The Academy – Jo Ann Schneider

20
Sep 23
0

New Releases!

The two new-ish Academy stories I promised are here!

Until now, The Sleepy Princess was only in the Fractured Sleep anthology of stories. Now you can get it on its own.

The ebook is available now. The paperback should be available shortly.

**Princess Aurora isn’t in the mood for nonsense.**

After being asleep for 500 years, and then fighting her way out of a deadly briar patch, living at the Academy is a cake walk.

Or it was until Saru comes along with his irritating need to break the rules and get his way. Either she hates him or she’s beginning to like him…

When the tragic truth about their pasts comes to light, can they weather the storm, or will it tear them apart?

If you enjoy trouble-making boys, self-rescuing princesses, and a fresh twist on two old tales, this book is for you. Download your copy today!

*Note: This is Aurora’s side of the story, and therefore book 5.5 in the series. If you want to it from read Saru’s point of view, download The Monkey King.

Until now, The Undead Princess was only in the Fractured Snow anthology of stories. Now you can get it on its own.

The ebook is available now. The paperback should be available shortly.

**Controlling the undead is not a pleasant experience.**

Snow is only months from having her heart cut out so she can become the next queen of the undead. Before that happens, she’s determined to live a normal life at the Academy.

Or so she tells her mother. Snow’s real reason for attending the Academy is…complicated. And likely dangerous.

Enlisting a vampire prince to help her with her experiment isn’t supposed to be personal—he hates her like all of the other undead—but Dreven turns out to be more interesting (dare she think alluring?) than Snow anticipated.

They both want change in the undead realm, but when Snow’s experiment goes awry, will she have the courage to do what is needed to keep everyone safe?

20
Jan 21
0

Year Three as a Full-Time Author

Tags : Jo Schneider Karly Stratford Real Life The Academy Wins

This journey keeps taking twists and turns. I find it both scary and exciting.

Three years ago I quit my day job so I could go full-time with my writing.

Last year I barely squeaked into the black. I actually made money after all of my expenses. Granted it was only about $100, but I’ll take it!

I had grand plans for this past year. You know, 2020?

Yeah, things didn’t go exactly to plan.

First

I released the last two of my Decker Family Romances in the spring. They did okay. Not as well as I would have liked, but okay.

Second

The plan was to write my YA military sci-fi series.

I started the first book four times, wrote a total of 130k words, and had to scrap them all. Twice. Pure frustration drove me to writing something more soft and fluffy.

Third

I wrote these three sweet and clean romantic comedies for the summer. By this point in the year everyone needed a good laugh, so I obliged. These were not on my radar at the beginning of the year, but they have ended up being my most successful series so far!

I also enjoyed writing my first curvy girl romance. I’m a plus-sized woman, and it was fun to write about a bigger girl.

Fourth

Among all of this romance craziness, I released another Academy story in this anthology. Writing this Snow White retelling was so fun!

Fifth

Christmas is always a good time to release romances, and this year I jumped on the bandwagon. These four books gave me my best months ever on Amazon in November and December! Her Christmas Middle Blocker (another curvy girl romance) is in a collection with eight other books at the moment, but will likely be out soon.

Other milestones

I hit one million page reads in 2020! After I hit one million, I managed to get almost 350k in a month, so that was amazing!

These are some of the highlights of 2020.

Marketing is getting easier, but there are still days that I take a nap instead.

I’ve learned a lot about fulfilling readers expectations, which has really helped my sales.

Thank you to everyone who has supported me through this endeavor.

I’m glad 2020 is over.

The hubby and I spent the first two weeks of 2021 in a Covid-induced haze, so I’m starting the year a bit late.

I have big plans, but who knows what will happen?

01
Jan 20
0

Two Years as a Full-Time Author!

Tags : Karly Stratford North Star to Freedom Series romance The Academy Wins

The journey has been different than I imagined.

Two years ago I quit my day job so I could go full-time with my writing. I wasn’t making great money at the time, but my husband is super supportive and brings home the bacon, so to speak, so I found myself in the unique situation of being able to follow my dream while not having to stress about money.

The first year was hard. I didn’t break even with my expenses, and frankly I was a bit disappointing.

Year two has been a roller coaster of writing and emotions and almost breaking even. This is what happened.