I need to start BLOGGING again -

Hello there, strangers! How the HECK are you? It’s been about twenty years since I last wrote my last blog post. Not exactly, but close enough. In the middle of living through a worldwide pandemic, my creativity was ZAPPED. But it appears to be back, and judging by my inbox with pitches for campaigns and my WIP folder on my computer, I’m climbing back in the SADDLE. Not literally. City girl here.

By the way, I’m writing this post ultra quick and so there may end being a typo or thirty, but this is just me. You are getting the very RAW version of me, on the precipice of releasing my first book (besides the World of True North) in FOURTEEN months. I need a shower and a cocktail. I’m on my THIRD pot of coffee and if you watch my IG stories, you know how loud my “office” has been today.

Anyway, I will save you all the other complaints and gripes, and say I’m nervous and scared and panicked and excited. I love this story because it’s risky and a WHOLE MESS. Don’t worry it finishes up A-ok with a tightly wrapped happy ending. Margo and Mick are the real deal when it comes to second chance love stories…so I’d love for you to meet them.

OH, before I forget, I’m also now an empty nester, and wait until you see some of the RECS I have coming your way thanks to this…don’t worry, if you have kiddos at home, they’re going to be FAB for you too!

Until then, I wish you could hug me and I could hug you back, but alas - here is a VIRTUAL FIST BUMP. I will be hanging around the internet tomorrow and most of the week anywhere we are linked up, so join me.

Faded Sunset is out tomorrow, and I’m ready (I think)!

xoxo, Rachel

p.s. if you feel so inclined, drop a comment if there’s a product you’re hoping to find, or if you’re reading Faded Sunset! 👇🏻 ALSO, reviews MATTER!

Sometimes, you gotta get stuff off your chest #authorlife

You know when you have a bad case of heartburn and you lay down in bed, and it burns the hell out of your chest? You wonder if you’re having a heart attack, remembering if you had any tingling in your arms or not. You turn on your right side, then your left. You eat a graham cracker, which provides only momentary relief. You chew some tums, take an antacid, or swallow something stronger. These too only provide short-term relief because at the end of the day, you need to find out what the heck is causing the heartburn…

That’s what this blog post is like for me. It’s been sitting there, festering, eating away at me slowly. Despite several momentary lapses in my thinking, the idea still sits there, hammering away in my brain.

If I don’t put these thoughts out there, I will continue to be agitated to the core…so, here you go.

…Sometime in 2013, I wrote a piece on E.L. James and the Fifty Shades Trilogy (I would link to it, but I’ve taken my blog down since then). Anyway, I began to cover the book series from a mom-in-business perspective. Disclaimer: I and devoured all three books, and I would do it again. That being stated, I looked at James and her series from the perspective of creating a name/brand for oneself. Hot damn, Erica did that—whether you liked the subject matter or not doesn’t matter. Who the hell doesn’t know who E.L. James is?

Around the time I published this blog post, I was contacted by a producer for the Katie Couric show. We chatted about my theory. We talked some more on the idea of the trilogy spicing up bedrooms. I was invited on the show (I had to politely decline for an unrelated reason). Somewhere in there, I mentioned I always wanted to write a book and had been sketching out an idea for some time. Needless to say, this producer encouraged me to do just that. She loved my blog, had been following for some time, and liked my voice.

Flash forward to early 2014, book in hand, editing underway, and other decisions to be made. The notion of self-publishing appealed to me; I was a business woman too and wanted to control marketing and what-not. The biggest question was whether to use a pen name or not. At the time, I already ran a successful blog of my own, was syndicated on several other outlets, and had a pretty significant audience. If I had a quarter for every time I heard, “You should use a pen name and then you can self-promote without people knowing it’s you,” I could retire.

I AM NOT JOKING.

The notion of this felt like such a slap in the face. Did I have what it took to be that disingenuous? I consulted with several big-time blogging, writer colleagues, and decided honesty was the only path I could take.

Not long after that, I hit publish using my real name. It’s been a pretty vast journey since. Initially, there was a lot of money and success to be had…I found readers, hosted blog tours, started a newsletter, continued blogging and writing, and on & on. 

Tough times fell on the Romance category. We don’t know the specific reason, more than likely many factors contributed. A flooded market, Kindle Unlimited, sales, freebies, voracious readers, signings gone bad, the closing of brick-and-mortar stores. You name it, and I’ll list it. Mostly, there were a lot of newcomers to the category (and I was still relatively new myself). The stupid fucking algorithm changed and changed again—keep in mind, we never fully understood it to begin with. There were theories and rumors, but never anything proven. We needed 30 reviews, then we needed 50, now I think we 1 bazillion in 24 hours. What we needed was to be noticed. There were sales and a whole slew of websites who promoted your sales for a fee. There were freebies, and blitzes, and READING GROUPS became a thing.

None of these tactics were wrong. In fact, used together or separately on any given day (while running ads), you may see some traction.

The thing was, we only wanted to be seen, discovered, and read. It became harder and harder. The tapestry of our individual lives varies differently, and authors have extremely different output levels. 

And there came the mills: the faceless authors who published continually, recycling themes and ideas, padding books, sometimes found to be copying content, yet were burning up the charts, dominating KU and sales, pushing hard-working authors to the far ends of the algorithm. These authors love chocolate and red wine like you and me. They have a dog or cat and live in the foothills of some gorgeous rural setting. You see where I’m going with this?

Some of this is speculation, some is founded. Plagiarism continues to be discovered. 

And all this has both me and many others saying: WE need to reinvent ourselves, create a persona, who can compete in this made-up market.

I don’t want to do that, which is why I mentioned my backstory. 

I want to be me.

I want to own my words and ideas and love my readers.

Isn’t that what every writer wants? 

Competing against a “machine” is a bigger blow than a bad review or two. 

I’m not certain of the solution. When I have an idea, I will let you know. 

What I am CERTAIN of is this:

I write my own words.

I spend time staring at each and every one on my laptop screen while often drinking cold coffee.

I’m not fast. I’m not slow. I’m just me, and that’s all I can expect of myself.

If you’re curious what I’ve been writing…it’s something new. A little different for me. More Women’s Fiction, with romantic elements, and a lot of complicated relationships amongst friends and couples. I LOVE it, and I hope to have it in your hands sometime soon.

Xoxo, 

R

...and it's AUGUST! Humidity, NEW covers & releases, and Q&A.

WOWZER! It's August already! I feel like it was Memorial Day Weekend yesterday. My summer has been filled with few adventures and a lot of laundry, mostly thanks to my kids who keep me on my feet. THIS IS NOT where I was! :)

Somewhere in there, I finished a new book! Hot For His Girl will release this fall on October 1st! I'm pretty excited for this one. It's LOW angst for me, light, and fun. I can't wait for you to meet Reid and Andi! MARK it TBR here!

I also recovered HEART STRONGER! I'm super pumped over its new look. HAVE you seen it?

Anyways, I've been getting quite a few questions so I thought I'd list them all here.

Will Mary from Heart Stronger get a book?

I think so. I always hoped you, the readers, would fall for Mary, and it seems like you have. SO, the short answer is YES! Mary will have a second chance at love and happiness. When? ---> 2019.

What are you working on now?

TWO books, both high angst, second chance at love and life, and heavy one friendships stories! 

Why did you decide to write something sort-of funny?

I needed the relief myself. After writing TEN high-octane books, my own brain craved some fun. 

Do you have one beagle or two?

I have TWO beagles. Cadillac is 12 and Cruise is 9! I know I share a lot of pictures of them, but they're my office buddies! <3

HAVE a question? LEAVE a comment or join my readers group HERE! AND have an awesome rest of your summer -- SHARE pics with me! xoxo, Rachel

TIME to Make the Donuts: numbers don't lie & writing/blogging/marketing tips #authorlife #amwriting

*note: I admit that title is a bit much, but I had a lot to say.

Look, I was never one of those “girls” who needed tampons and corralled a whole group of other girls to head to WalMart.

Don’t believe me?—ask my college roommates.

Throughout undergrad, grad school and my first job, I did my work, worked my jobs, and crossed shit off my list. I was a doer.

Flash forward many years, when I found myself with a budding business of my own, and I picked up, flew across the country and attended a business conference myself. To me, it was no biggie.

Throughout my first tenure of being my own boss, the most important lesson I learned was business is business, and friendship is friendship, and while the two can coexist…in business, business comes first.

Tory Johnson, used to speak of a Business BFF. The difference between my at-home BFF and my business BFF immediately sunk in for me.

Women—and this is not an indictment—in our very tangled web of relationships, being nurturers, and often, pleasers, confuse the two. Friends are friends and business is business. When you wrong a friend, you say you're sorry and hug, maybe take some space, and hopefully move on.

WHEN you commit a wrong in business, sorry isn’t always enough. Sorry doesn’t take away business accountability. It eases your conscious, but not others. It’s why women are often told to not apologize in business. It discredits our own accomplishments and makes us look weak.

Anyway, I digress. Where am I actually going with this?

In my current world, the book world—not to mention other female-dominated worlds I've worked in—I find the lines often a bit blurred. 

I’ve been saying for some time, numbers don’t lie and our wee-little book world needs to show our numbers. Not only sales numbers, but hey—we rely on bloggers for promo, etc. What do their numbers mean? What is their level of engagement? How many pageviews do they have? Unique visitors?

NOW, I say this knowing full-well, it could bring on the hate. But I speak from a vantage point of knowing both sides. I was a lifestyle blogger, and before signing clients the likes of five-star hotel chains and mobile carriers, I had to show numbers. Reach, engagement, views, comments, followers, on and on.

I wonder if all bloggers/influencers could furnish it?

It’s not meant to make anyone feel small: in fact, sometimes smaller numbers are better. TAKE a closer look...

For example, check out this nifty Instagram engagement calculator:

Number of likes + comments / overall followers x 100

So take this small potatoes account:

87 likes + 25 comments = 112 / 529 overall followers = .211 x 100 = 21.2% engagement

That’s freaking phenomenal!

Then let’s look at an example of a big dawg.

320 likes + 14 comments = 334 / 29,000 = .0115 = 1.15% engagement

If you do the math, sometimes those with smaller followings have larger engagement.

Moral: numbers don’t lie.

Last week, I ran an ad. A new ad, somewhere I hadn't run before. I spent $100 on the ad, and was quoted it reached 4000 people. I had 32 sales on a 99 cents book (roughly 40 cents profit). Do I like those results? Not particularly. If I went on the 10% rule, I should have had 400 click thrus/responses to 4000 people. Now, I know even 10% is hard to achieve, but with a percentage so low, I can’t even write it…the numbers don’t lie. Either the ad didn’t reach 4000 people or those 4000 people were not engaged.

Hey, I’m not complaining. It’s business and marketing/advertising is the biggest gamble of them all…you win some and lose some.

I guess my point is, not everyone is an “influencer” or major engager. Business is not a sorority and quantitative data matters.

Word of mouth can be a business person’s best friend, especially because it doesn’t cost you anything, but making promises on quantitative results require

~R

*this is a crossover post between my business head and creative mind. If you're an indie author, you're a business person, hands down. You need to wear multiple hats including your biz one. Hey, even if your a hybrid or traditional author, your words are your business.