Doings 9/21

WIP updates and what I’m up to.

Jensen City Heroes! –Arson comes out in less than two weeks, but I haven’t had much time to think about it because I’m DEEP into Book 2.

Basically, you won’t have long to wait at all for Book 2 of Jensen City Heroes. I’m thinking late November/early December, but that’s dependent on me getting it done in mid-October vs late October. I’m about 70% done. Either way, it’s coming.

I can hear a lot of people out there, “Why, Tori, are you not all over social media promoting Arson?”

I’ve meditated and researched this until it’s like beating a dead horse. Know what I’ve learned from seasoned authors and experts waaaayyyy smarter than me?

I’m better off writing my next book and getting some stuff queued up for Inkitt later this year than sitting around on social media in the time I am not working my day job or playing Uber mom. In fact, I’ve tried to back off of social media and am seriously considering deleting a couple of accounts. (I’m looking at you, Twitter. I’m sure all of my 39 followers would be very upset.)

Sure, I post a few things a week on Instagram (my preferred platform) to promote my work or someone else’s work. Yes, it’s been a great way to get ARC readers to read and review on release day. I’ve made some great connections over there.

However, constant self-promotion makes me want to douche.

I’ve thought about it and will let my ARCs do what they’re going to do at this point. I’m going to give you book 2 soon. Book 3 is already in outline. I have had so much more time to sit down and WRITE. Having more books out in a series will help me do price promotions on the first books to help bring visibility.

Ya’ll, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not JK Rowling. My first book doesn’t need to sell so well in release week that I quit my day job and don’t have to worry about retirement. I feel like this is a marathon, not a sprint, and I really admire a lot of authors that post every so often and interact with people when they schedule actual social media time. They have great control, and I need to be better about it.

I have a story or two in me that I’m putting out into the universe. At this point, I’m at peace, and I hand Arson over to the universe. I hope you all enjoy it. You may not, but I’m also at peace with that.

The Caretaker/Swingyards Series

This fucking thing. The Caretaker, the first part of a series I’ve created called The Swingyards, is the bane of my existence because I have gone back and forth with what the hell I’m going to do with it. It was on Kindle Vella for the Kindle Vella launch. I have since put it on KU and Kindle for $0.99.

I emailed Amazon and asked them to take the Kindle Vella down. Their TOS state that the Vella has to stay up for 60 days after we request removal. I understood that when I sent the email. They emailed me back and said that because I haven’t had very many readers for the last month (partly because it’s now on KU) they would take it down in 72 hours.

It’s down now, but how bad do you have to suck to have Amazon bend their draconian TOS rules? I pretty much walked around like a failure for four days. I was so upset by it that I didn’t even tell my husband.

THEN, those fools over at Amazon emailed me today saying I got a bonus for the month of August. I went out to the forums thinking everyone must have got a pity bonus, but it wasn’t the case.

I give up trying to figure that algorithm out. Basically, they said I sucked so bad that I could get out of my contract. Then, they gave me a PERFORMANCE bonus.

Anyway, The Caretaker will stay on KU until my KU contract is up in November. At that time, it will go on Inkitt as a story that will be continued with the next installment. It will be titled “The Swingyards” so that the story won’t be broken into books. I may also make a few tweaks. Stay tuned on that. I thought about continuing the story on Vella, but the platform has issues that need to be solved before I want to continue with it. For one, since it’s called “Kindle Vella” I will not use it again until I don’t have to explain to people that they can’t read it on their actual Kindles.

Why Inkitt? It’s erotica and Inkitt does pretty well with erotic content. (This also may be why Amazon let me out early. Maybe they don’t like erotica cluttering up their new toy.) It’s a German company, and I can probably get more visibility than being buried behind the Amazon mature content filter forever.

I really love this story. It’s a story about a neighborhood full of swingers with strong personalities. I think it will do the best in a serialized format, and I really want to keep working on it.

So, that’s my work in a nutshell this month. Author friends, feel free to comment below and link to what you’ve been working on.