Category Archives: Books
I Have a Title
The Paladins of Crystal WC academy romance I’ll be publishing on Vella will be titled Crystal Clear, and will follow the adventures of Kristiana (and her twin brother Konstantin) as they navigate the Academy of the Elements in Munsala and the problems that come along with matriculating at the grand old age of 18 instead of 10 or 11 as is the norm. It doesn’t help that shy Kristiana is much more skilled at magic than her brother and gets bumped into Fourth Form (the university level with 19 to 21-year-olds), so she needs to deal with all that. Of course, four hot Fourth Formers take an interest in Kristiana and want to make her part of their pentad … and more. *dramatic musical sting*
The nice thing about this is that I can weave events from Crystal’s story throughout this series as well, and one series may well feed the other. Hey, if it keeps readers entertained that’s all that matters. Now I just have to lock myself in my office away from the cats and churn out wordage, tra la.
Pulled In Too Many Directions
A problem of being an indie author is that you are, in fact, a small business owner with all the hats that come along with that. In addition to writing I have to arrange for editing, formatting, covers, promotion and marketing (which are separate things, believe it or not), plus I have to keep a weather eye on the market and try to hop on the next rising wave.
At the moment that appears to be Kindle Vella. Now, I’m no stranger to writing serialized fiction—I did it all the time with fanfic and I know how to add little cliffhangers to keep the reader interested and reading along. But that also means splitting my already fractured writing time to absorb yet another project that has to be updated at least once and ideally twice weekly. Plus I need to write something that will appeal to the main group of Vella readers. From looking at the top sellers in Vella, that appears to be Why Choose academy romance with just a touch of bullying.
Yeah, yeah, I know—wasn’t I doing a Hidden Empire novella? I am, mainly because I need it as a link between The Crimson and the Black and To Love a Wild Swan. But seeing as this is serialized and I only have to post two chapters a week, I can squeeze in another project. And I am choosing to look on this as a challenge. I know the market, I know what readers expect from the market, and I think I can deliver an entertaining WC academy romance set in my Paladins of Crystal universe. I mean, hey, haven’t you ever wondered what attending the Academy of the Elements must be like? And for a shy girl who’s been tutored at home until her parents lose all their money and have to send her and her twin brother to the academy for training in their Talent, that could be very interesting.
So, yeah, gonna be quite busy for the rest of the month. But hey, who needs sleep?
Returning the Favor
Weekends are non-writing times (also, I need a break from all the sewing I’ve been doing this week) so I’m currently beta reading an SF novel for my friend Bill Ledbetter. Level Seven is the third in a series and I’m really enjoying where he’s going with the story.
I am also steadfastly ignoring the Muse who keeps popping up with SF story ideas, the sodden wench. They’re great and maybe at some point I’ll get a chance to write them, but at the moment I am so damn swamped with work I really can’t take on anything else, much as I would like to.
Speaking of work, I’m now on Act III of Crystal Blade and everything is pretty much heading downhill at a good clip towards the big confrontation and the resolution. For those of you who know I used to be a SFWA Musketeer and own my own fencing epeés, you won’t be surprised at the big climax. I did call the book Crystal Blade for a reason, after all.
I also have the Hidden Empire Vella novella completely plotted out and in progress, and the Paladins of Crystal Vella novella (tentatively titled Crystal Clear) is also taking shape. Surprise—it’s a YA academy Why Choose romance. Why? Because Nicola’s house needs repairs and this is an insanely popular genre so why not write in it? Besides, it gives me a chance to flesh out the Academy of the Elements and Chancellor Toldin (who in my head looks like Colin Firth) a bit more for the master series.
On Monday We Write
And other writing-related chores, which for me means refreshing Amazon ads for Shadow of the Swan and Storm Season (I freely admit that I’ve been using ChatGPT to give me ideas for ad blurbs, which I then heavily tweak to get the result I want) and checking on the FB ad I started on Saturday for Esposito County Shifters: OE. Clicks on that are pretty good and I’m waiting for updates on Smashword’s Daily Sales report to see if there’s any happiness on the sales front.
Some nice people in England also bought a copy of ECS:OE and three of the novellas this morning, so whoever you are thank you for that.
In Crystal Blade news I’ve reached the midpoint of the book where Crystal makes a moderately shocking discovery about her parentage after being banished t0 the hunting lodge where she was born. Needless to say, the Buff Lords are not happy about this and Fallon has been dispatched to keep an eye on her and rescue her if necessday. More importantly, Crystal’s also been set a rather tasty task by the empress to prove her heritage, and it’ll be interesting to see how many people figure out the answer before I reveal it in the book.
I will give one hint here: 3-D printing. Heh, heh…
Relieved That It’s April
That is a March that I am particularly glad to see the back of, if I’m being honest. This month will be filled with getting my car’s registration renewed, continuing my plan to get this house deep cleaned bit by bit, finish Crystal Blade and get that published, and start on To Love a Wild Swan and the Hidden Empire novella (after a nice chat with Ramón I now have a plot).
Yeah, I know, I promised that I would finish the Olympic Cove series this year, and I will. But Hidden Empire is currently my bestselling series so I have to go with the money and add a book to it. I’ll keep picking at High Tide while I’m working on TLaWS and pivot to that once I’m done.
In the meantime I need to update my ads on Amazon because my KU reads are slowing down painfully and launch an FB ad for Esposito County Shifters: OE in the hopes that more people will buy it on non-Zon platforms. I’ve already sold a copy on Apple Books as well as copies of all the novellas and I would very much like to transfer that kind of selling action to B&N/Kobo/Google Play/et al.
Back In the Saddle
Did a respectable chunk of work on Crystal Blade today, which felt good. I’m re-reading the existing chapters to remember where I was going with the story and how the different romances were progressing (juggling one woman and five men is … a challenge. Yes, let’s call it a challenge), and I rediscovered that I’d already fixed a problem with the middle of the book that had been nagging at me. So hey, got that going for me. I’m hoping to have this done by the middle of April and published two weeks after that. Seeing as I released three titles in March, I figure I’ve earned the editing and polishing time.
In other publishing news I’m still noodling over that Hidden Empire novella and I need to set up a Facebook ad for ECS:OE. Since both the omnibus edition and the individual titles are wide I want people to be able to see them outside of Amazon ads, and an FB ad is one of the more affordable ways of doing that. One of these days I will be able to afford a BookBub Featured Title promotion, but that day is not today.
Running the Numbers
Considering that I released two brand new titles this month and an omnibus collection I’m a wee bit disappointed with my sales so far. They’re not horrible, but they’re not as good as I would have expected.
Then again I haven’t really been pounding the promo like I normally do, and for perfectly understandable reasons. I think I need to refresh some of the Shifter Woods: Howl ads in AMS and bump up my posting about Claw and A Theory of Crystal on social media, and I definitely need to add the last two titles to my books on BookBub and get some attention that way.
I’m also musing about the idea of writing a Hidden Empire novella and posting chapters on Vella, since that seems to be a very effective way of getting readers to reliably read my stuff. From what I can see, chapters tend to be about 1500 words or so, which I can knock out and polish in two hours if I have a solid outline. Now I just have to come up with an appropriately novella-length romance story set in Cairo starring Henry and Louisa with guest appearances by Fyodora and Callum, and I should be ready to go.
Not a Lot of Writing Work Today, Either
I was going to get up at 9 AM, open Crystal Blade and get cracking, I really was. But my body decided otherwise and woke me up at 10:30 AM, at which point I had to go out to Joann Fabrics while the Daffodil Dash Sale was still running to get fabric for two quilts that I’ve been commissioned to do, then I had a doctor’s appointment and I’d been fasting since dinner last night so the only thing I was capable of doing while waiting for that was cleaning because my brain would not produce complex, difficult things like words.
Went off to the physical, all was well, gave blood and pee at the lab, stopped off for a very well-deserved meal, and returned home to find that my pharmacy couldn’t refill my new scrips because there’s an issue with the medical insurance. “They probably want you to go with their mail order pharmacy,” the tech explained. We did this same dance with Aetna so I will be donning my Southern Baptist Church Lady persona while calling The New People tomorrow and telling them no, I am not relying on our dodgy mail service when I can literally walk to my pharmacy so approve the scrips, bless your heart.
Then I made some TikTok and IG promo videos and posted those before going out and getting the makings for dinner (taco salad—still couldn’t deal with anything more complicated than that). Made it, ate it, then went upstairs and sewed another row of quilt blocks because this quilt has a hard deadline and I need to get it done ASAP. And now it is 11:01 PM CDT and tomorrow I have to pay bills, call three different businesses to get various things sorted, and mail a quilt to my SIL in England. And exercise. And get something for dinner. And sew another row of quilt blocks. And maybe, please God, get some writing squeezed in there somewhere.
I need a margarita, stat.
Not a Lot of Writing Work Today
I’ve basically been focusing on cleaning (it’s how I grieve) and getting the new lantana in to replace the stuff that had been killed by the last freeze. Or at least I’d thought it had been killed until I laboriously levered up one big dry cut back mass and found little leaves growing on the underside as well as one massive tap root. If we have another freeze this winter I’ll cover them up as I usually do, but afterwards I’ll cut back EVERYTHING to the very base and let it stand until the end of March to see if it’s going to grown back. Seriously, those tap roots were humongous.
I’m still mourning J.J. and I probably will for a while, but I’m trying to get things done in the hopes that it will keep my mind off things. So I set up some promo for A Theory of Crystal (the Paladins of Crystal novella that I released yesterday) and did some TikTok videos for that and ECS:OE in the hopes that someone might be interested in reading those (and help me offset the vet bills).
And I didn’t talk about Theory here, did I? Yeah, sorry, brain is still not functioning all that well. It’s a Paladins of Crystal novella that I wrote for the charity antho F*ck the Patriarchy: Getting Smutty for a Cause (and got the rights back this month). It’s the story of smart, rebellious farmgirl Yelena Kozar who doesn’t want to marry the trio of carters picked out for her by her overbearing mama and decides to start a new life by disguising herself as a boy and running off to the capital city of Sideros. In the process she runs into three gorgeous scholars trying to solve one of the biggest mysteries of elemental magic, gets hired as their assistant “Yul,” falls in love with them (and they struggle with their attraction to “Yul”), and hijinks ensue. It’s currently at Amazon and on KU so if you like my Why Choose series and want to read a standalone story while I’m finishing up Crystal Blade, head on over to the ‘Zon and pick Theory up.
Looking Disconsolately at TikTok
I really shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve posted videos about ECS:OE and Shifter Woods: Claw, and they’ve gotten a handful of views. I posted a video of me reacting to the Gen X Flute Call (aka the opening to Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer”) and I’m over a hundred views so far.
This is not unusual, nor is it isolated to me. A lot of romance writers I know have been complaining about how hard it is to get their book posts seen because—ta-da—the TikTok algorithm gives them a low weight. I understand that the clock app is heavily slanted towards content creators who post daily skits or duet with cooking/renovation/building videos, but writers used to get a fairly good slice of the pie. Not any more.
And now we have next week’s testimony of TikTok’s CEO to look forward to, then we find out whether or not TikTok will be banned in the US. That does have a lot of romance writers up in arms because low views or not they do make sales thanks to being on TT and this is going to hurt their bottom line. I know about the security threats associated with the app, but the fact that it allows writers to advertise to a wide audience of younger readers is incredibly valuable. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
