2021 - Hopes and Goals

 Looking back at last year's post on this topic, I don't think I'm going to be able to capture the same kind of feverishly hopeful excitement I had, but I will say that I am really excited about 2021. It's going to be my first as a full time author and I am looking to bring you all some wonderful books. At least, I think they're going to be wonderful and I'm going to do my best to make it so (I will not let you down Jean-Luc! Yes that was a Star Trek reference.)

SO. 

What are my goals for 2021? Oh so many things. First of all, I've written out a writing / release schedule for myself that I am 95% sure I will be able to stick to lol. When I was writing it out, I wanted several things - 

- 2 releases for the Deception and Discipline series (aka my new Victorian series)

- 2 releases for the Masters of Marquis series

- 2 new Sinistre Ange books

- As many of my new Dungeons and Doms series as I could fit in

I am also part of four box sets this year (three are still a secret and Rayanna may yell at me but at this point I think it's fair to say that ya'll expect there's going to be a Dirty Daddies boxset at some point in the late summer / early fall). One of those box sets I am organizing. *Gulp* So that's terrifying. lol. Hopefully it'll go off well! Organizing the Dad Bod Doms collection last year was stressful but also a lot of fun, I've got my fingers crossed this will be a similar experience.

And, of course, I have two co-writes that I'm hoping to work in. 

The past two years, Raisa and I (as Sinistre Ange) have released a Happily-Never-After book on Valentine's Day... this year we decided to push the release back to October. This is partly because we both needed more time to write it and also, Valentine's Day has not been kind to our erotic horror baby. We're hoping people will be more in the mood for it leading up to Halloween. Sinful Lust might be the last one of these that we do, if changing the release date doesn't help make it more worthwhile. While we both enjoy doing them, there's a lot of other stories that we also enjoy writing and sometimes business decisions have to be made. 

My other co-write, with Lee Savino... well, we got it started in 2020 but we got nowhere near finishing. I got behind on my writing, she had things going on over on her side, and we just didn't have the time to devote to it. Obviously we're hoping to change that this year. 2020 was a weird year and hopefully an outlier. 

There's a lot of scary things going on this year. I am starting three all new series, even if two of them are spin offs of series I've already completed. The new series have mostly new casts (don't worry, previous characters will often be stopping in to say hello - just try and stop them *sigh*) and a slightly different feel to them. The Deception and Discipline series has the romance and the spanking, but also a mystery to be solved and a traitorous plot to foil. Masters of Marquis is focusing on side characters from the Stronghold Doms series and there's a whole new club to play in! And Dungeons and Doms is one I am so. damn. excited. about but I have no idea if people will like it or not. 

And then that boxset I'm organizing. Challenges! Challenges everywhere! It's scary and exciting and exhilerating all at once.

So. 

For the goals that I am giving release dates (though these are tentative in some cases) - 

January 12th - A Season for Treason - Deception and Discipline #1

February - **secret anthology #1** (as Sinistre Ange)

March 19th - Rogue Booty (originally published in the Pirates, Passion, & Plunder anthology)

April 6th - Bondage Buddies - Masters of Marquis #1

May 18th - Dungeon Master - Dungeons and Doms #1

June 15th - **secret anthology #2** <-- the one I'm organizing!

July - **secret project** (If this one doesn't end up happening it's likely that I'll do something else this month instead... like release a Sinistre Ange book from something that used to be up on Literotica lol)

August 19th - A Season for Scandal - Deception and Discipline #2

September 30th - Dungeon Daddy - Dungeons and Doms #2

October - Sinful Lust as Sinistre Ange - Happily Never After #3

November 11th - Master Chef - Masters of Marquis #2

December 9th - Taking the Reins as Sinistre Ange - Planets Apart #4

That's an awful lot going on. And you notice, there are some things I mentioned doing / wanting to do (like 2 of the anthologies and my co-write with Lee...) where I don't have a release date listed and that's because I have noooooo idea. I believe the secret anthology will be coming out sometime in the late spring / early summer and the Dirty Daddies in the late summer / early fall but I don't have anything firm on either of those. 

Now, behind all of this is the writing schedule I have for myself too, so I've paced it out and I *think* this is doable. A grand experiment! We shall see LOL. 

The other big thing on the horizon is selling things on my own... Another scary step. I don't have anything set up for signed paperbacks (yet! it's coming... it just requires a lot more organizing than I'm currently able to do but def by the end of the year!) but I do have a teespring storefront now. There's not much in it other than Stronghold Girl swag but I'm going to be working on getting more stuff in there soon!

So yeah. Feeling a little overloaded yet? Me too!!!!! Wish me luck! <3

"That Scene" from Bridgerton

I've been having thoughts and so I'm writing them down. There's a lot of dicussion about 'that scene' from Bridgerton so it's almost impossible not to be having thoughts. 

Personally, I like to think of it as an AITA (Am I The Asshole) Reddit post and I keep coming up with the same answer - Equally the Asshole. Though... him more so. But because of her actions, equally. 

Let's start off as if she'd written to AITA - 

******

Dear AITA, 

Before my husband and I were married, he knew that my fondest wish, that my ONLY view of the future, was to have children. In fact, he initially refused to marry me because of this. Upon discovering his reason was that he cannot have children, I decided I loved him enough that I was willing to sacrifice that dream and marry him anyway. After all, he should not be punished for being incapable and we loved each other. 

It pained me immensely and it hurts as everyone asks about when we'll start our family, and the clear expectation that we will because they know what's what I've always wanted - as well as it being expected of me because of his need for an heir - but I keep his secret and my pain hidden away. It's no one's business but ours. 

After weeks of being married and becoming accustomed to the new future I had chosen, it felt like he began to pull away from me. We live out in the country now, away from all my friends and family, and are surrounded by his staff and people loyal to him. I am doing my best, but I keep making mistakes and a lot of them don't seem to like me very much. He's had less time to spend with me. 

Because of that, I was able to discover that he lied to me. It is not that he cannot have children. He has chosen not to. When I confronted him about it, he said he thought I loved him enough, that he would be enough for me. Am I the asshole?

******

At this point, I'm pretty sure people would screaming about that lying, gaslighting son of a bitch, and asking if she needed money to escape her situation. 

Now, add in her actions to the letter - 

******

It is not that he cannot have children. He has chosen not to. 

At first I could not believe it, so I pushed the issue and in the middle of love making, ensured that he finished inside me without protection. He's angry at me for taking his choice away from him. Am I the asshole?

******

Now, my reaction is "yeah, what you did was wrong, but I get it... and wtf he's mad at you taking his choice away? What about him taking YOUR choice away?! He married you under false pretenses!" 

Daphne never gets to make an informed choice about her future because Simon lied to her from the beginning. A lot of people are getting hung up on her taking his reproductive rights away from him, but he did it to her as well (and not saying it's right when EITHER of them does it, but just pointing out that they both made choices for each other and it's not all her doing it to him). 

Because of the time period - escape is not possible. 

In every way, HE has the power. 

Legally - she's his property and there's no way she'd be able to get a divorce on her own (literally)

Socially - he's a duke and far more powerful than her and her family. 

Financially - again, he's a duke and has lots of $$$$. 

Physically - I mean, especially in the tv show, like she's tiny. In the book I pictured her quite a bit more sturdy, honestly lol. 

Geographically - they're on his lands and far, far away from any meaningful support for her

Knowledge - he's the only one with a sex education AND he's also well aware of exactly how naive she is and he uses that against her

What if he wrote to AITA about the same situation? 

******

Dear AITA,

Before my wife and I were married, I initially refused to marry her because I knew the thing she wanted most in her future was children. I swore an oath to never have children, to spite my dead father who abused me since that was all he wanted, and so I told her I cannot have them. She chose to marry me anyway.

She knows almost nothing about sex and so it was very easy to keep from having sex that would result in pregnancy.

After weeks of being happily married, she figured out what I was doing and tricked me into having sex with her in a way that makes pregnancy possible. Now I'm fucking pissed at her because she stole my sperm without my consent. She's mad at me because she says I tricked her into marrying me. AITA?

******

I think the answer would be a resounding YES DUDE, but with many people saying "yeah, she also shouldn't have done that, but YES you're def an asshole." 

So, in summation - Daphne was lied to, tricked, and kept completely in the dark. She was removed from everything familiar to her, thrust into a living situation where she had very little support, and her days revolved around her husband who eventually began doing his own thing (understandable, but he doesn't do much to help her settle in or advise her so she doesn't make missteps). She found out she'd been married under false pretenses, having never been able to make an informed choice about her future, and that her husband used her ignorance against her. 

Does that make what she did right? 

Of course not.  (At least not by modern standards.)

But do I understand why girl went off her rocker even if I don't approve of it? 

Yup. 

And I would be a lot more gentle with her than I would with him if they were friends coming to me for advice. He would get a lot of yelling about how he's a stupid, selfish asshole and he needs to make it up to her somehow. She would get gentle "Your feelings are absolutely valid, he's a stupid selfish asshole... but you do know you shouldn't have done that last thing, right? I mean, I get why it happened, but you shouldn't have done it."

As for "Well, what if he forced her to take his sperm and she didn't want it?" 

I don't know that a case can be made for a fair turnabout. In both situations, no matter who is doing it, because of the time period, their respective social standings, and geography, he is always the one with all the power in every way. So if he did it to her, yeah I'd feel differently about it than I do about her doing it to him, unless ALL of that context was removed and altered so that she was the one with all the power. In which case, if he was a naive, powerless, spouse who had been lied to, tricked, and had their dream broken, yeah, I'd be pretty sympathetic to him. 

The 2020 Wrap Up

Oh man. This year has been a whirlwind. I looked back at my post from January with all my hopes and goals for the year and felt a little bit like I was looking at the words of a stranger. Granted, I do recognize myself in it, because some of that relentlessly, determinedly positive person is still here within me, but I also feel some sadness because life veered so far away from expectation. 

Still, as the relentelessly, determinedly positive person that still resides in my heart, I do have to look at the good things. Those are always the things I like to focus on at the end of the year. And there have been good things this year. 

Did I hit every goal? Nope. Big nope. It was a second year of not getting my new series started. 

I did start writing Bondage Buddies, the first book in the Master of Marquis series back in February and became completely derailed by the pandemic. After about two weeks of trying to force myself to write it, and only being able to produce one chapter, I finally bowed to the realization that I was not going to be able to write it. Definitely not on the schedule I'd written out for myself. 

In fact I was so behind that I ended up jumping straight past several of my plans and digging straight into The Lady for the Dirty Heroes Collection. Which... doing that project may or may not have been a great move for Golden Angel. At the time I'd thought about writing it as Sinistre Ange and I do wish I'd held a little tighter to that thought. 

One thing I can say about 2020 is that it has been a year full of learning for me. Not just learning about myself, though that too, but also a lot of learning about authoring (as opposed to writing) and making decisions for my books and my pen names. I don't want to get too deep into that because I should save some of it for when I do my blog post about my hopes and goals for 2021, but suffice to say The Lady may eventually be moving to becoming a Sinistre Ange title and I am shifting away from writing any Kindle Unlimited books as Golden Angel. Though Sinistre Ange will continue to do so. I wish I had given her a little more love this year and not just packed her into the end. 

Ack. Speaking of packing in. Once I got over the hump of Bondage Buddies, I really did pack it in. So much. 

Partly because of the big goal for 2020 that I did hit - becoming a full time author. For which I am so, so very grateful. Seriously. It is the best thing that's ever happened to me professionally and I am so much happier for it. Being able to concentrate on writing and getting books out is amazing. 

However - back to that learning thing - if being a full time author for half a year now has taught me anything, it's that I still can't write quite as fast as I wish I could. Sometimes I can! I really can! Their Harlot Bride took me 3 weeks to write. Everything came together perfectly for it. I had the enthusiasm, life wasn't too crazy, my anxiety was feeling pretty good, etc. I thought If I can keep this pace up, I'll be golden (heh heh, pun intended).

But of course, I could not keep the pace up. Life intervenes. Sometimes the baby doesn't sleep through the night and that means neither do I (I'm a lighter sleeper than hubby so even when he gets up to take care of her, I'm awake the whole time too). Not long after I finished writing Their Harlot Bride, I was diagnosed with frozen shoulder. I now have to go to physical therapy twice a week (and have been since late August), which is 2 hours out of my work day twice a week. Which, doesn't sound like a huge thing and I thought it wouldn't make too much of a difference, but it's harder to get into the mental space on those days and my shoulder often aches and makes it hard for me to concentrate because I'm fairly constantly in low level pain. 

And it's creative work. Some days I'm depressed. Some days I have anxiety. Some days I am incredibly distractible and nothing I do can get me back on track. And some days I can write full out and nothing and no one can distract me and everything is flowing and its glorious. But not every day is like that, even when I have three weeks of it in a row. Eventually, I falter again. 

So I'm learning to schedule for that. 

I am so excited about my schedule for next year, but I'll get to that in my next blog post. 

Back to the positivity! Another big thing that happened for me this year was becoming a USA Today Bestselling Author after the second annual Dirty Daddies anthology hit the list (in the top 50 too!). I was SO thrilled. I love being an admin in the Dirty Daddies Party Room on Facebook and I had so much fun with the first anthology and just as much (if not more!) with this year's. While Daddy Doms are definitely not all that I write (heck, they're not even a majority of it), they have such a special place in my heart and I know I'll be looking forward to the anthology every year (Foosball Daddy... 2021... it's happening... I've already warned them! lol). 

So seeing that on my covers now has been a highlight of my year. It's a cool thing to have. 

Even though I didn't get out every book that I was hoping to this past year, I am really proud of those that I did and that's a pretty big thing. I'm also happy to say that I will be starting work on Bondage Buddies again, before 2020 ends, and the preorder for it is already up. The first book in the Deception and Discipline series (which according to me in January was supposed to release this past August... *sigh*) is written and I am so in love with it. A Season for Treason releases next month and it is kicking off SUCH a fun series. So those were two of the biggest things that I didn't get done this year, but they're still happening and I'm taking that as a big win. 

Other than that, I'm just grateful for everything I do have. My family and friends are healthy. Those family members and friends who have caught COVID have all recovered so far, making us extremely lucky. My daughter is amazing and astounds me daily, as well as brightening my day with her sunny outlook and happiness in the smallest things. My husband is wonderfully supportive and let me put him on a book cover this year, which I've been dying to do for ages (Logan, if anyone didn't know =). 

And I am so, so grateful for the many readers who have picked up my work, enjoyed it, and kept reading. The thing about dreaming about becoming an author is that it's not a dream one can achieve on their own - it's a community effort. And I am so lucky to have so much support from fellow authors, from my PA, from my beta and ARC readers, from anyone who picks up one of my books. 

I saw a meme going around that said something along the lines of 2020 teaching them to be grateful for the things they have, and I feel like that was very true for me. I am so grateful for so many of the things I have.

No, 2020 did not go the way I expected, but I am proud of the books I released and I am excited about those still to come. And, you know, looking at it - I really didn't do too bad. 

January - Pirates, Passion, & Plunder Anthology (no longer available... keep an eye on my 2021 releases for the story I wrote for it ;) & the Venus Rising Quartet Boxset

February - Black Light Roulette War (which, the couple I wrote WON the war!!!!! #crazyexciting) and Blood Lust as Sinistre Ange with Raisa Greywood

March - Chasing Tail (the first Big Bad Bunnies boxset)

April - Chasing Her Lion (finishing out the Big Bad Bunnies series! #shedsatear) and Chasing Tail... Again (the second Big Bad Bunnies set)

July - The Lady (I still love this story even though I think I should have written it as Sinistre... a filthy retelling of Lady and the Tramp?! Yes! lol)

August - Re-releases of the Poker Loser Series - Forced Bet, Back in the Game, and Winning Hand. This one made me really happy, to have one of my oldest series get a new life (yay better editing and new covers! lol)

September - Logan (woo hoo! I finally got to write my Dad Bod Doms book! AND put hubby on a cover!) and the Dirty Daddies Anthology (USA Today Bestseller, baby!)

October - Their Harlot Bride (getting to write a Bridgewater book was SO freaking cool. I'm still thrilled and honored that I got to be a part of this). 

November - Serving Her Sentence as Sinistre Ange (I only made people wait... what? 3? 4 years? LOL) and the Poker Loser Trilogy Boxset

December - His Pretty Kitty as Sinistre Ange (another SA title that was loooooong overdue) and Steamy Stocking Stuffers (woo-hoo! so many anthology stories that no one had access to after the anthologies went away, until now!)

I mean... that's a packed year. A little too packed at the end, like I said, but that's just about how much energy I have to put into releases. I still love all the books. I also know I won't be able to do the double releases that I've done for the past two months. It's too much! But I'm so happy they're finally out in the world, especially because I'd started to think His Pretty Kitty was going to end up being another book that I'd promised for 2020 and had to be pushed back till 2021... but made it in just under the wire! 

I hope everyone is having a good holiday and staying safe and well. Let's go into 2021 and hope that it will make up for 2020!

**As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases where I used Amazon links**

Books About Authoring

 I have been going on an absolute binge of books about authoring (and a few about writing) lately, and I decided to keep track of all of them in one place (here) with my thoughts on how useful they are / who might find them useful. Because there are a LOT of books out there being recommended and so far I've been lucky in that I think all the ones I've read have been useful in one way or another, though I still have a fair few to work my way through. 

Just FYI, I am using my Amazon affiliate links for these, but I'm also being absolutely honest in how helpful I think they will be and who they'll be helpful to. 

In addition to the books, I'm also going to recommend David Gaughran's free web course: Starting From Zero. It's aimed at people completely or almost completely new to self-publishing, but as someone who has been self publishing for years and slowly learning through experience, I wish I'd had this years ago and even now I'm finding it extremely helpful for shoring up weak spots in my knowledge / experience and giving me the tools to fix mistakes I knew I was making but didn't know how to fix. 

******

Dear Writer, You Need to Quit by Becca Syme

Dear Writer, You're Doing It Wrong by Becca Syme

Dear Writer, Are You In Burnout by Becca Syme

I am putting these three books right at the tippy-top of this list because man oh man... yeah. Especially 'You're Doing It Wrong' spoke to me on so many levels and I think that before we get into all the marketing, all the writing, all the STUFF (which can become so overwhelming) it's important to cast a critical eye on all the advice. 

Not everything is going to work for everyone and by reading Becca's books first, I think a lot of us can get a good handle on reading further and deciding what will and won't work for us. These books are great for self reflection and looking at what strategies and techniques will work for different personality types. 

They are not quick-fix books. They are not "this will solve all your problems" books. Nope, these are books that are thoroughly grounded in the reality of authoring and how difficult it can be and how we can sometimes make things more difficult on ourselves by trying to do all the things / trying to do all the things the way someone else told us to do them. 

Especially before going down the rabbit hole of all the things we CAN do, I think it's important to think about setting expectations and knowing ourselves. Because not all of the advice in the books listed below will work for everyone. Reading Becca's books was a relief because I do know a lot of the things I'm good at and I really feel able to give myself permission to try things now but NOT freak out if they don't work for me or if I suck at them. 

These books are HIGHEST recommended for anyone who has been publishing and feels fed up, overwhelmed, frustrated, or at a loss about their current position as an author. I also highly recommend them for anyone who is already looking into all the things they think they need to do as an author.

******

Following: A Marketing Guide to Author Platform - This one I don't have a straight 'buy' link for because it's actually a free book you get when you sign up for David Gaughran's newsletter, so I've linked instead to his website which is where I signed up for his newsletter. 

This book did a great job of breaking down the pieces of an Author Platform for me. While I already knew most of them (the various social media outlets, having a website, getting a newsletter up and running), I felt like he did a really good job talking through which ones are most helpful to authors and why. He absolutely convinced me that I needed to do a better job with my website and focus the right kind of attention on my newsletter. 

I recommend this book for anyone because it's free, and even if you feel like you have a good handle on your platform, he may have some new ideas for you (and, again, free... also it's not a super long book so the investment is minimal). I do think it will be particularly useful for newer authors who haven't started building their platform yet, authors who have been published for a while but have paid only minimal attention to their platform, or authors who feel overwhelmed by social media and trying to keep up with it all. 

******

Let's Get Digital: How to Self Publish and Why You Should - Another David Gaughran book (you're going to see his whole set here because I have become a superfan of HIS.) and this one is pretty obvious in who it's for - anyone who is thinking about self-publishing. Heck, anyone who is thinking about publishing in general even if they need a little convincing to go the self-publishing route. He lays out all the (very good, imo) reasons to do this yourself and what you'll need. In a lot of ways, I feel like this is a kind of companion-book to Following. 

As someone who has been self publishing for a while, I still found a lot of the information useful even if some of it was just helping me streamline my thoughts about things I already knew. Also, it's free, although longer than Following, so the investment is still pretty small. 

******

Strangers to Superfans: A Marketing Guide to the Reader Journey - Also by David Gaughran. 

Oh man, this one was so much more than the title made me think it was. While it was about the Reader Journey - which I think I probably need to re-read some of the sections for it to make total sense to me - there were so many nuggets of good advice in here that were so much more. One of the biggest takeaways for me was making sure to focus on the readers you already have and not just the new ones you're trying to get. Even though that's something I feel like I've always done instinctively (in large part because I'm one of those people that truly enjoys reader interaction and I'm so grateful to have readers that I'm constantly wanting to give them things), it was nice to see him really break down why that's a good thing and ways in which to do it. Some of which were new to me. 

Recommended for authors who have a few books out, their platform in place, and are looking to take the next step. 

******

Newsletter Ninja by Tammi L. Labrecque - I'm not going to lie... this book was recommended to me years before I actually read it. I knew it was going to require me to do work and I didn't wanna. Now I wish I had because I know how much time I wasted and how much better I could be doing right now with my newsletter. This book is recommended for anyone who is just starting their newslettter, for anyone who has a newsletter and is now wondering what they do with it, for anyone who wants to do better with their newsletter, and for anyone who thinks a newsletter isn't a big deal (although, if you still think that after reading the first three books I recommended then I shall sit here and despair). This book is solid gold and I feel dumb af for not getting to it sooner.

******

Amazon Decoded: A Marketing Guide to the Kindle Store - Another David Gaughran - but wait, Angel! You skipped a book! What about Bookbub Ads? 

Yeah, we're getting to that (eventually, it's not next on my list), but in my opinion these books are in the wrong order lol. I read the Bookbub Ads book first out of all of his books and while I got a lot out of it even then, in my opinion it should be read last even though technically this book is the last in the series. Why? Because your Bookbub ads will do much better if you understand Amazon's inner workings. 

I got so much more out of this book than expected. A fantastic bird's eye view of Amazon and what makes it tick as well as great breakdowns on what things KU and wide authors need to do differently in regards to Amazon (and with one pen name in KU and one that's wide, that has been something I've struggled with for a long time). 

There's marketing but there's also a lot of understanding, in how can I make certain marketing tools work for me? 

I'm placing it after his other books though because, while a totally new-to-the-scene author might get a lot out of it, in a lot of ways I think those of us who have a few books out and have a little bit of experience with Amazon will get even more. 

******

Romancing the Beat: Story Structure for Romance Novels by Gwen Hayes - This one is pretty romance specific, but it's great for any romance author trying to figure out exactly how to structure their book or who worries about their plot / pacing. It's a fast, easy read and a great breakdown of the 'formula' that romance readers expect (aka, demand lol)

******

How to Write a Sizzling Synopsis: A Step-by-Step System for Enticing New Readers, Selling More Fiction, and Making Your Books Sound Good by Bryan Cohen

I really enjoyed this book. I struggle with blurbs and I know I'm not alone. Having the tools laid out for what is basically copy writing was so very helpful. 

This book is packed with good advice, I am currently in the middle of re-working my blurbs for the umpteenth time, but now I really feel like I have a good handle on exactly what should and should not be in my blurbs and how they should be laid out. I've always had a vague idea before, that slowly became more clear over the years and from other advice, but this book lays it out in a formula manner and gives great examples throughout. There are a few things I think I'll ignore (like putting a call-to-action at the end of the blurb... if Amazon thought that would work, they would have done it already lol) but most of it really helped me improve my blurbs.

Recommended for anyone struggling with blurbs. 

******

2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love by Rachel Aaron - To me, this book was not what I expected. While the very beginning got into how she got from writing 2k to 10k a day (and it involves having a lot of time to spend writing every day) and I do think her techniques will work to help a lot of people write faster, at least half the book is dedicated to how to write a book (and I do NOT think her techniques will work for everyone). There are nuggets of good advice in here, but they seem more geared towards people who are writing fantasy / sci-fi / something with a big overarching storyline like she writes. And there's nothing wrong with that! 

But for people who are writing a story where everything wraps up by the final chapter (like a lot of romances) I think that a lot of her advice on how to write a series is actually better serviced in the next two books I'm recommending - Romance Your Brand and Romance Your Plan (see below). Though a lot of her advice would work great for Urban Fantasy Romances, etc.

There is absolutely good advice here, though I imagine a lot of my pantser friends would get very little out of it. I fall somewhere in between a plotter and a pantser, so while I don't think I'll be plotting out whole series the way she recommends, or even a whole book at a time, I do think I got some good tips on plotting out some short sections before getting to work on them. 

This is not one of the books that I feel compelled to say "Go! Go buy it now!" BUT if you're searching for ways to plot better and write faster using plotting, I think it could be a valuable read.

*****

Romance Your Brand: Building a Marketable Genre Fiction Series - It's not David Gaughran! Nope, it's Zoe York, who is a fabulous romance author and whose advice in this book already has me considering all sorts of things I haven't before. A lot of her advice builds off of a lot of things I read about in Gaughran's books though, but more targeted to authors like me who write series. 

It's especially great for authors like me who have some experience in writing series and so have worked out a few of the kinks on our own but maybe don't quite know what to do with them. I think there's also a lot of terrific advice for authors who are just embarking on their first series, but experience is often an even better teacher than someone else, and so I think there are some lessons that are impossible to avoid. And then people will look back at her advice and go "ooooh... that's what she was talking about." 

Whereas I read this book and went "omg, YES, I know exactly how that is!" and then she told me what to do next and how to fix it. She also did that in my next recommendation - 

******

Romance Your Plan: Taking Genre Fiction Marketing to the Next Level - Omg these two books... and I absolutely recommend reading them the way I did, back to back. They go together like peanut butter and jelly except that they leave me feeling far more empowered than a sandwich ever has. 

Now these books are definitely not for everyone. If you are someone who refuses to write series, give these a pass, they probably won't be too helpful to you. But if you're someone who wants to write a series or who loves writing series or (like me) who somehow keeps writing series even though you mean to write a standalone here and there, these two books are really fantastic purchases. 

I read them at such a good time for me. I have a couple series under my belt and I learned some lessons on my own, but I had some trouble articulating them and so I had some trouble figuring out exactly how I was going to fix them in the future. After reading these books I felt like Zoe had not only pinpointed the problems I had been struggling to articulate, but had given me the tools I needed to keep moving onward and upward. 

In addition to that, she gave me tools to utilize for planning out a writing / release schedule that actually makes me feel (semi) relaxed when I looked at it rather than slightly frantic and wondering if I'm going to burn out like a candle at the end of its wick. 

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The Naked Truth About Self-Publishing - This one is a collection of essays from a lot of really amazing authors known as "The Indie Voice." I'll be honest, I'm not sure I would have picked it up if it hadn't been free because when I read the sample I immediately thought this was a book that was only for authors who had moved from traditional publishing to self-publishing (or were considering doing so) and that definitely wasn't me. 

Still, I'm glad I stuck with it because, while a good bit of it does seem geared toward helping out traditionally published authors who have had to move to self-publishing or are thinking about it, there's also a lot of good advice in it period, for any author. 

It IS a little bit of an older book, so there are some things in here that I consider a little out of date (mostly about marketing) but there's SO MUCH MORE. In fact, I already know I'm going to need to re-read some of the essays, especially those dealing with the business side of things because this book is PACKED with information. There's also a lot of good information in there for people who are considering going the opposite route - from indie to traditional publisher. 

These are voices of experience recounting their experiences and it would be a mistake to pass it by just because the first essay seems aimed toward a specific subset of authors. 

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Author Unleased: Advanced Marketing and Publishing Strategies for Indie Authors - This one is at the end because he's not kidding about it being a little more advanced. On the other hand, are there things newbie authors could learn from it? Absolutely. But a lot of it will probably make more sense if you've been through some of it already and are coming from a place of knowledge. 

Fantastic breakdown how to really get your mindset focused on advice that will help you, about figuring out whose advice to trust, and always questioning why you should do or not do a certain thing. In a lot of ways I felt like this was a great companion novel to Becca Symes' books (Question the Premise!). It's available on Kindle Unlimited, which makes it an easy read for anyone with KU, and while I don't agree with every single thing he says in it, I do think there's some really fantastic advice and I ended up buying the book after reading it so I'll have it on hand for future re-reads.

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Bookbub Ads Expert: A Marketing Guide to Author Discovery - Finally back to David Gaughran! Why is this at the end? Because you really need to get everything else in place first. Ads are for when you have time and money to play around with, and Bookbub ads are especially like that. 

His method requires some money for running a bunch of tests at the beginning and it adds up fast. And you can't skimp on the testing. Or, well, you can but you shouldn't. I was shocked to find out how much of his advice lined up exactly with my tests - including the part about comp authors who worked for other platforms not working at all for my Bookbub ads, authors who should have been perfect getting horrific CTR, and authors whom I'd almost didn't even test ending up being some of my best ones (I could weep thinking about all the money I wasted on Bookbub before reading this book). It is such an odd platform and the testing is a MUST for making it worth while, but it also means spending money to get those test results. 

But I am also feeling more secure than ever with Bookbub, I'm getting the best CTR I've ever gotten with it, and during a month when I ran no Facebook ads at all, I also saw no impact to my sales. 

I also definitely recommend watching his YouTube video on how to design a Bookbub ad (for free!). His suggestions for what to do with the ad design has consistently been the top ad every time I've run a test. 

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I'm not done yet but those are the books I've actually finished. Here are the books I still have to read and I will be adding them to the above list in my recommended reading order as I finish them (they will not necessarily be read in the order I have listed below, in fact they probably won't be, I read depending on my mood) - 

Romance Tropes and Hooks by Karen Winter

Dungeons and Doms Cover Reveal!

This is a first for me - I've never been able to come right out the gate with a full series of covers before =) 

 When I was done writing Logan, I remember looking over the manuscript and shaking my head because I'd meant for it to be a standalone but Gavin was such an interesting character that I had a feeling he'd need his own book. So I wasn't surprised when the first question I was asked - over and over - after Logan released was - 'Is Gavin getting his own book?' 

By pure serendipity, before Logan released I had been checking out the incredible silver fox Kevin R. Davis' pictures and he shared a photo with me (taken by the equally incredible Golden Czermack) that looked so exactly how I pictured Gavin in my head that I knew I had to not only write the book, but I needed him, specifically, on the cover of it. I bought the picture immediately and so when readers finished Logan and came asking about Gavin, I had my answer ready - YES.

In fact, by the time Logan released, I had more than just one book in my head, I had three. See, Gavin is a Dungeon Master in two senses of the word - he owns his own BDSM club, the Outlands, AND he's a Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master. 

(Photo and Cover Art by the amazing Furious Fotog)

I am an all around nerd, rather than a specialist. I have a little knowledge about a lot of nerdy things, though I don't delve too deeply into most of them (Though I still can't find anyone willing to play Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit with me... is it my fault that once I get my turn it's all over for everyone else? I didn't make the rules!). 

I am not a D&D expert, or even an advanced player, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity for all the crossover puns and jokes when I was writing Logan, and I apparently can't do it now that I'm writing a series for the books either. I also can't resist the chance to play more D&D and call it 'research'!

Covers by Furious Fotog

Dungeon Master Photographer Furious Fotog, Model Kevin R. Davis

Dungeon Daddy Photographer Reggie Deaching, Model John Parrish

Dungeon Showdown Photographer Reggie Deaching, Model Tiara Daja'e

I am super excited for this series. It is going to be three books long because it's focusing on three couples, all of whom make up Gavin's D&D group (including him). Although, who knows - we all know I can't resist a good spin-off series, but at the moment this is all I have planned. 

Dungeon Master is already up for preorder - if you want to follow along with Dungeon Daddy and Dungeon Showdown's progress they are both already up on Goodreads =) 

And in the mean time have a Happy Thanksgiving or a wonderful rest of November, depending on where you are!

Freebie! - Forbidden Fantasy House is Free This Week!

 

In anticipation of Serving Her Sentence releasing next week, the Forbidden Fantasy House is free this week! They both have themes of consenting non-consent so I figured it was appropriate =) It's been so long since I released a solo Sinistre Ange book that I wanted to help remind people what they can expect. 

Forbidden Fantasy House is FREE today through Friday! - mybook.to/FantasyHouse

Embarrassed by her fantasies, Elena can't admit what she needs to her boyfriend Lance. No matter how many ways he lights up her body with pleasure and pain, she just can't bring herself to share that much with him, and eventually their relationship crumbles under the strain.

In the aftermath of their breakup, Elena gathers the courage to visit the Forbidden Fantasy House where confessing her desires to a complete stranger is far easier than she imagines. And the House is more than happy to provide. But when Lance spots Elena in the one place he never expected to see her, he can't resist finding out exactly what it was his ex-girlfriend didn't trust him to give her.

As Lance investigates Elena's innermost secret, things at the House spin wildly out of control. And Elena, who is desperate to be taken hard and fast by a man who won't give in to her pleas to stop, has only one more choice to make before she no longer has any choices at all.

Teaser: Serving Her Sentence

 It's been a while but I finally have a new Sinistre Ange book coming out! 

Scorching hot and chillingly dark. 
Serving Her Sentence arrives November 17th!  

US: https://amzn.to/35yazC2
UK: https://amzn.to/2J6pH2l
CA: https://amzn.to/31Fb64b
AU: https://amzn.to/2J6pPPn

Charged, convicted, Noelle chooses to be sold into servitude to reduce her prison sentence - she must spend one year with a Master she is not permitted to deny. With only the most basic laws to protect her, she will submit to his depraved demands and, in the process, dive deep into her own desires. And though Damien is cold and cruel, he satisfies her in ways she never knew she needed.

If she can make it to the end of her sentence, will she ever want to leave?

Follow Sinistre Ange Online!

Amazon → https://amzn.to/2VCus8V

BookBub → http://bit.ly/2GEo3lc

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Website → https://www.goldenangelromance.com/sinistreange