Author K. McCoy

Paid Reviews are a Thing now…

Firstly, I can understand the hustle, but I can’t condone it one bit.

As a rookie author, you might find yourself tempted to ‘get them numbers up’, but I am telling you (insert Jennifer Hudson from ‘Dreamgirls’ gif) – please don’t do it.

Cutting corners will not help you find readers.

I don’t use the big A to distribute my work, but even I know that having paid reviews on that website is a big no no.

It does take time to find your readers, but I cannot tell you how incredible it is when you finally do!

Do you want one of your first interactions with readers to be about how you paid someone $25 to write a review of your story, because you wanted to seem more ‘accomplished’ or ‘legit’?

All you will end up doing in the end is telling them that you are not to be trusted and have no problem with taking the easy route when things look bleak.

Don’t sell yourself short!

Please, put in the work and find organic readers. They will soon leave you reviews, I promise.

In the beginning, I shared my stories with friends and fellow authors, who in turn told others about MAGIX and Sweet Seducing Sighs. Months passed before I got a review (from someone that wasn’t a close friend, lol) and it was AWESOME!

I say all this to say, however tempting it is to take someone up on their offer to write a review for you for a fee, I sincerely hope that you do not accept. In the end, if you are serious about your authorship and want to give your stories a good chance of being read by readers who will come to appreciate and anticipate more of your work, just say no (respectfully, lol).

Continue reading, continue writing, continue loving the process.

-K. McCoy

The OG Authors

Over the last month, I’ve been spending more time thinking about the authors that I grew up reading, like Zane and L.A. Banks, to name a few.

When I committed to writing back in 2016, I aspired to be like them when it came to my work. Clearly, I ain’t going to cut it.

For one, I feel that my writing is still lacking. To improve, I have decided to take a few more writing courses. And I will (COVID willing, lol) be attending the 20Books to Vegas this November for the first time, which I am super excited about.

Also, I don’t write too much outside of the IR Romance genre.

Well, I don’t have much published outside of said genre. This led me to the heart of that matter, which is that in this day and age, and the way I chose to pay the bills (as an online English tutor) I can’t write the stories that I want to under K. McCoy.

So I won’t.

After coming to terms with that decision, I decided to focus on sorting out my wip folders, and I almost fell over at the number of unfinished stories inside!

As of today, I have 18 NOVELS that are labelled as ‘works in progress’.

For the stories that I will write under K.McCoy, that number becomes 12.

Just NOVELS folks! I’m not including the one shots or novellas.

After doing that, I was seriously wondering how did my favorite OG authors write all of their works? I had spent so much time romanticizing their struggles, wishing that I could write in the same type of environment that they did, that I almost became ungrateful for the technology that I have at my disposal.

Having to look for a usb? Ha!

Sounds way better than looking for 3 or 4 pages missing from a 300 page manuscript.

Book formatting denied again by Smashwords? Pfff!

Loads better than having to submit my stories by post.

Figuring out my own marketing and social content schedule each month? And?!

Easily less stressful than having the fate of my work in the hands of a publishing company with several other authors to manage.

So, yeah, I am going to keep at it.

No one said that being an indie author would ever be easy anyway.

Though I do have it on good authority that being an indie author, learning as I go, with the help of my fellow author network and readers that like my work – all of that makes it so worth it!

Continue reading, continue writing, continue loving the process.

– K. McCoy

MAGIX is Ready for a Comeback!

While updating my WordPress with snippets of the latest installment of the MAGIX series, I remembered that the first book debuted just a little over TWO years ago!

Whoa.

The first year I spent thinking to myself, “Do I really want to keep going with this?”

Not like I had much of a say, since the main characters wouldn’t leave my head, lol

Soon after that, more characters begin making their presence known. The second year was the pandemic, and with my dream job behind me in Korea, let’s just say that I had plenty of time to write.

And write I did!

MAGIX: Melodic Whirlwinds dives much further into my fictitious take on the K-Pop industry, and I hope that you all enjoy it. Writing for the rest of the series seemed to fly by after this second book, and I cannot wait to share what is in store for Mika, Ae Rin, Geegi, Izzy, and Xiao Mei with the world.

So, don’t be shy (shy, lol)! Let me know what your thoughts are on the story – now series.

Until then, 안녕 Hallyu Misfits!