Ruth Ann Nordin's Author Blog

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.

This post is inspired by a YouTube video I listened to the other day. In this video, an editor was listing out the worst ways an author can end their books. I agreed with a lot of her advice. The one part I didn’t agree with was her advice on the “over the top happy ending”. This is the ending where you tie up all loose ends, put a nice bow on everything, and everyone rides off happy into the sunset. You know, a fairy tale. Her advice was NOT to do this. Her advice was to leave something out there that could possibly go wrong so that the character has more growth and development for the future. You know, wrap up the end so that it mirrors real life. In real life, nothing is ever 100% perfect.

In her defense, she does not edit romance books. After reading through some comments where people either argued in favor of her advice or against it, I came to the conclusion that some things should be decided by the readers. This is one of them. Over the years, a few readers have told me that they like having fairytale endings where everything is perfect. They want “over the top”. I have had no reader tell me they wish for more realism in the ending.

This brings me to the topic of today’s post.

The best place to go to for advice when you have a question about the story you’re writing is your reader base. You are not writing for the editor. You aren’t writing for other authors. You are writing for the people who read your books. These are people who already love what you’re writing. They have invested in your work already. They know what you enjoy writing. They have already connected with you.

This doesn’t just apply to endings. It can be with any aspect of your book that you are having a hard time making a decision about. For example, maybe you are torn between the age of a character. Years ago, I wasn’t sure if I could get away with pairing up a certain hero with a heroine because of the age gap. So I sought out the advice of a reader I knew and trusted. Another time, I wasn’t sure if I should end the book with a particular angle. So I went to a reader I trusted and asked them what they liked the most. These are small aspects of the story that don’t change the plot or character development, but they still leave you wondering if one will be more appealing to your reader base than the other. If you get conflicting opinions, go with your gut. If your gut isn’t telling you anything, flip a coin. (If you don’t like the results of the coin flip, your gut is telling you to pick the other side.)

Keep in mind that no book will ever be perfect. No matter what you do, there will always be something in your book that you could have done better. Nothing kills your ability to publish books like the quest to write “the perfect book”. The best you can do is good enough. Your readers will enjoy your work, and that is what counts. It doesn’t matter what the critics think. They are not the ones buying your books. If your reader base is happy, you’ve done a good job.

For new writers who haven’t found their reader base yet, I would recommend the coin flip option when making a decision. If there are more than two options, jot them all down on a piece of paper, and pull one from a hat. I mentioned this above, but I really have found this method to be a good way of figuring out what my gut is telling me. If you are happy with the coin flip/piece of paper you picked, then you know you are on the right track. If you are disappointed with the coin flip/piece of paper you picked, then you know you really want to do the other thing.

Getting readers to reach out to you so you can connect with them will take time. This is where having an online presence is necessary, unless you do all of your promotion in person. You should at least have a website with a contact form. If you don’t want a contact form, that’s fine if you are on a social media platform like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, SubStack, and whatever else is out there these days. (I can’t keep up with them all.) Some authors like to pose a question on their page and let readers answer them there. (Be sure that the people answering the question are actual readers of your books, not other authors chiming in for what they would do in your shoes.) Have a way for people to reach out to you. Another option is to have an email list. Put links at the back of your books to let people know where they can find you. Over time, you’ll start meeting your readers, and when you give that connection enough time, you’ll be comfortable enough to seek advice when you come across something in your work you’re not sure about.

I need to find a way of lowering my non-writing tasks so that I can do more of what I really want to do: write. I have been in this writing sphere since 2009. Back then, you could only publish your books on Amazon and Smashwords. Sadly, I only know three authors from those days who are still actively writing and publishing. I have met a lot of authors along the way. Most authors have disappeared from the writing world, and I wonder if they’re doing okay.

It’s been sad to see so many vanish. I suspect it has to do with the stress of trying to make money. It’s not easy being a writer. I doubt it’s ever been easy for most writers to stick it out in the past. But in this day, we have come to expect that we’ll make money at this. In 2009, we didn’t think about making money because we didn’t think it was possible. I spoke with traditionally published authors who said the most they made was enough to buy a purse. Of course, you always had your big time authors who had movies made from their books, and so on. I don’t know if they were making big money. I assume they were, but I have not studied this. What I have found is that most authors didn’t make much, if anything.

The gold rush of self-publishing really was a gold rush. I still can’t believe how easy it was to make money back then. I also can’t believe I made the kind of money I did. There are authors who do still make good money with their writing. Not all of us still do. Some of us saw a drop in the sales that never recovered. Could those of us who lost income have done something to avoid it? I guess you could make the case for it, but can we ever know for sure? No. We can’t know for sure because that’s an unknown variable. When I first came out and said my income was going down, I was criticized by a couple of writers for not doing enough marketing. Sometimes I think income just drops, and it’s not the authors’ fault. Sometimes things just change. It’s not personal. It’s just the way things happen.

It can be easy for authors to blame themselves when income drops. It can be easy to chase after some new marketing strategy that has worked for someone else. If that new strategy doesn’t work out for them, they blame themselves and maybe even get blamed for not doing it right. Maybe those authors did do it right. Maybe it just didn’t work. Luck and timing are factors at play. It takes more than talent and hard work to make authors succeed in a financial way. Luck and timing were the two things that I stumbled upon in the gold rush era. But the gold rush ended, and that was that. I have made peace with this aspect of my past. It was painful, but striving to keep earning money burned me out, and I lost my joy in writing. Sometimes writers do lose their joy because they aren’t earning money. When we are used to hearing about writers making “six figures”, we believe this is the norm. When we believe it’s the norm, we are disappointed (and understandably so) when it doesn’t happen for us. That’s why we latch on to different marketing strategies so much. But the reality is someone can’t guarantee that their marketing idea will work for you. You can try it if you want. There’s no harm in trying if it’s something you truly want to do.

An author friend and I were emailing recently, and this was a topic that popped up. She and I have both seen so many writers come and go. She thinks some took on new names. Maybe that’s where some of them went to. I wonder how many got burned out and walked away because they had nothing left in them. She and I both agreed that writing books is not easy to keep doing year after year. It’s rewarding. I have never regretted a book I wrote, even ones that sold very little. There are some books I reread from time to time, and I’m reminded of how much satisfaction there is in having written something I wanted to read. You can tell when an author loves what they’re doing. There’s a spark in their work. I wish I could say that spark was in every one of my books, but I can tell when I was suffering because the business end got to me too much.

I guess with all of this rambling, I have come to the conclusion that if I want to have the spark in all of my work, I need to cut out the stuff that distracts me from my writing. If what I really want to do is write, then I need to write. I need to let go of the business. I will still have to keep track of expenses and any income I bring in, of course. The government wants to know how much you owe in taxes. If you aren’t keeping track of those things, you could end up paying too much (by not factoring in your expenses) or paying too little (and ending up with some fines and a letter in the mail like I did in the past). As a quick note, the IRS NEVER calls or emails. They only send physical snail mail. I know there are some scams out there, and I don’t want anyone to fall for them. When in doubt, go to an accountant.

Back to the topic…

Now, I do think if an author is making good money and has a system in place where they can keep doing so, then that’s something they should do. There’s nothing wrong with treating this as a business. Each author is going to have their own path. You have to figure out the path that works best for you. If you want to make money, you should try for it. There’s nothing worse than looking back on your life and having regrets because you didn’t pursue your goals. Even if you don’t meet those goals, at least you tried. It’s better to have failed than to have never tried at all.

For anyone who is exhausted from focusing on the marketing and the money angle of writing, it’s okay to cut back on things you don’t enjoy doing. You have the freedom to decide you’re not going to pursue the marketing stuff that’s out there. It doesn’t make you any less of a writer than someone who has made this their “six figure” business. There is nothing inherently good or bad about “why” someone writes. I’m not a fan of the way the writing community looks down on authors who aren’t “taking this seriously” by endeavoring to make a living at this. Some of those authors who used to preach about writing to market burned out and stopped writing. I’m thinking of one in particular who was quite vocal about how silly it was to write for passion because there was very little money to be made in it. Yes, his attitude was upsetting to me. I didn’t like it. I don’t like any writer who treats other writers like they are wrong for doing what they want. Even if you choose to write for passion, that does not mean you’re a hobby writer. Being a “hobby writer” implies that you don’t care about the quality of your work. This simply is not true. Plenty of writers who write for passion care a great deal about their books. We want to make good, polished stories. We want good covers. We want good book descriptions. We like having a website, a blog, and/or other forms of social media presence. We can write for pleasure and be professional writers. Why is it that we’re in a culture that tells people it’s okay to be whatever they want, but when we don’t all agree that we are writing for the same reason, we are somehow frowned upon? That doesn’t make any sense to me.

Enough rambling for now. 🙂

Originally, I was going to pick back up with writing today because I am done with my portion of edits for The Earl’s Bluestocking Bride. Then I got sick. It’s not a head cold, though that is what I expected at first. Whatever is happening is in my sinuses and, to a lesser extend, in my lungs. It’s come with some headaches. So I am sure this is the result of stress.

I pushed myself too hard in July. At first, I was trying to write while editing. Then I was taking the Author Summit online conference while editing. Then I was finishing the narration for The Hero Least Likely while editing. I could feel that I was doing too much but had trouble saying “no” because there was so much to do. There’s still so much to do. But I have to learn to step back and tell myself no.

I have decided that I will take August off from writing. I will still be working. So I’m not technically going anywhere. I just need to tend to the stuff that often gets moved to the side while I’m in my writing and editing mode. This is mostly the business end of things. Mostly, I need to get back into the walking that I haven’t been doing in June and July due to the heat. I don’t do well in heat, but I need to suck it up and deal with it because I’m sure not walking has contributed why I’m sick right now. Walking is the best way I’ve found to manage stress. The stress can’t be fully helped. Not when I have a husband and four sons who usually come to me with whatever is bothering them. I appreciate the fact that they feel comfortable enough with me to do that, but sometimes their frustrations get “stuck” to me, and I need a way of shaking it off. Also, writing is really like any other job with its own forms of stressors. I have found some relaxation in cooking meals from scratch and experimenting with different ingredients. I have found just cutting up fruits and vegetables has a nice soothing effect. However, nothing beats walking. There is something about physical exercise that helps the mind relax.

Alright. so with all of that aside, I still want to blog, and I need to get to emails. I have let the emails pile up. That’s a form of stress in itself, and I get overwhelmed. It doesn’t help that I struggle for a good half hour to an hour on even what to say. It should be easy since I’m a writer, but this isn’t fiction. But I will start in on the emails tomorrow. I will hopefully get to the Monthly Newsletter blog tomorrow, too. I have some ideas for this blog that I’ve been wanting to do, and since I won’t be writing, I think I can finally get to them this month. So you’ll still see me around in August. 🙂