Teardrop Editions

I have turned to the next chapter in the book of my writing journey.

Chapter One: Write novels on lined paper in a duotang.

Chapter Two: Write novels on a computer and share them with no one.

Chapter Three: Write fanfiction and post it online.

Chapter Four: Write books for publication.

Chapter Five: Become an independent novelist.

Chapter Six: Stop charging for books.

Chapter Seven: Teardrop Editions.

I suppose you're wondering what the Teardrop Editions could possibly be?  Well, I'll tell you.  I'm now going to charge a small fee for my ebooks and audiobooks, but the Teardrop editions will be free.  They will be offered one year after the release of a new title.  You see, I've been forced to charge for some of my books, and it's been helping to offset some of my author fees.  

For one thing, most of the official covers for my books were drawn by real artists.  I need to pay the artists.  I will use AI generated covers for the Teardrop Editions.  For another, I use a service that has fees to generate audiobooks.  This way, I can recoup some of my costs while still offering titles for free.

Free is important to me.  I went to libraries when I was a kid and took out books for nothing.  To be honest, the idea of paying for books is a little off to me, but I'm an author, and I have these bills.  They're small bills, so I'm assigning small price tags to my books.  

Sadly, this also means that I will no longer be uploading my novels to Inkitt, Quotev, Royal Road, Scribblehub, or Tapas before they've been available on GooglePlay Books, Apple Books, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and all the bookstore sites for at least a year.  What can I say?  I've been receiving more interest for my books on GooglePlay than I have on those chapter-by-chapter sites.  It's a shame, but it's true.  

More news to come later!

Dream of the Wolf

Hi Ink Drinkers,

I'm here today to talk about my new story, 'Dream of the Wolf'.  Here's the synopsis:

Selphie awoke in a sealed room surrounded by ladders.  On the bed next to her is a white wolf.  He has promised not to EAT her, but she doesn't believe him.  Wolves can't climb trees or ladders.  She could leave him there, but what horrors will she find on the upper floors to send her back down to the wolf who swears he isn't hungry?

Originally, I got the idea for this story when I was doing a brainstorming session for stories that could go in a fantasy anthology.  I did a contemporary romance anthology, and it has enjoyed a shocking amount of success.  I really don't deserve to be surprised. Contemporary romance is probably the most popular genre in the world.  However, I got really excited by the prospect of writing a bunch of anthologies, so I got my brain really busy and cooked up a bunch of ideas for an anthology.  

If I'm making a fantasy anthology, the first book has to be 'Heart's Key' and then 'The House with Two Halves'.  But, I didn't want the whole thing to simply be fantasy romance, even though romance is my favorite genre.  

I also have this sick little corner of my mind where I want to turn concepts that are traditionally used to write smutty stories and turn them into something human that awakens something noble in a person instead of something sexually exciting.  I had already done it for vampires with my book, 'The Blood That Flows', and then I did it again for billionaires in my book, 'Cut Like Glass' (I bet some of you are surprised by that system of logic since I don't focus that hard on Bart's money in the story.  I only made him a millionaire.  If I had it to do over, I would have made him even richer... However, it stands nicely as it is), and so I wanted to do a wolf story. 

Here it is.

It's available to read now on:

Royal Road https://www.royalroad.com/profile/183381

Inkitt https://www.inkitt.com/StephanieVanOrman

Scribblehub https://www.scribblehub.com/profile/152188/stephanievanorman/

Tapas https://tapas.io/tigrix

Quotev https://www.quotev.com/StephanieVanOrman

It's also available as an audiobook on GooglePlay and AppleBooks.  As I celebrated before, it is killing it on GooglePlay.  It's breaking my download records left and right.  I sure hope no one is expecting a werewolf romance novel from me because this isn't it.  

Cheers!

Audiobooks on Spotify

Getting my books up on Spotify was one of my big goals for the year.  Look at that!  It's March, and I already got it done.  

Let's talk about my other writing goals for the year.  

BTW: Last year was a horrible year.  I floundered at everything I tried to do.  I've been trying desperately to stop that trend in its tracks and get back to winning.  

So, here are the plans for this year.

First: 

I have posted the first 37 chapters of Goldilocks Zone on Inkitt, Quotev, Royal Road, Scribblehub, and Tapas.

It's the fourth book of the Sleeping Beauty Inc. series.  Here's the synopsis:

Ornette is a model who has been bought and sold many times.  This time, she's been sold to participate in a fashion reality TV show on Venus called Goldilocks Zone.

When this book is finished, it will be the longest of the Sleeping Beauty Inc. books.  Rose Red was around 65k, Sleeping Prince was around 75k, Beauty of Ares was about 85k, and Goldilocks Zone is the longest at a whopping 99k.  I can't write any more of these books because I no longer write books that are over 100k.  Just kidding.  I have a few more ideas for these books, and since they get tons of readers, there might be another book in the works, but not immediately.

I release chapters on Mondays and Thursdays.

Second:

Dream of the Wolf is a short story that has been divided into 100% necessary chapters, so I'm calling it a novelette.  I have released it early in its entirety on GooglePlay Books (audiobook and ebook), AppleBooks, Barnes and Noble, Baker & Taylor, Hoopla, Smashwords, Kobo, Draft2Digital Audio, Vivlo, Tolino, and so many more, it's hard to remember them all.  It will get released on Inkitt, Quotev, Royal Road, Scribblehub, Tapas, and Fictionpress after I finish releasing Goldilocks Zone.

Here's the synopsis:

Selphie awoke in a sealed room surrounded by ladders. On the bed next to her is a white wolf. He has promised not to EAT her, but she doesn't believe him. Wolves can't climb trees or ladders. She could leave him there, but what will she find on the upper floors to send her back down to the wolf who swears he isn't hungry?

Third:

This is a novelette/novella that is close to being complete.  It is not available anywhere yet.  I haven't even written a synopsis for it yet.  I think it will probably be ready to have a release similar to Dream of the Wolf where it is released on the big sites before it's available on the read-only sites.  If all goes well, it will be ready to be released before summer.

Here's the synopsis:

Leonidas is a captain in the army of a King he hates. On the night when the rebels take the city, Leonidas only wants to find his brother.  Ciphas is a guard in the King's harem.  Leonidas hears a story about a guard who was thrown into the tiger's pit with a harem girl.  Racing to unlock the pit, he finds nothing but dead bodies and a very beautiful woman resting in the arms of the tiger.

You got chills, right?

Fourth:

Curses!

It seems that I am not yet ready to release the cover for this book yet.  All the same, let me tell you about it.  Curses! is a full-length novel I've had on my writing desk for at least five years.  It's a good story, and it's 90% finished, so I don't want to discard it.  Except it's reached critical mass.  

To me, that means that I can't edit the first chapter anymore.  I can't edit the second chapter either... Or the first plot arch.  I've started to finish it too many times and had to walk away for various reasons.  I can't work on certain parts of it anymore.  So, since I have reached such a deadly crossroads, I have found that there is only one way to proceed.  

Once I finish releasing these three books - it's time for Curses!  Here's what I'm going to do.  I'm going to sit down at my computer on the first day, and I'm going to release each chapter as soon as I finish it with zero regard for what day that is or how it happens.  It's a sloppy way to do things, but I can't see another way forward.  If I don't just start releasing it - it will NEVER come out.  And it is too good to leave on the editing table any longer.  

So doom or death or dread or dead... It's coming out.  It's a full-on fantasy romance with tons of combat.  I don't think it quite crosses the line to dark romance, but we'll see.  I'm going to war with my book.  Good luck to me.  

I hope you enjoy what I have in store for you this year, and if you read anything on GooglePlay, Royal Road, Inkitt, or Amazon, I hope that you will leave a review.  I've been in a review desert lately.