I Think Melanie Wants the Keyboard
As you know, Bob, I write SF/fantasy/paranormal romance as Nicola M. Cameron and SF and urban fantasy as Melanie Fletcher. The problem is, Melanie has been nagging me lately for more writing time—apparently she really wants to finish Pharaoh of the Lone Star State (an urban fantasy set in Dallas that involves a psychokinetic engineer, an evil and long-dead Egyptian queen out to take over the world, and an Elvis convention. I ask you). I keep trying to explain to her that I have series to finish and readers to make happy, but man she whines.
So I’m going to see if I can’t cut her a little time in February. Or March, depending on how Crystal Reflection and High Tide are doing. As long as she stops wittering on about Pharaoh or her other projects (a time travel caper romp with Lewis Carroll, a take on Frankenstein from Elizabeth Lavenza’s POV, and Jane Austen in space. Once again, I ask you), I don’t care.
My Brain Hates Me At Times
I say that because I started 2023 with a very clear plan of what I wanted to achieve this year—finish the Paladins of Crystal series, finish the Olympic Cove series, and write at least one additional book for Hidden Empire and Two Thrones.
So what am I doing? I’m still working on Shifter Woods: Claw, the novella no one asked for but my OCD brain said was necessary to finish out the Esposito County Shifters series since I had to move Shifter Woods: Roar to the end as an associated novella. And until I finish that novella, I literally cannot work on anything else—I tried working on Crystal Blade and sat there staring at the screen for an hour.
I swear to God, my Muse likes to fuck with me purely for shits and giggles. So, new goal: finish Claw by the end of Monday, come hell or high water. I only have maybe 14K to go. I can DO that in four days without breaking a sweat, I know I can. And if you see me on social media between now and Monday night, ask me pointedly how Claw is coming along, please.
And now, I must brush my teeth, apply deodorant, and do battle with the keyboard. Selah.
The Shift to Wide
As of July last year, I moved almost all of my titles out of wide distribution and put them into Kindle Unlimited. My income jumped fivefold and I was suddenly making three figures a month (yes, I know that’s ridiculously low, I’m working on it).
Cut to November and what I kept hearing from reputable sources was that Amazon, which up until now has been the 800 pound gorilla in the indie publishing game, was losing interest in selling books and was thinking of shifting authors away from Kindle Unlimited (which is partially funded by them) to Kindle Vella. People who rely on publishing to pay all of their bills were going wide; more importantly, they were selling directly from their website.
Which got me to thinking. Amazon has an excessively stupid rule where any title that costs more than $9.99 can only earn a 35% royalty instead of the 70% one, which impacts box sets. I will be putting out at least three box sets this year with Esposito County Shifters (5 books), Paladins of Crystal (5 books), and Olympic Cove (6 books). But if I sell them through Amazon I would either have to break each one up into two in order to make the money that I should be making on them or bite the bullet and accept a 35% royalty. Yeah, no.
So I have signed up for a Shopify website, which I’m in the middle of designing. Almost all of my titles currently in KU end their periods in February, but three of the Esposito County Shifters titles end in January. Once they’re out, I’m going to do an experiment and set them wide, then launch the Shopify store and put those up as the first books. When Shifter Woods: Claw is published I’m not putting it in KU, and once Shifter Woods: Growl is out of KU on February I’ll put the box set on sale on my Shopify site and all online retailers.
Except Amazon. the ECS box set will contain five titles and retail at $14.99. For Amazon I’ll split the box set into two and sell Howl, Snarl, and Growl as one set priced at $8.99 and Claw and Roar as one set priced at $5.99. If that works, I’ll start moving all of my other titles out of KU and put them wide as well as sell them directly.
If nothing else, 2023 is going to be interesting.
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.
Nicola Cameron Writes 