This will be a blog for my writing, maybe with (too much) personal thrown in. I am hoping it will be a little more interactive, with me answering questions, helping out and whatnot. If it falls this year (2024), then I may stop the whole blogging thing, but that's all a "wait and see" scenario.
Thank you for the advice and I love that final important bit about avoiding anyone who approaches us first! We all want to think we could be the star who has been discovered. But that's now how it works. lol Thanks for the reminder!
This is becoming common is scientific journals as well. One researcher told me they also had to pay extra (I forget how much, but I think several hundred dollars) for their research to be available to the public online. Otherwise, it would be there, but locked behind paywalls. They were miffed, but also really thought their research was really important, so they paid it.
I got distracted by my other comment. I'm not sure if you even read these since you often don't respond, even when people have questions and you generally (as far as I've noticed) don't tend to even Like the comments. So, it may not even matter that I came back. lol Then again, since a lot of my other comments were disagreeing with you, it may be just as well if you don't read them. It's probably rude to disagree on a person's blog. Anywho...
Your list of marginalized (ignore the USA spelling -- it was underlined in red lol) people was quite surprising to me! The only group on there I wasn't surprised by was Australians. KIDDING! The only group I wasn't surprised by was ex-prisoners/ex-felons. I get why a publisher wouldn't want to take them on unless the whole point of their book was to highlight that part of their life. But the rest of that list? I thought we'd moved beyond that nonsense, people! UGH!
I actually have a former Soldier who is in prison (and rightfully so -- he snapped, committed his crime, then went to the police station). When he gets out (in another 5-7 years, if he's lucky -- prison gang life extended his time), we've talked about what he might do for a job. Prison life has been hard on his body. He got into, then out of gangs while in prison. Neither was a safe endeavor. He did both for his own safety.
He wasn't in the mafia, but knows folks who were and/or in a mafia-type lifestyle and definitely could write that type of book. Mafia romances are hot these days. IDK if they still will be when he gets out. But I told him if they still are, I'll help him get hooked up with the organization I'm in (AKA pay for him to get in) that helps you learn to write for Amazon KDP to earn money. His grammar isn't the best, but I figure by the time he gets out, between me and AI, that won't matter. lol He's got good stories and he's creative. We can work on the rest.
I also didn't know plays weren't published before they were performed. Technically, I didn't know that screenplays weren't either. But when I think about it, since I know how things work, at least in theory, if I had thought hard enough, I should have come up with that answer. But for regular plays, I definitely didn't know that. Thanks for that!
Beacon-Light In College, from what I've learned, if you want to sell without paying for ads, you need to make a lead magnet and start building an email list. Granted, if you have self-published in several genres, then you would need several lead magnets and several email lists, which will start getting complicated. But I was told to build my email list until I have 1500 subscribers, then release my 1st book. Then keep building my list (forever -- the coach has over 20k subscribers).
Then after I have 3 books, I should have enough sales coming through (assuming I'm advertising my books through my newsletter and other people's newsletters because I'm doing swaps and sending out newsletters 5-7 days/week and because I've been getting people on my newsletters to be on my ARC teams to do reviews so my books should be selling well and hopefully have decent numbers of...and hopefully good reviews) with 3 books under my belt, I start doing Facebook ads. I know he doesn't recommend Facebook, but this isn't posting about your book on your Facebook newsfeed. This is running Facebook ads nationwide. Running them to your highest rated book and have that book pointing to the next highest rated book at the end of it, then have that one pointing to the next highest rated book at the end of it, etc. That's how you start selling books. Because otherwise, you are right. We won't sell books. There are too many on Amazon for folks to notice our books.
I think content creation is still art, just a different kind. In the end, I don't think that those who crank out tons of books each year and make 6 figures are better or worse than those who spend years working on a single book. I think what matters is the reader.
If you spend 6 weeks or 6 years on your book, neither matters except if readers love it or hate it. The only difference is how much money you were able to make in those 6 years if you popped one out every 6 weeks if they love it and how much money you made yourself in those 6 years if you were working another job while working on your single manuscript if they hated it. lol
As a reader, do I care how long it took you to write your book? No. Do I care how much effort you put into learning your craft? No. Do I care if you were a high school grad who used AI prompts or if you have an MFA? No. Do I care if you enjoyed the writing process or found it torturous? I prefer not to think about that. lol Literally, the only thing I care about is whether I enjoyed the book. That's it. The end.
Now, there are definitely readers who won't read a book if you tell them it was written with the assistance of AI or by a transgender person or in 3 weeks or whatever. But if they said they loved the book and then you told them, then what? Uh-oh. lol
Oh, funny story, my friend was reviewing the comments from his committee chair for his dissertation for his PhD when he discovered his chair had forgotten to remove one of the comments from AI to his chair about him. Hahaha! So many people use AI, then act like it's a crime for anyone to use AI. Well, his chair doesn't act like it's bad that he uses it, so long as he's not using it to write his dissertation, of course. I'm just saying, people are VERY against it, but it's everywhere. If I can ever get anything written, I 100% plan to use it to help edit my work before sending it to live beta readers.
You hate the fixing the bad boy trope? So does every parent with a daughter! lol I'm sure you're aware this is a real thing. Girls get it in their head that we can fix a guy, that we are special and we can help them. IDK why we think this is true. It rarely is. Not that I haven't improved guys along the way. I definitely have, for sure. But going into a relationship, even subconsciously, with the idea that you can or want/need to fix the other person (because this works both ways) is a recipe for disaster.
Now, you are talking about abuse. That's a whole different level. Abuse is different and never okay. 100% you are right that people need therapy to get over that, if they ever do. I know of relationships that even after "successfully" graduating therapy, the abuser didn't want to or see the need to stop the abuse so the relationship ended. But these bad boy tropes aren't about abusive relationships. Many people inside and outside of the BDSM community recognize 50 Shades of Gray as a manipulative and abusive relationship that was not okay. It changed the landscape of romance books and, many would say, not for the better. Books became steamier and edgier and things got darker. Lines are now regularly crossed that weren't before.
In that vein, the other organization that I've previously mentioned joining, the one that is all about making money on Amazon KDP (if only I'd get my act together and do some writing lol), while they fully support the bad boy trope, because readers love a good bad boy, there are lines they draw. They don't like what 50 Shades of Gray did to romance, their bread and butter -- Romance sells more than any other genre. They, more or less let us write what we want, but guide us to the tropes and ideas that readers are more interested in. It's up to us to follow that guidance or not. However, there are some rules our books have to follow if we want to stay in the organization. No hitting a woman. (Though men can fight over a woman. lol) No drunk sex. No ambiguity about permission (or something like that). No other-assorted-things-I-didn't-pay-attention-to because I'm planning to write sweet romance, so my bad boys are more like guys who have tattoos, ride motorcycles, and show up late then give you a look that dares you to say something about it. lol
Anyway, the bad boy trope is a thing in real life, though many-a-parent wishes it weren't. But a well-written book can make this a great plot. He doesn't have to be abusive to be a bad boy. I agree he absolutely shouldn't be. In fact, for me, the most loveable bad boys are the bad boy with the good heart and that's not the abusive one.
"Friends to lovers" had 18,872 searches last month.
Enemies to Lovers
Enemies to lovers dark romance - 23,580 (no, that number isn't a typo)
Dark enemies to lovers romance - 11,320
Enemies to lovers mafia - 9179
Enemies to lovers romance mafia - 8458
Enemies to lovers romance - 5929
Enemies to lovers mafia romance - 4113
Enemies to lovers hockey - 3778
Enemies to lovers fantasy - 2666
Enemies to lover - 2650
Enemies to lovers boss romance - 2213
Enemies to lovers hockey romance - 1610
Enemies to lovers dark rh romance - 1427 (rh is reverse harem)
Enemies to lovers urban fiction - 1190
Enemies to lovers comedy - 1175
Enemies to lovers grovel - 1137
Enemies to lovers - 1132 (note "friends to lovers" without the word "romance" on it didn't make the cut)
Enemies to lovers fae romance - 1071
Enemies to lovers reverse harem - 1014
Enemies to lovers comedy romance - 1002
Total - 84,644
I think one of the reasons you see some of the tropes so often these days is because they are so popular with readers, even if they aren't popular with you. It can be frustrating if you don't love the mainstream stuff. But publishers and self-published authors tend to want to publish what the masses want.
Take enemies to lovers vs. friends to lovers. I know you previously said you prefer friends to lovers, S🤦♂️ and here you say you don't like enemies to lovers. In the past, I would have agreed with you and I agree that it isn't hard to do it poorly, for sure. But I only buy books rated 4.5 stars and above, so I guess that's part of what has turned my preference. Plus, I want to learn to write what people want to read. The other organization I joined highly recommends enemies to lovers and while you can write whatever you want, they will recommend against friends to lovers based on Amazon search volume.
I used Publisher Rocket for the numbers I'm about to give. I searched "enemies to lovers" and "friends to lovers" for the following information. I got approximately 135 results for enemies to lovers and 85 for friends to lovers. (I say approx. because I may have miscounted -- the 1st time, I got 136, but there were definitely a lot more for enemies to lovers.) This means people are searching for more things related to enemies to lovers to begin with. Some examples of more specific terms related to friends to lovers I found, just as a few examples, were friends to lovers sport, friends to lovers short romance, friends to lovers sally blakely, friends to lovers bwwm (this means black woman, white man), friends to lovers spicy, friends to lovers small town, friends to lovers pregnancy, friends to lovers hockey romance, friends to lovers curvy girl, friends to lovers regency romance, best friends to lovers, etc. There are similar examples from enemies to lovers, of course, but more since there are more searches.
But not only are there more searches on enemies to lovers, but the keywords we are allowed to use also get higher search volume on enemies to lovers. I say the ones we are allowed to use because I admit that if we could use "friends to lovers romance free," it does have a higher search volume than "enemies to lovers romance free." But we can't use the word "free" in our backend keywords, so on to the words we can use. Here is everything we can use in each list that has a search volume of over 1k (that isn't connected to an author's name or a book title). FYI, all these searches are on Kindle because, IMO, that's where most folks are reading books these days. Obviously, if I searched books or audiobooks there would be some difference in the results.
Friends to Lovers
Friends to lovers romance - 7618 (searches in the last month)
Friends to lovers small town - 3246
Friends to lover - 1876
A friends to lovers - 1636
Friend to lovers - 1209
Friends to lovers reverse harem - 1236
Childhood friends to lovers - 1038
Friends to lovers pregnancy - 1013
Total - 18,872
I ran out of space, so I'll have to finish on the next comment. lol But congratulations! I can check Amazon's searches for books, ebooks, and audiobooks. Your pen name came up in a search for both ebooks and audiobooks. NICE! Granted, it was less than 100 searches for each. (They don't give a specific number when less than 100.) But still, a search for your specific pen name is quite an accomplishment, IMO! Well done!
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