In an odd twist of events my two writing worlds collided when my romance writer friends came to me with the idea to create an anthology to share the uber-useful process we had developed among ourselves to revise and edit our stories. Standing firmly in my romance pen name persona I was totally on board, then Cassia asked me to submit something from my thriller style too. Hmmm.... But I did! It's a story that came a bit out of nowhere and hit on futuristic, sci-fi elements that I don't venture towards often, but I liked it, she liked it and Daiva liked it—it was accepted.
Getting my own stories accepted and edited was the easy part—I knew what to expect. I’ve worked a ton with both Daiva and Cassia and we work well together. The next step—helping other writers revise their stories was another story. I’ve done tons of beta trades and critique swaps, but this time was a bit different. I was on the editing team and had this new thing called *responsibility*. The other authors were looking to us like we know what we are doing!? I mean; sure we do, but this felt a bit like a test. Especially because fantasy is not really my area. But… here’s the thing. Story is story, and plot is plot. When you break it down to its pieces, it doesn’t matter if it’s fantasy, or sci-fi or contemporary. And OK, there might have been some stores that were not exactly my… thing. But I begged my brain for professionalism and diplomacy and I think (hope) that even when I didn’t have anything to say on certain points, that what I did offer was useful.
Now that we are closing in on the end, it’s amazing to see the finished stories and get feedback from the writers that this entire process was not awful, and they enjoyed it (mostly), and really, I did too. Who knew?
I digress, the anthology is coming out soon and it feels like the perfect time to celebrate this awesome collaboration we've managed. Some really great authors jumped up to participate with us so if you are a (maybe closeted) romance fan like me, you should totally check them out, and of course stick around for the anthology when it comes out on May 31st! (I will add links as soon as I have them)

So, if you’ve been following the blog, you know I have my next novel out querying all around. Now, the plan is/was to choose however many top agents I like, query only them, then self pub if there’s no interest. I know the thriller market is tough, and I don’t mind self-pubbing. I digress. That list of agents didn’t include any who required a synopsis in the query package. Part of that was luck, part was.... well, I have never been good at a synopsis. So naively I figured, well, it’s not on their list, maybe I’ll just skip it. Here’s the thing, it might not be on their initial list, but they might ask for it!

One agent that I had written off finally replies over 100 days post query—to ask for a full! Yay! And (problem #1) a synopsis. Shit. So, I obviously want to reply asap, which my book is still on their mind. After several lists and pages of how to write a synopsis that doesn’t suck (they say I can do it in a morning!) I get to it, problem #2—I haven’t read my book since I started querying, back in September, and I’ve been busy on multiple other projects. What the heck is my book about!?

Turns out, here is the silver lining. It’s WAY easier to condense your book down to 700-ish words when you only remember the major points! So I did whip that synopsis out in a morning after all and got it sent out along with my manuscript just after lunch. Now it’s back to a waiting game. Who knows, maybe it’ll wow them, or maybe they will hate it (the initial query was only a couple pages and didn’t include what I think is the ‘hard sell’ part of the book). I am just happy they want to read it, and hopeful that even if it’s a no, it will come with some feedback. But, moral of the story, or maybe insane advice—you decide. You definitely need a synopsis if you are querying ANYONE, but if you wait long enough and get far enough from your manuscript, it just may be easier to write.

I’ve hemmed and hawed about moving books to Kindle Unlimited. I originally went with a wide distribution for Excite and my shorts after lots of research. Now it’s been out for a year and I did some more delving into numbers and results. When I put out my romance novella as Isla Ryder, I went straight to KU as that is more or less the genre norm, and it was eye opening. I did no more marketing for Twin Springs Ranch than Excite and it opened even better.

A year’s worth of Excite sales on other platforms don’t seem to be warranted versus the bonus I can get from the KU program. So, to celebrate Excite’s first book birthday, I have pulled it from the other sites and enrolled it in KDP Select, making it available for free to KU subscribers.

You can find it here (as always - https://amzn.to/3ozCAUA) and if you were on the fence before, maybe having it available in KU will push you to give it a try. I’m very interested to see how this change goes, and if I see some numbers going up, I will look at moving my shorts and flash over as well.

Do you subscribe to KU? Do you like it? I’d love to hear reader thoughts and opinions!

So, last week I made a vague comment about being busy with other things, and I promised to be more specific soon. Well, soon is now! You’ve seen before a brief mention of designing horse journals and activity books, and that is still going strong. But I’ve now taken my equestrian side and my fiction side and combined them.

Tomorrow my first equestrian romance novella comes out! To keep from confusing my thriller/horror audience, I will be writing and release all things horse-y romance under the pen name Isla Ryder. I won’t post about it much, if at all beyond this, here, but if you are a fan of that genre you can follow my page for Isla on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/IslaRyderAuthor) and/or join the mailing list (https://mailchi.mp/d07911f52f96/islaryderauthor)

Twin Springs Ranch is an enemies-to-lovers contemporary western romance and is the first novella in the Harris Twins series.

It can be found on Amazon HERE, and is free with Kindle Unlimited subscription.

It can be hard to stay positive during the querying process. Sometimes it seems like, at best, you get a form rejection. So often queries go unanswered and waiting out (and double checking) the agent’s timeline for assuming rejection is a tedious trudge through the swamp, only to discover...more swamp. Alright, so maybe that’s not so positive. BUT, sometimes you get a personal rejection—feedback! Yay! At least they have proven they actually made it past your query and read your pages. That’s a good start. You might even get a full request.

I got my first one for AtP about a month ago; they wanted it on exclusive for 3 weeks. I eagerly sent my baby out, and waited and waited for what felt like months... when I went and checked the send date...8 days ago. Oops. So I went back to waiting. After 13 days, I got an email. They weren’t interested. However, it came with feedback, like solid feedback. And while obviously it wasn’t all good, one thing they pointed out enjoying was my biggest worry for the story—its POV changes. So, after letting myself be sad for a minute, I was happy. They ‘got it’ even if it ended up not being for them. They read the whole thing and understood my intention. There’s that positivity again!

Now off to finish sending it to my agents list. I’m still being very strict with myself. I see no issue self-pubbing so if my short-list of agents are a no-go I’ll move on to the next step myself. Hopefully, though, at the very least, I can collect some more actionable feedback.

Keep at it everyone! It was my 45th (or so) query that got the request, and even if you aren’t down to self publish; there are always more agents to try.

Excite is going to turn a year old soon (December 1st) and I want to make the book birthday special! It is stagnating at 9 reviews, while it’s nice that all are four and five stars, I’d love to get the review and rating numbers up!
That is where you all come in, and where the prizes come out.

The first goal is 20 reviews. Ratings are great too, but a review can be as simple as a few words, so let’s shoot for those.
When we reach that everyone (you must be on my mailing list) will get to see my Excite vision board from when I was writing.
One winner will receive an ebook copy of Turn on the Light, my collection of horror and thriller shorts, and two runners up will get Excite stickers!


The bigger goal is 50 reviews. At that point, Amazon adds books to their marketing material, and how cool would that be?
For that big goal, of course, we have big prizes! Everyone (again—mailing list) will get a BRAND NEW story set in the Excite universe. I really want to share this one, so please help me reach this milestone!
One winner will get a signed paperback of Excite and there will be more stickers for runners up.


Remember reviews can be short—I liked it—is totally acceptable. “Fun story” is also cool. “Great read” you nailed it. See? Not hard at all!

Here’s the Amazon link if you are ready to help meet these goals:
https://www.amazon.com/Excite-Erica-Damon-ebook/dp/B08MZBPWYJ

and if you haven’t yet, be sure to join my mailing list here to get in on the prizes:
http://eepurl.com/hpBfb1

As a self-employed person, especially one that works from home, it is easy to blur the lines between working and not. Am I on the computer to relax and mess around or am I checking emails and working on social media posts? Am I editing or am I chilling with some ice cream? I have always been a person with too many ideas. Writing both helps with that and encourages me to overdo it.

I write thrillers and horror here; I do some ghost writing, and I publish equestrian journals and non-fiction fun books. I love getting ideas for one or more of those ventures at all hours of the day. But I know better, and I am trying to be better. This spring I quit my horseback riding instructor/horse trainer job because it had become all-encompassing. I worked every day and was expected to be on call, even when I did go home. It wasn’t healthy, and I definitely burnt out. I needed to change, and it wasn’t easy. I took a full two months off of riding—cold turkey. No riding, no teaching, no horses; nothing. Then I started back up in an amateur role. I now lease a horse that I go ride a few times a week and just have FUN.

I realized recently that I was getting in to the same cycle—for myself this time—but still working every day, at any hour, on multiple projects. I can’t turn my brain off for all the different projects, but I can set limits. I now have a ‘No Work on Sunday’ rule. The only exception being writing fresh words if inspiration strikes—I won’t ignore a blast of motivation. I have some social posts scheduled, as well as this blog, but beyond that (and maybe one check in to be sure there’s nothing important in my inbox) you won’t see me in a business capacity on Sundays.

I want my writing to work; I want to keep loving my job(s) and to do that means I have to take a break. Will there be weekends that I have an event to sell books, sure, and maybe that week I’ll make Monday my day off. But there will always be a day off, not just a few hours here or there. You can only be so productive. I’ve learned that the hard way and I am recognizing the path now and trying a different route.

Have you experienced burn-out? What do you do to stave it off? Sharing stories is the best way to help other people, everyone goes through it! It can happen at every level and in every profession—it can happen everywhere there are people who want to be better.

So PitMad happened, a fateful day of Twitter-posting our micro-blurbs to get an agent’s attention. Joy. But it’s a way to get noticed, and it gave me an excellent deadline for editing According to Plan. We’ll see if any agents want to request more than my query—which don’t we all love writing those too?

I wish I had some sage advice for you about either pitches or queries, but the best I can do is to tell you to ask for help! I posted my pitches several times for feedback and each time got critiques that made them better. People who had no idea what the book is about could help me pull the * big themes * and make the pitches even more snappy. I thought they must be pitching gods... then I started seeing other people posting theirs for help, and guess what? It’s so much easier to do other peoples than it is your own! So go forth, ask for help and give it in return, everyone’s pitches will be better for it.

No, if you want to know about writing a synopsis, I think we all loathe those, too. Mine is—well, mine is words that seem to sum up the plot. But I would rather go back to high school than have to do these things all the time. But the same logic applies. Share it out, swap it, read others and revise.

Off to research agents, and see what the next steps will be! Who knows, maybe this whole querying thing will go...According to Plan (sorry, not sorry)