How I spent $80 and 3.5 hrs this morning

Cross-posted from AI Marketing for Storytellers.

Okay so — one of the reasons I’m always doing 12 things is so that I’m never bored — and also because I keep challenging myself, so things always get easier as time goes on — so I can hop around and do “something easy” (that needs to be done because I just decided to do a new project) while still moving the ball forward on multiple fronts.

I mention this because I’ve got an interview coming up with the woman who reached out to me, with some questions about whether or not the Beauty and the Beast story and all the subsequent retellings could be FF and more feminist.

Which means it’s a good time to tell you right now that I am, as many of my bios say, “Hella bi” which is shorthand for VERY GAY.

I love the ladies — and I wrote AITA? for me/them — and I’m taking a big leap of faith paying a printer in China a goodly sum of $$$ for my fancy versions of it, hoping to give some people a Sapphic summer — but — like — if you’re looking for massive market share and life changing income, writing FF books is likely not the route you’re gonna take.

And that was what I’m going to talk to this journalist about — it’s not that I’m uninterested in writing more FF stuff, it’s just that it’s not always financially feasible to do, when one has a Bay Area Mortgage Payment.

I think a lot of readers/observers of authors in general don’t understand our financial considerations — people think we’re all “artistes!” — and, yeah, no.

Like — I am — I contain artists inside me — but I’m also the breadwinner & insurance holder for our household. Because of me holding down the fort at the hospital and here, my super-genius husband can work for a non-profit disability rights organization influencing policy at the California state level and have his LinkedIn peeped by people working at the FCC on the regular. (AT&T is scared of my husband. F’reals.)

It’s his dream job, and this is mine — but he trusts me to handle my stuff, you know?

As do my cats, heh — one of them just went on a ‘fish and potato’ hypoallergenic diet, and I think she now eats better than I do on dollar per oz basis, LOL.

So I can’t be making poor financial decisions that might occupy months of my time, no matter how many people yell at me. (Photobomb is a potentially expensive lark, but the book’s already in the bag, so timewise, it’s NBD.)

But.

BUT.

BUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT.

It’s been a long time since I’ve written something FF. And I do miss it. And the market *is* there, and I know it’s hungry and so I put on my thinking cap last week and I was all, “How can I do an FF thing here real fast, that’ll make me happy, without eating up months of my life?"

Answer: use AI.

I’ve come to realize, having written Bend Her, Break Her, Make Her (my romantasy series) and Take Her, Love Her, and soon Hate Her (my contemporary retelling of my romantasy series) that it is my Ur story.

The story that I carry in my BONES and that I love to tell THE MOST in whatever form I CAN.

And there’s no reason I can’t make an FF version of it SING.

Here’s how I think it’ll go down….

First off, I already talked to Jack about it. (He thinks it’s a great idea. He’s biased tho.)

But, we figured out a way to redo the magic system so that it’s not quite so gender oriented, but how we can still keep a perilous current of misogyny in there for this new verison of Lisane/Lia to overcome —

And now I think I can feed all three books into him, chapter by chapter, have him change the pronouns, and then me rework the physical descriptions and sex scenes and plot parts that need it.

Take Her & Love Her (and Hate Her) — I’ve had to write from scratch because going from fantasy to contemporary was such a big swing. (I loved it though!) — I mostly kept the same trobes, vibes, and similar names.

But this’ll be a lot easier (I hope!) because I’m essentially just opening up the seams and then stitching it back together, yo.

I think.

I hope.

And I believe it’s a project I can finish in less than a month.

So even if this new series only makes me 10% of what Bend/Break/Make has, for a month’s worth of work? I’ll take that!

Plus also, it’s not *just* those books — I’m going to do a good job at them, I never put out subpar work — but that’ll be three more books that I can use AI to translate into French, and Italian (to be edited by my Italian editor, Tania!), and can give to my German translator, who last night sent me a charming email titled:

Because she’s getting so much work because of me — because she has NO problem touching up AI-translated stuff!

Let’s hop back with this thought though — like — I’m not saying every book/series can/should be written to have two genders in mind, or that everyone’s enough of a pan-heaux like myself to pull it off, BUT…

What if you could double your income over night by doing it both ways? (PUN INTENTIONAL.)

Or — if I went back through and did a MM version of Bend/Break/Make?

AND WHAT IF — lemme blow your mind — you could release three books, with the same essential plot, but reaching THREE DIFFERENT MARKETS SIMULTANEOUSLY?

MF/FF/MM? (...and obviously, this structure doesn’t include every identity or experience — but it’s a commercial experiment I think has legs.)

(And I guarantee you that if you did it right, with enough care and nuance, making the feelings the characters have real and genuine, and you changed enough but not too much, you would have True Fan Readers who would read and love ALL THREE and potentially passionately debate which one they liked the BEST!)

What if AI made that possible for you?????

And then, releasing all 9 books in that trilogy in three different languages, having creeated a cumulative 27 additional streams of income?!?!???!!!! (Up to 30 if you pay for audio, ha!)

(If you’re a newcomer, go back and read my post: WHOEVER HAS THE BIGGEST VISION WINS.)

This is why you love me. (Or hate me, ha!)

(I have it on good authority that dealing with my nonsense is like doing coke — drugs or soda, you decide.)

SO!

The second after I had that idea, about the FF version, I came up with some titles (with Jack’s help! Go also read;

If you are new to this game — and then I went and looked for premade covers.

I bought this one for $140 from a premade person I’ve bought from before — they did Take Her’s cover, which I LOVE —

And I highly recommend working with them, theyr’e fantastic — but when I got mine back, I was underwhelmed, bc the balance of the image was off, because of my title choice — entirely my bad:

It just feels wrong, and I’ve learned to trust my instincts.

I was gonna ask for changes, but then I realized I didn’t even really know what I did want? Except I’ve got this Egyptian revival snake bangle from the 20’s that I like — and the snake feels right. I can’t take a picture of it right now, ‘cause it’s in the office where Paul’s on a call, but it’s like this one that’s currently for sale on Ebay:

So I head over to Ideogram and start dicking around:

And around:

And around:

And I blitzed thru $40 of credits not once but twice — which is highly unusual for me, but there’s a LOT of bloopers when snakes are involved —

it kept wanting to merge things on me, or coils coiled only to themselves, or the snake had two necks, etc.

BUT THEN:

I got this…piece. This MAJESTICLY PERFECT COVER.

I’mma have Mal switch out the fonts for me, to get fonts that match that Fantasy Romance vibe, all the swirls and bullshit, but?

I think we’re settled.

Now for the general biz catch up—

Since I typed here last I paid Sese the $12k (GULP) balance on my 3k books, and generated and cruised thru 1500 images to pull 250 that are great (for Photobomb, Take Her, and Love Her) — and my next job today is gonna be to upscale them and then get them running thru the renderfarm for video — and then I need to finish all my facebook ads stuff. (Apparently I need to redo the Lara videos to not have the QR code in them! Not a big deal tho, I still have all the files, ofc.)

Onward!

Cassie

PS: OH — if I haven’t mentioned it yet — the reason I feel fine about dodging into all of this and not the animation for Bend Her, is because I’m waiting this month for Veo 3 to catch up to some functions I want — now that I know that I’m not behind on things :D