I finished Book 2, Force Majeure!!! I’m so excited to be finished. There’s truly no greater author moment than when you get to type THE END knowing you have poured your heart and soul into your work. I spent the next few days reading the first draft, I planned to edit and cut out a lot of this book. It finished at a whopping 151,591 words. Force of Corruption was just under 75k for perspective. I cut some, but not much at all and I apparently added more because after that first read it’s now over 153k words. My editor hasn’t seen it yet, and frankly she’s really busy with her new full-time job. I don’t know if she’s going to be available to edit this one. I hope so, but if not, I’ll have a new adventure finding a new editor.
I've decided who will be the focus of book 3, it will be called Force of Attraction. I have the basic story outline figured out; I will begin work on it as soon as possible. First, I’m going to complete my half-written horror standalone novel, VioleNt. You’ll see why it’s written that way when you read it! I also introduced two new characters in FM who are in a motorcycle club. I’m going to make their stories into a biker series called Southern Suns MC. The first book will be called Ax and it will be his story. Last but not least, I’m writing a new short story horror, tentatively called Dread Go Round. It’s a standalone short story and it’s sort of a steampunk, victorian, urban horror story. It’s set in modern times but in a weird little town that’s sort of lost in time.
I’m looking forward to working on these ideas and I’d love to get them all completed and released this year, 2024. But I’m not putting any deadlines on myself right now. It was really stressful having so many deadlines hanging over my head (mostly self-imposed) with FOC and it took away from the experience for me. I’m trying the no deadline thing for now but if I don’t accomplish anything without the deadlines, I'll have to set a few to light a fire under my feet.
I think I mentioned previously that I tried an experiment with hiring a paid reviewer. I was promised that this reviewer would purchase my book in paperback and ebook formats. Then they would post reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, Instagram, and TikTok. I would pay them $22. Then reimburse them for the cost of my book. They were supposed to purchase my book at release on November 28th or thereabouts and post their reviews within a few weeks. I paid the $22 up front and they would let me know when they purchased the books and the total for me to reimburse when the reviews were posted. I expected this to take place before Christmas, based on our agreed upon timeline.
When Christmas rolled around and I still had heard nothing about reimbursing them and no reviews had been posted, I sent a very friendly happy holidays message and inquired about the progress of the reviews. I got a message back about a week later saying it would be posted later that day. That’s all, literally, “it will be posted by end of day.” Again, nothing was posted. I waited and then sent a Happy New Year message, asking about the reviews because I couldn’t find them and would they please send me a link or tag me. Again, a week went by and I finally got a message that said, “sorry, family illness, will be posted in a few hours”. I waited several days with nothing being posted. At the end of my kindness rope, I was debating my next move.
This is a person with over 70k followers. That’s a lot of influence, if they chose to trash me, they could do some significant damage. I finally decided that it will just be another lesson in my author journey. I’m out $22 and I won’t hire another reviewer, end of story. The next day the review was finally posted on Instagram. Only instagram. It got something like 1600 likes from their followers. I read the review and it was just my blurb reworded, badly. They said there is a murder that doesn’t exist in my story. They didn’t mention that secret thing everyone mentions if they actually read the book. Even my one-star reviewer mentioned the thing. **
To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. Obviously, I won’t pay for another review. Experiment= FAIL! If you are becoming an author, heed my advice and know that you will be inundated by “book reviewers and promoters,” DON’T DO IT! Definitely don’t trust the promoters that approach you, they are straight up scammers and they will hound you like crazy. They can barely write in English; how can they possibly successfully promote your book? The paid reviewers are much more subtle and convincing. They have huge followings and it sounds like such a bargain. $22 to get exposure to a huge reading community of 70k+? It’s hard to pass it up. Trust me, it’s still a scam. That’s why so many reader and author groups prohibit paid reviewers. It’s unethical. I naively thought it was ethical if they still post their honest opinion in the review. That was not my experience and you don’t want to make my mistakes, remember?
Finally, a few random items that need to be touched upon. I mentioned in a past blog that I was having a secret contest for (it began with ARC readers) anyone who found the typo in Force of Corruption that I found. So far, no one has mentioned that particular typo. That prize remains up for grabs. If you want to read it and tell me about any errors you find, you could be the winner! All you have to do is report all typos and their page number, if you mention that particular typo, you win. A couple of my ARC readers have requested to be Beta readers for me. Beta readers are readers who read a fairly rough draft before editing. They tell you what works for them as a reader and if they like the characters and story. You, as the author, can choose to make changes based on their feedback. I’ve never had a Beta reader before so this will be a new experience. I will keep you posted on my results. I’m going to copyright what I have so far before I send it out to anyone. I highly recommend you do the same.
As always, thanks for reading!
** since I first wrote this blog, this reviewer has reached out again and sent me author interview questions. I returned my answers but have no idea where or when this interview may be posted. If it gets posted, I may have to change my opinion about this process. I’ll update you in a future blog!