I am barely passing the Marshmallow Test

Because I can't hold off much longer from sharing this

If you have no idea what I mean by “The Marshmallow Test,” here you go.

For the last 7 10 months (OMG seriously, that long), I’ve been working with Qamber Designs on a complete re-do of my Shopping series covers.

They are illustrated.

Hand illustrated.

I’ve never engaged in this kind of cover design process, and the hardest part has been keeping my big mouth shut.

But no more.

I get to start talking about this!

With 13 covers (plus 2 in Hamish and Amy’s spinoff series), this is a daunting task.

And it’s a revamp.

About 4 years ago, I took the novellas from my Her Billionaires series and “folded” them into one big book, which is now known as Her Billionaires.

I’m doing the same with the first 5 Shopping series novellas.

In 2014, when I started releasing the novellas, the Shopping series was a side gig. An extra series I was writing between planned projects. Novellas were easier then (and serial fiction was much more common - we didn’t have Vella back then!), so books 1-5 in my Shopping series are short.

And readers complain. They want it all in one big book.

Rearranging series isn’t fun. It involves a lot of detail work behind the scenes, but I think it’ll make it easier for new readers to find the world of the McCormicks and the Jacobys.

Over 17 posts here, I’m going to chronicle the journey. You’re going to see the covers change. Each one has a story.

Shannon and Declan’s Shopping for a Billionaire (the first 5 novellas blended into one book) was the first, and the hardest. I am NOT visual.

I’m likely the least visual person you’ve ever met. I think in words, actually. Rarely in pictures, though I definitely think in “movies.” My books are like movies in my head, but the characters don’t have distinct physical attributes.

Hmm. Maybe I just think in blobs. Now I have to go ruminate on this for a bit…

Trying to describe Declan and Shannon was hard. Also, these are illustrations, cartoony covers designed to be lighthearted and funny. It’s appropriate for them to be a bit charicaturish or over the top.

My cover designer had me fill out an extensive document, one I worked on with a member of my team for over an hour. Colors, textures, emotional tone — you name it, we covered it.

I am terrible about this stuff. Learning to say, “I trust you” was so important. When I hire a cover designer, I view them as the expert. Most of the time this works, but not always.

Spoiler: it worked this time.

Once I approved the initial drawing, the artists colored everything in with details. I literally SQUEEEEEED! When I got this back.

OMG! Declan! Shannon!

CHUCKLES!!!

I gave some feedback. Chuckles needed a little finessing, and I didn’t like the white shirt poking out under Dec’s vest. Shannon’s overall look was solid, but we tweaked some items as well.

“Tweaked” is an understatement. It took 10 versions to settle on the final one.

In the end, the cover designer came back with this:

Not all readers like illustrated covers. Perhaps that’s even an understatement, as I’ve heard some readers hate them.

Like so much in this industry, it’s a business choice. For eight years, my series had a distinct look, and so many of you love those covers. Consider these new covers a lens through which to view the series anew.

In my future posts about this process, you’ll see more details (pen and ink sketches first, how characters evolve, etc.).

They’ll be on ebooks later, as I “batch” upload the new covers. Same with print and audio, too.

Stay tuned…

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Rabbitholes and Me

I get obsessive.

I get obsessive often about specific topics. Some days, I work in my writing cabin and I write a lot. I do business work. I write newsletters. I manage ads.

And other days, I spend endless hours learning about the “Freedge” movement (free fridge movement), or the Flash Food app, or —

You get the picture.

Poor Clark has to hear me natter on and on and on about my latest obsession, so I decided that if he has to bear it, so do you. Whee!

I live fairly close to Worcester, Massachusetts, and have been helping out with the Woo Fridges. Before I start going on, let me back up and explain what the heck a “freedge” is.

Free fridge. It’s a community refrigerator. It’s typically outdoors, in a small wooden kiosk, and everything in it is free for you to take.

No, really.

The freedge movement was started as a community resource, for people in various “food deserts” to be able to access leftover food, and to not have to go to food pantries to get food aid. There’s nothing wrong with food pantries, of course! I have volunteered for some across decades, and have been the beneficiary of some.

But food pantries often have set hours. Many of them require documentation. And a food pantry that is closed at 8pm on a Friday can’t help you get food when you’re broke and hungry.

Free fridges are all about community support. You take what you need and you donate what you can. It’s mutual aid, and it’s been so fulfilling to work with this movement.

Eye-opening, too.

I currently make “donation runs” a couple times a month, getting donated foods from small and large stores to put in the fridge. I’ve learned a great deal about how large loading docks work at huge grocery chains LOL, and also have a better understanding of food waste, corporate philanthropy, and distribution.

I’ve also recently located a cool farm about 90 minutes away, and recently bought 150 lbs of potatoes for a steal. Most of those were donated to the fridges.

Free fridges remove barriers to food access. Kids with dysfunctional parents can access healthier food. Communities can come together to fundraise for them. Gardeners can share bounty easily. Stores don’t have to throw away as much.

And everyone wins.

This movement even forced me to join Discord (:insert old lady complaining:) because the group of committed volunteers who serve the fridges are all on Discord. “Emergencies” are posted there, like a store with hundreds of gallons of milk to donate, or someone who can’t make their regular donated-food pickup at a specific grocery store.

The group fills in for each other. It’s such a beautiful community, devoted to a common purpose.

Someday, this will show up in one of my books (a heroine who works for a food bank? A hero who builds a wooden kiosk for the fridge to be placed in? A hungry kid who finds dinner in a fridge? Not sure…). For now, it’s a fun, new community I’ve joined, it is safe for an immunocompromised person like me (outside pickups and drop offs), and I’ve learned that “mutual aid” means if I see something in the fridge we need at home, it’s fine to take a bit, too!

Then it’s a two-way street.

No story like this is complete without revealing that I lived with food insecurity for many years throughout my childhood, so I’m not just doing this to be a helpful neighbor. It’s feeding some scared piece of me, the girl who didn’t have enough. My mother was extremely dysfunctional, my father lived far away and was a hands-off noncustodial parent, and we often didn’t have enough food.

I was a “free school lunch” kid in the 1980s. We were given physical tickets. You went in a special, separate line for the reduced-lunch and free-lunch kids. As you can imagine, it was stigmatizing. Other kids teased us.

By 6th grade, I had a paper route and enough money to buy a $0.25 ice cream bar at school for “lunch” rather than getting bullied for being in the free line. Not the best nutritional choice, but fitting in and avoiding pain was more important than worrying about my daily supply of Vitamin C.

I was a resourceful kid — but children shouldn’t have to be resourceful. They should be parented by people who provide resources and then be guided to learn how to be resourceful, but if wishes were horses and all that…

A free fridge near my childhood home would have been a lifesaver. Every time I take a delivery to one, I’m feeding my child self, giving her a little safety, showing her that one day, it’ll be better.

Because my life is so, so much better now.

Rabbitholes, I’ve learned, aren’t quite as random as they appear to be.

Speaking of random….

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Random Acts of Crazy is Almost Ten Fingers. WHAT?

I remember turning 10. I remember how I needed all ten fingers to show my age, at a time when it was uncool to do that, but I wasn’t a cool kid LOL.

It may shock you — shock you! — to learn that I was definitely a child who didn’t fit in.

On May 22, 2013, I released Random Acts of Crazy. It was not the book I was supposed to release. That book was Suspiciously Obedient, the second book in my Obedient series.

But Darla spoke.

The Random series is getting a cover makeover (more on that in two weeks). The original cover in 2013:

I spent SO MUCH MONEY on this cover. Every single previous cover I’d used had been made by my husband, Clark. He would download a stock image and use GIMP to add text (GIMP is a free kind of Photoshop). I think our highest-cost cover was $25 LOL.

This cover was $400 or so, made by Damonza.com

I have since spent far, far more on a single cover, but back then that was bank.

I released the book and spent about $70 on promotion TOTAL (no, really….). I reached out to every blogger I could find. Friends put my book in their newsletters. I prayed for Pixel of Ink (anyone remember them?) to pick up the book and run it in their newsletter.

It released at 0.99 because I didn’t believe people would pay more for a self-published book.

And then I went on a family trip from Massachusetts to Ohio.

At this time, NO ONE in my extended family knew that I was Julia Kent. It took me 2 more years to tell them. So I want you to imagine being at a huge, multi-generational gathering where I’m constantly sneaking into the bedroom we were sleeping in (complete with air mattresses on the floor), checking my laptop.

The book rose. And rose. And rose up the Amazon ranks. Then Barnes & Noble. I only released it on those two retailers, and then I used Smashwords to send to Apple (you couldn’t get a direct account on Apple then) and… maybe Kobo? Sorry, Kobo. I don’t remember. I know it wasn’t on Google Play at the time because I didn’t get a Google Play account until fall 2013.

Soon, it was in the top 100 on Amazon. I “flipped” the price to 2.99. It just continued to sell. In Week 1, I didn’t hit the USA Today bestseller list.

But I did in Week 2.

Notice how the top reviews from Goodreads, on the USA Today bestseller link, are 1-stars? People either LOVE this book, or they HATE this book.

When I spoke with a very popular agent, he said, “I’d rather see a 3-star average for a book with extreme 5s and 1s than a book with a 3-star average because it gets a bunch of 3s.”

Well, sir, here you go.

People found the book, then they found my previous 4 novellas from the Her Billionaires series, and by the end of June, I made a pile of money (and within months we paid off more than $50,000 in medical bills for my youngest) and had a huge mailing list.

Random Acts of Crazy stayed in the top 100 on Amazon for 3 weeks straight.

Then I joined the New Adult Boxed Set and we hit the New York Times bestseller list repeatedly.

Random Acts of Crazy made my career. Readers made my life.

Clark and I made an audio file (calling it a Podcast is a painful stretch). It’s not edited, and not high-quality audio, but it’s heartfelt and fun. You get some insight into the book and the series, a lot of deep conversation about the characters, and a sense of how my husband and I talk to each other (I’m a sapiosexual, and I think the reason why comes out nice and clear here LOL), so have fun listening. <3

In 2015 we redid the cover:

And in 2020, another redo:

There is a trend, and it heads in the direction of less clothing and more skin LOL.

I have yet another set of covers, which were originally designed to be special edition paperbacks, but I love them so much I’ll use them for eBooks at some point, too.

In 2020, I finally got the audiobooks going, featuring Sebastian York, Andi Arndt, and Tad Branson as the narrators. They bring Trevor, Darla, and Joe to life in ways I didn’t even know were possible.

What started out as a simple “I wonder what a woman would do if she saw…” has turned into and entire new life for me.

Thank you, readers. We’ve been together for ten years, going strong.

Here’s to ten more. <3

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What’s on sale, Julia?

Thanks for asking! You get Love You More, Colleen and Moore’s book from my Love You, Maine series, for just 0.99 this week! The audiobook is out, too, narrated by the ever-outstanding duo of Teddy Hamilton and Erin Mallon.

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A Rare In-Person Appearance! May 20, 2023, Ashland Massachusetts Library

Want to see me in person? I’ll be at “RomCon 2023” at the Ashland Public Library on May 20, 2023. As you may or may not know, I am immunocompromised, so I have to be very careful about going anywhere in public. The wonderful Meena Jain, Director of the Ashland Public Library, is holding an OUTDOOR book signing with 12 authors (panels indoors).

You can register here to attend (it’s FREE!).

Hopefully, I’ll see some of you there! The local bookstore Aesop’s Fables will be selling copies of Love You Right and Love You Again, and I’ll bring a limited number of other books to sell as well. Send me an email at jkentauthor@gmail.com if you have a specific book you’re looking for.

You can also bring any books you already own for me to sign!

Let’s have some romantic comedy fun. <3

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Fun Stuff You Need To Know About

I live a life where I absorb a lot of details about super cool things. Now I’m going to share some of those with you! (I do not make any money off these mentions. I’m just too geeked out by them not to share).

Flashfood app. Want to get food for 50% off? I shop at a lot of my area Stop & Shop stores using the Flashfood app. Remember above, where I talk about food rescue? I often buy food through Flashfood to give to the free fridges.

Too Good To Go. Same principle, but with restaurant food. It’s the end of the day and restaurants have extra food. Instead of throwing it away, now some of them are bagging it up and selling a “mystery bag” for $4, $5, etc. You get about three times the value for what you pay. We’ve used this a few times and have been overwhelmed with how much good food we get!

Affordable Connectivity Program. The federal government has a new program that gives households $30/month toward Internet if you meet certain qualifications (getting a Pell Grant, on SNAP, Medicaid, receiving Veteran’s benefits, etc.). The program launched in 2021, so you might not have heard about it. I recently helped someone on a Pell Grant to get this, so if you qualify, I hope this helps.

Neli Virtual Repair. Hold up there - virtual home appliance repair? YEP! You pay a fee and use your phone as a video camera, showing a technician virtually what your problem is. The technician diagnoses it, helps you buy the right part, then when the part arrives (if needed), helps you install and fix. Great for people who are immunocompromised, don’t have cars, or just need help NOW.

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