I’m going to try and make the Newsletters a little more organized and structured. Hopefully this is a bit more visually appealing and maybe helps me clean up my sometimes meandering way of giving information.
IMPORTANT CHANGES FOR THE NEAR FUTURE
Since people tend to want to know the most important stuff first, I’m just going to put this right here, right now.
I'm making some changes to my overall plan. Yes, again. Something I’ve learned is that not only is having a writing career a litany of constant reevaluation and consideration, but also of evolution and experimentation.
But don’t worry, my biggest plans remain intact for the moment. Although certain events beyond my control may force my hand in ways I’ll explain below.
THE THINGS THAT ARE NOT CHANGING: Still going to finish the Haven Series pronto. Ideally before November arrives. I’m also going to for sure get Like A Fine Wine 3 and Like A Fine Wine Collection 1 out following that. And Quickies #5 & #6 will be released somewhere in there as well.
A RETURN TO SERIAL FICTION: This is probably the largest change. I’ve been thinking long and hard about this, as not only the urge to write serial fiction, but the practical benefits of it keep coming back to me. I set some time aside and really considered it in September. I asked myself: Why did Crystal Candy fail? Two reasons. The first and foremost was that words written as Crystal Candy were worth approximately 1/3 as words written as Misty Vixen, as I mentioned in a previous update. But I could fix that if I released serial fiction content as Misty Vixen. The second reason was how much time/energy it was taking up. But since June I have been working on A Warm Place alongside my other projects, and with a few exceptions, I’ve settled into a steady rhythm of putting decent working into two projects almost every day. So I can see putting in enough work on serial fiction to put out about one episode per week. This would also deal with the burnout problem, allowing me to start several different serial series (I would work on them in blocks of 4 essentially, pause them on Episode 4 or 8 or 12 whenever I need a break). It would give me much more freedom to work on new projects I’ve been itching to write (that fantasy caveman story? Sci-Fi/Horror? That Eyes in the Dark series? I’ve got a lot of ideas I’d love to get started on). It would also give me a chance to write some projects that don’t quite work as a series of novels, but would be perfect for a serial. For example: Fans of Haven, remember that journal David found of the man sent across the countryside to activate a series of radio towers? I’ve really wanted to write a series in the Post-Apocalyptic Universe with a similar premise, but I didn’t feel there was enough there to warrant novels. As a serial, it would be perfect, however. At the moment, I’m still toying with this idea, and I haven’t ultimately decided if I’m going to do it. But I’m leaning towards yes at the moment. For now, I have to work on other projects.
A WEBSITE STORE: So here’s some advice I once received as someone who makes my money by being hosted by another, larger site: send your fans to a website you control as much as possible as soon as possible. The reason for this is because you never know when that big site might arbitrarily decide to fuck you over. Like Amazon almost did to me in 2018, and has done in a few other ways since then. I’ve been pondering how to sell stuff through my website, directly to fans, with as few middlemen as possible, for awhile now. I began seriously considering it in 2018, when they started fucking me over, but for awhile, I couldn’t come up with an idea of what to sell. Not putting my works in the Kindle Unlimited, which demands exclusivity, cuts MAJORLY into the earning power of anything. However, I finally have an idea: incest fiction. I basically can’t sell it anywhere else. Technically Smashwords accepts it, as well as a few other places, I think, but really it’s hard as hell to sell anywhere. However, I have a lot of ideas for incest stories, and judging by the reaction I’ve gotten, at least some of my fans want to read it. So yeah. Also, in the future, I could see taking some time and maybe writing some website-exclusive shorts. So this is something I’ll want to seriously start exploring in 2021.
Those are the big changes. Hopefully they made you happy. If you’ve read this far, at least read the next thing, it’s also important.
RECYCLING COVER ART
I wanted to address this here and now, front and center, so that people don’t think I’m trying to pull a fast one on them.
I have been updating some of my covers that I gave ‘real’ backgrounds (i.e. actual photographs, not drawn backgrounds), because essentially I didn’t/don’t have the time/money to get a full character+background or because other circumstances forced my hand in the past or are doing so now.
There are three primary things that motivated this that I will talk about below.
COVERS ARE COSTLY. Even a great deal can be somewhat pricey. My Patreon definitely helps, as do any other donations and the occasional sale I get through Smashwords. And although I’ve been doing decently for a writer, I wouldn’t call myself rich. Plus, I have to be honest, I’m just not great with money. Never have been. I’ve gotten better, but still not great. Combine that with the fact that I have had to get new covers made for my ENTIRE library TWICE and I have spent literally thousands and thousands of dollars on cover art. Not even joking or exaggerating.
COVERS TAKE TIME. Even a quick cover artist can take weeks to get a project done. Besides the fact that it’s a whole character and whole background, they have other projects and their own life. I write fast, because that’s the tempo that Amazon and other people who have ghost writer farms to pump out fucking 500-page novels every week dictate. I can’t really afford to wait and sit on a novel for weeks or months. This doesn’t come up often, but it has come up enough (more recently) that I’ve had to make a call.
UNFORSEEN CIRCUMSTANCES. I’ve worked with a few different artists since going looking for some, and all of them have run into problems that mean they may be out of contact for weeks or even months, or maybe be unable to work. I’m understanding, but as I’ve said, this has forced my hand a few different times. Especially recently. This is actually another reason I want to return to serial fiction. If it comes down to it, and I can’t launch because I don’t have a cover (and don’t kid yourself, launching with a shit cover is novel suicide), I’ll have a Plan B.
I hope this clears things up.
Here is a list of titles that now have or will have recycled backgrounds or otherwise reused assets.
ANY COLLECTION (Any Complete Trilogy, Complete Series, or ? - ? Collected collection 100% reuses assets to save on time/money. I figured this would be obvious but just in case it wasn’t I’m pointing it out now.)
DEMONESS - FUN IN THE FOREST (Background is reused.)
DEMONESS - THE FORMER PRINCESS (Background is reused.)
DEMONESS - FAREWELL FOR NOW (Background and model are reused.)
ALL OF PARASEXUAL (When it was originally conceived, Parasexual was sort of a quick & dirty series. Both to save time/money and also to get the projects out faster, I only had characters drawn. However, I have since decided that they’d look better with full cover art, and there were enough quality backgrounds created that it would work.)
THE SEX & SURVIVAL TRILOGY. Kind of the same thing happening here. Originally, I was going to have characters and backgrounds created, but the situation changed and I really just want it done and over with. So I’m in the process of getting the final two characters drawn, and I already have other backgrounds ready to go.
THE VALKYRIES TRILOGY. Same situation as above essentially.
QUICKIES. This much should be obvious.
MISTY VIXEN COLLECTED. Yeah, I wasn’t spending like 100$+ on a paperback that probably 5 people are gonna buy ever.
I think that’s everything. I hope everyone understands. And because of that I hope people will understand when I say that HAVEN 8 + HAVEN - EPILOGUE WILL HAVE REUSED ASSETS. Without getting into details, the artist has become very busy and as it is, they’re having a hard time even finding time to do Like A Fine Wine covers, and I don’t want to just switch to another cover artist in the middle of a series, and I don’t have enough assets for Like A Fine Wine to recycle for future covers. I made the call to not ask for new Haven covers to try and get a jump on Like A Fine Wine covers. Although I’m not sure how this is going to play out. Although I have the cover for Like A Fine Wine 3, and enough assets for the first Collection, I’m not sure if I might outpace the cover artist for the series in the near future. It also isn’t necessarily feasible to just keep writing the novels in the hopes that the covers will catch up, because I NEED to publish what I write pretty much as soon as it’s done (with a few rare exceptions). Gaps in publishing are very bad, the algorithm punishes me for this. This is another reason a return to serial fiction is enticing.
Hopefully this covers everything related to this. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in a comment or an e-mail.
SEPTEMBER WRAPUP
Like A Fine Wine 2 is out!
Quickies #4 is also out!
I also finally got around to putting together a full, hyperlinked Chronological Bibliography page. This page lays out every single title I have ever written for my four Shared Universes. All the novels, novellas, and short stories. The short stories are the ones I imagine escape people the most given how all over the place I’ve been about them. I wanted one, single, absolute, centralized page to give fans a very straightforward and clear-cut picture of not only every title, and not only where they can be found, but what order it’s all best read in. Although if anyone has any questions or requires further clarification, please don’t hesitate to ask. I’ll be glad to help. At the moment not all of the links have been created because some of them don’t exist yet, basically the Quickies I have yet to write.
BACKGROUND UPDATES
I had another ‘go through and re-update all my titles’ spree because enough little things had accumulated.
Perhaps the most important thing I did was make sure that all the stories that have been covered by my Quickies releases have been updated with information and links to reflect this. So for example the Complete Series and Complete Trilogy packs have a notice at the beginning that if you don’t want to repurchase the entire trilogy just for the bonus content, you can instead just go buy the Quickies instead. Also the end of a series or the back of stand-alone titles now reference follow-up shorts that have since been written (provided they are out, still a few to go.)
When I went through and created the customized titling to be inserted into the actual Kindle files for all of my titles, I for some reason did not also do the same thing with my author name. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me then, but it has now. So that’s probably the biggest, most obvious change.
Social media links. I have now inserted links to my website, twitter, and given my e-mail address at the beginning of every title. The reason for this is pretty much what I said above: I need to send fans to an area that I control as much as possible.
Although some jerk person left a rather rude 1-star review, I did get a new piece of knowledge out of it: I’m apparently fond of the phrase ‘per se’, which is latin. And I seem to have been misspelling it the entire time. After learning that, I went through and fixed all examples of it across all 50+ titles.
I also found out that some of my paperbacks have an extra page near the back that just says ABOUT ME and then is blank right before the real About Me page. No idea why this was. All the Haven novels had it and some others did as well. I fixed all the instances I found, but I didn’t check them ALL.
WRAP UP AND THE NEAR FUTURE
Okay, so that’s about it. Now I’ll just cover what’s happening in October, or at least what I hope will happen.
I’m hard at work on Haven 8. I intend to have it out within the next week.
I will then write half of Quickies #5, and then write and publish Haven - Epilogue as quickly as possible.
I will then finish and publish Quickies #5, then write and publish Haven Collection #3, and with that the Haven series will be completed in its entirety. (Well, technically there will be ONE more bonus short story in Quickies #6.)
Over the course of the rest of the year, I will be making the first title in every series, (except for Like A Fine Wine) free. This is an experiment I’m doing to see if it will help get my books to more people. As of right now, HELLCATS & DEISRE are free!
So, four things I will attempt to publish in October, all while also working on A Warm Place. It’s going quite well, actually, I’m at about 65,000 words, or roughly the length of an average Haven novel, and there’s still several more big scenes to write. If I keep up the pace, I should have it wrapped by the end of October as well. I have to admit, it’s going to be hard not to publish it. But I may end up changing my mind and launching A Warm Place if things go wrong with Like A Fine Wine. I’m not sure, we’ll see. I am also going to likely begin work on my first serial fiction, provided my ultimate decision, (which will come soon), is yes. If it is, I already know which one I’m going to work on: Eyes in the Dark. I really want to write a modern day apocalypse horror. Not a post-apocalyptic story, but a story where the apocalypse is presently happening.
And that’s it for this Newsletter. Let me know what you think in the comments!