Category: My Writing

Needing to Learn New Skills

I feel like I have the writing down: get an idea, write, revise for everything from grammar to readability to spelling to word choice, find a developmental editor, revise again.

What I need to learn is the promotional part. I’m learning bits and pieces. Where I am:

  • I have 4700 followers on Twitter
  • I have 215 followers on Instagram
  • I belong to a few writer’s groups on Facebook (all romance; I need to get into some fantasy groups)
  • I have written promotional materials for The Kringle Conspiracy (last Christmas’ romance)
  • I have explored Booksprout (for advance research copies), Goodreads (to get in contact with readers)
  • I have a decent bio on Kindle
  • I have this blog and another (lleachie.wixsite.com)

I just don’t seem to be getting much traction. For example,

  • I have 10 people following this blog, and one or two other readers (unless WordPress is missing more than a few people)
  • I have had few sales on The Kringle Conspiracy, and I won’t have more until next Christmas season
  • I don’t know how I should be proceeding.

There’s so much more to writing than writing. That’s the part that throws me. My skills are in writing; they’re sadly deficient in promotion. I also can’t afford to hire someone to promote me, nor do I think that’s a wise idea, because that’s giving up my persona to someone who doesn’t understand me or my work.

Woman with painted face, one side black and one white, smearing the black into the white.
Photo by Dids on Pexels.com

So I still have a lot to learn.

Another Sunday Morning and a Little Romance

It’s another Sunday morning, and it’s dark and snowy outside. And cold, let’s not forget cold (1° F, feels like -14°). I didn’t want to get out of bed, but the thought of breakfast — French toast and turkey bacon — made me consider sentience.

So now I’m downstairs in a living room bundled up and drinking coffee and learning new tricks in WordPress (see that impressive drop cap?) while listening to the best of the Baroque.

Today I will write. More like edit the problem child of my years of writing, Gaia’s Hands. I have rewritten and revised this story so many times and have not been happy with it. This is another revision, as a fantasy romance, which I have been told it is.

I wonder how many of you have tuned out because I said the word “romance”?

Romance is the most denigrated genre of books, yet there are romance elements in so many genres. And yes, there are familiar tropes in romance — enemies to lovers, friends to lovers, reverse harem (woo!) — but there are in science fiction as well (cryosleep, generation ships, space pirates, and even interspecies romance!) I’ll admit a lot of romance is like eating popcorn — yummy, addictive snack food — but snack food sells because people eat it.

So, it’s Sunday morning and I’m going to edit a romance novel (and add more to it) today. And stay inside, definitely stay inside.