What’s in a Pen Name? I recently have had the opportunity to submit to a dark romance anthology. For those that don’t know dark romance could be defined as a subgenre of romance that explores the messy, complicated, and sometimes twisted side of love and relationships. Dark romance is not my usual genre. A lot […]
A Trailer & More Recently, I’ve been working on some marketing items including a book trailer for Elevator Ride from my Valkyrie Brothers series. Creating a book trailer is a challenge! It’s like condensing the soul of an entire book into just a minute or less of video magic. The first hurdle? Finding the perfect […]
Is it good to giveaway a book? Well, as a recipient of the occasional free book, I will confirm that yes, I think it’s great when authors giveaway books. However, many authors feel extremely leery of giving away free books. There have been many instances of winners selling books or copying content, so that fear […]
Awards Season is Here! No, it’s not time for the Oscar’s or anything normal people care about. I’m talking about the extremely niche category of mystery short story awards. The Short Fiction Mystery Society, a volunteer-lead group of short fiction writers annually hosts the Derringer Awards. Any member is welcome to submit a short story […]
New Year, New Plan There’s a lot of “New year, new plan!” going around in January. And to be fair I’ve been working on the plan since last year, but this month it’s time to get some of the details worked out. I know a lot of writers like to wing their social media calendar […]
2025 is coming for me! And I am not ready. I’m not ready for Christmas, I barely made it through Thanksgiving and New Year’s is barreling down on me like a freight train. In 2025, I’m trying something new as an author—a release schedule that doesn’t sync up with my work conference season, and a […]
Luckless Love Releases November 18! Next week will see the release of Luckless Love, a contemporary “enemies to lovers” romance with a hint of “mistaken identity” set in Eastern Washington with a “happily ever after” ending. This standalone novel was fun to write, but more fun to research. The story revolves around a winery and […]
A Co-Writer Spills the Beans In my upcoming release, Luckless Love, my heroine is returning from a year long road trip and searching for someplace to belong. Wanting to belong to a community is a universal theme that I think appeals to readers, but when I started to write the book, I didn’t immediately leap […]
Is it Creativity or Goddess? As someone who works in a creative field professionally, I’m endlessly interested in how creativity functions. Where does anyone get their inspiration? Heck, where do I get my inspiration? The Greek idea of a muse—a goddess who comes by to inspire an artist—makes sense to me because sometimes ideas do […]
Can an Author Really Do Marketing Too? For traditionally published authors the marketing happens without much input. Whatever ads are placed are done by the publisher who can adjust the price point at their discretion. This can be frustrating or blissful for an author depending on their viewpoint. I swing between the two. I love […]