An Erotic Romance ~ 2.2 out of 5 Stars = 'It was ok'
To listen to this blog post, you have two options. You can click the button below and head to the AV Audio Podcast.
Or you can hit the play button below...
How'd I get to the point of setting up a podcast? Well, I had hoped the 'free' chrome, extension called speechify would be the answer to an audio version of my blogs. However my attempt to use the text to computer/AI speech platform produced woeful results. I had hoped I could spare you all having to listen to my own voice. But if free / sweat-equity is the name of the game, then my voice is my only option until some currently unknown to me, free text to speech platform becomes available.
Click on the arrows to open the drop down menu.
Dominant Tropes:
Sub-Dominant Tropes:
Worthy of Note:
Media: Audible
'Mine To Hold' is the only self-published title in my initial 'potential comparative titles' TBR 'To-Be-Read' list and it shows - which is kind of a bummer - because I was hoping this book was going to show me that self-publishing was a serious contender for how I might manage my (yet to be finished) manuscript. But all is not lost my romance-reading sisters, because this book has taught me a lot, and sent me down multiple learning-streams that were fascinating and illuminating and that is what I spend a large majority of this blog writing about.
This blog is a bit of a behemoth, sorry about that. To help, I've broken up into the following sections:
I also plan to record it into some format of audio. That's something new to learn! Once done, I'll add that at the top of this written blog, so those of you out there, starved of time and also challenged to read written things, have an equal opportunity to marvel in my magnificent ramblings.
1. THE AUTHOR
If you clicked on the 'Worthy of Note:' arrow above, you will have read that I think the Author is the most interesting thing about this book. Why? Because Natasha Madison has written a massive number of books!
Amazon.com suggests Madison has 113 titles.
Goodreads indicates she has authored 65 distinct works.
Here's another link to another list of her books from Books Series In Order, which I don't totally understand as there are a bunch of books at the bottom that are written by other authors?
And I'm sure - while I was researching her - I found another reference saying it was 89 books.
As you can imagine, this unpublished, aspiring author wanted... nay, needed to know more about this mass-manufacturing-machine of an author. But like so often is the case with Romance authors, I suspect she is writing under a pen-name, because the publicly available blurb that follows is omnipresent online. From her own website to her author's goodreads page, to amazon and her many socials, including a private Facebook readers group aptly named 'Natasha Madison's Maniacs'. The group holds 5,862 members including me, unashamedly stalking her, in an attempt to figure out how she has written at a minimum, nine books every year for the past seven years or at a maximum, 16 books each one of those years. I mean come on! How is that even possible? Here's her public 'about me' blurb.
"When Wall Street Journal and USA Today Best Selling Author's nose isn't buried in a book, or her fingers flying across a keyboard writing, she's in the kitchen creating gourmet meals. You can find her, in four inch heels no less, in the car chauffeuring kids, or possibly with her husband scheduling his business trips. It's a good thing her characters do what she says, because even her Labrador doesn't listen to her..."
Dismayed, I was about to give up on finding any really good background on her and then I had a moment of divine intervention, or more likely a nudge from the collective conscious. Same thing really.
I wonder if she's done any podcast interviews?
And she had! I spent the next 55mins listening to Steph's Romance Book Talk YouTube channel. Well, I listened to the dialogue in-between all the host's unnecessary laughter. Don't get me wrong, podcasts are hard, and I take my hat off to Steph for putting herself out there and building an audience base of 4.7k subscribers - nice work Steph, keep going! I'm too much of a wimp to do what you're doing, hence this blog and it's one glorious reader (besides me) hey there Suzanne Casamento. You too are an absolute legend. Please also keep going, and by that, I mean please keep reading this blog. The podcast was illuminating offering all the background Madison's (I suspect) self-written online marketing content doesn't cover. That in itself is a great lesson - people like me, people who are years, (actually correction) decades behind people like Madison are interested in their backgrounds and their writer journey. So I must make sure I add that information into my marketing materials when I (fingers crossed) get to a point in my journey, where I actually have wanna-be-writers googling my name. One can dream!
But I can't quite work out the chronological order of things from this interview. Madison says she wrote her first book in July 2016, after taking a month off work to write it. Then she goes on to say on returning, she let her boss know she was quitting, and would finish up around September. That doesn't correspond with her statement about working a day job for three years while she moonlighted as a writer. Unless! She is referencing her time blogging which must have occurred before she wrote her first book, while she managed a day job. Madison wrote and self-published her first book in 2016 on a dare, seven years ago. 'Something So Right' was the first in the 'Something So' series. Like so many successful writers, - yes! You read me correctly, even though I gave this book 2.2 stars, I still think Madison is a successful writer, she has been writing full time, with no need of a 'proper' day job for at least the last seven years. She started writing while working full time in a non-writer job. Madison moonlighted as a writer for three years of her 'becoming-an-author' journey and then quit her day job and started writing full time. That, to me, equals success. I got an inkling she was doing some sort of accounting or financial administration. When she let her boss know she would be leaving, she offered to "come in one day a week to do the accounting and stuff". So Madison quit after taking a month off to write her first book (this alone bamboozles me). One month Natasha? One month is all it took for you to write an entire book! I'm in my second year of writing my manuscript and I'm only half way through. On completion of her first novel, she says she quit her job to focus on writing her second book, 'Something So Perfect'.
Madison comes across very humble in the interview, her answer to the question: "Are you traditionally published, independently published or are you a hybrid of both?" is answered with...
"No! God No. Nobody wants to publish me. I'm an Indie author."
A response that results in the interviewer losing her laughter-shit and cackling away, in what I thought was actually a rather rude reaction to Madison's somewhat muted reply. Or maybe that's just me projecting my hopes and dreams being dashed that self-publishing is not the legitimate route I had hoped it would be. Don't get me wrong, it's plan B. And yes I am well aware it's how Colleen Hoover started out.
Madison fronts as a much more demure version than the dressed in hot-pink, with plunging neckline character featured on her website. She does admit early on, to completely forgetting about the scheduled interview, that may be part of the reason for her look being so vastly different from her polished website self. I mean, why wouldn't you do a photoshoot and get some next-level shots taken of you if you are launching yourself as a brand? I know I am really looking forward to that bit, if it ever comes - I never get dressed up, it'll be a nice change. And then I can be entertained by all the people who meet the real me, as I watch their disappointment at my non-made up face and hair situation. Bring on those good times!
Madison suggests she prefers Indie publishing - I must point out here, it doesn't sound like she has experienced the traditional side of publishing, so I guess her preference for an Indie way of life is skewed - that's just being real, okay. When Steph pushes her on her aspirations and if traditional publishing is desired. Madison's response is mixed. "I don't, well see, I don't, probably not..." Later on she says "I don't know, I just haven't even thought about it to be honest." I call BS here! I cannot believe a writer of 89 or more romance novels isn't thinking about the commercial realities of their situation, and what life would be like if she was picked up by one of the major publishing houses, and in turn had sold far greater volumes of books. I do totally get her statement about being in full control, she manages every aspect of her book development, cover design, editing, everything. She says she "kinda likes doing [her] own thing, if that makes sense. [She] likes setting [her] own timelines and stuff like that...". Perhaps, the lower royalties she'd receive if published traditionally, would actually net out at a lower return to her, than what she's making now. Who knows?
'Mine To Hold' is one of Madison's more recent books, she states she was a pantser up until Covid hit, and then from March 2020 she has plotted.
2. KINDLE CATEGORIES & ANALYTICS
At one point in the interview she admits to hating sport, but then earlier on suggests sport romance is one of her focus sub-genres - this didn't make sense to me. Why would someone write about something they hate? But then I looked at her amazon ratings for 'Only One Kiss' an ice hockey romance that she published in 2020. It's ranked 192 in the niche segment of 'Sports Fiction'. Sports Fiction sits under the Category: Literature & Fiction, and then Sub-Category: Genre Fiction, and finally under the niche segment: Sports Fiction. This is a completely different categorisation to where Romance novels sit, and by doing this, this book (I believe) has achieved a significantly lower ranking than 'Mine To Hold' which sits at 1,086 in Romance Comedy. Granted, 'Only One Kiss' has been available for sale for two whole years more than 'Mine To Hold'. But it got me thinking, surely the Sport Fiction genre is a smaller pond than the ocean that is, Romance Comedy.
So, I checked on my kindle which still offers up a 'number of titles' per category, although I am now positive that these numbers are grossly under-reported.
As at 29 JAN 2023 the number of titles as reported on my kindle are:
CATEGORY: Literature & Fiction = 59,635 titles
SUB-CATEGORY: Genre Fiction = 56,076 titles
NICHE: Sports: 12,603 titles
Now let's compare that against the Romance categories where 'Mine To Hold' is coded to:
CATEGORY: Romance = 56,688 titles
SUB-CATEGORY: Romantic Comedy = 56,085 titles
There is no 3rd level in the Romance category tree.
CATEGORY: Literature & Fiction = 59,635 titles
SUB-CATEGORY: Women's Fiction = 59,389 titles
NICHE: Romance = 55,582 titles
Please note, after further research the above numbers are definitely, far from what's actually available, this link to an article suggests that Amazon Kindle stopped offering up number of titles data back in 2018, and suggests the estimated number of titles sat at 9 Million back in 2021. There are an estimated 1 Million new books made available on Kindle every year. The Romance category is estimated to have over 1 Million titles.
If my earlier (incorrect Kindle) numbers were to be used, 'Mine To Hold' needs to beat out 56,085 Romantic Comedy titles to get into the Top 100, or 55,582 titles in the Niche Literature & Fiction Romance category. Either way, that's some stiff competition.
Whereas, 'Only One Kiss' fights it out in the niche Sports Fiction pond, with only 12,603 titles to beat. And this my writer friends is the game we must play, should we want to get into that all important Top 100 circuit. If you play the literary game this way however, you are forced to write in genres you may dislike. I, for one, am happy to write what I want to write and suffer the consequences of drowning in a sea of romance - actually, that sounds quite nice! On my mission to understand the Kindle marketplace. I found K-lytics at the same time that I found this blog by TCK Publishing which was the most useful of all. It breaks down kindle categories and how the whole ranking system works. Super interesting! Here's what I think I learnt from all this: 1. Kindle's top 100 best sellers list (These are books you have to pay for)
2. Kindle also has a top 100 free best sellers list - which I didn't know about until today. I assume this is Kindle Unlimited and titles on promotion for short periods of time, instigated by authors wishing to grow their readership.
3. Each category has it's own top 100 best seller list as well:
Here is the Literature & Fiction Top 100. 4. Some categories have sub-genre niches so small, there are less than 100 titles in them, so just by publishing a book in that niche genre, your book can be in a top 100 list.
5. This means, the more titles there are in a category, the more competition there is, or the harder it is for you to get into the Top 100.
6. Which is where K-lytics data comes back into play, the below chart shows Nov 2022 data of total number of titles - don't ask me how they get this data, I assume they have done a deal with Amazon, or they scrape Amazon's website and crunch it into these charts.
CATEGORY:
Literature & Fiction (L&F) = 3.7 Million titles
Romance = 1.05 Million titles
Seems like Romance would be the more attractive category, when compared to the number of titles in L&F, but that changes once you learn that L&F has sub-categories and then a further categorisation of niche segments. The Romance category, stops at sub-categories, it has one less level to categorise the titles coded within it. This means you can get into a smaller pond by coding your book to L&F, and by doing so, you are more likely to be able to get in the top 100 of that niche segment.
3. THE INDIE WORLD AND MY 180 TURN ON IT
I've spent a large proportion of my life working in marketing. When I was a kid at university I chose a double major in Media Studies and English. I wanted to be a journalist and I'd failed miserably at getting into the most desirable communications institution that, on completion of my education, would guarantee entry into said desired vocation. Plan B was signing up for a humanities degree. This was driven by the promise that doing so would unlock the mysteries of advertising and the magic of movies, Two things I have salivated over my entire life. I'm not kidding, I love a good tv ad, I will revel in the poetry of how it conjures emotion in the viewer. I will clap and celebrate my congratulations to the artists who create such beauty and commercial mastery. Same goes for movies, especially Rom-Coms - my favourite! So many people write off the rom-com genre as shallow drivel, but there is so much depth and effort there. When these movies are crafted properly, when the theme has strength and the tone is conveyed successfully - they are superb.
At the end of my degree I had deconstructed the media to such a level, that all the mystery and magic woven into movies and good TV adverts had been replaced with science and structure and frameworks. Black and white data points that make something good. I'd replaced the mystery and magic with the elements that when sutured together, become something else, something ethereal, something much bigger than the sum of the parts. And I couldn't see the magic anymore, I couldn't unsee the elements - I'd lost the romance of the things I loved.
When I started my writing journey, I thought there was one way to publish and one way only. I dreamt of being discovered, like a beautiful young girl plucked from a crowd destined for super-model stardom. I figured I'd be picked up, promptly, by one of the big four. I'd have had complete and utter validation via winning various awards, resulting in media coverage suggesting I was an overnight, runaway train of success.
Sure I'd heard of self-publishing but that was for charlatans. Self-publishing was the epitome of the common statement,
"Those who can, do; those who can't, teach."
Self publishing is what you did because it was the only option, because rejection was the only response offered by literary agents and publishing houses. But over the course of writing this blog, and falling down multiple internet holes about the Indie world, I have come to realise I was so wrong, so unbelievably wrong. I also just had an amusing thought. If those who can, do, and those who can't, teach - imagine how tough it must be for people who teach self-publishing. That was a joke, please don't hate me.
The traditional publishing industry is massive. It's regulated and thwarted by the multiple hands that touch a writer's art as it crosses the coming-of-age threshold from manuscript to book. A long and arduous value chain. It's a tried and true go-to-market system, with bureaucratic infrastructure and screeds of resources. It's like a fat, old, rich man who is exceedingly happy and loves a good twelve course degustation. And there is nothing wrong with that. That is capitalism, that is trade, that is sales and marketing, hard graft, growth, drive, dreams that become reality. And let us not forget, it's also a whopping number of happy readers. That fat, rich man was created by multiple generations of growth and construction, resulting in the mega-metropolis we know today as the Trad Publishing Industry. And there is nothing wrong with it, it is, what it is, because of how it came to be.
Like all monolithic industries conceived from the ashes of pre-industrial society, disruption is rife, threatening uncontrollably change where there was once control and order. Enter the Indie world, the era of self-publishing, the flood. Digital publishing has brought down the Trad wall, opening up a new channel for wanna-be authors. One without the Traditional barriers of entry. A revolution if you will, and there is nothing wrong with it, except in my humble opinion the obvious disadvantage. When one knocks down an industry wall, one removes the doorway that once managed the flow of traffic. With the wall gone, one can no longer control who enters. Inevitably, one's house becomes full, then overcrowded and then untenable. This leads to a correction, the addition of a system to make the unmanageable, manageable.
The Indie House is full, nay... it is collapsing under the weight of biblical-like floods. Flood waters full of low quality literature in desperate need of an editor or perhaps more appropriately an agent's rejection letter. And this is the reason why traditional publishing will always exist. It's also the reason why correction systems like Goodreads exist - offering up a way for readers to swim through the contaminated rapids, avoiding the pockets of sewage. Although I am aware, like Amazon best seller lists, Goodreads ratings are being gamed by those who choose to be unethical.
I guess what I'm saying is 'trust' and 'credibility' are important factors for readers seeking to purchase a book. I for one expect a certain level of quality for my hard earned dollars, and if that isn't delivered, you'll be hard-pressed to find me investing additional dollars in your trade. In saying all of the above, someone, - a lot of someone's - are doing just the opposite of producing high-quality self-published books, and readers (who are not like me) are buying them! Madison is obviously selling a lot of books. So that means there's a reader market out there happy to forgo substantial theme, tone, and setting for erotica. I guess that's an acceptable tradeoff for these readers. And that's okay too, there's nothing wrong with filling a gap in the market and delivering what your target-reader wants. I say good on ya Madison!
So this is where I lose a little bit of the mystery and magic of writing. This is the part where I realise just like advertising, sex-sells. This is the part where I can see the data points, and the concept of formulaic, speed romance-writing, void of artistic-mastery. And it saddens me, I feel like Mom and Dad are getting a divorce, I feel like someone ripped the band aid off while simultaneously pulling my rose-coloured glasses from my face and stomping them into the ground.
But have faith my romance-reading-rebels! The universe has a way of balancing out stuff like this. The floods of Indie contain patches of utter brilliance, idyllic, serene oases to be discovered and revelled in. And of course this is where Traditional publishing can play to its strength. Their selection process alone guarantees a level of inspection that the Indie world can only dream of. Trad Pub's strength is their legacy of experience and pedigree for high quality, well edited literature and they consistently deliver on this. So in conclusion, here is how I intend to proceed. I am writing a high quality romance that will hit every single element that should be contained in a novel. My book will sell because its reader will be absorbed into its threads. For a fleeting (90k word count) moment, my readers will live in the tapestry I have created. They will escape their worlds, they will learn from the theme, and they will live the experiences of my characters. They will enjoy every sutured together, formulaic data point of my expertly constructed, creation through rose-coloured glasses. The perspective all romance novels should be read from. And importantly how my readers come to hold my book will not matter. Indie? Trad? Some other platform I am yet to know? I'll leave that bit up to the universe.
There, how's that for some manifestation? I feel better now.
4. WRITER PROCESS
47 year old Madison, starts writing a book by writing the blurb, writing this before, not after she has a manuscript, which I find interesting. I wonder if this is possible because she has an established reader audience and doesn't really need to do much market research for the books she is writing. All she has to do to deliver on her 'Natasha Madison' brand is ensure there are three flames worth of spice in it.
Madison's first step is very different to the process Nat Connors, the founder of Kindletrends.com and also a self-published author outlines in episode 97 of Sacha Black's The Rebel Author Podcast. Basically, Nat breaks book research, or understanding your market into four parts, or layers. From the innermost layer being content, all the way out to the last layer being Mechanics. The four layers are:
1. Content
2. Blurbs
3. Covers
4. Mechanics
Nat starts his market research for his books at Content, and works out to Mechanics through layer 2, Blurbs and 3, Covers because each layer relates to the others. He suggests that market research is always about understanding the relationships between each of those layers. He says,
"Covers on the outside make a promise to the reader. A promise usually about genre. That promise is then developed in the blurb, and it's fleshed out and you're telling the reader how they're going to get this genre fiction. And then it's delivered in the story itself, the content. So effective genre research is about understanding each of these four layers and how they're related."
I subscribe to Nat's approach, it just makes more logical sense for me and how my brain works. Madison's process is visually focused.
"I'm so visual that I can't do anything without seeing."
In between mental plotting while driving and in the shower, she picks up inspiration from the Pinterest boards she creates, designs a cover before typing a word, and selects a theme song that she plays on repeat while writing the blurb first. Yup all of that before one word of manuscript is typed. I assume Madison uses the blurb as a kind of pseudo-outline, giving her some guardrails on what the book is about. And finally she plots chapter by chapter, to be ready to commence writing. An interesting process, isn't it? Make me think I need a theme song. I do have a whole Instagram collection of audio's saved, but that's not the same.
5. THE BOOK - TONE
Okay, let's get talk Tone. Google states one of the definitions of tone is "The general character or attitude of a piece of writing." Below, in my ranking breakdown table, Tone is the mood implied by the Author's word choice. The way the text makes the reader feel. This book made me feel basic, I felt like it was stupefying me.
The following are a couple of excerpts to explain what I mean.
Chapter 9
"She pulls out the stool and sits down next to me. "Not sure if they have enough booze to share with you." I joke with her and pour myself another glass. My hand picks up the glass, and I wince right before I swallow down the whiskey."
My hand picks up the glass? Really? How else would he pick up his shot? With his foot? Maybe his mouth? This is an erotic romance after all? Foot fetish anyone?
This is where some level of credit needs to be given to the reader. There's some tacit knowledge here that every human being is able to leverage to comprehend the situation. Instead of being edited out, these unbelievably obvious statements are speckled throughout the book and it makes the narrators sound so basic.
Here's another one, the repetition of the same word in short succession happens all the way through the book. I'm pretty sure running the manuscript through a writing grammar software package like Pro Writing Aid would have picked up on some of this, if not all of it? This would have increased the quality of the book significantly, and make the book so much better to read. But I suspect Madison is playing a low-quality high volume game with her writing, and I take my hat off to her because this is the first time I have seen book-manufacturing at this scale and with these types of timeframes - I seriously didn't even think it was possible until now.
Chapter 11
"She turns to walk towards the back of the room. The smell of roses fills the room, "
"The sun looks like it's going down, and the sky looks orange."
Arrrrrgh! Really? Does it look like the sun is 'going down?' Did Ace stand there and watch the sun racing toward the horizon? Or was it the sunset colours of, just 'orange' that gave it away? Apparently the sky looks orange, it isn't orange, it just looks orange. It's just such a basic tone, I'd love to understand why the writing is like this? Is it because Madison rushes these novels through? I can only assume the quality is a direct result of the fact that she must have little to know time to edit and polish. It frustrates me so much. How about, instead we rock out a... "Outside, the light is low. The sun has splashed pink and orange watercolours over the garden."
"Putting the bottle of whiskey down and then the glasses, I grab the bottle and turn the cap. Listening to the snapping sound and then pouring two glasses. "This should make it better."
I am literally crying, it hurts! All of the above should not exist. All that needs to be here is
"Pouring two glasses of whiskey I say "This should make it better."
Chapter 9 uses the word 'glass' so many times I experienced physical facial cringe. I definitely think this Author could do with a good thesaurus. I mean, even a few of these options would have been a nice change: 'vessel' or 'cup' 'shot' 'liquor' 'pain relief'.
"I pulled the vessel to my lips. I pulled the shot to my lips. I pulled the pain-relief to my lips."
Hopefully you get the picture?
Here's the last one, because I can't do this for much longer without having some sort of panic attack.
"I need help." She spins in front of me, showing me her back. "Can you unbutton me?" She moves her hair to the side so I can unbutton her. I get up, and my hands shake right before I start to unbutton the first little white satin button. My heart speeds up, and all I can do is focus on one button after another. "How many buttons are there?" I ask after I get past ten, my eyes trying not to focus on the fact I'm getting really close to her ass. "Too many." she laughs..."
5a. EDITING RECOMMENDATION EXAMPLES
Now I do realise I have no right or credibility to be offering up editing suggestions to a full-time author who has written and published such a large number of books, which are enjoyed by a reader audience I could only dream of having one day.
I am actually in complete awe of Natasha Madison's productivity, and I can only dream of being in her position one day.
I know it's very easy to sit here to criticise someone who is actually putting themselves out there and having a go. I have no doubt when I finally publish my book I'll be faced with many DNF's and 1 star reviews. It's part and parcel of being a writer and putting your work out into the world. You will never please every reader.
The point I am trying to make with this review, is I was disappointed with the tone. The plot was solid and I think (in my humble opinion) with the right editor, or perhaps with more time, this could have been a 3 to 4 star book for me.
I'm going to finish my editing rant, by reading you scene in it's original state, and then read a version that I've re-written - to hopefully explain why I see such an opportunity to improve this novel.
ORIGINAL
"I hear her voice and turn to look at her. She's standing there in her wedding dress. The minute the doors opened and I saw her, I couldn't even help myself. I leaned over and whispered to Joseph that he was a fucking lucky man. Her blue eyes look [ed] like the deep end of the ocean does right before a storm rushes in, which should have been my first clue that something was up. Her eyes only get that dark when she is super pissed, but I just figured that was her nerves. She pulls out the stool and sits next to me. "Not sure if they have enough booze to share with you." I joke with her and pour myself another glass. My hand picks up the glass, and I wince right before I swallow down the whisky.
I look down at my hand, seeing the knuckle bloody and scraped. I close it in a fist again and open it feeling the tightness in the skin. "That always plays out differently in the movies." I shake my head and laugh. I didn't even know I was going to punch him in the face, "
The whole section could read so much better, something like this...
RE-WRITTEN BY ME
"I hear her voice and turn. She just stands there, wedding dress and all. I'll never forget the surge in my chest when I saw her for the first time today. As she walked down the aisle, I couldn't stop myself leaning over and whispering to Joseph he was one fucking lucky man. Her blue eyes looked like the deep end of the ocean, right before a storm. That should have been my first clue something was up. Her eyes only get that colour when all hell is about to break loose. But I'd written it off as nerves. She pulls out the stool and sits next to me. "Not sure if they have enough booze to share with you. "I joke, pouring myself another glass, picking it up and wincing from the pain, then downing the lot.
I make a fist, surveying the damage. The knuckle is bloody and scraped, the skin, tight and swollen. "That always plays out differently in the movies." I shake my head and laugh. I didn't even know I was going to punch him in the face."
Hey Natasha Madison, if you ever come across this review, and you like the above, get in touch, I'd be happy to offer up my unproven beta-reading / editing skills for free to you, in return for getting some real life 'editing' experience under my belt.
7. THINGS I'VE LEARNT
There's a thing called a 'Content' editor, this person is responsible for researching, proofreading, and publishing both traditional and online media. And yes Madison has one of these - I'd be super interested to know who they are.
The Indie world is a world of many games - Madison here (I can only assume) plays a volume game, delivering in-demand erotic-romance novels. This is not the game I will be playing - therefore 'Mine To Hold' is the first competitive title on my 'potentials' list that is a hard no. I wanna caveat that with, I would be absolutely stoked to get the sales that Madison has achieved.
This book has well over 2,500 reviews on goodreads. At $4.99USD for the e-book version that's sales of $13,393 USD and counting! And if Madison is receiving the 70% royalties kindle book option, that means she's made just under $10,000USD. Solid effort Madison! Congrats.
So just to conclude Natasha Madison's estimated earnings, if you take 89 novels, and assume each of them has made her $10k, then Madison has cleared a cool $890,000USD
My last lesson is that money talks - I'd probably consider writing erotic-romance for that kind of money... maybe?
RATING BREAKDOWN
ELEMENT | OF A NOVEL | RATING |
Conflict | The lifeblood of a story, creating Tension, launching Plot and evoking Theme. | 2 / 5 |
Tension | Something ominous, simmering under the surface. Comes to fruition beginning of Act 2 | 2 / 5 |
Plot | A strong plot is centred on one moment. Raising a dramatic question to be answered. | 4 / 5 |
Theme | An important idea woven throughout the story. Links a big idea about our world with the action of the text. | 0 / 5 |
Tone | The mood implied by the Author's word choice. The way the text makes the reader feel. | 1 / 5 |
Setting | Relates to the time and place in which the story is told. | 1 / 5 |
Characters | Are they unique, three-dimensional, with depth, personality and clear motivations? | 3 / 5 |
Climax | The most exciting part of the story, when the Conflict is resolved. i.e. when the dragon is slayed. | 3 / 5 |
Resolution | The end of the story, occurring after the climax, when we learn what happens to the characters after the conflict is resolved. | 4 / 5 |
TOTAL | | 2.2 / 5 |
GOODREADS STAR RATING SYSTEM
0 stars = Goodreads doesn't offer up a description for zero star ratings.
1 star = "Did not like it."
2 stars = "It was okay."
3 stars = "liked it."
4 stars = "Really liked it"
5 stars = "It was amazing."
Yeap... *hand in face* I did spend hours, lots of them! hahaha! And every single minute was worth it, because I learnt so much, and I had SOOOOO much fun writing this blog. I'm such a geek! But I am so passionate about learning everything I can about the literary industry, especially self-publishing as I suspect I will not be 'magically discovered' by a big publisher wanting to make my dreams come true.
113 Titles?! How does one person write 113 books? Beyond that, your rating system, editing examples, and review breakdown are seriously detailed. I mean... I'm a little scared of you. Please don't review my books. 😂😂😂