Notes from Deanna's Desk #2: Better Late Than Never

A long, long time ago (no, this is not the beginning of a Star Wars movie. Hah!)… when I first started my Substack, I thought it would be fun to do a recap of what I shared each week or month called “Notes from Deanna’s desk” of which I did exactly one post. Life, work, etc. I have no excuse really, but despite good intentions, that fell by the wayside very quickly. The reality is that if I have deadlines and life intrudes the first thing to go is social media, and the next thing to go is trying to maintain any semblance of a schedule on my website. And then I decided to hop off the social media hamster wheel, and that was that.

Enter 2026. I’m busier than ever and exceedingly grateful my wonderful clients for keeping me in my house and home, plus being able to do what I love. I just wrapped up an eleven book cover redesign sprint which Ann has dubbed The Great Cover Overhaul of 2025-2026. And last night (or very early this morning depending on how you look at it) at exactly 1:52AM, the last cover (for now) was approved. I’m not sure about Ann, but I collapsed in a heap. Her next cover is not due till June 2026.

So all of that lengthy intro to say, I may or may not be resurrecting “Notes from Deanna’s desk,” but I have been posting notes to Substack (it’s my main work-related social media platform) again, semi-frequently-ish. I still think it’s a good idea to collate those notes for my newsletter subscribers as I know most of them only read the newsletter or come to the website for content. And I still think it’s fun to share the hot takes, pro-tips, unpopular opinions, etc., with my signature brand of candor and light snark. I don’t know if it will turn into anything, because life and deadlines, but let’s see which way the wind blows, shall we?

A Quick Recap From a Week of Deep and Not-So-Deep Thoughts

9 April 2026

I remembered to share that I was interviewed by Michelle Miles for her podcast about my job which went live almost a month ago, and then forgot to share. I did, however, update the About page on this here website so that it’s available for anyone looking me up. Or was it the Author Services page? This is a fantastic “in a nutshell” of all the things that Deanna’s World Author Services does and what it means to be a publishing partner. Never mind the awkwardness, it was my first ever podcast interview.

Hey Deanna, what do you do?
This! This is what I do. I forgot to share it, but hey, better later than never.
A massive thank you to Michelle Miles of Miles Beyond the Page for taking the time to listen to me ramble on about my job.

8 April 2026

I’ve started putting together snippets of book, writing, and publishing related thoughts as and when the pop-up. Let’s see how long I keep them up for.

Get unstuck: If you’re a writer, it’s important to read broadly within your chosen genre or literary field. However, equally important is to read outside of it. You write romance, consider reading thrillers or action novels to see how the leading authors in that genre handle plot twists or red herrings. Did you see that coming? Read some fantasy to see how the great build incredible, immersive worlds. Brandon Sanderson is an absolute MASTER at it. Read science fiction to see how unimaginable technological advances can become conceivable. It may be weird, but do you still believe it could happen? And of course, read a diverse range of sub-genres within your genre. Try everything once because I promise you, if you keep an open mind, you will always learn something that will make your writing shine.

Also on the same day, I shared “Read a book, support an author” which was a post by author Steve Shipley sharing that he was taking a week off from having knee surgery and he rather cheekily suggested that buying or reading his books would help him recover faster. I thought it was funny. You can find Steve’s books here.

I am taking the week off as I have been more vertical than horizontal while recovering from my first of two total knee replacements (TKR). I’ve been reading the Ward Larsen David Slaton series to improve my craft skills. He is a master.
And nothing would help my recovery go more quickly than knowing that people are reading my books. You can encourage me to get back into finishing book #5 in the Blake Willis crime thriller series!

7 April 2026

On this day, I decided to be nostalgic and briefly talk about how it’s never too late to pivot or start again, or whatever you decide to do. The only “too late” is not doing anything.

Never too late: I spent 20 years in corporate IT at places like KPMG and PwC, managing complex systems and project plans. At 43, I walked away because I had a different blueprint in mind. I took those project management skills and pointed them at the beautiful chaos of publishing and my love of words. I traded system migrations for story arcs and became a partner to my authors. After helping bring over 300 books into the world, I know you’re never too far down one path to choose another. Your skills are a launchpad, not a cage. It is never too late to rewrite your own story.

6 April 2026

This might be the most exciting this to happen to me from a website perspective in a long time. I love my website, and I’ve been tending to it for more than a decade. It’s always performed well, but it started out as a blog and has evolved as I’ve changed and my job has grown. These days, I treat it as a resource for readers, authors, writers, and my author clients. It’s where I point people to when they ask about something writing or book-related. I’ve been writing and posting for over a decade. There’s probably something on there that will answer whatever trope, romance, publishing question someone might have.

My website hit an all-time high of almost 200,000 visits last month, which to me is staggering. I rarely check my stats cos I don’t believe in getting hung on up numbers, plus I’ve been around forever. If I did that I’d do my head in and I have other things to focus on. That said, here’s some interesting observations on what’s “trending” on my website which is a reflection of the current romance landscape.
1. Sports romance (hockey and football are hot)
2. Bully and dark romance (dark, dark, more dark, and mafia)
3. Omegaverse (niche but popular)
4. More bully romance (dark romance adjacent)

I’ve also been collecting a few quotes that intrigue me along the way. This one applies to books and writing too.

At the end of the day, we are selling emotions, not calories.
~ Alexander the Guest (Alexander Varga), restauranter & owner of one Michelin star, Restaurant 42, and mathematician-programmer.

5 April 2026

I had a hot take. I have a lot of those. Sometimes I’m smart enough to keep them to myself. Other times, not so much.

Another hot take: Doing nothing is also an option. I learned this from my management consulting days. It was always an option for our clients to choose with the consequences of what doing nothing meant laid out for them. So as authors, you can choose to do nothing, do something, do everything. But most importantly, you don’t have to do anything that will burn you out or go against who you are. Being true to yourself is the key to playing the long game.

This was also the day after Hubby’s surgery, so life was lifing at me hard.

This is how fried my brain is as I was focused on Hubby’s surgery. (Side note: surgery is done, he’s home and recovering, doing great).
I think I scheduled some notes. But I can’t remember when I scheduled them for. So now I’m trying to figure out what’s what and when, and I’ve got nothing. Hangs head

But a Substack friend (she’s awesome!) shared a funny meme and it made me laugh.

This cracked me up, and yes, I’m usually the last to know. I do live in a cave or under a rock. Whatevs…

30 March 2026

Someone I know told me something that happened to him which triggered this thought.

A lesson in manners: If a reader comments on your socials and tells you they saw your post and it led to them buying all your books to give you a shot from your promo, it’s costs nothing to drop and “thank you” in reply to their comment. In my experience, most authors see the comments. Politeness, graciousness, and gratitude costs you nothing and that reader is human. They will remember the author who took two seconds to thank them vs the author who takes their readers for granted.

29 March 2026

Not my first hot take, probably not my last.

Hot take: I’m not going to teach my authors to hustle. I’m going to teach them to build a sustainable career at a pace that won’t burn them out. I built my publishing partner career to what it is today over a decade and a half. If something is going to last, it won’t happen overnight.

And finally, here is a lesson I learned and I wish I could unlearn it, or at the very least, that I didn’t have to learn it. But alas, life is not like that. Also, in my role as a publishing partner, I see it as part of my job to act as an emotional shield for my authors. When the noise of the industry or the weight of the news gets to be too much, they know they can come to me and I will help them filter out the chaos so they can focus on the joy of creating beautiful new words.

Here is an example of superb marketing stop-the-scroll that is tactical genius, plus weaponised manipulation. I’m screenshotting it because I don’t actually want anyone to click on it in case someone gets accidentally traumatized by the content like me. But let’s face it, I’m a wuss and I’ve been protective of my mental state in recent times, so you might read this and think, what’s the big deal? Get over yourself. Eh, it is what it is. I am what I am. A giant wuss. Not gonna apologise for that.
Let me set the scene… it’s Sunday morning, I’ve hopped on Substack for a quick check-in, just to see what’s going on. Someone I respect has restacked a post with a very innocuous caption which has a picture of a KitKat bar and what appeared to be a list of fast facts. Me, seeing the harmless caption but KitKat bar thinking, oooh, I want to know about the KitKat bar. Me likey chcocolate. Instead this is what happened:

I have been actively avoiding much of the news as it was giving me extreme anxiety. Saw a post on Substack which was just a list of fast facts and thought I could handle it. Nope. All the anxiety feeling symptoms came roaring back even with just a quick hit of a bunch of stuff going. I got sucked in by the picture of a Kit Kat bar, but the poster buried the quick fact about a 400,000 Nestlé KitKat bar shipment was stolen in Europe, raising concerns about an Easter shortage at the very end of the post. I’m sure there’s some tactical intention regarding that placement that 1. Sucked me into clicking on the link to read and post, and then 2. Putting it at the very end so I had to scroll to get to the one thing I was interested in. Smart, but now I have heart palpitations.

Genius. Tactical. Manipulative. And now I need a lie down.
This is my Sunday morning lesson. Make of it what you will.
PS. I should also have read the first line under the heading and known better. That’s on me.
PPS. The psychology behind my first postscript above is also a very human reaction to internalize and recalibrate. It it’s still Sunday morning, so I’m not going to go any deeper on this topic. Maybe another time… or never…

That’s it from me for now. It’s Friday night at the time of me writing this. We have the Deanna’s World Author Client Community writing sprints tomorrow. I’m very excited about that. It’s something I look forward to because they are such an awesome bunch of people. Instead of my usual work till 2AM habit, I’m going to bed early tonight and treating myself to a book.

You need to tell me if this is something you’d like to read now and then. You know where you can find me in all the places—Substack (I hang out there most these days), through my newsletter, via email, or on Facebook.

I hope your April is going gangbusters.

xoxo, Deanna.

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