she/her / Zoh-ee / aka Ainsley Booth / latest 📕: The Scoring Secret / mutes twitter conversations to protect writing vibes / unbothered by typos
Mar 30, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Bumping this again tonight, because the more Amazon automates the decision tree that (quickly, rapidly, unexpectedly) leads to account termination, the more self-published authors will find their business suddenly out in the cold, with zero recourse.
Amazon is one of the biggest companies in the world. Are we all so numb to their egregious business practices that it's just not *a story* that there is no substantive human oversight to account terminations?
Mar 28, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Here's the ugly side of publishing with KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing): sometimes, for no reason at all and with no warning, they just close accounts that have been in good standing for FOURTEEN YEARS.
If you're a self-published author, give Selena a follow and a RT. She's having a rough go of it, and she's doing her best to communicate clearly with KDP, do the diplomatic "surely this is a mistake" etc.
Bots. Run. Wild.
Writing organizations need to be aware of this, too!
Mar 27, 2023 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Indie authors, can you please boost this? I organize a quarterly free ebook blast for romance and adjacent fiction and I'd like to make room for any free trans fiction that authors might be able to include. Authors can sign up here: forms.gle/oSf1t4CFrdSPaq…
This promo includes fantasy romance, mystery with romantic elements, and young adult romance, as well as RS, SFR, PNR, and five categories of contemporary rom. And it's already scheduled for this coming Friday, March 31, which is Trans Visibility Day.
Mar 27, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Okay, so... this is very weird. But I saw a TikTok a while ago explaining that we get hiccups because of an evolutionary throwback to gill behaviour. Basically, something happens and our bodies go, "GILLS, ACTIVATE!"
But we don't have gills. So, we can remind ourselves, "I am not a fish." And the hiccups might stop.
Or so said this guy on TikTok (and because TikTok now knows I'm fascinated by this idea, I'm now on hiccuptok and I've seen other people say it, too).
Then I got hiccups...
Aug 5, 2022 • 27 tweets • 6 min read
I've only ever self-published, so I can't provide any guidance on how to go hybrid, but for what it's worth I want to add some thoughts about the income models, because it's very different from trad publishing.
(Also, there isn't just one income model, there are many ways to SP)
We aren't conditioned to talk about the downsides, so I'll share some of that first:
* it can take a while to find your footing in SP
* projects can sink like a stone
* boundaries are essential to avoid FOMO traps and inadvertent peer pressure to spend $
Aug 4, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
John Green replied to this tweet and said, "TIL I am not a big author".
The only authors that matter to these publishers are *literally* a handful at the top. Everyone else--and all other deals--and meaningless to them.
The accounting shenanigans that publishers play with advances actively hurt the bulk of authors who work for them. They hurt their agents, too. Income gets dribbled out, and the people at the top claim to have no fucking idea?
Aug 3, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Because some people don't know this: midlist means the middle of the list. Or the middle of the catalogue. The book announcements that are just title/author/blurb, in a little stack. No photo of the author, no cover.
And they are the BULK of what publishers put out every year.
When I was a kid, my mom was a desktop publishing trailblazer. (Side note: self-publishing isn't new, hasn't been for centuries, anyway...)
And because she had a parenting magazine, we would get publisher catalogues
Aug 3, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Can a publisher GUARANTEE a book will be a bestseller? No. Can they push a lot of levers that give it a much higher chance of that happening? Yes.
Do they know well before release if those are working, and then press a hell of a lot more? YES YES YES WTF YES.
My sympathies are with everyone who is watching the reporting out of a certain courtroom right now and losing their bloody mind because WE ALL KNOW HOW THIS FUCKING WORKS.
Aug 3, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
My favourite topic! KD's first book, Unwritten Rules, uses one of my favourite narrative structures -- split timeline and tension from backstory instead of building towards a crisis point in the 3rd act.
Rising tension towards a bleak "all is lost" moment in the 3rd act is only one way to create a compelling story. The idea that it's necessary for a good book is one of the most persistent myths in publishing.
Aug 3, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
How does he get into the country if he isn't vaccinated???
(And the US still requires non-citizens to be vaccinated to go the other way, so this is fair tit for tat)
"worth through that with his family" hopefully means someone in his family likes him getting a full paycheque and can talk some sense into him.
Jul 25, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I would very much like it if reasonable, mature people falling in love while doing ordinary, kind things suddenly captivated the imagination of the market and just *took off*, for example, but since that's not likely, I need to build my writing business differently.
Understanding the market does not mean you are beholden to it. It just means you can navigate through it with more knowledge.
Jul 23, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I’m away from my computer today but I’m deeply concerned about another story of Amazon terminating an author’s KDP account. Sharing this now as an FYI and I’ll be back later to elaborate on action steps if this ever happens to you.
vm.tiktok.com/ZMNQcsrPh/?k=1
I’m worried that Amazon is using AI for customer service, including account management, without sufficient human oversight.
Mar 14, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I'm very confused by how many people think it's specifics of the Patrick Brown rumours that matter, rather than the general gist of he's a grown-ass man who clearly has a thing for much younger women, and how that is a perfectly acceptable deal breaker for voters or supporters.
We live in a society where older men regularly use their positions of power to take advantage of younger women. If you want to be in one of the codified positions of Big Power, be prepared to people to figure out if you're a creep.
Mar 13, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
As two more indie romances with hot guys on the cover hit the #1 spot on Amazon—the entire Kindle store—I will restrain myself from tweeting comments about the overblown credit given to illust—
I genuinely like all cover art designs! This isn't a slap against illustrated covers. It's a slap against the idea that they're better than a hot guy with jeans riding low, promising lots of growling and sizzle on the page.
Because that? That's fucking gold.
Dec 29, 2021 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
Okay, editing and executive dysfunction. One trick here is to chunk it up. Depending on what stage of editing you are at, if you're using track changes or a revision letter/feedback note, etc., this might look like a few different things.
Let's start with early developmental feedback. Universally good advice: read it, then walk away for a day. Come back and read it again. You may have some impulse to dive right in and fix (or fight) the first note, but try to see Reading and Absorbing the Feedback as a task.
Dec 28, 2021 • 24 tweets • 5 min read
I saw a request for a thread like this, so: Writing with Executive Dysfunction. I have ADHD and an anxiety disorder; I start lots of projects and struggle to finish them. But over eight years, I’ve (almost) consistently written a good number of romance books each year.
From the outside, some of the things I struggle with may not be obvious. I can’t promise that what DOES work for me will work for anyone else, but if any of this resonates, that's great.
First, for all the projects that I have finished and published, a LOT have been abandoned.
Dec 28, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
200 books a year is only:
30 full length novels
2 ten-book series (a good holiday glom)
10 five-book series (I can glom these in a weekend)
^ That's 100 books "reading one thing a week" where a thing is either a standalone book or a series
+
100 novellas or short stories
A few years, I went from my usual reading routine being 2-3 novels a week + a few novellas to ... I think I read 20 books total in 2018?
So I'm not sharing this to make anyone feel bad for not reading a lot. I repeated that drought in 2020.
Dec 28, 2021 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
The only thing I like more than writing and publishing romance is talking about writing and publishing romance, which is why I’m very excited to announce I’ll be speaking at Romance Writers of Australia’s 2022 conference.
This is a strange kind of announcement to make right now, when we’re in the midst of a global pandemic that ebbs and flows and spikes without warning. (So there is a very real chance that I’ll be presenting via Zoom, but for purposes of this announcement, let’s pretend otherwise)
Dec 27, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Pen name selection: two factors I beg authors to consider
1. Searchability 2. Common spelling issues
Twice in the past week I've seen a book mentioned here on Twitter (no buy links), so I opened a new window and searched on Amazon.
Couldn't find the book.
Came back to Twitter. The tweet had moved on from my screen. Tried to remember who had shared it. Failed.
Dec 26, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Watching a holiday movie. Character is being picked up at a regional airport in the Rockies, and it's daytime.
Q: How was your flight?
A: As good as any red eye from New York could be.
Uh...
The line, "as good as anyone could be after two layovers and a missed flight" is right there? And would be faintly accurate?
Oct 21, 2021 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Another lesson I learned a long time ago from a fellow romancelandia writer, in this case the lovely Sasha Devlin: how to take a regular stock photo and make it pop instantly.
The year was 2013, and baby author Zoe was intent on making her own book covers, because she knew how to use Photoshop.
(Pause for laughter)
I think the thread on Romance Divas was 10 pages long. And I think Sasha actually just changed a model's eye colour for me? Amazing.
