New Pub Date for Dragon’s Mate

Posted on October 23, 2020 by Deborah Cooke under Coming Soon, Dragonfire, Indie Publishing, Paranormal Romance

Dragon's Mate, book 4 of the DragonFate series of paranormal romances by Deborah Cooke

I’ve moved the publication date for Hadrian and Rania’s story to November 24. Dragon’s Mate has been challenging to write—these two characters have run off with the story multiple times and made it into their own. I love when this happens because it creates a better book, but I also want to ensure that the book is published as it should be. This extra month will give me time to think about the story and ensure all the ends are tucked into place. I’ll be able to get the print edition published in advance of the ebook, and will be able to give my ARC reviews more than a heartbeat to read the book.

How this will shake down for you varies by portal. Apple and Kobo allow me to change the publication date and I’ve done that already. Nook had some issues this month, but I’ve managed to update the publication date there, as well. There isn’t a pre-order at GooglePlay, so there’s nothing to change or update there. I asked Amazon if they’ll move my pre-order by a month and they agreed so pre-orders there will remain in place.

If you follow me on Amazon, you will likely get a release announcement for Dragon’s Mate next Tuesday, even though the book won’t be published. It appears that the dates on those announcements can’t be changed or updated.

I appreciate your understanding and support on this. 2020 has been quite a year so far and not an easy one for creative endeavors. I hope things settle down soon. In the meantime, I’m thinking about changing my processes for the future. More about that in another blog post, coming soon.

Missing NINC

Posted on September 25, 2020 by Deborah Cooke under Conferences, Indie Publishing, My Books, Writing Life

This week, I should be at the Novelists Inc conference at St. Pete’s Beach in Florida, learning so much about publishing and promoting that my To Do lists have To Do lists. Instead, I’m home, thanks to Covid-19, and missing the conference, with reps from the portals, my writer friends and that beach.

One of the things that’s valuable about attending a conference is that I step away from my day-to-day rhythm and look at the broader picture of my publishing and writing goals, as well as learn about possibilities I’m overlooking (or haven’t explored yet). There are always a lot of those.

The Beauty Bride by Claire Delacroix in audio

Here’s an example of one thing I might reconsider after attending a workshop or having a conversation at NINC – audiobooks. I recorded a dozen audiobooks 2015-2017 (mostly historical romances) and haven’t done any since. So, if I had gone to NINC, finding out more about where the audiobook market stands right now might have been one of my action items. (I always have a list when I go to a conference.) There’s the industry at large, the trends and patterns, then there’s the strategic question of how to manage my content in that niche. Should I record my contemporary romances? Should I record my PNR? What about more historicals? Should I write and record novellas? In what sub-genre? How is the audiobook market changing? What promotional opportunities exist that didn’t before? How can I improve on what I’ve done before with audio and build for the future? I’m doing my research and considering possibilities. It’s a little harder this way than attending a session or having a drink with someone, but it’s a useful exercise. I should have a new audiobook (or two) contracted for production soon and will tell you about it when I do.

This exercise also means re-evaluating my audio distribution, which I changed in 2019. I’m mostly happy with it, but think it needs a tweak or two. For example, KOBO has opened the option of publishing audio directly to their portal: I’m going to take my audiobooks direct to them instead of using an aggregator. That means lots of uploading for me. The KOBO links for my audiobooks will change as a result. The other change I’m considering will be invisible from your end, but you can see how my To Do list is growing, just from this one item.

There are more ways to promote audiobooks than was the case four years ago, as well, and I’ve added regular promotion of my audiobooks to my monthly To Do list. You might want to follow the Delacroix blog if that interests you, because my audio backlist at this point is pretty much all historical romance. I’m sending some emails and exploring some websites and updating my idea of what’s possible to formulate a new plan.

You can see how my To Do list grew, just from that one item. I’d do the same for translations, for print editions and for getting my work into libraries. I’d probably learn more about subscription services and the exploitation of performance rights, as well as see trends in ebooks. I’d attend workshops about sending newsletters and managing social media and a host of successful marketing strategies—as well as running CPC ads. Watch that To Do list grow, even though I’m not at the conf this year.

I like how conferences like NINC compel me to plan for the future and look ahead. I bought my 2021 planner this week and have started to fill it in, both with writing and with promotion. Another thing I’m going to do this week is review the financial reports for my various book sales over the past year and look for patterns. What strategy works best? Does the answer vary by sub-genre? Does it vary by portal? It invariably does, so choosing the best path forward isn’t as easy as it might sound.

Just One Fake Date, book one of the Flatiron Five Fitness series of contemporary romances by Deborah Cooke

Another big responsibility for me is managing my backlist, to ensure that it continues to perform in a changing market. I repackaged three series this year—The Champions of St. Euphemia, Flatiron Five Fitness and Flatiron Five Tattoo. I rewrote the series starter for Flatiron Five Fitness, giving Tyler a new story. How did those efforts influence results? Was it worth doing? (Yes, it was.) If I intended to repackage another series, which one would it be? If I was going to rewrite a book, which one would it be?

One Knight's Desire, book #3 of the Rogues & Angels sereis of medieval romances by Claire Delacroix

Which series do I need to complete next? I already made a move on this one and set up a pre-order for book 3 of my Rogues & Angels series of medieval romances, One Knight’s Desire.

Which new project should I undertake next? How do I take what I’ve learned and apply it to future efforts?

You can see that my list of things to do and explore has grown by leaps and bounds, just by composing this post—and compelling myself to take the time to take a bird’s-eye view, just as I would when attending a conference. It’s not the same. I’m not hearing the news from the portals or hearing from other authors about what’s worked for them, but it’s not all bad as a compromise. I still miss attending NINC, but these items will keep me busy for a while.

New Contemporary Romance Editions in the Works

Posted on March 9, 2020 by Deborah Cooke under Coming Soon, Contemporary Romance, Publishing

I’m making some changes to the Flatiron Five series and the Secret Heart Ink series, and I thought we’d talk about that today.

If you subscribe to my newsletter, Heroes & Happy Endings, or belong to my Facebook Readers Group, you know about this upcoming change already. (If you don’t subscribe, why not??? 🙂 )

When I started to write Flatiron Five, I had a plan of what the books would be like, based on what I saw as strong trends in the market. By the second book, though, I was telling the kind of stories I like to tell, which was a little bit different from the original plan. I really like Simply Irresistible and Snowbound – okay, mostly I like Tyler and Spencer! – but the fact is that they’re a bit different from the other books in both series. That makes them less effective as series-starters. In terms of good marketing, a series starter should demonstrate what a reader can expect from the rest of the series.

In addition, the two series don’t look similar in their branding. I like the covers, but they’re not doing their job as well as they should. At a glance, readers may not realize the stories are set in the same world.

I had been mulling over all of this since finishing Bad Case of Loving You and Under the Mistletoe last year, then I went to a conference that offered a lot of amazing workshops on marketing. Wow! I learned so much – and developed a new plan. I need to do a better job of marketing these books, so there are changes ahead.

First of all, I’m changing the covers on both series, both to look more like other contemporary romances and romantic comedies and to look more like each other. I’m working with a new-to-me cover artist with fabulous credentials in this niche and I’m thrilled with our progress so far. (I love even her first draft!) I’ll be revealing those covers first in my newsletter and Facebook group, hopefully later this month. They’ll appear here on the site on April 15.

Secondly, I’m making some changes to the books. Some are small – like fixing the continuity error of Sonia/Sonya/Sonja’s name being spelled differently over the course of the series ARGH! – some are medium – like changing the titles – but one is bigger.

The big change is that Tyler is getting a new story, with a new heroine. He’s still the same finance guy who needs to be nudged out of his comfort zone, but Shannyn is a lot more forthright than Amy was. She’s sure Tyler doesn’t remember her from college, and really hopes he’s forgotten her telling him off at a party. But Ty remembers Shannyn very well – and he’s intrigued by the changes in her. She’s not his type and he knows he’s not hers, so she might be perfect for a fake date to his sister’s wedding. Ty suggests a deal and Shannyn surprises him with her terms. Ty takes it as a personal challenge to surprise her in return – and that’s only the beginning of these two shattering each others’ assumptions….

I’m having so much fun with this new book and I think you’ll love it!

This change will have a ripple effect and create some smaller continuity changes through the other books. For example, one of the things that I wanted to address was that Amy doesn’t have much of a role in the later books. There’s not much for her to do at F5, since she’s a writer. Shannyn, though, is a photographer and the whole idea of the billboards for the club is now her idea. She’ll be more actively engaged in the promotion plans for the club, which I like. She also has tattoos, so we’ll get to meet Chynna sooner. There are a lot of small tweaks like this that will add to the cohesion of the books in the series.

I’ll also make some revisions to Snowbound, to make it more similar to the other books in that series. (I’m still deciding whether I’ll lengthen the books in the Secret Heart Ink series to make them more similar to Flatiron Five. I need to finish Ty’s new story before I can think about that.) Those new editions will probably be available this summer.

And this will all set things up well for me to write a new series set in the same world as Flatiron Five. Yay! That will mean that some of the existing characters will make cameo appearances in the new books and is part of the reason I’m working on the Character List here on the site. I’ll tell you more about that new series later this year, once all these changes are published.

If you’ve bought the books, you’re probably wondering how the mechanics of all this will work. Don’t worry! It’s pretty simple. Simply Irresistible will be unpublished and become unavailable. The new series starter will be published and will be a free download. If this doesn’t happen immediately at the portals, subscribers to my newsletter will be able to download a free copy from BookFunnel.

The new versions of the other books, with their new covers, new titles, and slight content changes, will be published under the same ISBN#’s and ASIN#’s, since the changes are minor. This means you’ll be able to download an update free of any of the books you’ve bought. It also means the buy links to the portals will remain the same. I’ll add a note to the metadata of the revised books of their previous titles, so their history will be clear on the portals and at Goodreads.

But if you want any of these books in their current print editions, you should buy them now, as those editions will soon be going away.

Phew! That’s my big news! To be the first to see the new covers, and to have a chance to download Tyler’s new book free, please be sure to sign up for my newsletter, Heroes & Happy Endings!

Welcome to 2020!

Posted on January 2, 2020 by Deborah Cooke under Coming Soon, Contemporary Romance, Historical Romance, Indie Publishing, My Books, Paranormal Romance, Writing Life

It’s a brand new year! What will you do in 2020? What will you change? What will you accomplish?

I’m not much for New Year’s resolutions but I’ll take any opportunity to review and revise. The start of a new year is a good time to do that. First, let’s take a look at things I learned in 2019.

Accomplished in 2019
• I published four new books last year: Bad Case of Loving You, Under the Mistletoe, Maeve’s Book of Beasts and Dragon’s Kiss.

• I also published revisions of three titles: One Knight’s Return, Unicorn Bride and Pearl Beyond Price.

• I published four new Dragonfire boxed sets: Dragonfire Quest, Dragonfire Elixir, Dragonfire Reunion and Dragonfire Triumph.

• I started to initiate translations of my historical romances and published my first two Italian translations. (You can find Claire’s translations here.)

• I attended two conferences, a reader conference (Romancing the Capital) and a writers’ conference (Romance Mastermind). I taught a workshop at RTC.

Lessons from 2019:
• A year ago, I was wondering where my days were going. It seemed that I didn’t have much time to write, even though I planned to do so every morning and spent all day at my desk. So, I started a spreadsheet, documenting exactly what I did every day and how long it took. The answer became clear very quickly: I knew that being my own publisher took time, but those publishing jobs were taking a lot more time than I’d realized. Part of this was because I’ve republished a lot of older books in the last couple of years. I’ve been streamlining my publishing processes, experimenting with timing – either a publishing day per week or a few publishing afternoons in a row seems to work well.

• I experimented again with KDP Select and was underwhelmed again by results. Switching between wide distribution and exclusive-to-Amazon distribution is a lot of work, so I’m sticking with wide distribution for the foreseeable future. I may write some projects specifically for KDP Select, but we’ll see.

• Recognizing that my focus had shifted from writing to publishing, I started a creativity journal last winter. I bought a planner and a lot of stickers, then tracked and celebrated how much I wrote each day. Having it open on my desk helped me to write first, then turn to the other jobs after the writing was done. I really like the stickers, which is silly but it’s effective. I wrote 700K words last year, which is really a lot for me. I’ve already set up my new journal for 2020. (And it has stickers in it already!)

• Those are pretty big take-aways from 2019, but there was another big one. A year ago, I thought I could republish some older Claire Delacroix titles easily. I knew I had a full schedule with launching DragonFate, plus finishing up Flatiron Five and Secret Heart Ink, and didn’t want Claire’s readers to be neglected. I chose three books that had been published by Harlequin, blocked in a week to proofread the scanned book files, and scheduled them for publication. That plan had worked well for the Bride Quest and Dragonfire. It didn’t work for these books. They needed revisions to the point that it would have been easier to just write new books. Those revisions added a ton of stress to my year, because I miscalculated and hadn’t left enough time for them. There isn’t a lot of upside to doing these revisions either – while it’s nice to have the books available again, they aren’t the stories I’d write now and they don’t have a huge following. My time really would be better spent writing new books. At this point, four of Claire’s eleven Harlequin Historicals have been revised and republished in new editions, and there won’t be more in the foreseeable future.

• Another milestone from 2019 was initiating translations of my books. My Italian translator and I are making good progress on the Jewels of Kinfairlie – The Beauty Bride is available and The Rose Red Bride is publishing, while she is translating The Snow White Bride. I’m waiting on the Portuguese (Brazil) translation of The Beauty Bride and will have the German translation this winter. It’s been a very interesting process, with lots to learn, and many new connections to make.

The Year Ahead
For the past year or so, I’ve been aware that I’m coming to the end of existing series for each of my author brands. Last year, I launched DragonFate for my Cooke paranormals, and I’m really pleased with Dragon’s Kiss. I’m having fun with that series and looking forward to its continuation. I’m in a similar place with my contemporary romances – Secret Heart Ink is done and after Some Like it Hot, Flatiron Five will be done. (Maybe. I’m not sure where Nate’s story fits yet. It might be a novella at the end of the series.) And Claire needs a new series, too. So, I’ve been planning and dreaming. The hardest part is always deciding between competing ideas.

Right now, these titles are scheduled for publication in 2020:
Here Be Dragons: The Dragonfire Companion – January
Flatiron Five: The First Collection – January
Some Like it Hot – February
All’s Fair in Love and War – March
Dragon’s Heart – May
Dragon’s Mate – October

That’s about 300K of new words right there.

I really want to get ahead of the publishing cycle this year, and get back to having books done and uploaded at least a month or two before their publication dates. I also want to publish linked books more closely together. That means the calendar is going to look empty for a bit as I write and work to get ahead of the curve. (You can see that gap in the schedule above.) The plan is that by the time you see the cover reveal and the pre-order, the book will be complete.

I’ll be filling some of those inevitable gaps with boxed sets. The new Flatiron Five bundle Flatiron Five: The First Collection comes out this month, at a special price. Claire has a new boxed set, All’s Fair in Love and War, coming in March and there will be other trope-based bundles. I’m hoping to write and publish some shorter works, too, to keep you reading while I write away.

I’m also revising my schedule to keep my focus squarely on writing. I’m not teaching anymore or making treks to writing group meetings. I attended two conferences last year and while they were great, this year, I’m staying home to write.

This year, it’s all about the words—and the self-care. A year and a half ago, I started walking 4 km every day and that’s become a habit. I really miss it if I skip a day. I’ve added yoga at least three times a week, too. I’m still not very good at it, but it does make me feel better. 🙂 I’ve cut back on social media commitments, too.

Of course, there’s still knitting and crafting. I’ll show you a new sweater tomorrow on Fiber Friday.

I hope you have exciting plans for 2020. Let’s make it a great year!

More Paperback Editions

Posted on October 31, 2019 by Deborah Cooke under Contemporary Romance, Historical Romance, Indie Publishing, Medieval romance, Scottish romance, Urban Fantasy Romance

Until about two years ago, I was creating two editions of each of my paperbacks. One was published through Createspace (an Amazon company) and made available to Amazon stores. The other was published through Ingrams and made available everywhere else. The two editions were the same, except that there were slight differences in the width of the cover spine, probably because the two print-on-demand outlets use different paper for the interior pages. (At one point, I also created editions at Nook of some books for B&N stores, which also have slightly different spine widths, but don’t see enough sales on those editions to justify paying the designer to tweak the spine, so I’ve stopped doing them.)

About two years ago, Amazon began merging Createspace (the POD publishing platform) into KDP (the ebook publishing platform) which made a lot of sense. Many indie books are available in both POD and ebook, and creating both through the same portal, with the same metadata, and reporting sales for both in the same place was a good plan IMO. Also the Createspace interface was older. The KDP interface was being updated, so the print update was rolled into that. Authors could migrate their titles from Createspace to KDP. There were some (inevitable, in such a big transition) hiccups, but ultimately, Createspace was closed to new content.

Since then, I chose to create my print-on-demand editions only at Ingrams, and have them distributed everywhere. Another variable was that I’ve been creating mass market sized paperbacks and during the initial transition, KDP didn’t support this format although Createspace had.

Recently, writer friends have shared that their Ingrams-print edition is showing a delayed delivery on Amazon – of about 60 days. Also, the Ingrams editions aren’t eligible for free shipping through Amazon Prime, which is a big deterrent to Amazon Prime shoppers. So, this week, I added KDP print editions for the books that didn’t have them before, just for the Amazon stores. They’re all going live now, and as they do, the Amazon edition will replace the Ingrams edition on the same link in the Amazon store. (This is because they have the same ISBN.)

So, if you’re an Amazon Prime customer and you’ve been holding off on buying print copies of these titles for your keeper shelf, now’s the time!

Bad Case of Loving You

Snowbound

Spring Fever

One Hot Summer Night

Under the Mistletoe

The Mercenary’s Bride

The Runaway Bride

Unicorn Bride

Maeve’s Book of Beasts