Teleported to a new home but I didn't get any magical powers?! 🤔
New platforms, new websites, new home!
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There's been a lot going on in my life. I had a very complicated move, complicated even further by both my previous abode being a bit of a hazard to live in (gas leaks, faulty wiring, collapsing ceilings), and my new one not quite being ready yet to live in (I still don't have usable kitchen cabinets...). The move kept being delayed by the new place and then the movers broke a ton of my items and lost even more. It was just a mess. My health took a nose dive and there were other issues in the Author and Publishing world that just added even more stress (like Itch de-listing my books because too many lesbians).
But I made it through. I'm on the other side now (mostly). And there are a lot of changes I haven't mentioned and some I've only hinted at.
New Platforms
New direct sales platform, new newsletter platform, and other new platforms!
New Direct Store
In case you missed it (and this is old news, I know, but I haven't updated in a long time), there is an effort from a group in Australia called "Collective Shout" to get "pornography" off the internet, even in places where the content is legal. If you do even a smidgen of digging, you will find that what they consider "pornography" is a very broad thing, and includes things like "two women kissing." They claim that they want to protect the children and protect women from exploitation, but you look into who is involved in this group and you will find a bunch of people who think trans people should be legislated out of existence. Their grand plan so far involves pressuring platforms to remove "objectionable" materials and if the platforms do not comply, they harass Mastercard, Visa, Stripe, PayPal, and other payment processors and credit card companies to stop working with those platforms. They will find the most "objectionable" (but legal!) content on those platforms and say, "See? Do you really want to be complicit in peddling this (legal if sometimes disturbing) content?"
This past summer, they successfully pressured Itchio and Steam to remove any "Objectionable" content. Itchio took a very broad apporach and just de-indexed/de-listed anything tagged with "adult", "nsfw," "queer," "trans", etc. Even books, games, and music on Itchio tagged "asexual" were de-indexed. Many of my books were de-indexed and only restored once I removed the "queer" and "lesbian" tags from them and scrubbed the product listing of my content warning list, instead linking directly to my own website for those wanting to read the content warnings.
I had been very proud of my content warnings on the Itchio product page because I had made a small tutorial for other authors on how to use the <details> HTML tag to create a toggle that allowed readers to choose whether or not to see the full content lists, and in some cases I had even hand coded these lists for other authors who struggled.
But there was a huge backlash against Itch for caving, and between readers boycotting Itch and the loss of discovery, my sales pretty much tanked on Itchio. I also did not have time to do much marketing or messaging around the issue due to 1.) Summer being POTS flare-up season and 2. Being in a sort of moving limbo where I was packed to move but still not sure when my new place would be ready.
But I did manage to move my direct store from Lemonsqueezy (which only does digital products right now) to Shopify. I know Shopify comes with its own pitfalls and costs, but it was the only platform I could find that met all of my needs from a business standpoint. I can now sell digital books and physical books. It integrates with BookFunnel, meaning delivery of my digital books is automated, and it can hook into BookVault, the printer I use for my special edition paperbacks and hardcovers. When you purchase digital books from my shop, you can save them to your own BookFunnel accounts and read them in the BookFunnel app, and/or get epub, mobi, or pdf versions you can sideload onto any ereading device. Physical books might have a bit of a shipping delay, but there are printers in the US, UK, CA, and AU and they are shipping worldwide.
New Newsletter Platform
I've been using Ghost for awhile now to publish bonus content and serialize some of my stories, such as The Last Page. But it also has a newsletter feature. As I mentioned last week, I have been using MailerLite for the last 2ish years and it was getting expensive, and the creation of each newsletter was getting tedious as the "builder" was rather slow and often crashed my PC. Not just my browser, my whole hecking PC. It also started to integrate generative AI features and I hated how often it tried to metaphorically shove those features down my throat or trick me into using them. It even wanted me to use AI to generate the email subject line. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to destroy the planet to have a computer come up with an email subject line. I have my own brain cells to burn!
Ghost has no genAI features built into it; it is free open source software, and I only pay for the hosting of the Ghost server I am running. It just feels far more ethical to use the newsletter feature in Ghost than continue to pay MailerLite for genAI features I despise. I spent the last week setting up automations to transfer people who sign up for my email newsletter over to Ghost and then delete them from MailerLite.
Eventually, I will move my blog over to Ghost as well. I have nothing against my blog hosting platform, WriteAs. I just want to consolidate as much as I can.
A New Marketplace Platform
I've been somewhat involved (not as much as I like due to flare ups and moving) in the creation of a new creative marketplace. Conjured Ink. Myself and some other wonderful creatives have been trying to find ways to ensure creative workers can sell their works without fear of censorship and without sacrificing discoverability. Direct stores are great, but one of the features of places like Itch was that your games, music, stories, and projects could be found through a search feature and show up randomly in people's feeds, giving smaller creatives exposure to potential fans and supporters.
Conjured Ink seeks to make a platform for creatives to set up direct stores easily, choose their own payment processors (including processors that are anti-censorship), and have their stores featured on a marketplace. This is all being built up right now, so it's not available yet, but you can sign up for updates on the landing page! This isn't the first rodeo for many of those involved in building it, and I truly believe this platform can transform how artists, game devs, writers, musicians, and other creatives distribute their works despite global censorship efforts.
A New Home
In my short newsletter last week, I mentioned that I would share photos of my new writing set up in the next one. I must say, it's still messy. I haven't figured out yet where I want everything to go, and I have yet to hang any of my art and my new whiteboard is still in the box it arrived in.
Like I said, messy still. I'm still figuring out where I want things and how I want them arranged, as well as slowly getting replacements for things that were lost. I now have a nice monitor arm situation as the monitor stands broke in transit.
I miss my old desk a lot. I had had it for a decade, and most of my books were written on it. (Birthing Orion was written primarily on my laptop in a hospital--I was the caregiver to my brother throughout his chemotherapy journey and wrote Birthing Orion while sitting with him during his chemo treatments; he's fine today, 100% cancer free!) But all things change, and I think this new desk suits my new office space. It's not the cozy writing nook I had carved out of my living room at my old place, but I like having a more dedicated space and being able to spread out a little bit more! I can't wait to get my white board up and hang all my art.
For reference, my old space and the small living room it had been carved out of:
Again, I do miss my old desk and even my old writing space, but I appreciate a lot that this move has allowed me to get a dedicated writing space that is a little bit larger and allows me to really stretch out. As you can see, I used my window as my planning board as it was the only space I could use in this nook. In my new space, my window shall remain free of post its and papers, just used for the lovely light! I am a very happy writer!
Writing Updates
Shades and Silver - Audiobook
The audiobook is COMING SOON. I promise. I have the final files from the narrator, just need to finish reviewing them and I haven't had a single second to do so. I am NOT putting it on Audible. Audible has made some QUESTIONABLE choices with regards to author compensation and that encourages authors to use generative AI voices and punishes authors who do not remain exclusive. It siphons royalties from non-exclusive authors and pays them to exclusive authors, including those using generative AI voices. It will be available on my direct store, Kobo, Chirp, Libro FM, Itchio, and a few other places. I haven't finalized the full list yet but it will be sent out to Kickstarter backers first. If you backed, thank you SO MUCH for your patience! As I've mentioned before, the original narrator had to back out but I found someone amazing who I think everyone will love!
Other Audiobook Updates:
A Lake of Feathers and Moonbeams was already enrolled in Audible via a royalty share program so that both myself and the narrator split royalties equally, This contract lasts 7 years, so it will be another six years before I am able to pull ALOFAM out of Audible Exclusivity. I am looking into whether I can work something out with the narrator and pull it out early since Audible changed its royalty structure without notice and for the worse for authors.
However, THE MAGIC SURRENDERED is out of its exclusivity period as of this month. I can now, without penalty, pull it out and distribute it myself on my direct store and other platforms. I am trying to figure out how to do this and hope to have it available widely before the end of the year.
Shackles and Shards: Shattered
The date of release came and went without it actually releasing. As I've mentioned, I had to post-pone the release due to the moving and my illnesses taking up all my editing time. I do not have a new release date yet. I'm doing my best to really buckle down and make up for lost time. The move was really unexpected; I had planned to leave my old apartment eventually as there was a lot I was unhappy with, but I wasn't expecting it to be this year. I had thought 2028 at the earliest! But Stuff Happened (tm) and my hand was figuratively forced. I really think this is my best novel yet and I cannot wait for it to get into the hands of everyone. But it needs more time to cook. As soon as I have a new release date, you will know it!
The Fate of Stars
I've announced this already, but this started as a short "shitpost" on social media and I just wrote little paragraphs here and there on my phone while taking breaks from the actual moving process. It's currently only up on Itchio for preorder but... it will be releasing this weekend!
"Why could you get THIS done but not your novel you were already working on?" you might be asking.
Because this is a shorter work that I could write on my phone. Shackles and Shards: Shattered has a ton of moving pieces I can only really keep track of on Scrivener. I do not have an Apple device so the only place I can access Scrivener is on my PC. Because The Fate of Stars is a standalone work, I didn't need access to my other books to double check things, and I could write it all in a SaaS writing platform. I wrote it in Ellipsus to check it out, but I did decide Ellipsus isn't the writing app for me. For SaaS apps, I'm gonna be sticking to Novlr most likely (although I have been playing around with LoreForge and StoryFyre as I am perpetually looking for apps with the powerful metadata and tagging system of Scrivener but available online).
Recommendations
Reaper of Resistance by SM Garbers
Phaedra was a rat in the lowest slum gang in Ragenrot cursed to a life of misery. That is, until the empress, marked by the Dove Spirit, found herself in trouble and in need of a commoners insider help now that the immortal war was coming to an end. Being taken to the palace, their love bloomed into something Phaedra would have never imagined.
At least for someone unburned by the Spirits.
However, her love was ripped out from under her when the empress was kidnapped. She must find her and bring her back before Sahar and her soul is nothing but ruins. With love, magic, and betrayals Phae must decide where her loyalties lay. She must decide who to save...her love? Her home? Herself?
What shape does her true love take?
Unchain My Heart by RJ Martin
When Zoe learns her sister isn’t in their homeland but instead marrying an Athenian, she leaves her comfortable life in Egypt to confront her. What should be a simple journey across the Sea is complicated by a sudden storm, a villainous mutiny, and a monstrous ex-lover.
Kyra would have just been another fling on Zoe’s way to Athens, but the gods intervene and ensure they’re bound together until they realize they can help each other heal old wounds.
Wrap Up
Whew! This was a long one... Almost like I had several months of updates to do at once.
I'm very happy with all the changes in my writing and personal life; from the new direct store to the shift in newsletter platforms and my new home. It's almost like I've been isekai'd but I didn't get any cool isekai powers... Nor am I now a villainess as far as I can tell, so I will take that win.
I'll be getting back into the swing of writing, including updating my otome isekai serial, speaking of villainesses. Be sure to keep an eye out for a new episode soon, too!
