Trout Nation Posts

Hey everybody! It’s time for a cover reveal! HER BILLIONAIRE BOYFRIEND is coming May 6, 2025, and it’s going to look like this:

You can pre-order HER BILLIONAIRE BOYFRIEND right now at Amazon and Smashwords!

Amazon • Smashwords

It’s almost Valentine’s Day! And I work for a chocolatier! But to my amazement, I got a lot of stuff done!

My production of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels went really well, but I missed an entire week of working on anything, including, unfortunately, Her Brother’s Billionaire Best Friend‘s release promo. I really fumbled the ball there, but I did notice that having my pre-order link for book two at the end of book one has resulted in twenty-seven pre-orders, and the book comes out in May. I haven’t even really been promoting the sequel yet. Although I’m supposed to do that. More on that, later.

Right now, to focus on this particular week, my number one goal has to be “manage my expectations.” I’m working extra hours at the outside job this week due to the holiday, but I somehow keep having the genius idea to do literally everything on the inside job. Proofread! Format! Make this phone call! Do this!

I cannot ask myself to make a phone call this week. I cannot ask myself to deal with taxes. It’s okay to do the normal amount of writing job work. Go big next week.

BUT definitely do the cover reveal for Her Billionaire Boyfriend, Jenny. You have to do that. Past you didn’t think it through very well when they scheduled it.

Probably means I have to write the blurb, too. Son of a…

But the really interesting news is that last week, the combined total of all the words I wrote across three projects was 10,000 exactly.

Word Count For 2025: 21221

Her Brother’s Billionaire Best Friend releases February 4 (I wish I could cross this one off, but I can’t until I’m happy with the paperback.)

• Heavy, daily promo until release day (I did better with this release than I ever have in the past, promotion wise. I’m pretty happy with what I did.)
• Send out ARC emails
• Search manuscript one last time for “actually,” “clearly,” and “really”. Eliminate as many as I can stand.
• Format for Kindle and Smashwords
  • Table of Contents
  • Front Matter
  • Update Book Links
  • Back Matter
  • Pre-Order link to Her Billionaire Boyfriend
• Upload manuscript to Smashwords by Jan. 15
• Upload manuscript to Kindle by Jan. 31
• Format Paperback
  • Format
  • Cover
  • Order Proof (This has been a continual thing.)
  • Adjustments as needed, if any (Please, no more.)

Her Billionaire Boyfriend releases May 6

• Combine into one file from original proofs
• Staggered promo with HBBBF from February 14
• Heavy promo from March 1
• Cover
• Cover reveal February 14
• Blurb
• Establish Pre-Order Link
• Final proof
• Send out ARC emails
• Format for Kindle and Smashwords
  • Table of Contents
  • Front Matter
  • Update Book Links
  • Back Matter
  • Pre-Order link to Her Billionaire
• Upload to Kindle, Smashwords
• Format for Paperback
  • Format
  • Cover
  • Order Proof
  • Adjustments as needed, if any

Her Billionaire releases September 30

• Final Proof
• Cover
• Blurb
• Staggered promo with HBB from June 1
• Heavy promo from July 1
• Establish pre-order link
• Format for Kindle, Smashwords
  • Table of Contents
  • Front Matter
  • Update Book Links
  • Back Matter
• Format for Paperback

Alpha Queen Ascending releases April 15

• One last read through just in case
• Cover
• Blurb
• Establish pre-order
• Format for Kindle and Ingram
  • Table of Contents
  • Front Matter
  • Update Book Links
  • Back Matter
• Format Paperback
  • Format
  • Cover
  • Order Proof
  • Adjustments as needed, if any

The Vampire’s Willing Captive releases July 15

• Fablemere promo campaign May 2
• Birthday campaign July 1
• Heavy promo July 1
• One last read through just in case
• Cover
• Blurb
• Establish pre-order
• Format for Kindle and Ingram
  • Table of Contents
  • Front Matter
  • Update Book Links
  • Back Matter
• Format Paperback
  • Format
  • Cover
  • Order Proof
  • Adjustments as needed, if any

Books I Want To Finish This Year:

• A Kingdom of Wonder and Terror
• The Business Centaur’s Virgin Assistant
• Untitled Sophie book
• The Breakaway
• The Turning
• Filthy, Rich

Miscellaneous:

• Get Abigail Barnette website up
  • Call web provider
  • Link Shopify
  • Promote Shopify
  • Add ebooks
• Paperbacks of The Boyfriend and Sophie
  • Download manuscripts
  • Format
  • Cover
  • Upload
  • Order proof
  • Adjustments as needed, if any
  • Add to Shopify
• Launch Shopify
  • Blog post
  • Promote across socials
  • Add link to Trout Nation website
  • Add link to Abigail Barnette website

Happies of book birthdays to Her Brother’s Billionaire Best Friend, out in ebook today. The paperback release is on the way, but a formatting error required me to order a new physical proof, just to be sure damaged copies aren’t being sold. I’m confident the issue will be fixed before the end of February.

He’s perfect for her. She’ll perfectly destroy him.

Charlotte Holmes doesn’t fall in love; she falls into bed. And car. And cruise ship stateroom. Matthew Ashe falls in love way too easily; he’s a sucker for a pretty face. And falling too fast. And getting impulsively engaged. The only thing the two of them have in common is their mutual love of kinky, casual sex….and the fact that Charlotte’s brother is Matt’s best friend.

All Charlotte knows about Matt is that he’s the billionaire heir to a hospitality empire. All Matt knows about Charlotte is that she’s bound to break his heart. When a destination wedding fling turns into months of long-distance flirtation, Matt invites Charlotte to Ascend Red, his private resort where guests live out their wildest fantasies. Even limitless indulgence and abandoned inhibitions can’t satisfy his craving for something deeper with Charlotte. And Charlotte is beginning to think Matthew Ashe could be the one man she doesn’t want to walk away from…

Amazon • Barnes & Noble • Smashwords • Apple • Kobo

My year of success is chugging right along. I sent out ARC emails (and ARCs) this week. If you’re on the team and didn’t get an email, or didn’t get a reply, let me know. The paperback would be completely ready to be crossed off, if Ingram didn’t send a cover template a tenth of an inch smaller than they want them to be, then complain when those files return at the dimension they asked for. Promo got briefly sidetracked due to my anxieties over these wildfires and their proximity to my son and his girlfriend, but I’ll be back on that train later today.

Her Brother’s Billionaire Best Friend releases February 4

• Heavy, daily promo until release day
• Send out ARC emails
• Search manuscript one last time for “actually,” “clearly,” and “really”. Eliminate as many as I can stand.
• Format for Kindle and Smashwords
  • Table of Contents
  • Front Matter
  • Update Book Links
  • Back Matter
  • Pre-Order link to Her Billionaire Boyfriend
• Upload manuscript to Smashwords by Jan. 15
• Upload manuscript to Kindle by Jan. 31
• Format Paperback
  • Format
  • Cover
  • Order Proof
  • Adjustments as needed, if any

Her Billionaire Boyfriend releases May 6

• Combine into one file from original proofs
• Staggered promo with HBBBF from February 14
• Heavy promo from March 1
• Cover
• Cover reveal February 14
• Blurb
• Establish Pre-Order Link
• Final proof
• Send out ARC emails
• Format for Kindle and Smashwords
  • Table of Contents
  • Front Matter
  • Update Book Links
  • Back Matter
  • Pre-Order link to Her Billionaire
• Upload to Kindle, Smashwords
• Format for Paperback
  • Format
  • Cover
  • Order Proof
  • Adjustments as needed, if any

Her Billionaire releases September 30

• Final Proof
• Cover
• Blurb
• Staggered promo with HBB from June 1
• Heavy promo from July 1
• Establish pre-order link
• Format for Kindle, Smashwords
  • Table of Contents
  • Front Matter
  • Update Book Links
  • Back Matter
• Format for Paperback

Alpha Queen Ascending releases April 15

• One last read through just in case
• Cover
• Blurb
• Establish pre-order
• Format for Kindle and Ingram
  • Table of Contents
  • Front Matter
  • Update Book Links
  • Back Matter
• Format Paperback
  • Format
  • Cover
  • Order Proof
  • Adjustments as needed, if any

The Vampire’s Willing Captive releases July 15

• Fablemere promo campaign May 2
• Birthday campaign July 1
• Heavy promo July 1
• One last read through just in case
• Cover
• Blurb
• Establish pre-order
• Format for Kindle and Ingram
  • Table of Contents
  • Front Matter
  • Update Book Links
  • Back Matter
• Format Paperback
  • Format
  • Cover
  • Order Proof
  • Adjustments as needed, if any

Books I Want To Finish This Year:

• A Kingdom of Wonder and Terror
• The Business Centaur’s Virgin Assistant
• Untitled Sophie book
• The Breakaway
• The Turning
• Filthy, Rich

Word Count For 2025: 11221

Miscellaneous:

• Get Abigail Barnette website up
  • Call web provider
  • Link Shopify
  • Promote Shopify
  • Add ebooks
• Paperbacks of The Boyfriend and Sophie
  • Download manuscripts
  • Format
  • Cover
  • Upload
  • Order proof
  • Adjustments as needed, if any
  • Add to Shopify
• Launch Shopify
  • Blog post
  • Promote across socials
  • Add link to Trout Nation website
  • Add link to Abigail Barnette website

Hey there, Trout Nation! I’ve got good news. Her Brother’s Billionaire Best Friend is now available for pre-order!

He’s perfect for her. She’ll perfectly destroy him.

Charlotte Holmes doesn’t fall in love; she falls into bed. And car. And cruise ship stateroom. Matthew Ashe falls in love way too easily; he’s a sucker for a pretty face. And falling too fast. And getting impulsively engaged. The only thing the two of them have in common is their mutual love of kinky, casual sex….and the fact that Charlotte’s brother is Matt’s best friend.

All Charlotte knows about Matt is that he’s the billionaire heir to a hospitality empire. All Matt knows about Charlotte is that she’s bound to break his heart. When a destination wedding fling turns into months of long-distance flirtation, Matt invites Charlotte to Ascend Red, his private resort where guests live out their wildest fantasies. Even limitless indulgence and abandoned inhibitions can’t satisfy his craving for something deeper with Charlotte. And Charlotte is beginning to think Matthew Ashe could be the one man she doesn’t want to walk away from…

Amazon • Barnes & Noble • Smashwords

Now, on to business! I posted some of my goals last week on the Bestsellers Together Discord, but I also need to update this master list, for ACCOUNTABILITY:

Her Brother’s Billionaire Best Friend releases February 4

• Heavy, daily promo until release day
• Send out ARC emails
• Search manuscript one last time for “actually,” “clearly,” and “really”. Eliminate as many as I can stand.
• Format for Kindle and Smashwords
  • Table of Contents
  • Front Matter
  • Update Book Links
  • Back Matter
  • Pre-Order link to Her Billionaire Boyfriend
• Upload manuscript to Smashwords by Jan. 15
• Upload manuscript to Kindle by Jan. 31
• Format Paperback
  • Format
  • Cover
  • Order Proof
  • Adjustments as needed, if any

Her Billionaire Boyfriend releases May 6

• Combine into one file from original proofs
• Staggered promo with HBBBF from February 14
• Heavy promo from March 1
• Cover
• Cover reveal February 14
• Blurb
• Establish Pre-Order Link
• Final proof
• Send out ARC emails
• Format for Kindle and Smashwords
  • Table of Contents
  • Front Matter
  • Update Book Links
  • Back Matter
  • Pre-Order link to Her Billionaire
• Upload to Kindle, Smashwords
• Format for Paperback
  • Format
  • Cover
  • Order Proof
  • Adjustments as needed, if any

Her Billionaire releases September 30

• Final Proof
• Cover
• Blurb
• Staggered promo with HBB from June 1
• Heavy promo from July 1
• Establish pre-order link
• Format for Kindle, Smashwords
  • Table of Contents
  • Front Matter
  • Update Book Links
  • Back Matter
• Format for Paperback

Alpha Queen Ascending releases April 15

• One last read through just in case
• Cover
• Blurb
• Establish pre-order
• Format for Kindle and Ingram
  • Table of Contents
  • Front Matter
  • Update Book Links
  • Back Matter
• Format Paperback
  • Format
  • Cover
  • Order Proof
  • Adjustments as needed, if any

The Vampire’s Willing Captive releases July 15

• Fablemere promo campaign May 2
• Birthday campaign July 1
• Heavy promo July 1
• One last read through just in case
• Cover
• Blurb
• Establish pre-order
• Format for Kindle and Ingram
  • Table of Contents
  • Front Matter
  • Update Book Links
  • Back Matter
• Format Paperback
  • Format
  • Cover
  • Order Proof
  • Adjustments as needed, if any

Books I Want To Finish This Year:

• A Kingdom of Wonder and Terror
• The Business Centaur’s Virgin Assistant
• Untitled Sophie book
• The Breakaway
• The Turning
• Filthy, Rich

Word Count For 2025: 4975

Miscellaneous:

• Get Abigail Barnette website up
  • Call web provider
  • Link Shopify
  • Promote Shopify
  • Add ebooks
• Paperbacks of The Boyfriend and Sophie
  • Download manuscripts
  • Format
  • Cover
  • Upload
  • Order proof
  • Adjustments as needed, if any
  • Add to Shopify
• Launch Shopify
  • Blog post
  • Promote across socials
  • Add link to Trout Nation website
  • Add link to Abigail Barnette website

I did more reading in 2024 than I have done in a long time, thanks in part to having a job where I’m allowed to keep one headphone in while I’m working. I didn’t put up numbers that would spark controversy on social media, but I did read twenty-one books for non-work purposes. Here are my favorites:

The Familiar, Leigh Bardugo
Before 2024, I had never read Leigh Bardugo, due in large part to my misperception of her work. Because she’s so often mentioned in the same breath as Sarah J. Maas, I assumed her work would be similar.
Reader, it is not.
The Familiar is the story of a young kitchen maid in Inquisition-era Spain who’s hiding two terminal secrets: her ability to work magic, and her Jewish heritage. After her ability to work “milagritos” is discovered, Luzia is quickly swept into the service of a cruel noble who’s seeking to get back into the king’s favor. With the help a cursed mentor, Luzia explores the limits of her abilities while always cognizant of the danger she’s in from the Catholic Church, who can deem her miracles acts of the devil at any moment.
There is so much in this book. Another of my favorites this year was also written by Bardugo, and the thing I’ve noticed about her writing is her ability to use an economy of words to set a scene. She can say that a courtyard smells of oranges in a way that makes you not just smell the oranges, but see the trees and the stones and what the light looks like. I was so invested in this story that I couldn’t see where things were going from one moment to the next, until they happened and I went, “Are you kidding me? I should have seen that all along!” She swept me away so thoroughly that I could be surprised, which is hard to do for me as a reader.
I adored this book. It comes with my highest possible recommendation, and was my favorite read of 2024.

The Priory of the Orange Tree, Samantha Shannon
I have been chasing the high of reading A Game of Thrones for the first time since 2003. This book helped me find it again.
When the book was first published in 2019, it was touted as a feminist version of the St. George versus the dragon story. I don’t think it was particularly groundbreaking, from a feminism standpoint, but it was sure entertaining. The story is fairly standard for the epic fantasy genre: a mean dragon did a bad thing and will do more bad things if he rises again. Secret society of magic is fighting him. People ride dragons. Sword fights. It’s not groundbreaking, but it’s fun, there’s sapphic romance, and more action and dragons than A Song of Ice and Fire accomplished in however damn many books we’re up to now. But the writing is incredible, three of the POV characters are likeable (fuck you, Niclays), and the drama is high.
I wish this was a fifteen book series. I would read every single one. It doesn’t reinvent the fantasy genre, but it’s what fantasy can be in the right hands. You know, hands that don’t need to include extremely problematic bullshit to tell a story. Hands that can write a diverse cast without resorting to one-dimensional stereotypes, and can pull from numerous mythologies without blatant appropriation. This totally satisfied my craving for a chunky brick of an epic fantasy.

The Obelisk Gate, N.K. Jemisin
This is the second book in the Broken Earth trilogy, and frankly, I kind of expected a let down. The Fifth Season blew me away, but one of the biggest elements for me was the slow unveiling of the POV characters and their connections. I thought there was no way book two could keep up but I was wrong.
Trying to write about this series without giving too much away is impossible, especially with book two, so I won’t even try. I’ll just say that this is a fantasy series with such an unusual premise and execution that I’m able to keep reading it despite my sensitivity to maternal heartbreak. I’m actively avoiding reading book three because then the series will be over. And what will I do then?

Slewfoot, Brom
One of my favorite horror movies in recent memory was The Witch. Something about Puritans not being able to resist the lure of the Devil has always been my jam. In Slewfoot, the Puritan in question is Abitha, a young woman sent to the New World to be the bride of the milquetoast, but earnest, Edward. Her quick temper and penchant for folk magic make her a target for the ire of the local villagers, and a thorn in the side of her greedy brother-in-law. She’s on the verge of losing her farm and falling into indenture when she’s befriended by an ancient and terrifying forest spirit.
This has the exact same atmosphere of The Witch, and it falls into the same genre of “good for her” horror pioneered by Stephen King with Carrie, but with a far more satisfying ending than both those stories. And Abitha is my new favorite book girlfriend.

Babel, R.F. Kuang
Anything I could say about this book has already been said, and by critics far more intelligent than I am. I spent a lot of this book thinking, “Wow, I might not be smart enough for this.”
The novel’s protagonist, Robin, is taken from his home in China after suffering a terrible sickness. His guardian, a staunch supporter of the Empire and a celebrated professor of linguistics, prepares Robin to enter Babel, an Oxford college that turns translators into magicians through the power of words. But Robin’s race keeps him from truly becoming a part of Oxford society, and as such, he finds himself in close friendship with other students made misfits by their lack of whiteness and/or maleness. Though Robin is initially seduced by the world of knowledge and power offered by Babel, his eyes are opened to the theft and appropriation that keep the sun from setting on the Empire; his political radicalization follows quickly behind, leading to protest, murders, and heartbreaking betrayals.
Kuang blends linguistics into a magic system unlike any you’ve read before, and the story makes no apologies nor offers sympathetic portrayal of characters who, if written by a white author, would be redeemed by the end of the novel. Despite the existence of magic (and the non-existence of Babel, which is covered in a delightfully snarky author’s note), the story is brutally real, probably because Kuang doesn’t substitute the usual fantasy formulas, settings, and tropes in order to rely on reader familiarity with the genre.

2024 was also the year that I branched out by reading titles that I would never usually have picked up. This led to some quick DNFs, but also some gobsmacking surprises:

Regretting You, Colleen Hoover
I’m as stunned as you are. It Ends With Us is Hoover’s most well-known book. It’s also unreadably terrible; I DNFed in the first chapter. But I found Regretting You in a Little Free Library and thought, okay, let’s give her one more chance. I’m so glad I did. Regretting You was gripping from the very start, with realistic characters (no twenty-eight year old neurosurgeons or heroines with saccharine puns for names) in high-drama, but not unbelievable, circumstances. The writing was simple and easy to quickly digest, and while it didn’t leave me pondering the mysteries of life or anything, I did find myself desperate to return to it for just one more page, just one more page, until it was done, at which point I went into a reading slump. Is Hoover a problematic literary figure? Sure. But a stopped clock, etc., and I really enjoyed this one.

Lightlark, Alex Aster
WOULD YOU READ A BOOK ABOUT AN ISLAND THAT APPEARED EVERY 100 YEARS—
Yeah, yeah, we all saw the non-stop TikToks about the damn book. We all saw the way Aster teased scenes and themes that aren’t present in the novel to take advantage of BookTok algorithms. We’re all pissed off at the fact that she was marketed as a stunning new debut voice when she had two books under her belt already, and that her “decade of rejection” was simply not possible due to the fact that she was twenty when Lightlark was published. It’s not just you. Everyone hated Lightlark, before it even came out. And when it did come out, people hated it even more.
Little Free Library strikes again, folks. Is Lightlark brilliant? No. Is it well-written? Absolutely not. But I enjoyed it, the same way I enjoyed the show Ashes of Love. Did I know what was going on? Nope. Does the plot make sense? Soft maybe. But the world was sparkly and interesting and damnit, sometimes I just want to see a shiny thing and not think hard about it. I put Lightlark up there with Modelland in terms of “It was bizarre, I enjoyed it,” with the caveat that the cast of characters is nowhere near as diverse as Modelland.

Look, I don’t know where I’m getting this burst of self-confidence from, but I know it. I know 2025 is my year. And a lot of times people will say, “Don’t say that! You’ll jinx it!” but I don’t feel anything but utter certainty about this right now. I’m going to have a great publishing year in 2025. Nothing can interfere with that. I’m not just manifesting right now. It’s a fact.

But the thing is, in my vision of how 2025 is going to go down: I work my ass off. I promote shamelessly. I time releases right. I vibe, strive, and survive, baby!

Accountability is part of that. I’m going to hold myself accountable by posting my entire plan of attack, task by task, update as needed, and when I accomplish one of them, I’ll cross it off. I’m going to set deadlines (one of my biggest fears) and pre-orders and be totally transparent. That way, when I succeed, I’ll have a record of just how fucking hard I worked.

And if you’re interested, you can journey with me. Surprise! I made a Discord for authors keeping track of their publishing who want to encourage each other and cheer each other on. I realized at some point that my original drive to tell stories and pursue publication happened because I was surrounded by people on the same path, who were excited by the same things. If that’s what you’re looking for, join the Bestsellers Together Discord. And it’s totally separate from the Trout Nation Discord so we can pop on and ask a quick question without then spending hours distracted by memes or snarkery.

I’ve also created a new version of The Big Damn Writing Tracker, the word tracking spreadsheet I’ve used and shared in years past. You can find it here. To use the sheet, click “File” in the upper left corner and select “make a copy” to save it to your own Google Drive for your private use. Or, download it. I’m pretty sure it’s compatible with Excel. If it’s not, that’s just corporate greed at work. Just enter your project titles and word counts in the white spaces and let math take care of the rest!

But the most important part of this whole thing is going to be keeping track of my tasks. Here’s my list. I usually put these in a bullet journal that I abandon by February, leading to panic and chaos and disorganization. Making my to-do list public will hold me accountable. More tasks will crop up, because I also want to publish The Mage’s Reluctant Assistant this year. Some items are already crossed off, since I did them while still writing this post.

Her Brother’s Billionaire Best Friend releases February 4

• Heavy, daily promo until release day
• Send out ARC emails
• Search manuscript one last time for “actually,” “clearly,” and “really”. Eliminate as many as I can stand.
• Format for Kindle and Smashwords
  • Table of Contents
  • Front Matter
  • Update Book Links
  • Back Matter
  • Pre-Order link to Her Billionaire Boyfriend
• Upload manuscript to Smashwords by Jan. 15
• Upload manuscript to Kindle by Jan. 31
• Format Paperback
  • Format
  • Cover
  • Order Proof
  • Adjustments as needed, if any

Her Billionaire Boyfriend releases May 6

• Combine into one file from original proofs
• Staggered promo with HBBBF from February 14
• Heavy promo from March 1
• Cover
• Cover reveal February 14
• Blurb
• Establish Pre-Order Link
• Final proof
• Send out ARC emails
• Format for Kindle and Smashwords
  • Table of Contents
  • Front Matter
  • Update Book Links
  • Back Matter
  • Pre-Order link to Her Billionaire
• Upload to Kindle, Smashwords
• Format for Paperback
  • Format
  • Cover
  • Order Proof
  • Adjustments as needed, if any

Her Billionaire releases September 30

• Final Proof
• Cover
• Blurb
• Staggered promo with HBB from June 1
• Heavy promo from July 1
• Establish pre-order link
• Format for Kindle, Smashwords
  • Table of Contents
  • Front Matter
  • Update Book Links
  • Back Matter
• Format for Paperback

Alpha Queen Ascending releases April 15

• One last read through just in case
• Cover
• Blurb
• Establish pre-order
• Format for Kindle and Ingram
  • Table of Contents
  • Front Matter
  • Update Book Links
  • Back Matter
• Format Paperback
  • Format
  • Cover
  • Order Proof
  • Adjustments as needed, if any

The Vampire’s Willing Captive releases July 15

• Fablemere promo campaign May 2
• Birthday campaign July 1
• Heavy promo July 1
• One last read through just in case
• Cover
• Blurb
• Establish pre-order
• Format for Kindle and Ingram
  • Table of Contents
  • Front Matter
  • Update Book Links
  • Back Matter
• Format Paperback
  • Format
  • Cover
  • Order Proof
  • Adjustments as needed, if any

Books I Want To Finish This Year:

• A Kingdom of Wonder and Terror
• The Business Centaur’s Virgin Assistant
• Untitled Sophie book
• The Breakaway
• The Turning
• Filthy, Rich

Word Count For 2025:

Miscellaneous:

• Get Abigail Barnette website up
  • Call web provider
  • Link Shopify
  • Promote Shopify
  • Add ebooks

• Paperbacks of The Boyfriend and Sophie
  • Download manuscripts
  • Format
  • Cover
  • Upload
  • Order proof
  • Adjustments as needed, if any
  • Add to Shopify

• Launch Shopify
  • Blog post
  • Promote across socials
  • Add link to Trout Nation website
  • Add link to Abigail Barnette website

Authors have been doing a cute trend on social media where they present their career highs and lows from 2024 in the same format as a Spotify Wrapped slideshow. The books they released, the signings they attended, the deals they got, the agents they signed with. It’s cute and inspirational, and everyone is having a great time. But I feel like my “Wrapped” moment of 2024 isn’t something that can be adequately conveyed in a social media post.

Most of my 2024 as a writer was spent in despair. I lost my author Facebook pages, which had an undeniable impact on my social media reach when it came to advertising my new releases and current projects. I started looking for a part-time job, because being a full-time writer was, after twenty years, no longer a viable option. I felt like a failure. I’ve written before about how I felt the first time my career tanked: My dream wasn’t meant to come true for me. It was meant to come true for someone else. Now, the universe has made things right, and what I deserve is to be no one, forever.

Those thoughts are so destructive and so insistent when I’m at my lowest, or at any small setback, and they started creeping back. I’d wasted my entire life chasing after something I should have never hoped for. The idea that I could be an author, a successful one, was ridiculous. I’d been chasing a pipe dream for twenty years that I could never get back. Every high was a fluke; every low was deserved.

At the same time, I was suffering from a feeling of, “If I stop, they’ve beaten me.” Who? Everyone who has ever wanted me to fail, who has ever predicted that I would fail, anyone who wanted me to leave the party. The seventh-grade teacher who wouldn’t allow me to pick my own topic for a “future careers” project, forcing me to write about working at McDonald’s because “that’s where you’re going to end up.” The one-time social media mutual who publicly lamented, “I wish everyone would just shun her already,” before I was aware that she’d unfollowed me. The former critique group friend who’d snidely predicted that my self-publishing efforts would fail. For so many years, all that kept me going was the belief that if I quit, if I went and did something else, I would be throwing away my chance to prove those people wrong.

Any time I spoke my mind about a book or told the truth about the industry, I worried in the back of my mind, “what if this hurts me later? What if I really am bitter or jealous?” And… I was bitter and jealous. Not because I envied other people’s success (the idea of kissing asses, going on press tours, or getting up early to be a morning show is a cold-sweat inducing nightmare), but because I envied that they seemed to be happy to write. Success, monetary or otherwise, didn’t figure into my calculations at all. I just hated, loathed, and despised seeing anyone genuinely excited about belonging to a world I was growing increasingly resentful of. I hated that other people weren’t as miserable behind the keyboard as I was.

I went out and got that part-time job. Instead of getting up and moping my way down to my office, sitting behind a keyboard and lamenting that there’s never enough time or brain to get everything done, that I’m too old to keep up with marketing trends, that every book I release is going to sell thirty copies before its Amazon sales rank slips to an eight-figure number, I get up and drive to the city. I park my car in the parking garage and walk down an alley strewn with dead pigeon parts (because peregrines are brutal creatures). I get a taco or a sushi roll on my lunch break, and I don’t have to worry about whether my latest promo post gets over ten views. Nobody gives a shit about my opinions or my ideas. There’s no pressure to say the right thing or find some magical formula for success. For a few hours a day, I don’t have to chase anything. I just package candy and occasionally ring up a customer at the register.

And that makes me happy.

It doesn’t fucking matter if I prove anyone wrong. I don’t have to prove anything to anyone. For two decades, my identity and self-worth were inseparable from being an author. I clung to being an author like I would cease to exist entirely if I didn’t get one more book out, if I didn’t make a big sale, if every dollar I earned didn’t come directly from what I put on the page. And it made me hate writing. After my first book, every single moment of writing was a thankless chore. Occasionally, I found elements of it that I truly loved. But putting words on the page out of spite still felt bad, even when the money was good. I spent most of my day, every day, ruminating about what I failure I am for never making the USA Today list again, for not “beating” the negative perception of me I’m irrationally certain that everyone who’s ever met me or interacted with my work shares.

I made being a writer my entire life. Now, I’m in the process of building a life where writing is something I do, like watching TV or brushing my teeth. I’m not a writer. I’m Jenny Trout, and I write. But I also direct and act in live theater. I also work for a chocolatier. I also really enjoy sleeping. And now, sometimes I enjoy writing. But it’s not who I am. I don’t have to keep doing it to prove to the world or detractors that I somehow deserve to be considered a person. I can walk away from writing at any time, never publish another book or blog post, never weigh in on another publishing scandal if I don’t feel like it. I can close all my social media accounts and disappear, and never feel a moment of regret, if that’s the way I want to go. If I need money, guess what? There are other part-time jobs I can add to the one I already have. I can work at a gas station and still be a worthy person. I can work at McDonald’s and not prove that shitty teacher right. Because ultimately, I should be doing what makes me happy. And if that’s me walking away, it’s nobody’s business but my own.

That knowledge is freeing, but it doesn’t exactly fit in a Canva graphic. It’s changed the way I feel about writing, though. I enjoy it again. I’m excited about the possibilities. Instead of facing an endless uphill climb and brutal backslides, I see a path forward to a refreshed career. Will I still say the things I want to say, even if they make me unpopular? Sure. But will I spend as much time ruminating on the overall lack of ethics and the injustices authors are expected to swallow behind a smile? No. Because I don’t need anything. I have nothing to prove. I’m doing it for the love that got me into it. And that makes me want to do it.

And it makes me want to make 2025 my best publishing year ever.

About five years ago, I was occasionally writing for one of the SyFy channel’s now defunct blogs. My niche was weird stuff from the 1980s, which would get posted as “x number of thoughts we had while watching [thing].” One of my pitches involved the 1986 made-for-tv movie Babes in Toyland, starring Drew Barrymore, Keanu Reeves, Eileen Brennan, and Pat Morita. My editor said, great, write it up and send it my way, and put a lot of emphasis on Keanu, since we’re doing a whole month about him.

Reader, I sent twenty-two pages.

Obviously, SyFy did not post my entire work. They would have looked dangerously unhinged. Since I have no qualms about that, I asked if I could post the entire uncut thing to my blog. I got a probably not, because NBC Universal now owned the content and they probably wouldn’t be down with it, so I didn’t pursue it further. But then the blog closed, time went by…

And I’m like, fuck it. Like, I got paid a hundred bucks to write that (I don’t think I even invoiced them anyway), and the blog has been closed for five years now (it’s possible that the content of that article might have had something to do with it). If they want to come for my blood, I’m more than willing to return the one hundred dollars that I frankly don’t even think I asked them to pay me, anyway, because I’m notoriously bad at invoicing.

So, in the spirit of Robin Hood and all that bullshit, I’m robbing my work back from a major media company and presenting it in its entirety. All twenty-two pages dedicated solely to 1986’s Babes In Toyland, or, more specifically, twenty-two pages dedicated solely to 1986’s Babes In Toyland with references to the blog’s Keanu-specific theming removed.

Merry Christmas. I got you a present and it is horrible.

Remember a few years ago when I wrote three books for an app called Yonder? Well, the rights embargo has expired on one of them! HER BROTHER’S BILLIONAIRE BEST FRIEND is coming to ebook and paperback in February, and it’s gonna look like this:

He’s perfect for her. She’ll perfectly destroy him.

Charlotte Holmes doesn’t fall in love; she falls into bed. And car. And cruise ship stateroom. Matthew Ashe falls in love way too easily; he’s a sucker for a pretty face. And falling too fast. And getting impulsively engaged. The only thing the two of them have in common is their mutual love of kinky, casual sex….and the fact that Charlotte’s brother is Matt’s best friend.

All Charlotte knows about Matt is that he’s the billionaire heir to a hospitality empire. All Matt knows about Charlotte is that she’s bound to break his heart. When a destination wedding fling turns into months of long-distance flirtation, Matt invites Charlotte to Ascend Red, his private resort where guests live out their wildest fantasies. Even limitless indulgence and abandoned inhibitions can’t satisfy his craving for something deeper with Charlotte. And Charlotte is beginning to think Matthew Ashe could be the one man she doesn’t want to walk away from…

Also important to note: It’s queer, it’s filthy, and there’s a fun little cameo from some of my other characters in it. Pre-order links will be coming soon, and if you’re on the ARC team, keep an eye on your inbox!