Ophelia Kee and Draoithe is now officially on Tumblr! I have begun posting there, and I hope all of my readers who use Tumblr will come follow me. Like all the social media for Draoithe, I don't truly understand how it works, but Tumblr seems to have hashtags a bit like Twitter and Instagram. Y'all already know my craziness with the hashtags, but I promise to remember to put the links on everything from now on. Sorry to my Instagram followers for failing y'all. I will get better. 

If you missed the release of Dream Therapy yesterday, no worries. It is available on Amazon at the debut price still, and it is FREE with Kindle Unlimited. It is currently $3.99. Get it before the price increases.
Someone asked me recently about my pricing structure, and why I changed it. As many of you know, I am still learning this business. It has been a lot of research and hard work to get to this point. In the interest of an honest answer, it was mostly based on word counts and the story.

See, most of your $.99 reads are short works. Novellas that are usually priced low because the word count is under 40,000. Your $2.99 books are likely hovering between 50 and 60 thousand words. Full length fiction novels average between 70,000 and 80,000 words at the $3.99 price point, especially anything with romance in it. I know I have a serious reading addiction, but that has become part of the research in a way. Most of my novels far exceed that. Fire and a Gryphon ​for example is over 117,000 words. That is seriously a kick booty story. Now I know that Fantasy tends to run long in the tooth, so it stands to reason that the paranormal romances and fantasy romances should be a bit longer. Only thing is with my novels, the reader gets an ongoing series saga and the romance stories involved at the same time. So $4.99 is a far more accurate price point. 

I also give away free books just about every month on Amazon. The Thread is always free just by subscribing when you visit Ophelia Kee. I even offer books at reduced prices all the time as well as making almost all of them FREE with Kindle Unlimited. If you have not started your journey into the dream, start with
The Thread by subscribing. Most of my work contains adult content, but The Thread is the backstory for A Pack Forms. The main characters have not met yet. Luke is struggling with finding a way to introduce himself to his neighbor while becoming increasingly with obsessed with her comings and goings. Eli is focused on getting her life in order the way she wants it after many years of remaining in a broken relationship and finally leaving that past behind. She never sees Luke coming. The book is only about 45 minutes to read, but it offers a taste of my writing without getting too carried away into the romantic scenes. A taste if you will. If you like it, there is a link at the end which will take you to the rest of that story. It is an epic love story. once you start, you won't want to stop. LOL. Happily ever after was never quite like this!

It's Friday. Enough about business. Enjoy the weekend. Read a few good lines. Be kind and leave reviews on books you finish. I hope I run across you guys on social media. Drop me a line with any questions or comments and I will try to answer as fast as I can, but 9,000 words into a novel I should not be working on is calling to me to write the next scene. Gotta run.
Be Careful!
Happy reading,
Ophelia Kee
​

Today is the day! I am super stoked on Book Release Day! Dream Therapy is live. I now have 12 full length novels available in the Draoithe series. Thanks to you and all my readers, I might just get to keep writing. If you have not purchased your copy, grab it at the debut price of $3.99 before it joins the collection and the price must rise. For those of you who love ink on paper (so do I) Dream Therapy is available as a paperback. If you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited, please read for FREE! As always, like a puppy begs for people food, be kind and leave a review for an Indie Author. You matter as much to the process as the writer. Thank you for reading my stories.

I'm going to keep writing now. Y'all quit reading this blog and grab your book. I really got to get some work done to meet the deadline for the next novel.
Be Careful!
Happy reading,
​Ophelia Kee

​Are you ready? Have you got yours on preorder? Are you anticipating Dream Therapy's release tomorrow? I am. I can hardly wait. I may stay up till midnight just to get it. I know. I wrote it. But still. I need to see how it looks as a digital book. I must, buy one copy. For all of you with Kindle Unlimited subscriptions, Dream Therapy like the other books will be FREE!

I know. You are still waiting on the Fireside Read. I promised. I will get to it. But I got a good program for making videos, and I had created all these storyboards. I had this crazy idea to make them into an infomercial about the books. Well, that did not turn out so well at first. The storyboards are great, but the scene needs to move faster in a video so I actually had to recreate the storyboards in order to craft one preview infomercial. It took me all day to get it, but I did it. Do you want to see it? It's on YouTube! It will be on Goodreads, Amazon Author, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram shortly. Y'all check it out and let me know what you think.

I am continuing the push onto social media. I was informed by a reader a few days ago that I needed to be on tumblr. I don't even know what that is. Please don't be offended. I still screw up my posts on Instagram and Twitter all the time because I am not sure about those either. But I would hate to be missing readers who would like to read a good fantasy romance series. So Shout out to Roseanna Ragland. Thanks for the Tip. I am getting started on that. This one is short, but I did not want anyone thinking I had forgotten about the most important people. Without you all, I will have to get another day job. Gotta run. Edits are calling my name.
Be Careful!
Happy reading,
​Ophelia Kee

Some days I wonder if the struggle to write full time rather than work in corporate America is worth all the work. Don't get me wrong. I love to write and tell the story, but the marketing is a seriously hard uphill battle especially when funds are limited. Now before anyone gets worried that I will quit before the series is completely published, relax. I just woke up with a migraine from studying and comparing Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest advertising. Then I realized that I have been posting all kinds of images to Instagram and including all the hashtags but forgetting to add the links. LOL. So you see the place I am in is very real. The problems are mostly my own fault, but still. I am sure that if I messed up this much in the corporate world they would fire me. 

I am sure that the last thing you wanted to hear was me bellyaching about all the mistakes I make in publishing and marketing. I am pretty sure that you check out this blog for the news about the books and the writing. So without further ado, on to what's happening at Draoithe. I have been working on building excerpts and storyboards lately. Check them out on Instagram and Pinterest. We have the visits to the website still rather high considering where it used to be. I want to thank you all for helping me out with all that. When you look at the pins and like the pictures or visit the site, it encourages me to keep going.  What I likely have to work on next is building the following on Amazon. If anyone wants to head over and just click Follow beneath my tiger on my author page, that would help.  

I would be remiss if I did not shamelessly promote the next book coming out in only 2 days. Dream Therapy is available as a paperback on Amazon and is setup as a pre order on Kindle. It will be live on Jan.30 at the debut price of $3.99, but as you know, my full length novels regularly sell for $4.99. So get it while it's discounted. For all of my Kindle Unlimited subscribers, it will be FREE!

The Fireside Read is still a work in progress. I am not sure how quickly I can make it happen, but don't give up on me yet. Writing is one thing. Creating an audible version of a mini read is something else. I want it to be good. I think I am scrapping the original read and recording it again. It still won't be perfect, but I would like to see it fly even if it crashes and burns after take off. So check back and as soon as I get it, I will post it to YouTube and hopefully Instagram with all the links. Just don't get mad when there is no book for this one. Cause the full length novel Midnight Magic won't drop until October if things go well. But the Storyboard is up on Pinterest. 

I have to ask my readers to buy books or read on Kindle, but I like to write. I want to share some of it with you without the need to always have my hand out. If you like what you read, I am glad I got to share my passion with you. If you read and can leave a review, please be kind. Not just my work, but any author's work. Thank you on behalf of myself and Independent Authors everywhere. When you read, we keep writing. That is the writer life. 

Be Careful!
Happy reading,
​Ophelia Kee

Some days writing is tough. The pencil lead gets broken. I sharpen it and leave the shavings everywhere to make sure my vacuum cleaner has a job to do. But the words never appear on the page. The scene does not flow through my mind in that perfect symphony of images that on other days has me furiously typing out the words on the laptop. I think the magic that started all of it might be broken. So I leave off.
I edit previous books I wrote with that same magic hoping to capture it again and light the flame of a new scene once more. But the magic of the dream is fickle and has a will of its own. It flows out to grab things that do not fit into the story that I know. When it lights the flame to let me see into the darkness and hear the symphony again, it may not illuminate a scene currently connected to anything else I have been writing. 
Like magic, the scene will be good, and I will save it. It may collect the proverbial electronic dust. It may sit in doc files for years waiting, taunting the novels that it has nothing to do and is free of the bindings of page numbers and chapter headings. But the magic knows. It will illuminate the truth to me once again, and I will resurrect that old scene and add it into the words of a new scene that plays out. The bully will be beaten and bound in chapter headings and page numbers, and I will be satisfied at last that I waited for the magic of the dream.

Edits. They must be done. They must. But that does not mean I want too. Filth and Death has 122,000+ words. I cut some stuff out. But I don't feel that I can cut anything else without compromising the integrity of the piece. So here goes nothing. It will likely drop by February 24. So keep your eyes open. There will be more on that later. Considering that, I have to shamelessly plug my upcoming novel, Dream Therapy. It's almost time. If you ordered it, thanks. If you have not ordered it yet, get it as soon as you can. The debut price is $3.99, but that won't last. For all my Kindle Unlimited subscribers, for you, it will be FREE!

I hope you all will laugh at this as I did. I created an excerpt image to give readers a taste of Dream Therapy. I thought it actively portrayed the scene I was excerpting. The main male character in Dream Therapy is a black bear named Jason Weda. He is a dream inverter. He is exceptionally talented, but the gift cramps his life until he finally gets help at Draoithe. He has a dream that confuses him and seeks out his twin Scar to see if he can help interpret. So here is the excerpt.

I posted this same exact image with the words, the link to Amazon, and hashtags to Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest , and Facebook. That's what one does when trying to make their book known. That's basic book promotion. No one buys a book that they no nothing about, right. Facebook blocked the promotional image on the grounds that it violated their policy against selling animals, firearms etc... I laughed hard. I was not trying to sell a black bear. Then I laughed harder. Can you buy a black bear from Amazon? Of course I sent the required information back that it was a promotional image to sell a book about a bear shifter, but LOL that was funny!

Y'all have a great rest of your day!
Be Careful!
Happy reading,
​Ophelia Kee

https://www.opheliakee.com/ 
Dark Rose is a rare bit of poetry that I wrote a while back. I don't usually write in verse, but this one made good sense. Some days I think too much. Writing becomes the sanctuary for the mind. Before you start analyzing it, I would ask that you don't. Just feel it. The written word is like art. Not all of it is beautiful. If the piece speaks to your soul, that is how you know it was good. 

Enjoy your Sunday! I am in a good scene and writing this blog can't compete with that. If you find a good book to read, be kind and leave a review. If you need a good book to read, I would ask you to visit Ophelia Kee and see if anything interests you today!
Be Careful,
Happy reading,
​Ophelia Kee

Okay, fixing that problem between the blurbs and the covers was a lot of serious computer work. But I am happy to say that the book blurbs now accurately reflect the cover and the story for a better reader experience. (At least that was the goal.) I am still not totally confident marketing. It is definitely a process. I might be getting somewhere with it though. Check this out. Most of my author copies are here. There is a very serious satisfaction seeing my work in the real world. I love the digital world because it allows me to accomplish my goals, but this old school physical proof of hard work does something for me. 

If you are new to the dream, welcome to my blog. Here, I post what's going on with my writing and the series saga Draoithe. When I was a kid, reading was the great escape. (I hated reading assignments, but let me loose in a library and you might never find me again.) Back then, the book and possibly the book jacket was all a reader had access to in order to learn about the author, the other works they produced, future books, etc. Little information could be had about plot twists, character development, or inspiration unless an interview was made available in a journal or newspaper. That is no longer the case. Especially for Independent Authors like me. I want my readers to ask the questions and offer the comments. So please Contact me! Often feedback adds to the story. (Shout out to the real life Frank Grimes! I love you lady.)

Since this is my blog, I would be terribly remiss if I did not plug my own work right? So Dream Therapy is coming out Jan. 30th Get it on preorder now and start reading as soon as it drops!
Jace Weda is an immortal bear shifter whose dream inversion gift has crippled his life. He is an accomplished pilot, but can’t handle the stress of driving a car. When he and his brother take a mission to hunt a rapist for Fox, his life changes drastically and leaving California for Draoithe in the summer of 2016 is the only solution to avoid disastrous blowback from a deadly enemy.
Living at Draoithe grants him a new perspective and an opportunity for a brand new life with therapy and counseling for the dream magic he was born with. It also brings an unexpected encounter with the deaf architectural design artist. One touch, and he is hooked. When he catches the contractor beating her, he loses his mind and beats the fool unconscious, but that is where his life gets complicated.
He wants the contractor's head, but taking care of the beautiful deaf designer takes precedence. When he learns that she is in trouble because of the work she did in designing his new home, he realizes that all his hope for something more with her could simply vanish like smoke on the wind. Jace must find a way to help the fiercely independent woman he desperately needs and keep her safe from the pitfalls of his world. 

Here's the part where I tell you that I hope you will be like a dragon and fall into a great story! The front story is steamy, and the back story is getting really good. If you have no idea what I am talking about, then start with The Thread for free and find out. Visit Ophelia Kee and subscribe for a FREE short read to begin your journey into the Draoithe saga. I will try to give away a couple books on Amazon next month too, but be warned. It can get addictive. For Kindle Unlimited subscribers, the books are free, read away! (I know, I know. I swear by March that statement will be 100% true. Synner and Sainte will be fixed.)

It's Saturday in January. What are you doing reading this blog when you could really be reading a good book? No, seriously. Enjoy your weekend no matter what you do, but if you read, be kind and leave a review. 
Be Careful!
Happy reading,
Ophelia Kee

I can pack up my laptop, take off and drive three hours to my brother's to babysit the nephews and still get my work done. That is super nice. The work still does have to get done though. It is worse than a nine to five in that respect. I work around the clock when the scene occurs to me. I was actually writing at 1:30 last night. Four hours of sleep and a three hour drive equals the need for caffeine, but I could still manage to help my extended family in a way I never could have done while working for someone else.

So I have been dusting off files in docs that have been collecting dust. A few of them have been polished into short reads. Some of them are still nothing more than deleted scenes that are still trapped in digital limbo. Maybe they will wind up as free extras in a novel in the future. It seems a waste to throw away a good piece of the story just because it won't fit in the novel. That brings me to Filth and Death. It should be out in February, but... It has 121,000 words. It is absolutely massive. Should I release it anyway? Before you ask, That is after I cut stuff out that I cringe over, because I feel as if it should be in the book. I'm leaning toward publishing anyway. It's a damn good read. 

I have not forgotten about Synner and Sainte, but it's still stuck in limbo land with Kobo. I promise it will be on Kindle Unlimited in March as soon as I can make it happen.  For those of you who may be new to the dream and Draoithe, I made the executive decision at the end of last year to migrate all the books over to Amazon and Kindle and put the series on Kindle Unlimited. Unfortunately, Synner and Sainte got caught in a ninety day promise to leave the book on Kobo. Trying to keep up with all the different platforms when I was not making money as an Indie Author made that easy. If you are not a Kindle fan, sorry. But in this case the market decides. If I focus on one platform, I can expand marketing and promotion easier. So...

Well, I gotta write. A final decision on Filth and death must be made. The edit on that book needs to finish in time to post it on pre-order in February. When you read, don't forget to be kind and leave a review at the end. Enjoy the dream. 
Be Careful!
Happy reading,
Ophelia Kee

Two things, Book Covers and Blurbs. I was told several times by people who sell professional book covers that I need to buy them. I thought about that a lot. They need to make money. I don't really have any to spend. Were they right, though? Maybe. What could really be done about it? Not much. I could go back to the drawing board and scrap my existing covers and start again, but it took a lot of effort to craft the ones I had. The ones that spoke of the contents of the book. There in lies the real problem. 

Take the cover for The Ruiri Complete for example. It is the forest, right? I mean yeah it has my branding on it, but the cover image is simply the forest. Only it's not. It's a perfectly balanced symmetrical pristine forest image. It's tight, finished, and all but impenetrable except for one winding thin road. That book is about finding the last of the seven kings that Luke needs to begin building the mor tuath. He needs that magic to defend Draoithe and Eli from whatever is out there. The evil has shown itself, but the true scope is still unknown. The cover holds all this symbology in a single image conveyed by the text. 

So I rethought it. What was I missing? Because if I'm missing it, then the reader is missing it too. This is why Indie Authors struggle. There is no one to explain how to do it. We just have to wade through the murky swamp and hope we don't sink, drown, or get eaten by a hungry alligator. I looked back at my ranking for contemporary fiction fantasy number 37. (That still looks good.) Click, click, and pull the trigger. There isn't anything wrong with my cover. It's the blurb that's off. It's written without the cover in mind for the wrong genre.

 See I started out thinking that I was writing steamy paranormal romance, which I am. Only that is not the whole story. The romances are heavily embroiled in an epic saga fantasy adventure. Look at Magic Calls to Magic. The Council  that Luke needs has been formed. Fox freely gave Luke and Javier the magic that Luke needed to build what he needed to affect the balance of magic in the dream and defeat his enemy. So like clouds gathering for the coming storm, Luke begins effectively calling diverse magics to him with the offer of safety that they can't refuse, even if he himself has to accept the idea of non shifter immortals as part of the pack.

Now this is where I have made my mistake. When I wrote the back cover blurbs, I admit that I did not know how to craft them. If you are new to my blog, then you will laugh at the things I get blindsided by. But the truth is, I can write a great story. What I have difficulty with is all the publishing, promoting, and marketing that goes along with Indie publishing. I am not a salesman anymore that I am a social media junkie. (Sorry to my Twitter friends, but y'all know that I just don't get Twitter much. Hashtags ain't my thing. But I am now including them. If you need a good chuckle, check out the blog where I talk about Twitter misunderstandings.) But I think I have found where the disconnect is. So I'm off to craft new book blurbs. Let me see if I can locate the desktop first.

In other news, I did my first Fireside Read recording. Now I just need to craft it into a mini storyboard movie. Let's see if it works. I want to upload it to Pinterest and YouTube. I might have missed the mark on blurbs, but what I have figured out is that Draoithe needs a bit more exposure. That I might be able to manage without too much money if I can leverage the programs that I already have. There always has to be a balance between time and money. 

For an Indie Author, the scales invariably tip toward time. Speaking of time, a good book is definitely in order. If you have a few minutes, read. If you finish a good book, be kind and leave a review. Even if the book already has a few. New ones are more relevant and valuable to the author. Thanks for reading my epiphany on blurbs today. 
Be Careful!
Happy reading,
Ophelia Kee

​It's cold and rainy here in Longview, TX. Makes me want to curl up with a good book, wrap up in a warm blanket, sip some hot tea, and step into the pages of a good book. Too bad I have to work. The good news is that at least I am working on a book at least. I have started the final edit process for Filth and Death. It's going to be good, but wow did it run long. I hope you guys are up for a super intense read. But speaking of books, I wanted to give you a taste of Dream Therapy. A scene if you will. The book comes out Jan. 30. You can get your preorder copy today. But just so you know why you want it:

In other news, the Preview story boards are coming right along. I posted Magic Calls to Magic and Dragons Come to Pinterest yesterday. I'm going to try to get them on Instagram today! The response has been really good so far. I'm glad you guys like them. I'm still working on the Fireside reads. (LOL. They might become Oceanside reads if I keep going at this pace because it will be summer before I get one finished.) Wow, it was a lot harder to do than I thought. But that's the Indie Writer life. I think up something cool to do with the books in the series, but then I have to find a way to actually make it happen. Sometimes that becomes a lot more complicated that it seemed whenever I dreamed it up. Maybe it will turn out better because it took me long to learn what to do. As soon as I get it, I will post it to YouTube and share it with everyone. Hopefully, I can get some feedback on whether it was such a good idea or not.

For all the Kindle Unlimited readers out there, I wanted to remind you to check into the short reads. They are the the extras, the tangential stories, and the reworked scenes from the cutting room floor concerning incidents and peripheral characters in the main series. They don't take too long. Weaver's Tale is the longest one. If you have not found them, check them out and let me know how you feel about them. I always want to hear from my readers. Sometimes the questions you ask arc the spark for more books. So drop me a line, leave a review, offer a comment, ask a question. Contact me. I am probably writing, but I swear I will answer you back. Just give me a bit to get to it. Thanks for reading and sharing Draoithe.

Until next time, Don't forget to be leaving those reviews.
Be Careful!
Happy reading,
​Ophelia Kee