breakfast (no, I haven’t eaten yet—I got up and immediately had to clean up after the incontinent 21-year-old cat, then give him a bath because he was howling for one) and muse over this one a bit. I could work for a while on Claw, then take a break and put together a square. Hmm…
Oh, and happy Orthodox Christmas to all who celebrate!
It’s only January 6th, so why do I feel like a slacker?
Claw is recovering from the shellacking I gave it (the complications I added to the plot would have worked wonderfully for a novel. Not so much for a novella) and should be ready for release Real Soon Now (the editor is already tapping her fingers and asking when she can expect it).
Unfortunately I made the mistake of reading other authors’ newsletters and watching the trailer for A Pale Blue Eye last night. Now my Inner Taskmistress is screaming at me, “Why aren’t you selling more books? Why isn’t anyone optioning YOUR work? Is your thumb permanently embedded in your ass or are you actually going to earn some damn money this year?”
People think that working for yourself must be great. Not so much, especially when your Inner Taskmistress can be an utter bitch. I always feel that there’s more I can be doing, should be doing, and if I don’t do that I’m a lazy slut who deserves to spend her golden years in a cardboard box under a bridge. And I know that’s a stupid mindset to have but it’s a hard one to shake.
Anyway, I’d better wrap this up and get to work. I need to write a lot of words today if I want to be able to spend the weekend taking down the Christmas decorations and cleaning, whee…
Authors Behaving Badly
Currently watching the Susan Meachen saga (briefly: Meachen is an indie romance author who had a family member claim she had committed suicide two years ago after being bullied over her romance novels. The indie book world promptly gathered together to raise money for her funeral and get her last book published, innocent people were accused of the bullying, and there was much stramash. A few days ago Meachen popped up on her FB reader group saying that she wasn’t dead, let the fun begin, and indie book world pretty much exploded when it came out she’d adopted a new pen name and had been moderating the group under it as well as writing under it).
Okay, so now you know. Her supporters say that she was just trying to protect herself, that she had been under great mental strain, yadda yadda. She said that she had been in the hospital when the family member (if this family member exists) had posted about her “death” and she had no control over that but knew they were trying to help her.
This, of course, does not address the help her family received in publishing her last book, the alleged possibility of fraud over the funeral money (this is still a confusing point), or the fact that she could have just said, “Whoops, I’m still alive, family member was just trying to protect me” instead of, you know, adopting a whole ‘nother online persona to moderate her FB reader group.
As I’d mentioned on TikTok, there’s making a mistake, there’s compounding a mistake, and then there’s this. And yes, I can understand mental illness driving someone to do something along these lines—some folks have mentioned that being bipolar can result in similar actions. But she shows no signs of regret or remorse whatsoever for hurting her readers. There was no apology, no, “Hey, I am so sorry about this, please forgive me for what I did, it won’t happen again.” Just a flippant, “Let the fun begin.”
That’s not MI—that’s being a manipulative asshole.
Getting a Grip on Things
So yesterday I outlined what I need to change in the first five chapters of Shifter Woods: Claw and implemented the Chapter One changes. Ideally I’ll get the other four chapters updated today, then proceed to finish the last five chapters, edit everything, and release this mother and the ECS omnibus.
Which will be 1) a frigging relief and 2) my first completed series. Apparently a LOT of romance readers don’t want to start a series unless it’s completed so I’m hoping that the omnibus will bring in additional sales, not to mention attention to my other paranormal romances. I also need to plan how I want to promote the omnibus—I think I’m going to go with FB ads for it since I’m already promoting Shifter Woods: Howl in AMS. I’ll be taking the Facebook Ads Expedition class with Mark Dawson next week so hopefully I’ll pick up some instruction on how to make my FB ads more effective.
Once Claw is done, it’s time to go back to Crystal Blade and get that puppy finished and out by the end of January, then I’ll be double-teaming Crystal Reflection and High Tide (Olympic Cove 5). One way or the other, I am getting up to twenty full-length books published by the end of this year. Who needs sleep, right?
First Work Day of 2023
And I woke up with the cold realization that I was heading down … well, not necessarily the wrong road with Shifter Woods: Claw, but a road that would require it to be a full length novel instead of a novella.
Yeah, no. Which means today will be going back into the existing half and tearing it to shreds to fit the new beginning. Annoying because it’s gonna take up the bulk of today’s writing time but it’s necessary. Once I have that fixed, I’m going to switch over to Crystal Blade and knock out my daily word count for that, then spend the rest of the work day designing my Patreon (which I’m going to launch on 1/15/23) and roughing out the short story that I’ll be writing for January’s offering.
The nice thing about my plans of writing an exclusive short story that only patrons can read is that at the end of the year I’ll have twelve short stories that I can compile into a collection and publish. Of course, that means that I have to write one short story a month (two this month, really, so that I can have February’s ready to go by 2/1/23). But if I want to make a five figure year, this is the way to do it.
The J Crew won’t like being locked out of my office again, but as long as they have the bedroom in which to lounge they’ll live.
Boy, I’m doing a lot this month
Mrgh. In a rough chronological order, this is what I would like to achieve in January:
- Finish, edit, and publish Shifter Woods: Claw
- Compile and publish the Esposito County Shifters omnibus edition
- Write a short story set in one of my series for my Patreon (right now I’m leaning towards Louisa, Henry, Fyodora, and Callum getting into trouble in Egypt. Because that would be fun.)
- Launch my Patreon with said short story
- Finish, edit, and publish Crystal Blade (Paladins of Crystal 2)
- Start Crystal Reflection (Paladins of Crystal 3)
- Start High Tide (Olympic Cove 5)
- Put together the outline for To Love a Wild Swan (Hidden Empire 3)
- Start recording video for the Sekrit Project (more on that in March or so)
- Start recording Shadow of the Swan as an audiobook
Yeah, I know, it’s a lot. But I need to ramp up from what I achieved in 2022, and that means more books published and more income streams established (I’m putting off the Shopify store until February when I can focus on it).
I also need to come up with some rewards for hitting these milestones, ideally ones that aren’t expensive. Must muse on that some more…
Nicola Cameron Writes 