What's old is new again. That pertains to just about everything. So, when it comes to a subject near and dear to my heart, I consider myself somewhat of an expert. Therefore, allow me to throw a few lessons learned at you if you're someone contemplating on writing a book or if you have written a book and aren't sure what to do next. Take these words to heart, because I won't steer you wrong. I'll help you get into this with your eyes wide open.
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• There's a process to publication. If you wish to be traditionally published, then you must first understand that no literary agent or publisher is obligated to accept your manuscript. You pursue publication. To enhance your chances, do your research and follow the company's author guidelines.
• If you decide to self-publish, understand the publication part itself costs nothing but time and a bit of effort. Getting your manuscript fit for public consumption does cost money, oftentimes a lot of money.
• If you self-publish, then you are the publisher and you assume all the responsibilities of a publisher. Those responsibilities include hiring professionals (like a traditional publisher does) to edit and format the manuscript and design the cover.
• Marketing sells books. Especially in the more populous genres, the only way to make your book stand out from its competition is a robust, strategic marketing plan rigorously executed. If you're not good at marketing, hire a pro.
• Your book's cover design is a powerful marketing tool. Hire a pro.
• The quality of your content may not be what persuades a reader to buy the book, but it will be what persuades a reader to leave a positive review and to purchase your next book.
• Good writing requires competent editing.
• Authors should never rely on their own editing. Hire an editor. Always.
• Editing software is helpful, but does not take the place of a human editor because it cannot detect nuance, plot holes, and continuity issues, etc. Editing software may introduce as many errors as it fixes.
• Your book's description or cover blurb falls under copywriting, not content writing. It's primary purpose is to convert potential reader into a paying customer, not to tell your story. Authors who excel at content writing often don't do well at copywriting. Considering hiring a pro.
• Marketing does not guarantee sales. Any marketer who promises or guarantees a certain volume of sales is a liar. Marketing improves your book's chances of selling.
• Good editing is invisible; poor editing is glaringly obvious. The better your editing, the less likely your readers will notice; however, if the editing is poor or nonexistent, then readers will most certainly notice and warn potential readers in their reviews.
• If you have an intriguing story idea but not the time, skill, or inclination to write it yourself, consider hiring a ghostwriter. A skilled ghostwriter won't write just like you would—the reason you're hiring a pro, right?—but perhaps the ghostwriter will write your story better than you could.
• Ghostwriters don't write for free.
• There are different kinds of writing and editing. Someone who excels at one may not excel at another.
• Authors who self-publish need not feel obligated to do everything themselves. You are probably not an expert in writing, page layout, graphic design, and marketing. Stick with your strengths and hire pros to do what you don't do well.
• Proper editing is not a one-and-done process. Your manuscript will need at least one round of editing followed by a round of proofreading.
• Entering character information and plot points into ChatGPT or other AI program and getting a story in return is not writing.
• Adverbs and adjectives are not bad; overusing them is.

I could go on, but this has run long enough.

I do business as Hen House Publishing, and I offer freelance services in writing (ghostwriting), editing, and book design. I don't offer cover design or marketing, because those are not forte.

If you have a story in mind but not the time, skill, or inclination to write it, then contact me at henhousepublishing@gmail.com to write it.

If you have drafted a manuscript that you want to publish, contact me to editing it at henhousepublishing@gmail.com.

If you have an edited manuscript ready to be formatted for publication, contact me for book design at henhousepublishing@gmail.com.

I took a break, as often happens, from the current work-in-progress (WIP) because I wrote my protagonist into a corner and needed to ponder how I'd get him out of that predicament without erasing and rewriting a substantial portion of the manuscript. I think I've figured that out. Strangely enough, it was the character's father who provided me with that inspiration. So, once again, I've resumed plugging away at the keyboard to push the story along. I need to keep at it, because I've slated this book--Champion of the Twin Moons, Book 5 in the Twin Moons Saga—for release in June (or earlier if I can swing it). There's a whole lot to do yet!

In the hopper ...

Meanwhile, I've got more books simmering on the back burners of my mind and which I hope to produce yet this year:

• Triune Alliance Brides Series: The first book was Triple Burn. The sequel is Double Cut, which is available for pre-order now and will be released on March 15. The third book and fourth books will be (1) a bride for the third planet in the Triune Alliance and (2) a bride for the general superior introduced in Double Cut.
• Russian Love Series: After a long hiatus, I returned to this popular mafia romance series with a character who demanded his own story: Ciro. Ciro's story, Russian Revival, was published on January 15. But wait, there's more! The series isn't finished. The next book will feature characters introduced in Russian Revival: Sergio and Susan.
  
• Twin Moons Saga: In 2022, I returned to this fantasy world of mighty fae and other supernatural creatures with Knight of the Twin Moons. In 2023, I'll be back with a fifth book in the series: Champion of the Twin Moons. (This is the WIP referenced above.)
  

Will there be more books? Of course! I just don't know what they are yet. Don't despair if you prefer those one-off stories. I'll produce more of them. Those stories keep my mind fresh.

On the freelance front ...

With regard to business as usual, there's the freelancing aspect of my livelihood that cannot be ignored. I have come up with a package deal for ghostwriting I call the Rapid Release Program. This package is based on the favorable algorithms Amazon uses for new releases. An author who releases a lot of books frequently benefits from those algorithms through enhanced placement, better promotion, and increased sales. Here's how it works:

1. You sign a 6-month commitment for the production of one novella (approximately 20,000 words) per month.
2. You provide the background information needed to produce each book.
3. I do the heavy lifting (i.e., ghostwriting) and deliver a draft to you within 15 calendar days.
4. You review the draft and return your requests for specific changes within 7 calendar days.
5. I revise per your feedback, proofread, and deliver a high-resolution PDF file (for print) and an EPUB file (for e-book) for upload to Kindle Direct Publishing.

The price of the package is $1,500 per month.

Make sure you get a copy ...

Finally, I'll be attending several events throughout the year in the capacities of author, artist, and freelance writer/editor. To each of these events I bring a limited selection of my books. (Bringing copies of every title just isn't feasible.) However, it's come to my attention that some folks want to make sure I have copies of certain titles available. Therefore, I have created a pre-order form.

Use this pre-order form to let me know which event you'll be attending and which title(s) you want me to reserve for you. I'll make sure to keep copies of those books on hand for you. All pre-orders must be submitted at least 30 days prior to the event. If you want a copy of a book that is not listed on the pre-order form, purchase it from Amazon and bring it to the event where I'll be happy to autograph it for you.

It's true that no matter what you write, someone won't like it. This is one reason why we have genres: readers will more likely find what they enjoy than what they don't.

Readers everywhere, regardless of genre preferences, have pet peeves. These can be categorized into trends or themes of things readers don't like. The Washington Post offers some insights with this article:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/02/08/book-pet-peeves/

Since editor and authors are also readers, I'll start with this list of my pet peeves:

• Grammar errors. These occur most frequently in self-published books that have not been touched by a professional  editor. OK, there's a time and a place for incorrect grammar, because any editor worth his or her salt knows that effective writing trumps grammatically correct writing. That means the writer (or editor) must know the language's grammar conventions and understand how and when and why to break them to the best effect. Not knowing and still breaking grammar conventions is just sloppy writing.
• Information dumps. This occurs most frequently in self-published books. A paragraph or eight of expository description, background, or explanation halts the story in its tracks. It's an obstacle the reader must wade through before resuming the action. Such deluges of information usually try to impart a detailed vision in the author's brain to the reader's. It doesn't work. It's better to weave in bits and pieces of information the author needs to make sense of the story as they become necessary to comprehension.
• Disjointed formatting. I'm not speaking of drop caps or other stylistic embellishments. For instance, I recently looked at a book in which the content of every page was center-justified. That's just difficult to read. Formatting is important, and its purpose is to facilitate a positive experience for the reader.
• Malapropisms. This big word refers to the incorrect use of a word. Most of these occur as homophone errors: pair/pare/pear, phase/faze, bear/bare, reign/rein, etc. The presence of malapropisms indicates an author who didn't use a professional editor or an incompetent editor who's not a professional.
• Punctuation errors. This is a subset of grammar errors. The most egregious punctuation errors I see involve incorrect use of apostrophes and commas. The use of commas isn't necessarily cut and dried; there's wiggle room. However, the use of apostrophes to indicate plurals instead of possessives makes my teeth itch.

Larger peeves come in the form of some common tropes and/or archetypes. Since I read (and write) mainly romance, I'm all too familiar with these tropes and wonder about their enduring popularity in the genre.

• Secret baby. The "secret baby" trope usually arises from a one night stand. The heroine has a passionate one night stand with the hero and is surprised when she discovers she's pregnant. Um ... has anyone ever heard of consequences? You have sex, you risk pregnancy. It's that simple. Another secret baby trope I loathe is when the heroine keeps the child a secret from the hero because ... reasons. None of the reasons are, of course, justified; and the hero is understandably upset when he discovers the big secret. No thanks.
• "Broken" hero/heroine. The protagonist(s)—one or both of them—has suffered some trauma or major disappointment that makes him and/or her leery of the opposite sex and expect the worst. The emotionally damaged character never seeks therapy, but uses the trauma to justify poor treatment of other people, because all women are vindictive, manipulative gold diggers and/or all men are lying, cheating pigs. Ugh.
• Toxic masculinity masquerading as "Alpha." Romance is chock-full of alpha male heroes, manly men who ooze what the real world considers toxic masculinity. This often ties into the broken hero trope, because the desirable alpha male exists as a womanizing chauvinst who treats women like toilet paper: use once and discard. Some heroines do the same with men. The alpha hero often takes command, asserts his authority, and imposes his will upon the heroine simply because he can. He's domineering as well as dominant. Like romance readers around the world, I like a dominant hero, but not one whose dominance edges or leaps across the line into abuse.
• Idiocy. A clutz can be charming. We can relate to a character who has trouble understanding a particular concept or a character trying to prove himself or herself. But persistently poor decision-making in the face of repeated failure smacks of stupidity. I recently deleted a book in which the heroine not only got drunk (mistake #1, something many of us have done), but who mistook the hero's room for her own (mistake #2), berated the hero who behaved like a perfect gentleman (mistake #3), lied to the hero (mistake #4), stole his horse to escape, while still wearing just a shift  and not having any money (mistake #5), then lied to the hero again when he caught her (mistake #6). All in the first chapter. There's a reason why we now have the TSTL acronym: that heroine was too stupid to live. And we're supposed to believe the hero falls in love with such an idiot?

Sometimes the characters in my own books cross those lines (although I've yet to write a secret baby story) that can take a plot beyond building tension and delicious conflict to face-palmed disgust. There are no hard borders with most of these pet peeves; they're more a matter of degree. When it comes to some stories and/or some readers, that degree hits the boiling point sooner than others.

The best a writer can do it tread the line between just enough and too much.

As readers, what are your pet peeves?