Bookcast 105: Vacation Mode [ON]

On Epi 105 of the Bookcast, I'm shooting from the hip with coffee in hand and the microphone ON.   

Book Report:
I'm thrilled to share that I hit my reading goal for the year - currently at 206 books out of my target 200. With a week and change left in the year, I've no clue where that final number will land. I've been a reading SOMEBODY this month, already at 19 books including some standouts:

• "A Man for Mrs. Claus" by Rebekah Weatherspoon - Put this directly into your face immediately. It's the perfect blend of holiday whimsy and steam, with such an innovative take on a holiday story.
• "Protected" by Sharon C. Cooper - The latest in her Atlanta's Finest series. If you love romantic suspense set in Atlanta, you need Sharon C. Cooper (and Delaney Diamond's Cordoba Agency series) in your life.
• Christmas with a Billionaire by Stephanie Nicole Norris - Brand new release available on her website now and hitting retail on Christmas Day.

My latest book Festival at Evergreen Falls is out now! It's available at all ebook retailers, and while the response has been minimal so far, it's been overwhelmingly positive. Special shoutout to The Reading Room 444 for that lovely review!

I'm fully embracing vacation mode until January 6th. My gift to me is a Kindle Fire HD 10 Plus with charging dock and a bunch of cozy new pajamas. My vacation plans are reading, watching shows (currently loving "Get Millie Black" on HBO Max), and deliberately avoiding the upcoming political circus. I've got every streaming service and I'm building up my watch list to keep me entertained through 2028. Don't call me until midterms. 

Looking ahead, I've got some exciting projects brewing. 
Brunch at Ruby's 10th anniversary edition; possible novella add-on???
Missing Persons-  done, needs editing and revision  

Catch the full episode and show notes at books by dlwhite.com/bookcast/105 or on my Substack. Catch all the links you need at Booksbydlwhite.com/linkinbio 

Transcript

DL White [00:00:15]:
Hello, everyone. My boos and bros, my friends of the book, my book pals, my book enthusiasts, my author friends, my reader friends, all the people that are imaginary that live inside my computer and my phone, welcome back to the BookCast. This is my platform for sharing short fiction and updates on life as a self published author of romantic fiction that centers black love. This is episode 105 of the book cast. I am d l White, an Atlanta based author of 15, count them, 15 plus a few shorts and unwritten novels, numerous short stories, and fan fiction works, but I'm a reader first. So we usually begin with the book report and then we talk about writing and topics of the day. We made it another week y'all. It's another Sunday.

DL White [00:01:09]:
I'm here on the mic. I got my coffee. I got Mac George, the trusty MacBook Air. I got my notion template that's halfway filled out. We're just gonna shoot from the hip a little bit today. It's fine. Fine. Do you guys ever watch on TikTok? There's a lady called Fedan.

DL White [00:01:26]:
She lives in Australia, and she's famous for making she makes a salad every day. She makes the most beautiful looking salad with the least bit of lettuce I've ever seen, and I like, salad is is salad's a sticking point for me because mostly it's like lettuce into tomatoes and, like, a shred of cheese. That's not a salad. That's lettuce, tomatoes, and cheese. Like, a salad is vegetables and and, like, some kind of, dressing and a protein and a little bit of lettuce, but, like, anyway, she makes a big gorgeous salad for lunch every day. And, one thing she says always is go, and the other thing she says is don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. So we're just, we're not worrying about it.

DL White [00:02:19]:
We're here. So today is Sunday, December 22nd 2024 is 11:51 AM and sunny in Atlanta. It's cold, which I found out when I got up to pick up my grocery order, and it was just freezing cold on the porch, Prisler for Instacart, but it is sunny here in Atlanta. I have a mic and I am ready to dig into today's topics. We're gonna talk December books, which I have a lot of them, vacation mode, we're gonna talk about my new release which I'm very excited about, what I got me for Christmas, and my holiday plans, but first let's have some coffee. Alright, people. We are back. We are back.

DL White [00:03:23]:
Like I said, I'm shooting from the hip kinda today, so I don't really have a script. So excuse any rambling. I'm not I haven't been much for editing either, so all my umms and all my long pauses are staying in, and I hope you guys are enjoying the sort of natural raw roughness that my laziness is providing to this podcast. You know? It's like it's me and a 107 people that are listening, like, you know, let's not make a big deal of it. So let's talk about my December reads because, of course, we begin with the, because we begin with the what do we call it? The book report, and I just looked this up earlier and I didn't write it down, so I am tapping super quick into Goodreads. And I know there's, like, this huge, push right now to, like, move away from, like, Bezos owned properties, etcetera. But let me tell you all something. I said this on my Instagram the other day.

DL White [00:04:27]:
What I'm not about to do is inconvenience myself for people who could not bother to get in the voting booth with me. I don't care if the man is evil personified. Things that make my life easier, I am taking part in. I read on Kindle. If I buy a book, I buy direct, but I read on Kindle. I use Goodreads. I am not upending my life to make a point for that man to make 0.8¢ less. I'm just not doing it.

DL White [00:04:59]:
That's me suffering. It's not gonna affect him one bit, so that's all I have to say about that. I pop into Goodreads to check on my reading challenge, and I actually hit my goal this week. I have been reading like a a reading somebody. I have been reading. I hit my goal this week. I am currently at 206 books of 200. I don't know how far above 200 I'm gonna get.

DL White [00:05:25]:
I'm not changing my goal again now. It's just a matter of how far above 200 and am I gonna get. It's the 22nd. I plan to read my face off until the 31st, so lord knows where I am gonna end up. I'm reading long books. I'm reading short books. I'm doing audio. I'm doing I'm not doing print, but I am doing some ebooks.

DL White [00:05:46]:
Honestly, who knows? I mean, I could lose I could lose my mojo and not read anything else, or I could read, like, 10, 12 more books before the end of the year. I don't know. I read a lot and I read fast. And on audio, I'm at, like, a 1.8 to 2 to 2.5 depending on how slow the narrator speaks. Why do they record it so slow, like, nothing it just grates on my nerves, it just skips all the way down every nerve on my back. Just speed up speed it up. Anyway, so that's where I'm at. I am currently at 18 books read for December.

DL White [00:06:27]:
I was gonna hop down the list super quick in case anything sounded good to you, feel free to skip past a few seconds if you don't wanna hear me read a list of 18 books I have read so far in December. But also if we're friends on Goodreads, this is all showing up somewhere on my Goodreads challenge, but so I have for December 24, 2024, I have only Santas in the building. I did not write down authors, but I know this is Alexis Daria. This was super cute. Family and Other Calamities by Leslie Grace Streeter, also very good. This one comes out in, March of 2025. I haven't done my review yet, but I'm gonna read it again probably before I do a review and it's not out until March, so I'm not in a hurry. Stranded and technically speaking, I spoke on those recently.

DL White [00:07:17]:
Those are audio, they're they're like audio productions by Amazon, and I'm not I'm not a huge fan of these full cast productions. It's like listening to a movie. I want to listen to a book. I want, like, dialogue and exposition and, like, narration. So yeah. The Next Grave, by Kendra Elliott, House on the Water, Echo by Tracy Clark. This is starting to become a really good series. I still miscast Raines, Tracy, but, so I did get that one in Nobody's Perfect by Sally Kilpatrick, who I saw at the Tinsel and Tales out in the Powder Springs, the Bookworm bookshop.

DL White [00:08:09]:
I saw her and, this is a new release for her, so I grabbed it and listened to it. Super cute about a woman who's going through divorce. Festival at Evergreen Falls, you might have heard of this author DL White. She's pretty good, and, the book is pretty cute. I always count my own books. I'm always the first person to buy my own book because I just I wanna see what it looks like on the retail side, and, I always buy, always read my own books. I do rate my own books on the reader side. On the author side, I have an author account also at Goodreads, and I never rate my own book there, but I do put up like a little blurb like, hey.

DL White [00:08:47]:
I'm the author. Hope you really enjoy this. Please leave a review. Festival at Evergreen Falls. We'll talk about that, during the writing section. The silent watcher by Victor Methos. I really enjoy Victor. He's like he's like what I wish John Grisham was.

DL White [00:09:03]:
He's pretty good. He's a thriller author. From Here to Serenity by Quanah m Jackson. That was really good. 7 days, 7 dates by Bailey. Can't remember her last name. This is a Kwanzaa theme book. A man for missus Claus by Rebekah Weatherspoon.

DL White [00:09:22]:
My goodness gracious. Please go get this book right now and put it directly into your face. You will enjoy. It is the perfect amount of, like, magic and holiday whimsy, and there's some steam in it. And, like, I don't I don't wanna spoil it, but it's really good, like, so cute and innovative and, like, a new way to tell a holiday story. Really, really good. I absolutely enjoyed it. Please go get it immediately.

DL White [00:09:49]:
Santa's helper by Shay Sanders, always love her. Christmas with a billionaire by, my good sis, Stephanie Nicole Norris. That's a very new release that came out, like, yesterday on her website, and it'll be available on Christmas Day on retail. Please just go get it immediately and read it because it's good. Then I listened to mama, which was a memoir by Nikkia Smith, I think, I don't I don't remember her last name, but I have this as an arc and I thought it was a novel, but it isn't. It is a memoir and I was like, I don't wanna read that. So I skipped it, but then I forgot I had requested it from Libby and my hold came in and I was like, well, you know, might as well. So I listened to that.

DL White [00:10:33]:
It was a very short short for a memoir, very narrow in scope for a memoir. It was okay. I gave it 3 stars. Pursuit of the Truth by I can't remember her name, but Goodreads is open, so let's look it up super quick. Katie Richards, I believe. Yes. Katie Richards. So I'm trying to I'm trying to read all of these, chartered all these West Investigations books.

DL White [00:11:01]:
These are this is the first book in West Investigations mostly because I am, as you may know, writing a private investigator, and I'm just really trying to be more realistic in, how I'm writing them. Like, it's it's written, but, of course, I wanna, like, read a lot and research a lot and then, like, go back and make corrections and additions as it pertains to the novel or the profession of a private investigator or a private security firm. And then, December dread is in here. This one is by Jess Law Lawrie. She has, I missed a book and so now I'm distracted. She has, like a like a 12 book series of, like, a book every month, so I picked up December's book. It was kind of long and kind of rambly, but I like the idea of just having a new book every month. So she's been releasing a book since May and all the, like, the books are, like, themed, All centered around the same character who wants to be a private investigator, which is again why I'm interested in reading this series.

DL White [00:12:14]:
But I also I like Jess Laurie. I think she's a good writer. In general, the book is good. It just seems kind of long. It would have been, like, really great for, like, a short for, like, a, you know, like, a little 2 hour audio joint, like, the auto Audible Originals. Yeah. But it was good. The story is good.

DL White [00:12:36]:
I was surprised, but not at the who done it. Like like, you get some hints, like, who it could be, but you don't know definitively. So I kinda like that where I I can't guess. The book that I missed was protected by Sharon c Cooper. This is the latest book in her Atlanta's finest series, and let me just tell you people, I love me some Sharon c Cooper. I love me some Sharon c Cooper. If you like romantic suspense, if you like books set in Atlanta, if you like a security agency type of book, 2 books I want 2 authors I want you to, like, grab hold of and never let them go. Probably 3.

DL White [00:13:17]:
I've never read Iris Bolling, but I think that's also her jam, Sharon c Cooper, and Delaney Diamond. If you don't go pick up the Cordoba agency series and put it into your face immediately, we are gonna have problems. Cordoba Agency and Atlanta's finest are 2 of my favorite romantic suspense series just on the planet. Just on the planet. So I gotta go back. I know I'm behind on Atlanta's finest. There's a particular there's a particular agent in the Atlanta's finest series, and I know Carolyn told me, Laz is everybody's favorite, but Lazarus Demas, listen, I just love that dude because he does not play by any rules at all. And you don't you don't wanna be stuck with Lazarus in a room because he's like, I could shoot you, and I won't be sorry about it.

DL White [00:14:18]:
You don't want me to do that. So what I'm gonna want you to do is just tell me what I want to know because I don't really give a crap. I love Laz. I feel like Laz is in every book, but I know he has 2 he has 2 books in the series that are centered around him. So I'm probably just gonna catch up on my last books and then, like, go back and like catch up on the rest of the books. I think this is book 8 or 9 in the series. I've read all the Cordoba agency books. I'd be I'd be keeping up on those.

DL White [00:14:49]:
So I'm adding to my list. This actually makes book 19 for December. Protected by Sharon c Cooper of the handwriting of a serial killer. So I'm gonna fix that later. But, yeah. So here's a great problem to have. I use the always fully booked planner, and it has, you know, a page for your reading wrap up for the month. It's really the only page I'm using recently.

DL White [00:15:26]:
I just don't have the energy to do a weekly wrap up in a monthly spread. Although in January, I'm trying to make myself, like, get get into that, like go through and mark all my books already that I know. I know I have, arcs that are popping up and, that are gonna be due in January. I need to go ahead and open up that planner. I'm looking at next year's planner already and go mark down what I need to read, get up in my calendar and do due dates and reminders, like I've got scents because you know how I get when I have when I have arcs that are coming up and Raymond be like Raymond's like, I can't do his accent. I really wish I could do a North Carolina accent. Raymond has the best the best Southern accent, and I can't I can't do it. It bothers me, but he's like, don't let them NetGalley people worry you, dear.

DL White [00:16:15]:
And I'm like, I can't help it. I said I would read it and I didn't. I can't help it. So, yeah. Anyway, so those are the books I have read in December. Again, I'm at 206 of 200 books read. I have got a book 2 books queued up right now. Actually, as soon as I'm done recording, I'm gonna hop back on over to my little reading spot and fire up a book and get to reading their audiobooks.

DL White [00:16:48]:
So I'm I'm pretending I'm gonna full close while I listen to them, but Demetrius should just know that that's not going to happen. So just letting y'all know. So that's what I've got book wise. I don't know what I'm reading. Whatever I happen upon that sounds good. I know I got a Tayor Moody. I got the the latest in the Eugenia Patterson cozy mystery series. I haven't read that yet.

DL White [00:17:14]:
That's out in audio, so I snatched that up. Can't remember the title. And then I picked up, like, a Lisa Unger book. It's a short, like, audible original. It looked really good in my Kindle, and so I went ahead and pop that up. And speaking of my Kindle, let's go ahead and talk about what I got me for for Christmas. So if you know me, you know I'm always fighting with my Kindle Fire. I use a fire because I like to have all of my book apps in one device.

DL White [00:17:42]:
When I sit down to read, I want my ebooks and my audiobooks and my library books and all the apps that I can get on one device. I I want them there. I also I really like cover I like color covers, so I use a fire. And I had an 8, and it's just it's old, and, it just moves slow. It, you know, it releases the the Bluetooth whenever it feels like, and it pops it back up. Like, I'll be watching TV, and if my Kindle is connected to the Roku, which I I connected to the Roku, and then I have it do the assistive reading so it reads out loud so I can read along. If my old Kindle Fire, who I called Tangemay, all my Kindles are called Tanjimae. It's from the darkest child.

DL White [00:18:30]:
Get into it. So if it's connected to the Roku, it will occasionally just pop up the Bluetooth and open a book. Like, I know you're sitting here watching TV, but you should be reading, and I feel a way about that. And so when I'm done reading, I have to make sure to turn off the Bluetooth, otherwise, the Bluetooth will interrupt whatever it is I happen to be watching like YouTube or Peacock or, you know, Netflix, Hulu, whatever, whatever I'm listening to. So I've been kinda tired of arguing with my old Kindle Fire. It's it was refurb. I don't know how old it was when I got it, but it was refurb when I bought it. And I've had it for a couple of years, and I'm like, you know what? I want to, for Christmas, upgrade my Kindle Fire.

DL White [00:19:20]:
So I went ahead and got the Kindle Fire HD 10 plus. The plus is important because the plus is the only device besides the 8 that has a charging dock, a wireless charging dock. So you plug in the dock and it sits on your bedside table or, you know, whatever. And your Kindle when you're, when you're listening to an audiobook or when you're done with it, you just set it on the dock and it charges. If I have to plug in a device, it ain't gonna get charged. Like, I daily, I'm fighting with my iPad. I'm fighting with my phone. The only reason my computer stays charged is because it's in a dock.

DL White [00:20:03]:
I just stick it in there, and it starts charging. So I I just I need the path of least resistance. I need as few things that I have to plug in to charge as possible. So I got the wireless charging dock and I got the Fire HD 10 plus and I really like it. I do not have those devices that you speak to and they do what you say, but I'm trying one out and I'm not calling out the name. Otherwise, she will wake up and think I'm talking to her. I already have to fight with Siri all day every day. So I just I just I'm not a huge fan of devices I have to talk to.

DL White [00:20:44]:
So I I try to I try to keep that off and not use it often. I'm trying it out. We'll see how it goes. I might turn it off because I'm not a huge fan of it, but I don't know. We'll see how it goes. Love it. Love it so far. It's big.

DL White [00:21:04]:
It never leaves my house ever, ever, ever. My Kindles do not leave the house because I have the app on my phone. And if I travel, I take my iPad, which also has a Kindle app on it and also has all my other book apps on it. I don't ever have a need for my Kindle Fire to leave the house, so it stays on its little charging dock. It's purely for my pleasure and enjoyment. So love it. Love it. Love it.

DL White [00:21:30]:
The other thing I got for me for Christmas was a bunch of pajamas, a grip of new pajamas. They're super cute. 1 has, like, kisses all over it, one has like, let me sleep on it, one is like a leopard print, I'm wearing like the gray flannel gingham with like a really soft black top. I am all the way in vacation mode, all the way in, like, generally, when I'm home, I don't wear quote unquote clothes. I wear lounge wear, leggings, t shirts, pajamas. If I'm working at home, I get up, I get dressed for work. But at 4 o'clock, I log out and I put my comfies back on. If I am home and I'm not going anywhere, I I just have comfies on.

DL White [00:22:15]:
So I'm getting deep into this comfies era. K the reader gave me such a good idea and she's like, I'm just getting all set up to be cozy during my vacation. She's like, I put all of my pajamas in the wash. I've got my snacks. I've got my books. I got my tree. I'm ready. And I was like, you know what? You know what? That is a great idea.

DL White [00:22:40]:
I've got my snacks. I bought jelly beans today. I'm very excited. And I have Oreo Thins, Oreo lemon Thins. Get into it. Like, because sometimes it's just too much Oreo, but the Thins are just a perfect amount of cookie and filling. I love it so much. So I've got my new Kindle.

DL White [00:23:03]:
It's got all my book apps on it. I got Hoopla on there. I got Libby on there. I got Everand on there. I don't have Spotify on there yet because I'm tired of arguing with things and trying to sign in, but the only reason I would put Spotify on there is to listen to any audiobooks I have saved on there. So, of course, I've got my Kindle and my Audible on there. Any other book stuff, I need to put bookbub on there. I don't know if I can get bookbub on there, but I could probably save it.

DL White [00:23:33]:
Anyway, all my book stuff is just on one device. Love it. Got my snacks. I have, I bought cream of wheat. I've been in my cream of wheat era. I talked about that last week, so I have that every morning for breakfast, something good and hearty and warm. I've got my coffee. I'm so ready for this vacation.

DL White [00:23:50]:
I'm so ready. I've actually been off since Wednesday at around 3, but I had to log in on Friday to clear out any last expense reports, so I don't get any nasty grams from, travel and expenses, because they will they will send a nasty gram if you don't have your stuff in by the deadline. And the culture of beverage giant is everybody just takes these weeks off like Christmas and the week after. We just take these weeks off because finance needs to close the month and the year. So they need everybody out of the systems, Nobody's incurring anything. Nobody is producing anything. So everybody just saves up their PTO, and they are out of the office for these 2 weeks. So there's not gonna be anything piling up.

DL White [00:24:37]:
And I am out of the office and I'm just chilling until Monday, January 6th. I am ready. My body, my mind, my spirit is ready for this vacation. Can you hear it on my voice? Can you hear it? Can you feel me? Do you understand? That's what I wanna know. So I talked about, vacation mode. That's what I'm doing with my holiday, reading books, just reading my face off, watching movies. I need to pile up a bunch of stuff I wanna watch throughout 2025 because if you people think I am watching the dumpster fire that is this government go through its imaginations, you had better think again. I'm not doing it.

DL White [00:25:21]:
I'm not. I will be watching madam secretary. Thank you so much. I wanna see Jason Bateman play a villain in Carry On. I have got I have every streaming app. All of them. Every all of them. I don't have any children.

DL White [00:25:36]:
I don't have any debts. I don't have any vices. I yes. I have every streaming app. I share them with my mother. I pay for BritBox for her. I don't really watch BritBox, but it's there. I pay for it for her and Acorn.

DL White [00:25:49]:
She loves herself a British comedy or a, like, a British detective show. Speaking of detective shows, are you guys watching Get Millie Black on HBO Max? It's so fantastic. It's set in Jamaica, and, it's really good. And my friend, I call her the property resource on the internets. I don't speak her name aloud because she's famous. She is friends with the person that wrote, who wrote that show, Marlon James. He is from Jamaica. He was actually in her wedding.

DL White [00:26:28]:
They are very good friends. And since she's my good friend, he is my friend, like, by relation. So whenever I talk about Marlon, I message her about our friend, and she she just laughs. Someday, I'm going to meet the man. But, anyway, so we have been messaging back and forth about that show. It's so, so good. She's very proud, and she should be it's it's quite good. So I'm trying to it comes out on Mondays on Max.

DL White [00:26:57]:
I hate watching a show week to week. So I like to let the shows pile up and then, like, watch 2 to 3 episodes at a time. That's what I do that with equalizer. I'm doing that with papa's house. I've been watching Matlock week to week because it's so good. I've been watching Elsbeth week to week and, and the what is that show? The, with Jesse Martin. What's the name of that show? It's on the tip of my tongue. You guys know what I'm talking about.

DL White [00:27:24]:
Tell me. Help me out. The irrational. Thank you so much. Oh my goodness. That's you guys forever. Forever to help me with that. Been watching those week to week because they're taking weeks off here and there, and so I just catch up when I can.

DL White [00:27:37]:
I have a few shows that I'm watching a lot of things I need to get piled up to watch 2025 through 2028 because your girl will be politically resting until midterms. Please leave me alone. Leave me directly alone. Absolutely don't bother me one bit about anything, a 100%. And I'm really trying to stop, like, reposting political stuff because it just makes it just makes me angry, like flames flames coming out of the side of my head, flames. I gotta stop. I just I gotta stop doing it. I am not I'm off of Twitter.

DL White [00:28:18]:
My stuff's just posting there. My like, my promo stuff from all authors posting there, and I'm copying it and throw it into buffer, and then I send it out to all my other socials. That's the only reason the Twitter is still up and alive. I am not removing my name because I don't want anybody to assume my name and start posting on my behalf. But I did get rid of my personal account on Twitter, the Corby Jones account that's gone. Deluded that. The fandom account is still there, but it's also duplicated on blue sky, which I am primarily posting all day every day. Love love me some Blue Sky.

DL White [00:28:58]:
I'm also on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Kinda sundowning TikTok, considering it might be going away. But if they stay, I have an account there. I just am there watching cats beg for food. There's a great, account about a cat that just screams for ham. So I've gotta I have to check on Larry and watch him scream for ham every morning and talk. Don't worry about it. How come I can do Australia, but I can't do North Carolina? Why is that? Anyway, so we talked about holiday plans.

DL White [00:29:42]:
We talked about all the things I'm gonna be watching. We talked about leaving me alone for heaven's sake. Leave me alone. We talked about the books I'm gonna read. Let's talk about my new release because it's exciting. It's the festival at Evergreen Falls. You know all about this book because I have been talking about it, and it's out. It came out this week.

DL White [00:30:04]:
I released it first on my website, and then I just sort of lollygagged and got it up at all of the retail sites. It is up. It is out there. The response so far is minimal, but very good. Minimal, but very good so far. Thank you so much to the people that have already put up reviews on the reading room 444 posted just a lovely, lovely, glowing review of it. I I love it so much. You are my heart.

DL White [00:30:31]:
I appreciate you. I know Carolyn has, got to it. She has it. I can't I don't know if she's read it quite yet because I I'm I'm so weird about checking my reviews. I have to be like there's like like like a very sliver of perfect time that I have to be in to look at my reviews, and I'm not I'm not there. I have to be, like, drunk and high, and also I don't like, in a mood to not care. I I'm joking so severely about being drunk and high. I've never been either.

DL White [00:31:02]:
But, like, I have to be, like, the the the the sliver of time in which I can check my reviews has to be perfect, spot on. I am not there. So, I don't be checking my reviews. I do check my sales numbers, and the numbers look very good. I'm very excited about, you know, where we are. I'm opening up scribe count right now. I'm signing in, so I can look at my numbers super quick. I am so far at 345 units.

DL White [00:31:37]:
That's overall, all of the books that I have sold this month. And I'm looking at my little pie chart, my sunburst is looking gorgeous. There's like a little, Amazon section that's like a goldenrod gold yellow color, and it's so little and that makes me happy. I just don't I don't wanna depend on Amazon for my livelihood. Happily, book funnel is, book funnel and draft to digital, which are my wide book funnel, draft to digital, and Google Books are my wide platforms, and, those are all just kicking the pants off Amazon. Amazon is, big units wise because I have a free book out there. The guy next door is free right now through the end of December. So if you haven't read it, go snatch it up.

DL White [00:32:26]:
It's free on Amazon. It's free everywhere. Honestly, it's free everywhere. I it's not free at my store because I am just too lazy to log in and make it free, but you can get it free everywhere else. I don't care where you get free books, but if you're gonna buy them buy them from me directly. You hear what I'm saying? So we're at, like, 25% Amazon and 74.5 percent wide, which makes me extremely, extremely happy. I'm very excited about that. I am running an ad for my holiday novellas, and I have this little ad tracker which tracks, what I'm spending versus what I'm making.

DL White [00:33:04]:
And so far so far, royalties are kicking the pants off of, ad spend. I'm spending, like, maybe $8 a day, so it's good. It's good. I'm very excited about it. So festival at Evergreen Falls is out now. It is available at every retail ebook retail outlet. I do not have it in print. I don't know if I'm gonna put it in print.

DL White [00:33:28]:
It's kind of not worth it to put it in print. What I could do since I have, like, 5 or 6 holiday books out now is do an omnibus, which is like all of them, but that sounds like work. And I just don't know that I wanna do that. Maybe for 2025, I don't know. The other thing I've got to got to got to get going on is, the 10th anniversary of brunch at Rupees. I don't know what I'm doing for it. I, like, I I wish I had, like, the wherewithal and the energy for, like, a special edition. Like, I'm just I'm looking at, like, the special editions that people are putting out, and I just I don't have the know how, and I don't have, like, I don't have the energy for that.

DL White [00:34:11]:
So I'd wanna do, like, a special hardback edition of rubies, and I'm thinking about, like, can I can I shoot out a little, like, novella, like a little update novella to go in the back of the special edition to entice people to buy a whole new copy of Rubies? Can I shoot that out between now March? I don't know. I do have 8 chapters written. It's probably not 8, it's probably like 4, and it's really good, but then I hit a wall. So I could, during my break, bring that out, see what I can do with it, and maybe maybe do a little, like, update novella in the back of brunch at Ruby's. Wouldn't that be fun? I think it would be. So the other thing I have is, I don't I don't know if I'm changing the cover to dinner at Sam's. The books don't match right now, so it shouldn't bother me that the books won't match when I do the special edition. But, I am gonna change the cover to rubies again, once the 10 10th anniversary edition is out.

DL White [00:35:27]:
Do I wanna change dinner at Sam's to match? Do I wanna wait like, what I might do is change dinner at Sam's to match, leave the print the same, but then do a special edition of the print version in, like, 2028 when dinner at Sam's turns 10. I don't know. So many options. Way too many options. Dinner at Sam's is a Ruby's romance. Missing persons is gonna be a Ruby's romance, brunch at Ruby's is a Ruby's women's fiction novel. It is upmarket women's fiction with romantic elements. I know miss Bev calls it a romance.

DL White [00:36:06]:
It has romantic elements. Dinner at Sam's is a hard r romance not hard r romance, but it's a big r romance. Missing persons is a romantic novel with mystery elements. Again, like, I'm I'm gonna try to work that out. So missing persons could ostensibly ostensibly come in the spring because it's done. I just gotta, like, I gotta punch it up, and it has to be edited. I have to, like, do my research and make sure I don't sound dumb. I also need someone who was in the army to read it because I have literally just made things up based on the air force and my Google research.

DL White [00:36:49]:
I'm an air force brat. I do gotta find somebody who was in the army to be like, no, sis. This is no. You should actually use this sport name. I don't know anybody that was in JAG. My hero was a JAG attorney. Not a clue what I'm talking about. Not a single clue, but it's done.

DL White [00:37:08]:
So I like to just get it out. Just shove it out. It's wrong. I don't care. Then I need to go back and figure out what I have written in which I do not know what I'm talking about and make those changes and those updates. It's easier for me that way than doing a glut of research and trying to get it right right out the bat. It just it's on paper. Now I can correct it.

DL White [00:37:32]:
Even if I have to rewrite the whole thing, that's a better situation for me for it to be done. So I have a lot on my plate for this vacation. We'll see how much I get done. Also gonna be, like, you know, going into January with, like, trying to get Ruby's out, the 10th anniversary edition of Ruby's out. It is already with the editor. It's gonna I'm gonna have it re edited. I got to figure out how to do a hardback edition. I am working on, cover design.

DL White [00:38:04]:
I might hire that out because whatever I'm coming up with is just not it just doesn't have that juice. It doesn't have that oomph. It doesn't have that certain je ne sais quoi. You know what I'm saying? Like, it doesn't it just it doesn't punch you in the face and say, yes, this is a 10th anniversary edition. So I may hire it out. I don't know. Anyhow, that's all I got for today. I think that's enough.

DL White [00:38:34]:
I have rambled for 39 minutes. Wow. So let's go ahead and close it out. I bid you adieu, but not before thanking you so much for joining me for today's chat. I enjoy having you here. I welcome any comments or feedback at books by dlwhite.com/bookcast/105. You'll also find this episode on my Substack, author dlwhite.com no, author dlwhite. Substack.com.

DL White [00:39:03]:
Go on over to podcasts. It'll be there for you. You will also find full show notes and links to all the things I talked about, if relevant, and a transcript for today's show on my website and on Substack. Please share this podcast wherever you come upon it if you enjoyed this episode. If you listen to Apple Podcasts or Spotify or Substack, give a girl a rating. I'd really appreciate it. Don't forget you can support this podcast with your book purchases at payhip.com/booksbydlwhite by spreading the good word, by joining the newsletter or the Substack. Links are on my website atbooksbydlwhite.com slash link in bio, or you can throw some coins in the hat at bookcast.bussprout.com.

DL White [00:39:48]:
Thank you so much to my monthly supporters. Their gift covers my bus sprout subscription currently. I really, really do appreciate your support. The book cast is written, produced, and edited by me, d l White. Our theme music and any sound effects are provided by Pixabay. I will be back next week, 28th, to wrap up this year. Until then, please enjoy your week. Have a superlative weekend.

DL White [00:40:14]:
We'll chat again soon. Bye bye.