Falling into a New Plan: Expansion!

Hey y’all! You didn’t think I could let autumn go by without saying hello, did you? Welcome to FALL!

(At least here in the Northern Hemisphere.)

It’s been a minute since we talked!

I’ve been reflecting on how to distribute my time and effort given my ongoing illness (no answers yet, but see below) and other commitments (namely caring for my spawn and educating them in the dark arts—ahem, I mean homeschooling).

I have some competing priorities: I want to share books with you more frequently. But I also want them to be high quality—kick butt stories thoroughly edited. I also need to stay in touch with all of you, and my backlist needs its own attention to continue making funds to pay the bills and support my business.

It’s a tricky balance!

Conclusions: I’ve decided to spend the majority of my time writing, to update you all with a roughly quarterly newsletter, and to try out a YouTube channel as an alternative way of both reaching new readers and keeping in touch with y’all.

Scroll down for deets on all that below!

WRITING UPDATE

So, highest priority first! WORDS!

My writing output consistently increased starting in the spring, and I’m delighted to say that last month I wrote more words that I have in a long time! Felt great to be back in the saddle.

Sometimes it just feels the book is flowing out of you of its own accord, and it’s such a great feeling.

I have no samples ready to share yet, but slow and steady wins the race.

The new book I’m continuing to work on is a fantasy romance based in a world with elemental magic. I’m playing a lot with fire magic and drawing on tree and forest imagery, and it’s been really fun. Much of the story is set in a forest kingdom. I even have a gorgeous new map… shhh!

The crux of the story is…

A fierce princess must marry the barbarian lord of the forest… He believes only she can save his kingdom from a monstrous scourge. But can she learn to unleash her inner rage to harness the power of the volcano? If she can’t, they’re all doomed.

I’m also noodling on some sci-fi story ideas, but nothing concrete yet. I have lots of thoughts about AI, both positive and negative, and some of them are playing around in the stories in my mind. But seeds like these can take years to germinate. Right now, at the moment, I’m focusing on fantasy for financial reasons, unless science fiction hijacks this creative writing train.

I’m still planning to finish the first-person perspective fantasy I mentioned in the spring, but the Forest Book has momentum, and I figured whenever I lost momentum on it I would switch back. And somehow, miraculously, that momentum has held for almost 6 months now, so I’ve gotta ride this wave while I can!

HEALTH UPDATE

MYSTERIES UPON MYSTERIES

I’m putting this second because, as Count Rugen says in The Princess Bride, “If you haven’t got your health, then you haven’t got anything.”

My health is much improved from last fall, but my care team still has no real conclusions on how I can heal or what exactly is wrong with me. I now have much better techniques for managing my ongoing issues, which is great, but I’m still not back to where I was a year ago, just before all this started.

Yep, starting September 17, I will have been chronically ill for a year.

CONNECTION + PRODUCTS UPDATE

MY EXPANSION ERA!

Given all this, I’ve also decided that my new vibe needs to be e x p a n d i n g into new markets and stores and to build a broader readership and less dependence on one particularly dominant orange behemoth.

I’ve got some new projects that I’ll share closer to the holidays, but my first main push was expanding the access to my audiobooks.

I have some projects on hold for financial reasons, one of which is finishing the rest of the Audacity Saga in audio. Currently, I don’t have the funds. (YET! But I can always have hope.) I’d also like to get audiobooks made for Clanblades, and I may look into some royalty share arrangements.

Since a truckload of money hasn’t fallen out of the sky (YET!), I have begun distributing my audiobooks in many more digital stores so that they can be available to many more people.

If you haven’t listened to any of the audiobooks and you’re interested in trying them out, you can now buy them directly from me on my Shopify store, which supports me the most. You can also get them on Spotify Premium, and in many libraries, as well as lots of other digital stores.

If you’ve already listened to them, you can help out by leaving a rating or review on your favorite alternative platform!

I’ve also been searching for new options beyond the usual Facebook and Instagram, so I’ve decided to give YouTube a try. Our information space seems to be shifting and evolving. The old ways don’t work as well, and there’s a lot of gatekeeping and wasting of people’s time. I’m no longer interested in putting in a bunch of work on Facebook posts only for few of my readers to actually see any of the posts—unless I pay. (Even though I already pay for ads as well.) This has been a long-time frustration of many creators, but this year I’m just done.

Fortunately, I’ve actually found that making simple YouTube videos hasn’t taken a ton of time so far! Apparently, rambling at the camera is not a challenge for me, Hah.

I will evaluate for the rest of the year whether it’s worth my time, but I’m looking for a way to be in contact with people more personally, more directly. I may also consider Substack, and I’m already on BlueSky.

Obviously, one of the best ways to do that is to be on my newsletter, and if you’re not already on it, you can sign up for it here. There’s no middleman or platform between me and you in a newsletter. I own and manage the list, and I make sure that it never falls into anyone’s hands who would use it for some kind of ulterior motive. So it’s also the best option for privacy from that angle.

If you’re already on my newsletter list, consider subscribing to my new YouTube channel is one more way to hear about my books. I also have book trailers and audio trailers on this channel as well.

I’m making a new channel because it’s going to include broader topics around writing, health, creativity, productivity, and just generally not be solely about the books.

Currently, I’ve created three videos, some for writers and some for readers:

It’s still pretty rough, and I’m still getting used to the details of video size, audio quality, uploading, etc. I expect to keep making a lot of changes. I’m only gonna keep going as long as it doesn’t take up too much of my time, as I want to put the highest priority on writing.

Let me know if there’s anything you’d be interested in hearing about!

Falling into a New Plan: Expansion!