Ruth Ann Nordin's Author Blog

It took me an extra day to get this on Google Play in audio form, so I am announcing this today. I will be working on getting this on Apple in audio form and getting it made into a paperback within the next few weeks.

Below are the links where you can find it:

Amazon (as an ebook)

Amazon (digitally narrated)

Audible (digitally narrated)

Barnes & Noble

Kobo (included in Plus)

Apple

Google Play (as an ebook)

Google Play (digitally narrated)

Smashwords

Everand

Today, I’m posting a graphic I made up to give you a taste of what character updates we’ll be seeing.

For reference on where these characters were in other books I’ve written, here they are:

Lord Toplyn (Logan) was featured in Ruined by the Earl (Marriage by Deceit Series: Book 3). We’ll get to see his wife, Melissa, in The Earl’s Bluestocking Bride, too.

Grant and Carol were featured in The Earl’s Jilted Bride (Marriage by Obligation Series: Book 3).

Reuben was originally introduced in If It Takes a Scandal (Marriage by Bargain Series: Book 4), but he was a child at the time. He was the hero in Worth the Risk (Marriage by Obligation: Book 4).

Oscar and Felix were both introduced in Midnight Wedding (Marriage by Obligation Series: Book 2). I have not written Oscar’s story yet. Felix was featured in Anyone But the Marquess (Marriage by Obligation Series: Book 5).

Malcolm was introduced in Ruined by the Earl, and he was featured in His Wicked Lady (Marriage by Arrangement Series: Book 1). I did continue the rivalry between Malcolm and Logan in His Wicked Lady if you want to read the drama. (This book should be free.)

This post is specifically geared to other writers since the topic is about storytelling. Earlier this year, I came across a YouTube video where the person mentioned how she realized she had a lot of books on her device that she never read. Instead of buying any more books, she decided she would start reading each book on it, and as soon as it bored her, she would remove the book then move on to the next one. She was surprised by how many books she lost interest in within the first couple of chapters. Her point in mentioning this was to tell other writers that it’s crucial to pay attention to how you setup your story. You don’t want to lose your reader early on by writing stuff that takes the story off the rails.

About two months ago, I decided I would do something similar, but my goal would be to read a book until I lost interest. Not only would I stop reading, but I would take note of where I lost interest and why. On the flip side, I also started noting what books hooked me in right away and kept me going through to the final page. More importantly, I ask myself “why”.

As you can expect, this started getting expensive since I wasn’t even getting past the first few chapters on most of the books I picked up, so I decided to become a Kindle Unlimited reader. I will pick up free books if I find them, so that is how I have discovered wide authors.

So if I find a wide author who is offering a book for free, I am inclined to get the book. I did break this rule and purchased a $0.99 book only because the vibe to it was something that I really like. (I would not have purchased this book at the $4.99 regular price because this is an author I’ve never heard of before. But the sale, along with the book description and genre piqued my interest. In short, I was a huge Goosebumps fan back in high school and even in college, and this book delivered on the same premise. Anyway, I enjoyed this book so much I subscribed to the newsletter and pre-ordered the next book in the series. So if anyone wonders if running a promotion works even at $0.99, the answer is yes. You also don’t have to be in Kindle Unlimited to attract a readership if you are able to find your niche. I will add that this book is not a big seller. In fact, it’ll be hard to find in a search. That is why the ad paid off. I found this book on BookDoggy promotion list. They email promotions once a day. I look through these every day and have found most of my reads this way. I like BookDoggy because it gives me a range of genres. As I mentioned in another post, I’m exhausted from reading romance, probably because I have read so many in the past and write this genre. I have picked up a couple of romances, though, because they do sound interesting enough to try. I’ve enjoyed a couple of them, too. And I do ask myself, “Why?”

The why is the key to everything when you are a storyteller. The goal of writing a book is not to appeal to everyone. That is impossible. You can, however, find your audience. The way to find that audience is to make the book something they want to read to the end of the book. If you can tap into why you lose interest in a book, then you can write to avoid those pitfalls in your own story. Likewise, if you can tap into why you kept reading, you can use those elements in your own story to make the story more engaging for your specific audience. Please note: I am not talking about stealing another author’s work. I am talking about the elements in storytelling that can apply to any story.

Let’s say, for example, your mind starts to wander when Chapter 1 in the book goes into a heavy backstory about the character’s life. Now you know not to do this in your own story. Perhaps you find your mind wandering if the characters in a scene are doing a lot of talking with very little action or internal thoughts. Now you know that you should be sure to balance action and internal thoughts in with the dialogue. Or maybe the story was going along really well, and all of the sudden, you are thrown into a chapter that makes no sense at all to the stuff that came up before it. You know that you don’t want to do that in your story, too. There are many reasons why we could lose interest in a book. Those reasons can help you fine-tune your own storytelling.

And discovering what it was about the books you did like can be just as helpful. If you love a lot of description and the slow build, then this strategy will serve you as the writer. If you would rather start with some action to get things rolling, then this will be a better way for you to go. Maybe you realize you don’t like a certain character type. Like I was trying to read some romances with the super hunky, rich, and powerful hero who pretty much tells the heroine what to do. I should know that would never appeal to me because I wouldn’t tolerate that kind of thing from my husband. I am just as capable of doing things as he is, and I want him to realize it. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh. I am not trying to be harsh in stating it that way. I almost deleted it. But then I realized that kind of statement illustrates the “why” in the kind of hero I should be writing. So let me flip this around to smooth things over a bit because I really don’t mean to step on anyone’s toes. Some people have found the beta hero (which is my preferred hero) to be a spineless simp who lets everyone walk all over him. I don’t see the beta hero that way, but I can see how some do. If you see the beta this way, this is your “why” on why you should write the alpha hero. You might see the alpha hero as a strongly attractive man who isn’t afraid to rise to the challenge.

Anyway, you can use other tropes to figure out what you like or don’t like. Do you enjoy an enemies-to-lovers setup? Do you gravitate toward a serial killer horror novel? Do you enjoy reading books where you explore new planets? What is it about all of these core elements in the stories you read that keeps you going? Is it the building of suspense? If the answer was given too quickly, why do you think that? If the answer was given at the perfect moment, why is that? Do you enjoy thinking on new ideas, like how would a political or religious system work on an alien planet? Did the author present something you found plausible? Why or why not?

There are many ways to dissect elements within the story and think on how the author did, or did not, pull it off. It all boils down to “why” something works or doesn’t work for us. In the end, you should be writing for people like you. I like to think that we are our first primary reader. If the book can engage us from start to finish, then we have successfully written a compelling story for the specific audience we wish to reach.

I can’t speak for all writers, but I’m at the point where I don’t want to read the kind of books I writing. I know that sounds terrible. Early on (from about 1996-2007), I actually wrote thrillers, science fiction, and fantasy. This was before 2009 when I discovered the ease of self-publishing. This is why you don’t see a lot of thrillers, science fiction, and fantasy under my name. While I was writing that genre, I was reading a lot of romance, specifically historical western romances. It was my favorite genre to read. I just hadn’t written one yet. I did go with a couple of vanity presses to publish those books, but that got pretty expensive, so I would only put out about one book a year.

In 2008, I discovered that I could publish paperbacks on CreateSpace (this is no longer around, but it was under Amazon). I still remember the writer forum where I learned about CreateSpace. One author told me that all I had to do was pay for the proof copy of the book. There was no other cost involved. That was a lot more affordable than spending $500-$1000 per book. This was at the time when I started writing romance. Since I could afford the $20 (proof copy plus shipping), my enthusiasm for writing went way up. Once ebooks became doable, that excitement shot up even more. I basically wrote whenever I had free time. (Back then, my four kids were 4, 5, 6, and 7. Yep, they were “stair-step” kids. I had to write in 10-15 minute sprints because I was constantly interrupted. This probably explains why I’ll stop writing around the 20-minute mark to get up and do a chore around the house these days. I have trouble sitting for longer than that to just write. Considering how often I hear about authors needing to get up and do something because it’s hard on the body to sit all the time, I’m glad that I learned to write under these circumstances.

Anyway, had the self-publishing boom exploded anywhere from 2000 to 2007, you would see a lot more thrillers, science fiction, and fantasy under my name. I had plenty of ideas for those books. I just didn’t have the motive to go crazy into writing it. So you can thank the timing of the emergence of the Kindle and Smashwords for all of the romance books I’ve done.

That all said, I always loved reading romance. I’ve been reading romance from YA to adult since I was in the sixth grade. I’ve read the range from “clean & wholesome” to “erotic”. I ended up landing in the middle of the spectrum as a writer. I do think there’s a benefit to reading a wide spectrum of whatever genre that interests you. That way, you know the different levels. After some experimentation, you’ll settle on the level that best fits you. Even if you vary that level from time to time, you’ll end up gravitating to a certain “range”. It’s a process to figure out your sweet spot.

I was a heavy romance reader until about 2012. At that point, I was starting to get bored of them. I wasn’t bored with writing them. I did have a conversation with another author recently, and we both agreed that we are now bored reading the genres we write in. We would rather read something else. That struck me as curious. You’d think if you love writing something, you’d want to keep reading it, right? But that hasn’t been the case for me. I find myself wanting to read other genres. I think it helps to keep the creativity humming if I’m not expanding my horizons with different things.

I want to support self-published authors (especially those not in the top charts). I don’t read any authors you’ll find in a brick and mortar bookstore. I prefer someone who needs a readership. I want my money going to them. So if there’s an author who is all over the place, I choose not to read their books. They already have readers. They don’t need me. I want to be where I’m needed. To find new authors, I do some searches, but I mostly rely on promotions in BookDoggy to find them. The search engines keep bringing up the same authors, and that doesn’t help me find new ones. With BookDoggy, I have no idea what author or even what genre will come in each day, and that has done wonders to finding new authors. So if an author is reading this and wondering if running a promotion is worth it, this is a strong case for it. I have not joined BookFunnel as a reader to see their promotions, but my guess is that it might be a good idea to do so at some point because you can tell BookFunnel to alert you to promos in a specific genre.

Currently, I am enjoying horror. I did read a science fiction short story the other day about the government using AI to wipe out memories and alter history to fit the government’s agenda. That was an intriguing idea, and I did enjoy the premise. I’ve read a couple of thrillers, and while they’re okay, they don’t offer enough “creep” factor for me. I don’t want to have to keep the lights on when I sleep, but I do like thinking, “Ooh, that would be creepy.” So I am leaning toward horror. Horror is pretty much thriller to the Nth degree. I am quickly learning the best way to creep someone out is to take something surprisingly normal but twist it a bit. For example, I just finished a story where a mom took over her teenage son’s game because the people in the game were coming into real life to follow him around. This is a super simple premise, but there was one moment where the son comes across this nun who is just staring at him in the middle of a store (and no one else sees her) that actually gave me the “that is really creepy” factor. There was no blood. There was no “jump scare”. All the nun did was try to bump into him (as if he were in the game). I mean, there was a backstory to all of this, but that backstory set the foundation for the “creep” factor in this scene, and the authors did it very well. This kind of horror is intriguing to me. That is what real horror is. And yet, people will say horror is “trash”. Horror, when done right, is far from “trash”. I’m learning that what horror really does is take an aspect of the human condition and delves into the dark side of it.

I guess I’m reading these other genres because, on a subconscious level, I know I have something to learn from them. I’ve been reading and writing romance for so long, I pretty much already get it. Sure, there are still things to pick up in romance, but I’ve been studying it enough. I need to explore other things.

The subject of death is morbid, but it’s something that needs to be dealt with. At the moment, I am fine. I’m in good health, and I have full control of my mental faculties. After hearing stories about authors dying and what a hard time people have of managing things afterwards, I feel it prudent to make a plan for my eventual demise.

As a self-published author, I am also the publisher. No one has the rights to handle my books but me. I love having full control over my books. If I had the option, I’d self-publish all over again. Even so, I’m aware that there’s a lot of things that goes into this business. It can be daunting for people who have never published a book before. I wasn’t surprised that most of my family didn’t want to do deal with this. Fortunately, my son Eric said he’ll take over for me when I die.

Right now, I am working on a packet giving him detailed instructions on what I do when my time comes. I expect this packet will take a few months to complete, and I’m sure there will be things I’ll need to update as time goes on. These things include (but are not limited to) a full list of my books, the retailers I publish them on (and how to change prices, covers, etc in case he needs to do any of those things), what I collect for the accountant at tax time (and how I do it), what to do in a case of copyright infringement (that will take the longest to explain), what I do to market my books (including this blog), my bank information, and where to find all of my accounts associated with my books and the passwords that go with them. I’m also going to create a letter to grant him full rights to my books.

I’ve been doing this stuff since 2009, and I have gotten so used to it that I no longer think of all the details anymore. I do remember that it took me a good couple of years to figure out. So I know there is a learning curve involved. The good news is that once I teach Eric what to do, it should be pretty smooth sailing for him. Since I’m doing this while I’m alive, he’ll have a foundation to bounce off when it comes time for him to take over the business. I am glad he accepted this role. If he hasn’t, I would have had to write out a letter telling my family how to contact the retailers so that all of my books would be unpublished. I don’t remember for sure, but I think Amazon has a policy where it will unpublish books automatically when they know an author dies. It makes sense. If there’s no one living to contact to manage the books, what retailer would want to keep the books up for sale?

I am going to create a post that I’ll put in draft on this blog. When I die, I will have Eric publish it. That way, you’ll know when the time has come.

For now, just know that I feel very blessed that God has allowed me two dreams I had when I was only 12. One was to be a wife and mother. The second was to be a bestselling author. I realize I’m not a bestselling author anymore, but back in 2011 and 2012, I was, and I’ll always be grateful for that. In the meantime, I get to continue writing books I enjoy and be a part of a family I love. It’s been a wonderful life. I have no regrets.