Dids and Didn'ts

Now that we are well into the latter part of 2018 (seriously, where did it all go?!), it's time to take stock of all the things that have been accomplished, and those that are yet to see the finish line.

I DID get what I think is my final Kindle Worlds payment. I'm actually not sure it's the last payment because it's a strange amount per book, and the actual royalty statement is not available because KW royalty statements were always considered in beta and therefore rarely show up.

When these titles were still available on Amazon, I would earn paid a whopping $0.69 per ebook sold. If it was fully read during the very short time it was available as a Kindle Unlimited title, I would earn just over $1. This royalty payment? It was $0.49 for each of the three titles. Seems to me that this was what they were saying was going to be the final estimated KU pages read after the titles were no longer available. So they considered that the last person that purchased the KU titles and hadn't read them would only read half of all three of them. Okay. That's a weird way to read a series.

I DIDN'T complete my goal for Camp NaNoWriMo in July. No surprise there. I rarely do. However, I DID come out of July with 21 pages written, so it's still a win in--and for--my book.

I DIDN'T complete a reading challenge I gave myself last year. I was going to read the entire Baby-sitters Club series mostly just for kicks, but also for YA research. I had also planned to come full circle by writing an article or essay about the experience. Unfortunately, I've read only seven so far. It was a combination of not being able to justify the cost (totally tax deductible expense as research for a writer, I just didn't have the Amazon money on hand) and not being able to stay away from all of the places where I get free books. Those had to be top priority to continue getting free books, so those took up a lot of my reading/reviewing time.

I'm still going to finish the series, but I might only get around to reading a few books per year. I hope I can manage a little more this time around because I really would like to move on to Sweet Valley--if the publishers ever decide to include all the spinoffs on ebook. 

Now I just have to check my list and see what more I can get in the DID column by the end of August.

The Art of Deadlines

My Kindle Worlds titles are officially no longer available on Amazon. We all knew it was coming, but I didn't know that I would also be getting a parting ding to my author ranking to go along with it:

So with Kindle Worlds officially kaput, I've been thinking about all of my new projects in progress. My mind doesn't focus on characters or linger on plots twists, but delves into the business side of writing. The next project needs a good launch, so I have been considering giving myself a hard deadline to get it out. I always set deadlines for myself, but the thing with being a freelance writer working on your own projects is that all of your deadlines end up being soft. This is because you pick up a new client, you suddenly get swamped with one-time gigs, or you simply don't feel that your project is quite ready yet. And there's no one to hold you accountable for your deadlines--unless you announce them to the world.

I'm considering putting the next project on pre-order so that I have a hard deadline to meet. It also helps so I can work with all of the marketing options that could generate buzz, and so I know that I'm continuing to move forward with my career. The only question is: which project will it be? Right now it's a toss up between Pieces, which is being released in pieces (ha ha) on Patreon and Wattpad. Putting this project on pre-order for the ebook would give me a strong deadline to complete it, but the problem with this one is that I still don't know how long it will be. I always aim for 100 pages for a poetry project, so I still have awhile to go. And since this project was released for free, I would need to come up with some sort of additional value for grabbing the completed book other than the convenience of having it in one place.

I could also go with something totally new--maybe even something that I've never talked about before. I don't actually think I have a project I've never talked about, but you never know when inspiration will strike!

The Death of Kindle Worlds

If you haven't heard the news yet, Amazon is shutting down Kindle Worlds over the next few weeks. This comes after Amazon shut down all of its other programs for writers such as Write On and Kindle Scout. This was the last entity that writers still had an option to work with, and now that its shutting down, what is left for writers over at Amazon?

Although I currently have three Kindle Worlds titles, this news isn't the end of the world, so to speak. When Kindle Scout shut down, I knew that Worlds wouldn't be far behind, but I thought I would have at least until 2019 before they decided to close. I'm going to miss my $20-$25 a year in royalties from these titles. Even though it wasn't much, I recently had been looking into revamping my backlist to boost sales with new covers, better formatting, and a nice clean edit for each title. Now I have less titles to do that for, so that will save me a little time and effort.

I don't think that there's ever a good time for a book or a series of books to become obsolete, but this wasn't a great time for me to hear this. I was finally trying to get real plans in place to relocate, not just wishful thinking. A big part of that was getting my passive income streams up to par. I needed these novellas not so much for the direct royalties, but for the higher tiers on my Patreon page. My highest tier ($15) now looks a little silly, because the bulk of what patrons were paying for was digital copies of my entire backlist, which is going from five titles down to just two. No one in their right minds would join at the $15 level (even with access to all of the additional amazing lower-level perks) knowing they could pick up digital copies of my backlist for about six bucks. I'm trying my best to get more work out, but insert your favorite tired Rome-related cliche here.

The Legal Bit...

All hope is not lost because some rights do revert back to me upon the closing of Kindle Worlds. The problem is the Worlds Licensor (the author of the original series) also holds onto some rights because those who submitted a story, novella, or novel to a world was required to use characters and locations from the existing series. What it boils down to is that if I wanted to revive these novellas, I would have to have explicit permission from the author of the original series in order to do so, which isn't likely to happen.

Under the bubble of the Kindle Worlds label, the Worlds authors were getting royalties from someone else's work and probably a bit of promotion for their own work in a roundabout way without doing anything other than offering authors like me the ability to play with their characters. Without that bubble, offshoot works have the potential to dilute the power of their series, especially if you run into readers who don't understand the difference between the original series and the fan fiction titles. If I were on the other end of this, I could see why I wouldn't want former Kindle Worlds titles competing with my series.

I signed up for Kindle Worlds knowing full well I was tying up my hard work with copyright restrictions, but right now I have the feeling that it was all a waste of time. I'm sure that feeling will pass, eventually.

Titles Are Still Available... For Now

Amazon isn't pulling all of its Kindle Worlds titles until "on or around July 16th" so if you still want to check out my Melody of Love novella series, you can still get them. Unfortunately for Kindle Unlimited subscribers, they have already been removed from the program as of yesterday--the day the email was sent, so thanks for that heads up, Amazon. It's probably because they were promising proactive payment for borrows, even if the book hadn't met the reading threshold. Smart business move for them, I guess.

Melody of Love (#1)
Haunting Melody (#2)
Melody's Valentine (#3)

I also want to quickly thank those who have downloaded any of these titles since they first went live on Amazon. I do appreciate the support and the book reviews. Now I have to get back to work. Gotta build up that backlist again...

A New Book, A New Direction

Good news! If you were dying to know what happens next to Mel and Austin, the third and final installment of my Kindle Worlds The Callaways: Melody of Love series, Melody's Valentine, is now available from Amazon. And don't forget to to add it to your Goodreads shelves.

Now I get to hang up my Kindle Worlds hat and put my focus on other projects. It was an interesting experience working with Kindle Worlds and I learned a lot--plus it's always fun to write sanctioned fan fiction, if we're just going to call it what it is (and that's exactly what it is). I can't say I will never return to write something else for Kindle Worlds, but they will have to acquire the rights to something else that piques my interest for me to return. They have television series as well as book series, so if they could pull off something like The X-Files, I would be first in line to pick up the pen again. Amazon, get on that.

I have quite a few projects ready to be resurrected now that Melody's Valentine is out in the world. I'm still in the first draft stage of my diamond thief novel (and still mulling over possible titles so I don't have to keep calling it that). I'm getting ready to get back into revisions on something else. I'm going to throw it out to my patrons on Patreon. Friday I'll be posting a poll and I'm going to let you choose what I work on next in the revision stage. I've got plenty of great options you can choose from if you become a patron before the poll ends. 

Some Literary Waves

Quite a lot has been going on in the indie publishing world as of late, with a couple of these things personally affecting my titles. First, the good news: Kindle Worlds is now making its titles available through Kindle Unlimited. Now if you are a KU subscriber, you can read Melody of Love and Haunting Melody for free! Just make sure to read at least 10% of the book so everyone gets paid. ;-)

Second, the not so good news: Inktera is temporarily suspending distribution of titles coming from Draft2Digital, so my books won't be listed there for awhile. Actually no one's books will--Inktera is revamping the whole brand, so until that's complete, their catalog is not available. Full disclosure: I never had any sales from this channel anyway, so it's not really going to affect my bottom line when it comes to royalties.

NaNoWriMo: If you're following my progress on the site, you know that it's kicking my butt this year, for real. I should be sailing closing to 30k right now, and I haven't even hit 20k. But I'm not giving up. I just have to pour some extra fuel on the fire and see how far it goes. No matter what, I'll still post an exclusive excerpt of the novel at the end of November on Patreon.

I hope your weekend will be filled with writing. I know mine will be!

Still on the NaNo Road

It's never a good thing when you can say that you are thousands of words behind in your writing. Especially during November. But don't worry. Even though the goal is to hit 15,000 words tomorrow and I'm stuck hovering around 7000, I'll be able to get back on track. After all, Thursday night is one of my TV-free nights--not because I force myself not to watch it. There's just nothing good on. And what better way to use that time than to write, write, write. Or agonize for two hours about how I still don't have a title. Which ever one of those options strikes my fancy.

Between freelancing work (still have plenty of spots available for my Fiverr gigs), NaNo, and revising Melody's Valentine, I've probably neglected doing all of the promotional work I should be doing. Let's get that back on track: remember, all of my books are available through Amazon and most of the major book/ebook retailers worldwide. You can check out the full list of titles to see what you may be interested in. Might I suggest my Melody of Love Kindle Worlds series books #1 and #2 so you can be ready to read #3 in January? And please, if you read it and like it, don't forget to review it!

If you are looking for a little more, you can still sign up to get exclusive content at Patreon. This week I'm releasing the cover for Melody's Valentine, and next week you can get the first look at an excerpt from Pieces, my poetry collection that's debuting on Wattpad in 2018.

Haunting Melody Now Available #newrelease

Great news! You can now get The Callaways: Haunting Melody (Melody of Love #2) from Amazon. Technically you could have purchased it yesterday--my schedule was a little heavy and this was the first chance I had to write a blog post. I hope if you've enjoyed Melody of the Love that you'll pick this one up as well. Book number 3 is in the works, and that will conclude Mel and Austin's story.

And that project I chose for October? It's going to be Verses and Vows, another one in the chick lit sphere. I'm reading over my first draft from a couple of NaNos ago, and I keep seeing one thing--I hurriedly write to get the story out, and it's always too short. I managed 30k (didn't win NaNo that year, did I?!). I seriously envy writers who can churn out 70k+ in their first drafts, then have to go in a cut. I always have to think of things to add.

Anyway, that's what I'm concentrating on. I've found a small press (more of an indie collective) that I would like to present this project to, so this one is getting all my attention for awhile. We'll see what happens...

Last Chance for Early Access! #freebook

It's getting closer! Just a little less than two weeks until Haunting Melody will drop on Amazon. I've already sent out the first round of early access copies of the novella, but if you still want to get in on the action, I've got a couple more copies to give out. All you have to do is fill out this form and I'll have them sent out by Friday evening.

Now it's time for me to figure out what to do next. I've focused hard on this upcoming release, but it's time to find the next project to finish. There are three options in the running--and since I want this project to have a draft ready for revisions by NaNoWriMo time, it's got to be solid.

And I've already picked out this year's NaNoWriMo project. It's going to be the one that I intended to write for the last Camp NaNo, but switched at the last minute. I'm going to have to work hard to get my writing time in during the morning hours this November because it's a ghost story. And ghost stories freak me out a little. Okay, more than a little, but I think it's a good story, so I have to see it through.

Happy Writing!

The Cover Reveals You've Been Waiting For

Everything has been worked out with the covers for both Melody of Love and Haunting Melody, so let me introduce you to the new covers.

The Callaways: Melody of Love (Melody of Love #1)

The Callaways: Haunting Melody (Melody of Love #2) - COMING OCTOBER 2016

Are you ready for Mel's next adventure? Wednesday I'll have all the information for you to join my Review Crew and get early access to this book.

Melody of Love: Year One (And What Comes Next)

It takes a great amount of courage to come up with a story, to play with fictional lives like they were plastic dolls. And it takes a mountain of confidence on top of that to think you can pick up someone else's pile of dolls and put them into your own little world.

This is the one-year anniversary of publishing my novella, The Callaways: Melody of Love. I took it upon myself to sneak into someone's toy chest and start playing with their fictional characters because this novella was based on The Callaways series by Baraba Freethy. I was able to do this through Kindle Worlds, a pretty fantastic place (though not really well known) where authors of popular series offer up their worlds and their characters for some of us to experiment with. I did this because I was in the middle of reading the series when I found out that it was available on Kindle Worlds. And when life smacks you in the face with a sign like that, you've got to take your chance.

Diving Right In

I think the reason I didn't find this project as daunting as I should have was because I wanted to be immersed in the world, not necessarily with the lives of the specific characters. One of my favorite novels in the series was the one about Sean Callaway--the black sheep of the family because he was into playing music and not being a firefighter, doctor or other public servant like the rest of the big Callaway brood. His novel led to finding his love, Jessica, and helped her reignite a desire to dance like she used to before she was widowed. The novel ends with Sean and Jessica opening a recording/dance studio in San Francisco. And that's where I found the perfect place to create a love story of my own.

I used original characters to create Melody of Love, but without Sean and Jessica in the picture, the story couldn't have taken place. This was my first attempt at romance, so I had to navigate the waters of what type of romance it would be. There's a huge sliding scale in this genre where from one end the goal is the story ending with the couple holding hands for the first time all the way to full-on smut that you only read on an e-reader so no one can see the cover. I decided to stick with a more middle-of-the-road approach because that's where this series falls, and it can be hard to please romance fans, especially when they are coming from an established romantic world.

Publishing Through Kindle Worlds

Once the story was written, the work had to go through more steps than I had before with previous independently published work. The formatting had to be correct, sticking to a few specific rules like not including a photo on the author bio page, which I happened to forget when I first submitted it. After all of the little things were taken care of, I submitted it and still got it rejected. I was totally and completely disheartened. What could I have done wrong when I spent weeks getting it just right? Turns out, it was something very simple and something I should have been aware of before submitting my work.

The problem was in my book's description. I can't believe I would overlook it, but I didn't mention a Callaway family member. Not once. And because the book is based on a specific series, something needed to be mentioned, not just the two original characters I created. After taking care of that problem, it was smooth sailing. This probably gave me a better idea of how traditional publishing could go--lots of back and forth, getting everything just right before it's finally published.

I must also address this point to any authors looking to publish something through Kindle Worlds: just like any other major publisher, there is a lot of fine print and not a lot you have control over once you submit your work (heads-up for authors: you don't get to set your own prices). Be sure to read all of the fine print before you publish so that you are aware of what rights you hold and what rights the original author or the publisher holds.

A Built-In Audience

Writing a book doesn't guarantee you'll find an audience. Writing a book based on someone else's popular romance series doesn't guarantee you'll find an audience either. This discovery surprised me. I thought that super fans of this series would be all over my novella, even if it did veer off to another, non-Callaway couple.

Guess again.

Like anything you create, you have to get the word out about it yourself. I know I have a few fans out there (okay, maybe just two), but nothing like the the fan base of the original series. I was banking on bringing a few of them over to read my work, but as of writing this post, none of the readers who read and reviewed Melody of Love were actually readers of The Callaways series. I can't tell you whether that's a good or a bad thing. Maybe it doesn't matter at all since I put a lot of effort into making it a standalone story while still honoring the atmosphere of The Callaways. 

My biggest setback in the marketing game is that I'm reluctant to use the original author's name in the way I advertise the book. For some reason, it feels wrong to bring up her name just to make a sale, even though she clearly gave permission for authors to come in and write. (Just to be clear, I also feel the same way about books advertised as Stephen King-meets-Judy Blume or whatever big-name authors they choose to compare themselves with.) I've also purposely not approached Facebook fans of hers or posting about my work on her fan group pages (of which I am, of course, a fellow fan) because it seems like it would be in bad taste. So I haven't yet found out what her fans think of my work--and readers coming in as non-fans all have the same issue: it's too short.

That is a problem I can remedy. I wouldn't mess with Melody of Love to make it longer, but I would provide more novellas featuring my original characters. In fact, the novella I was working on last fall was a continuation of this story. So this October I'm going to be releasing a second novella called Haunting Melody (you heard it here first, folks). There is also a third novella in the very early planning stages, which would take my Kindle Worlds experiment from a good little story to a mini-trilogy within the world of The Callaways.

It was a thrill to work with someone else's characters with permission, especially since I spent some of my high school years honing my writing skills on unpublished fan fiction. It was also a great learning experience to publish work through Kindle Worlds. Even though Amazon is a giant in the world of all things written and published, it's nice to see that they have programs to help provide the space for independent authors to grow.

The Secret Project Revealed: Are You Ready for a Little ❤ Romance ❤?

I can finally reveal the secret project I've been working on for the past month. I wrote a novella for Kindle Worlds. My contribution is Melody of Love and it belongs to The Callaways World based on the romance series by Barbara Freethy.



You don't have to have read The Callaways series to enjoy my novella--though if you like a little suspense with your romance, I definitely recommend reading them. All you have to know is this: Sean Callaway is a musician and owns Ashbury Studios. The ground floor is a music studio, and the top floor is a dance studio where the love of his life Jessica runs the dance studio. And that's where my novella takes place.

The process frayed a few of my nerves, but it's finally completed. I'm so excited that it was published tonight, because if it was kicked back to me again for some tiny little oversight I was about ready to give up. I actually had a pretty good rant about Kindle Worlds ready to go if I didn't end up publishing it... but it's best if we forget all that and just celebrate another completed project.

And a little heads up: I wasn't sure this would be published today, so I scheduled the ebook version of Unfolding Life to be available for free tomorrow. Sorry in advance for all of the promo social media posts for both books coming up. 😉