Pumpkin spice is in the air!

Hey there happy reader!

I’m happy to say that I survived my family vacation to the coast of Oregon. The Pacific Northwest is spectacular, and the weather was picture perfect. The true joy, however, was watching our two young grandsons interact with one another.

This guy was a terrific traveler.

He enjoyed the long ride – we did a lot of walking up and down the aisle of the airplane…

And our eighteen-month-old loved our daily hikes!

We found an enchanted forest that had the largest wild mushrooms growing everywhere…

Look at the magical teepee we found. 👇

Doesn’t it look like wood gnomes should be lurking about? Or that they shot the movie “Twilight” here??

All in all, it was a blast.

But now I’m back behind this computer screen, trying to finish the revisions for “Question Everything” and get the pre-sale going!

It always seems like getting the technical stuff done for publishing a new book is such a tall mountain to climb. You’ve been so patient and at this point, all I want to do is put this fantastic romantic suspense novel into your hands…

Or I will do that, right after I finish all that post-vacation laundry! 😅

It’s all about getting the word out about “Question Everything!”

Hey there happy reader,

Last week I revealed the cover for my new romantic suspense novel, “Question Everything” and so many of you wrote to me to let me know how much you liked it! Thank you! I appreciate your feedback, and some of your comments led me to tweak the artwork a bit more…

It’s a small detail, but we’ve added a car with headlights driving through the dark road.

I think it adds the focal point that was missing, and I hope you’ll agree. My next step in the process was writing the cover copy that goes along with the image. It’s tougher than you might think to put together a gripping description, no longer than 150 words, that doesn’t give away too much of the story yet leaves the reader with the desire to find out what truly happens between the covers. It takes a lot of time and effort to get it right.

The above is the first cover copy I ever wrote.

The year was 1981(!) and it was for “Reap the Savage Wind,” a project I purchased from the slush pile at my job as an editorial assistant at Ace Books.

This was a huge learning curve for me. My boss, the editorial director of the company, tasked me with finding a bestseller and walking it through the entire process from manuscript to published product. That book became a New York Times bestseller, and the back cover copy won a People magazine “best of the decade” award.

Of course, it’s dated now, I mean, “brutal degradation?” UGH! But I learned how to condense and then use the elements a reader considers when looking for her next great read.

The process is a bit different now. I have an online tool that helps me target keywords that may trigger a response from my customer, drawing her into the description and hopefully resulting in her wanting to push the purchase button.

Using those three or four keywords, I crafted a short description that I hope will intrigue the buyer enough to take a chance with this title.

Here it is…

Maeve Byrne needs a lifeline.

Betrayed and alone, she escapes with her daughter in a heart-pounding effort to protect them from the danger chasing her through the dark night. If only she’d slowed down before that sharp curve on a slick road, she might have had a chance to find her way to freedom. At least until the tree, and the inevitable crash that upended all her plans…

Kyle Walsh should have been at work as a detective for the Boston PD.

Instead, he was running from his demons, ruminating about the one terrible mistake that had twisted his life upside down. When he witnessed Maeve’s car accident, instinct kicked in. What he found there would change him forever, tangling him in a web of mystery that had him doubting every certainty he’d thought he’d ever known.

Question Everything… because when secrets unravel, the truth becomes too powerful to hide!

Can you guess the keywords? Should I tell you what they are? I’ll drop them at the bottom of this newsletter…

Hey there happy reader!

Being an indie author has its challenges. It turns out that writing the books is the easy part – who would have guessed that! The truly difficult thing about doing this on “your own” is getting the word out about your work. It turns out that the most efficient way to do that is through the various social media channels available to all of us with a stroke of the keyboard.

Before I embarked on this journey, I had no social media presence at all.

My attitude was basically that if I hadn’t spoken to a person in the past thirty years, why contact them now? But I’ve come to understand that this crazy world of internet communication is a necessary tool if you want to have anyone find your books in the vast expanse of the world wide web.

All this to say, that when I switched social media teams recently, there were lots of suggestions of things that I needed to do for a more updated presence.

Now, let me assure you that I do all my own writing for any post you see attached to my name, and that will never change. I won’t ever be represented by words that are not mine. But this new team believes in more TikTok and less Facebook, more reels and stories on Instagram and less static picture posts.

And not only that.

They hated the cover I had ready to go for my new romantic suspense novel, “Question Everything.” I was not happy to hear it, but I had to keep an open mind and accept criticism where necessary and make a change.

The result might just be one of the most dynamic book covers I’ve ever had for one of my novels. Here it is…

What do you think? Dark and mysterious with a little bit of foreboding for good measure? I hope you like it as much as I do…

I also hope that you’ll follow me on TikTok. I’ve been working hard, trying to make engaging videos on a variety of topics related to indie publishing. By far, my most successful one so far had to do with why I defend “Fifty Shades of Grey” as a game-changer for the romance industry. Check out my argument on TikTok. You can find me there @htcohen. I’m going to keep pushing the boundaries of my comfort zone and see where it leads me!

Go Team USA!

Hey there happy reader,

Are you watching the Olympics? I am and I’m loving it!! There are so many sports that I don’t participate in (lol, I only play Pickleball, not yet an Olympic sport!) but that I love to watch. Tennis, diving, swimming, and of course, gymnastics. I so admire these athletes. Both their focus and determination make me want to try harder and do better at everything. It’s truly inspiring to see the definition of “a dream come true” when one of them sets a personal record or wins a medal.

But by far, the most fantastic feat I’ve witnessed at the games so far was Celine Dion’s performance at the end of the opening ceremony.

I’m sure you’ve seen it by now, but just in case, here it is again…

What an emotional tour de force!

After struggling for years with “Stiff Person’s Syndrome” she was able to deliver the show of a lifetime from the Eiffel Tower in the rain! Plus, she looked gorgeous in the shimmering Christian Dior dress that took over 1,000 hours to make by hand!

Celine Dion’s Dazzling Dior Gown at the Olympics Took 1,000 Hours to Make

Watching Celine sing made me realize how much sacrifice artists endure to be seen or heard.

In some interviews I’ve watched since last Friday night’s opening ceremony, Celine has said that she sings because she “has to,” that she is drawn to the music and performing makes her feel complete. I think that’s true of most true artists. While talent is a large component of their success, it’s the drive, the determination, and the willingness to overcome absolutely any obstacle in their way to live their truth.

Celine Dion has a disease that makes her vocal cords feel paralyzed, yet she pushed herself to try and in doing so, may have set the bar impossibly high for anyone else at the games to surpass her moment. I could watch it over again and again…

And speaking of Christian Dior, if you haven’t watched “The New Look” on Apple TV, you’re missing out.

It’s the story of the designer, his connection to the rise of couture in Paris after WWII, and his very close and special relationship with his younger sister, a resistance fighter captured by the Nazis. I can’t recommend it highly enough. I was glued to each episode!