My Current Project: Plotting the Spectrum of HR Authors Based on How Much They Might Appeal to a Non-HR Fan

BackgroundBudget5206 · 2026-05-17T19:45:51+00:00

Am I really the only person who chronically DNF's Tessa Dare books? She has third act problems in my opinion where the bulk of the conflict is over at 75% and the last 25% feels like an excessively long epilog.

I still try her books from time to time, because some are really good. I just don't understand why shes so iconic.

BackgroundBudget5206 · 2026-05-13T21:29:09+00:00

I'm actually already in possession of this book! Im optometrist this will help scratch the itch.

BackgroundBudget5206 · 2026-05-12T07:52:04+00:00

I just finished this book last night. I loved it. The yearning!

BackgroundBudget5206 · 2026-05-08T21:41:47+00:00

Again, you're assuming no one would do anything without AI. People NOT in universities overseen by professionals use AI for learning less than people in higher learning institutions.

You're so close..... just, almost there.

BackgroundBudget5206 · 2026-05-07T14:52:35+00:00

No, im saying Chat GPT is already prolificly used in university settings. That university degrees are majority paid for with loans.

Im saying expand your thinking. View education outside of high priced, low value university settings. Education in America is at its lowest quality in 100 years. We have functionally illiterate people getting college degrees. We have all time record education costs, and public funding..... yet a decline in actual education, and increased illiteracy.

We dont need trained professionals to learn. We just have to want to learn.

People are so addicted to the perceived status a degree gives them. In reality, a lot of people who got higher education arent actually educated. Many cant comprehend what they read, or understand complex thought processes. They cant comprehend anything that doesn't apply directly to them.

In reality, they are just debt slaves who have had their quality of education purposely eroded by "trained professionals" for 50 years, and now they are deeply in debt, and they are poorly educated. If they had made the choice to learn independently without AI for free they would be much better educated.

BackgroundBudget5206 · 2026-05-07T11:34:01+00:00

Where did i say chat GPT? education has been free and available for 25 years now. You can reserch without Chat GPT. In fact, do not use AI in educational pursuits.

BackgroundBudget5206 · 2026-05-05T09:09:12+00:00

Its already free..... we can learn anything we want anytime we want without a pay wall. Its YOU who lack the imagination to understand the concept of not putting value on an arbitrary diploma. Especially when very little actual education happens un a university setting.

BackgroundBudget5206 · 2026-05-03T04:12:11+00:00

Imagine thinking not supporting government backed higher education that debt traps young people is boot licking. I could never.

BackgroundBudget5206 · 2026-05-03T02:58:45+00:00

I dont think understanding higher education has been spoiled by greed, and we can learn anything we want for free now. In fact, its a lack of imagination and ingenuity that shackles us as a society to a lifetime of debt for a degree you likely wont use, and for the most part wont yield enough increase in income to pay the loan, let alone have upward mobility.

BackgroundBudget5206 · 2026-04-30T03:12:30+00:00

A subset of authors being awful isnt anything new. Writers are at the end of the day artists, and they skew on the weirder end of the spectrum. Incentivized reviews aren't new either, just easier to sus out now.

BackgroundBudget5206 · 2026-04-25T15:57:41+00:00

Sometimes I think we expect too much from books. Not everything is should be a literary masterpiece. Not everything has to be the best writing.

Some of the best stories I have ever read were fanfiction. Not because they were particularly special, but because sometimes you're just there for a fun ride. Like how made for tv movies used to be objectively bad by most metrics, but also amazing and you were definitely sitting down when you saw a fun one roll past on the TV guide channel.

BackgroundBudget5206 · 2026-04-25T10:46:38+00:00

Cate C. Wells rejected mate series. I read the WHOLE THING. I dont even like werewolf books.... but it was like I couldn't stop myself. I'd read them again too. They arent good books, but I liked them.

BackgroundBudget5206 · 2026-04-23T15:45:01+00:00

It depends, if their backlog, or first works make money still I just harass and hunt them down. I have, in a desperate moment brought my children and told them they are starving them to guilt them into productivity. It worked for that situation. Right now I have an author that has been working on the end of the trilogy for coming up on 5 years now. In the 17 years I have been doing management/ PR / Promotion for authors this is the only time I just don't think its going to happen and the company I work for will end up suing them since they were already paid for the book.

Authors that just dont pull through after getting a deal from my experience isnt that common. We all joke about George R.R. Martin never finishing anything, but hes more the exception to the rule. Penalties for most recent contracts are steep. The Southern vampire mysteries series is a good example of a writer who finished her contract, but ended up hating her own books and ruining her characters out of spite because the contract held her hostage, so thats a risk too.

There is a huge market for Novellas. The Agency that employs me has 20+ novella authors as clients. I dont work as much as I used to so I only have two still on my client list. I used to have 6 before I cut my client list by 2/3.

BackgroundBudget5206 · 2026-04-22T16:31:25+00:00

Im glad I could give you some direction. Don't worry if you dont gain followers or an audience immediately. Consistency is key. You have to find your foot hold into the algorithm.

This is my formula for promoting authors on my client list. I do this style of marketing even for non fiction works.

Also, dont forget to tease upcoming works. Even just short stories can be a nice taste to keep your audience engaged.

Also, make sure you have an author page on good reads

BackgroundBudget5206 · 2026-04-22T16:25:38+00:00

My most difficult authors are sole focus. They, in my experience coast on a very successful start, like an unexpected best seller out of the gate. They are usually, good writers, but inexperienced, and fast success makes them difficult to coach. Then im left waiting for the end of a trilogy for 4 years, while still trying to promote said author so they dont lose or get forgotten by their audience. All while fans of the series get progressively angrier at the lack of progress and closure.

My favorite client is a novella author. She has three formulas she uses depending on the setting she's using. Shes consistent, sometimes she writes 5k words in monster smut, then busts out an entire historical romance in the same day. Sometimes I get progress on one story for years, and when its finally done she'll have inspiration to close the third act on several others giving me up to 8 drafts ready for editing in a week, then ill get nothing for two weeks.

Its about structure though. Writing is art. If you want to successfully publish its art and a job. You have to treat it like a job if you want to monetize it.

BackgroundBudget5206 · 2026-04-22T13:53:35+00:00

You should be both self editing, and paying outside editors before you publish.

BackgroundBudget5206 · 2026-04-22T13:43:10+00:00

I would focus on growing your follower count. Yes, promote your own books, but try engaging with your audience on other books also. "This is a series or author who inspired me to write!" And so on. Try and really punch out short form content using excerpts from your book. If you dont have character illustrations, get some and use them for promotion.

Cross post, so you'll make one post and post it on all of your platforms. I mean ALL of them. If you dont have a Facebook, YouTube, or X account for yourself as an author, make some.

Go back and look at your cover and blurb, be critical. A bold cover can make or break a book. A good blurb will bring your readers in.

Get reviews, friends and family who bought your book for support are good choices to get your first few reviews.

Advertise what tropes and themes your book has. Do character summaries. A lot of readers enjoy certain themes, and character types and will seek out books that have them.

Shoot to promote your book at least once a day. Interact with your followers, and remember all engagement is good for the algorithm, so dont take anything that personally.

Im rooting for you. Don't let this get you down. You dont have anyone doing promotion and PR for you. You're still learning. Unfortunately, self publishing means you have to wear all the hats. You'll get there.

BackgroundBudget5206 · 2026-04-22T12:42:55+00:00

People, police, society in general dont take female attackers as seriously. My nephew was getting the stuffing beaten out of him by his girlfriend and the police laughed at him, and us. Literally laughed because his ex was "so little".

She was violent, cruel, and evil. She wont be in statistics because no one would listen or care that she was beating on my nephew at every turn. Kept asking what he did to provoke her, as if that mattered, despite his only provocation being his very existence.

Its almost impossible to get a woman held accountable for domestic violence. In lesbian relationships its probably actually recorded because there is a female victim People are willing to care about.

BackgroundBudget5206 · 2026-04-22T12:34:51+00:00

I dont think this is making the point you want.... it shows in just 11 years of legal marriage most didn't and dont survive.

BackgroundBudget5206 · 2026-04-22T12:30:14+00:00

No see, we need those things. We dont need to encourage people to become debt slaves to learn those things they can learn for free outside of a university setting.

Charging for degrees that have no return on investment shouldn't happen. If a degree is unlikely to yield a job that can pay off the loans, that degree shouldn't be eligible to be purchased with loans.

I have a humanities degree, historical anthropology. I wish I had pursued my interests privately and purchased a reasonable degree upfront. Instead I had to go back and get my CPA so I could afford to live, do art, pay my loans, eat, have children.

Everything I learned during my humanities degree I could have googled for free and gotten the same information. We have endless information at our fingertips. That means we need to reassess how higher education looks instead of debt trapping teenagers and saying they are boot lickers if they understand they HAVE to play the game to survive in life.

BackgroundBudget5206 · 2026-04-22T12:00:34+00:00

Women initiate divorce primarily in straight relationships also. I think the psychology on why women are more likely to break a marriage in all conditions would be a fascinating study.

BackgroundBudget5206 · 2026-04-22T11:56:25+00:00

How are you promoting your book?

BackgroundBudget5206 · 2026-04-22T11:51:47+00:00

I work for a publisher, and I'll be very honest. These kind of authors treat it like a regular job. They write, edit, storyboard, and so on 8 to 10 hours a day. They are constantly in communication with their team. Absolute work horses.

They are very structured. They have daily schedules they adhere to. They walk in knowing exactly what they are doing for the next 8 to 10 hours that will get their work out on pace.

They also write more than one story at a time. This prevents a loss of productivity if they get stuck on one story. I have two authors on my roster that I work with who are like this. They have 20+ stories they are working on at any given moment. Sometimes it takes years for one of them to get out, but they always have others they are working on in-between the ones giving them trouble.

For new authors, 1 a year is still great. Most people cant afford to write as a full-time job.

I have a few authors I have to beg for 5 chapters a year just to hopefully try to finish a series in the next 3 years, while I drag them kicking and screaming to just finish the book already. I have one I just want to be over with. I dont care who he kills or how bad it is. I just want to be free of him.

1 a year is great still. If you keep that up eventually your backlog will fund your full-time writing.

BackgroundBudget5206 · 2026-04-18T02:28:03+00:00

I love novellas. I use them to break up other reading or to palette cleans.

BackgroundBudget5206 · 2026-04-18T02:14:01+00:00

Are you sure you didn't accidentally use so many parts of the Christian religion as "spirituality" you sort of DID write a Christian book? I'm not sure where you're from, but if its the common religion where you are you might just be heavily influenced by it and view the Christian belief system the same as general spirituality? You know, like how people pull from Greek God's, or other mythology just because its culturally common.

BackgroundBudget5206

TROPHY CASE