Bookcast Episode 78: Reading & Writing Updates + How I Write (BONUS)

On Episode 78, I update you on my Goodreads challenge process, I talk about sweeping cuts to my manuscript for THE PEARL at Black Diamond, and I am concluding my HOW I WRITE series with a bit on epilogues and bonus content. It's a good time.

Full show notes, including the books I discussed today and the resources I shared will be on my website at booksbydlwhite.com/bookcast. Look for episode 78.

Thank you so much for joining me for today's chat. Follow me on the socials- I am author DL White in most places and shout me out a holler!

Don’t forget to share the podcast if you enjoyed this episode and if you listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, give a girl a rating! I’d really appreciate it. Do not forget that you can support this podcast with your book purchases, by spreading the good word, or by throwing some coins in the hat at bookcast.buzzsprout.com. Every little bit helps.

I'll be back next week with a reading and writing update. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to episode 78
• 1:41 March Book sales-Happy anniversary, Brunch at Ruby's
• 4:27 Book Report
• 8:46 Writing Update
• 11:49 February Book Marketing
• 16:33 How I Write Series: Bonus on Epilogues and Bonus Content
• 25:03 Like, Comment, Share, Subscribe!

Transcript

DL White [00:00:15]:
Hello. Hello, everyone. Welcome back. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Whatever time of day this recording finds you. I hope it finds you well.

DL White [00:00:24]:
This is the podcast, my platform for sharing short fiction and updates on what I'm reading and writing. This is episode 78. I am DL White, author of contemporary southern and romantic fiction novels that center black love and relationships. I'm also a big fan of books, So we usually begin with the book report then we talk about writing and topics of the day. I am concluding my how I write series with an epilogue, with an episode on epilogues and bonus content. 2 things I really wish I was better at. I feel like I can just barely get the book out. Extra stuff, you gotta be kidding me.

DL White [00:00:59]:
So let's talk about how we can make that happen if that is your goal. I'm currently writing The Pearl at Black Diamond. Black Diamond romance number 3. I'll talk about my writing process in the writing segment of today's show. The BookCast is a production of books by DL White written, edited, produced, and supported by me. If you'd love to back me up, I would be most grateful. The best way to do that is to buy the books. I mean, also talk about the books but also buy the books.

DL White [00:01:27]:
Booksbydlwhite.com/books has all of the good stuff in ebook or audio. This month, I am celebrating my debut novel brunch at Ruby's, which turns 9 at the end of March. 9. It's she's almost in double digits. And I'm already planning for the 10th anniversary of this novel. So, this month I, I said I'm celebrating my debut novel. I have put the ebook on sale for 99¢ wherever ebooks are sold and the audio books audio book is on sale at my store, at Spotify, and Nook Audio also for 99¢. It's supposed to also be on sale at Apple for 99¢ but, it somehow has not dropped yet.

DL White [00:02:10]:
So keep an eye on it if you're an Apple girly and if you talk to me nice, I have a few Spotify audiobook codes for all of my audiobooks. If you don't wanna go through the hassle but really wanna listen to the audio, hit me up. A reminder that if you are a member at Everand or Kobo Plus, the ebook and the audio are available as part of your subscription. All I want is for people to snatch up my favorite girl, the book of my heart and enjoy it. We have a lot to cover today so let's get it on. Today we will start with the book report as always, then I'll update on February marketing growth or shrinkage as it as it were. And I'll talk about a bonus topic in my how I write series. Fittingly it's on extra slash bonus content and how we can use that to treat our season readers and or attract new readers.

DL White [00:03:02]:
Today is Saturday, March 2nd. March, people. Why is it March already? February, we're sure in a hurry to get out of here. It is 9:13 AM. It is overcast and a little bit rainy in the Atlanta area. I have a mic and I am ready to dig in, but first, I'm actually having tea today. It's a blackberry citrus. There's something about, like, I love coffee and, like, the Bustelo was hitting, but I was like, I'm gonna have some tea.

DL White [00:03:33]:
So let's have some tea. Alright. It's really, really hot. I love this Yeti mug that I have. It just I drink beverages slow, very slowly. And so if I'm gonna drink something hot I need it to stay hot so I do have this little thing on my desk that keeps stuff hot but also the Yeti keeps it piping for quite a while and I love it. We begin as always with the book report because I am a book head. If I'm gonna do anything, I'm gonna read a book.

DL White [00:04:17]:
We have. I have read 30 books of my challenge to read 150 books this year. I am ahead on my Goodreads challenge goal, but we're holding steady because, I'm about to hit some heavy writing time and I always hit a wall midyear and I need a break. So I'm gonna stack up and stay ahead while I can. And since we're at the end of February, I wanna memorialize my reading for the year so far. In January, I read 10 books. In February, I read 17 books. Now a lot of those were audio and a few of those were short reads, really just to get me in the mood.

DL White [00:04:48]:
I needed to get back into my romance bag, and so I dove into some short reads, really enjoyed myself. So that's how I hit 17 books in February. This what this week, I read 5 books. I read a lot of Christina c Jones this week. 81st and Clark, a Clark Brothers collection. Really enjoyed this collection. The second and third stories were bangers. I read listen to curiosity.

DL White [00:05:13]:
This is blackwood after dark book number 1 by Christina c Jones. And I'm just gonna go ahead and say that certain elements of romance, like, dominant, submissive type, not they're just not for me. It's just and, that's confirmed. The book was great. It was very well written. She knows she can write her tail off. I'm just now I know there are certain books I just I need to stop reading them. They don't work for me.

DL White [00:05:40]:
No. I also listened to Love Notes Equilibrium number 1 by Christina c Jones. And then I, read temptation of a good man. I actually listened to temptation of a good man because the audio just dropped by Delaney Diamond. Goodreads tells me I read this back when it was released, but I did not remember a single word of it. So the reread was good. This was this is an excellent novel. It's a super fast listen.

DL White [00:06:04]:
It's about 3 hours now. I listened to about 1.7 to 2 in speed, so it's possibly a bit longer than that, but, it's a short listen. Very good. Delaney does not miss. And then I read I listened to A Love Song for Ricky Wild by Tia Williams. This book was fabulous. Tia Williams is one of my favorites. I have loved her for a long time.

DL White [00:06:31]:
The perfect find is still one of my favorite novels. 7 days in June is a banger. I know there are a lot of people did not like that book. I absolutely freaking loved it. A Love Song from Ricky Wild is beautiful. It is so beautifully written. It is, it's a dual time period novel where I'll my it's my favorite when the time periods dovetail. I absolutely absolutely positively love this book.

DL White [00:06:58]:
I gave it 5 stars. Really well done. Already waiting for Tia's next book, Bring it. This book is really, really well done. This week, I am reading I'm gonna read this could be us by Kennedy Ryan at Skyland number 2, and I'm gonna wait for the audio on this. I was gonna start the ebook, but I just know the audio is gonna be a whole different experience. The same with the American daughters. I'm gonna grab that in audio.

DL White [00:07:23]:
I've been really reading a lot of romance because I'm writing a romance. So, I'm hoping the American Daughters is not gonna throw me off. I'm gonna probably get that started, baby, today. I've heard it's very good, so I'm looking forward to it. And then Charice Hodges just dropped making mine again, a second chance novel. I think it's actually a novella, but, you know, semantics. It's Charice's birthday. It's also Charice Ryan's birthday, so just shouting out a happy birthday to some of my faves.

DL White [00:07:51]:
And so I think it's actually Sharasages. Is it Sharas or Sharif? One of those. She has a new release. It's called Make You Vine, again, a second chance novel. And I'm gonna put it into my face because, I think I should be able to get through that today. This week, I put down Thomas Mullins rumor game. I was really gonna try to push myself through it. It's World War 2 fiction, and I really thought I could get through it.

DL White [00:08:13]:
But I just heard a loud buzz in my ear when I tried. It was not my bag out well. No shade to him in the least. His other novels, specifically the dark town series were very good. I just could not drag myself through World War 2 fiction. Moving on to the writing updates. So as of yesterday, and, I I typed here in my rundown prep, I was really positive that I was gonna actually get to writing yesterday, but I did not. I ended up playing a game and listening to the last half of love songs for Ricky, a love song for Ricky Wild.

DL White [00:08:50]:
I was at 30,412 of my 70,000 word goal, and, yes, that's fewer words than I had last week by a bit. While I added about 25 100 words, I did add a whole new chapter. I also deleted a lot of words because it was a backstory dump, and I was bored with it. I needed chapter 2 to pick up right where chapter 1 leaves off, and chapter 2 was just going too far back. And that happened because I I actually started the book with chapter 2, then realized I wanted to start with Davis's point of view and then roll it back to Kari's point of view. And so chapter 2, which used to be chapter 1, just had a lot of book beginning words in it and I just had to cut all of those out so I deleted a lot of words that were okay, but they were not needed. So now chapter 2 is not as long as it used to be, which relieves some of my anxiety about how long my chapters are in this book. So now I'm feeling a lot better.

DL White [00:09:53]:
This will be my last week of concentrated writing time, and I plan to make the most of it. Last week worked out really well. I had a good mix of a steady stream of work in the morning, and then as the work, you know, the business starts to wane in the afternoon, I could get into my document while watching the email on the phone. Everybody was out of the country, and the work was slow. It was really good. This week, my manager is gonna be out of the office, so I will have more time to work and I really need to take advantage of it because my deadline while about 8 weeks off is quickly approaching. I am not afraid to push this book back, but I'm also trying to squeeze into my editor's schedule, and so I don't wanna throw her off by sending the book late. I need to get it to her 1st week in May this week.

DL White [00:10:45]:
So I wanna focus on refining the remaining chapters I started with and to get some new and get some new words down. I, I added a chapter last week. I have so much story for Kari and not at all enough for Davis. So the stories and the character arcs should be the same to me. They should be even. They're both working toward something. They're both running from something and working towards something and, like maybe I need to go through my goal motivation conflict worksheets again, get some ideas on how to move these 2 through the development of their relationship. It's a workplace romance, so I have a built in conflict.

DL White [00:11:23]:
I just need to work around it and weave in each other's individual idiosyncrasies. They each have reasons to not be together. Working on that this week on the marketing front, I rolled through my numbers to compare February to January. So for Instagram, January 1 through 31, I was at 30 k impressions and an increase of 14 point 4 compared to December, which makes sense because I released a book at the end of December, so I was still probably hitting marketing hard. I had a decrease of 54.9 profile visits and the same in external link taps, so nobody was tapping on my links in January. It makes sense. I went hard in December with holiday promotions and a new release, and then toward the end of January, I really started to taper off. In February, I hit 21,000 impressions, a decrease of 29.6 from January.

DL White [00:12:17]:
I had a decrease in profile visits and external tap links. Again, I just haven't been as active, so the numbers make sense to me. I'm also super comfy on Instagram and Twitter, so I admit I'm not really trying that hard. The last few weeks I slacked off a lot with promo, and I just didn't have the energy. I would rather read, quite frankly. For YouTube, people watch my videos 1,692 times in January. I added 13 subscribers, but views decreased by 46% from December. In looking at my top content, YouTube seems to like the memes and cap cut things that I copy over from TikTok over anything organic that I create.

DL White [00:12:54]:
They also like audio book snips, so I could do more of those. I'm only getting comments and a few at that on my podcast post over there. In February, people watched my videos 1,167 times. Views are down 6% from January. Watch time is down 80%, and I lost 5 subbies. I'm sitting at a 137 subscribers just to note for when I review March. On TikTok, I'm not even really trying, but in January, views were up 14% from January, likes, from December. Sorry.

DL White [00:13:28]:
Likes were up 48% and unique viewers were up 12%. Profile views, comments, and shares were all down by nominal numbers. Then in February when I really just said screw this and stop trying, views are down 8.2%, but most everything else is up. Not a freaking clue how. I have no idea. I'm literally just logging in and doing whatever. TikTok is the platform where trying hard does not do a leg of good. Just log in, share some things, repost something, make comments, laugh at cats, log out.

DL White [00:13:59]:
No no sense at all. No rhyme or reason. It is not a a platform that you have to come to prepared apparently. You just log in, post some stuff, log out. Yeah. I I mean, I can do that. You know? So we'll see where March goes. I'm supposed to spend a few hours on Sundays putting together promotions, and I was on that train for a little bit.

DL White [00:14:23]:
I'm just I'm tired. I did it all of February. Should I do it all of January? I don't remember, but I'm just tired. There's there's other things that I would rather do with my time than spend 3 hours on a Sunday putting together a promo for it to not look be looked at. It doesn't I don't I don't feel like it got me more views. It didn't bring me more followers. It didn't blow me up or anything. I, of course, you know, I only did it for a couple of months, and I just feel like there are better things I could be doing with my time.

DL White [00:14:59]:
I don't like wasting my time. We'll see what happens tomorrow if I really feel like putting some stuff together for the week and posting it. I do like posting, like, something funny every day on, like, Instagram and Twitter. Like, those are my strongholds, but, like, I'm on those all day every day anyway. It's not like people don't see me. I really need to put that content on the places where I am not so that it appears that I showed up there. So that might be a strategy. Just really focus on the platforms where I don't hang out, like TikTok, like YouTube, Blue Sky as well.

DL White [00:15:38]:
Blue Sky is now wide open. You don't need, you don't need an invite code anymore. So as soon as they are at a place where I can preplan, stuff to post there, it'll go much better for me, but I just barely remember a couple of times a week to log in to Blue sky. I'm gonna ride Twitter until the wheels fall off. So onto our topic for the week. We are talking how I write and this is the last episode of this series. I've actually really enjoyed putting it together, but I'm ready to be done with it. Today, we are talking about epilogue and bonus content.

DL White [00:16:19]:
After the party, it's the after party. And we're talking about how we can use these elements outside of your main story. So writer's digest offers six reasons for using an epilogue. First of all, an epilogue should be considered extra material. Your book should have a satisfying ending during your falling action or the end of your novel. The epilogue should not include any information that readers needed during the previous chapters. It's literally dessert. Now I've read some books where it seems like the epilogue should have just been another chapter, and it it throws me off because what if I just decided to skip the epilogue then, like, I don't actually get an ending for that book.

DL White [00:17:02]:
You need a clear reason for using an epilogue without a proper purpose for including 1 in epilogue might come across as anticlimactic or a dead weight inadvertently signaling to your readers that you're afraid your ending is so weak that they won't be able to extrapolate meaning from it without help. Make sure your epilogue is enhancing your story in 1 or more of the following ways. So we use an epilogue to 1 wrap up story events after a traumatic or violent climax. This is especially important when the ending is abrupt or surprising or when the fate of the characters is not clearly clearly depicted. If your ending raises more questions than it answers, you'll need to create an epilogue to resolve that problem. Number 2, highlight consequences and results of story events. Maybe your ending features a major revelation, which I feel, I mean, should that be at your at the end? I I don't know. The epilogue will serve to assure the reader that justice has been dispensed.

DL White [00:18:03]:
Maybe at the end of your detective crime thriller novel, the assailant the not the assailant, the perpetrator is caught, and your epilogue is like, here's how the victim healed, and here's what happened afterward, and, you know, they went to trial, and they were sentenced to jail. That's what I would use an epilogue for in that instance. Provide important information that wasn't covered in the climax or a denouement which is your falling action. If your character was ailing in the story you might want to explain their fate. If a character becomes pregnant the epilogue can explain the birth of the child. This is typically where romance authors add their characters in a sappy wedding and babies ending and ride their characters off into the sunset and readers just absolutely love that cliche ending. Suggest the future for your protagonist and other characters. This is an important consideration in series fiction or if you're planning a sequel.

DL White [00:19:09]:
An epilogue might also be appropriate if a character undergoes severe physical, emotional, or psychological trauma to assure the readers of his, or her full partial recovery. An epilogue can make the story seem more realistic. For example, if you've killed off the character the epilogue can be written by another character to explain how things went down. Or if you're writing a story and the ending was literally explosive, the epilogue assures your readers that the protagonist has survived. I really like the use of this in a crime fiction novel when I think my fave character was harmed in bringing the villain to justice. Provide data on your large cast of characters, especially if you've written a sweeping historical or an epic novel. Often with a large cast, it's difficult to suggest the fate of every character. In Vanity Fair, for example, William Thackery wrote an epilogue titled which contains births, marriages, and deaths.

DL White [00:20:04]:
While this may seem old fashioned to some readers, in a highly complex novel, you can sometimes justify following the cast into the future. And this is great as was said if you are writing a series because you can then introduce your next couple or your next book or your next conflict in your epilogue. Now, you can go further than this with an extended epilogue and bonus scenes. These scenes are typically written outside of the book and only available to readers once they finish reading the book, whether it's sent via your newsletter, or formatted like a book and distributed through, a site like book funnel, maybe it's material that's only available to your membership. It serves as a treat to people who are dedicated enough to read your work. It's also like a bit of a bait to catch new readers. You can use bonus chapters that don't give spoilers as a way to show potential super fans your caliber of work. The blog at book funnel offers advice on using exclusive content to turn your readers into fans.

DL White [00:21:03]:
Readers love exclusive content, and book funnel is an easy handy way to send that content out. First of all, give your readers more of what they want. Treat bonus slash exclusive content as a love letter to your fans. Epilogues work because the reader is already invested in the book they just finished. You're giving them a little bit more and assuming they like the book, they wanna know what happens next. This works for a series or a standalone, actually works really great for a standalone. If they love your words and they love your story, more content is always good, and they'll join your list to get it. You'll use this in your newsletter call like, hey.

DL White [00:21:42]:
I have, bonus chapters. I have an extended epilogue. It's, only available if you sign up for the newsletter. You sign up, you get it automatically sent to you. I see that time and time and time again. It even works on me. Also consider extended scenes like a director's cut, an annotated version of the book, deleted scenes, extra see me slash NSFW scenes. These can all be used to stay near and dear to your reader's heart.

DL White [00:22:09]:
Lately, I find I don't have energy for bonus content. An epilogue maybe, like, if I just feel like the the reader would like to see beyond, you know, the end beyond the happily ever after. I don't have energy for bonus content. I just I don't have a mind for it. I I was gonna try to write one with home for the holidays, but I was so bored with what I came up with. It was so pointless. Like, there's no there's no point to this at all. There's no reason to keep writing.

DL White [00:22:40]:
Like, maybe I was just burnt out, but the window for bonus content for that book has closed. I think I struggle enough to write the main content. I'm not gonna drive myself crazy by producing additional content. Not right now, anyway. So my best tip for bonus content is don't be cliche. If you can avoid the wedding and children ending, though readers seem to really enjoy these, and even I have a few of those. Make it fun, expected, different, but give your readers more of what they've they're already missing and they're craving. If your readers loved your novel and your characters, they will eat up your bonus material.

DL White [00:23:17]:
It's also a great way to stay in your reader's faces and bridge a long gap between books. If you have ideas for a short and offshoot from a longer standalone novel, pound out some bonus content and let it fly. If you have made it through this series, thank you for sticking with me. I got a weird idea in January and very quickly pulled it together. This is the kind of material that I wanted to hear from writers when I was first starting out, so I hope it has been helpful or at the least reminds you that if the words make the page, you are doing fine. If there's like a short series that you would love for me to cover from my point of view on how I write, shout me out a holler. Let me know. I'm always on Instagram or Twitter.

DL White [00:23:59]:
Hit me in the DMs or you can visit the show notes of this episode at books by dlwhite.com/bookcast. I really welcome your feedback, your ideas, anything you want me to talk about from my point of view. Again, I am not an expert at all. I am nobody's expert, but if you wanna see how I would address a certain topic, a certain technique, my thoughts on things, I am happy to get on this mic and ramble for 36 minutes about just about anything. So thank you so much for joining me for this series. It was fun, and it'll be memorialized, on my website books by dalwhite.com/bookcast. Every episode is labeled. You can also hit me up on, every just about every podcast app out there.

DL White [00:24:49]:
I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. That brings us to the close of today's episode. Thank you for joining me for today's chat. Do not forget to follow me on all of the socials. I'm author d l white in most places. Shot me out and share the podcast if you enjoy today's episode. If you listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, give a girl a rating. I'd really, really appreciate it.

DL White [00:25:13]:
You can support this podcast with your book purchases by spreading the good word or by throwing some coins in the hat at bookcast.bussprout.com. Every little bit helps, and I thank you for it. I will be back next week with a reading and a writing update. Please enjoy your weekend. Have a superlative week, and we'll chat again soon. Bye bye.