Ten Books Published

Hi all,

With the last book of Celestial Plague published, I have now published ten books!

When I first started publishing I never thought I would ever hit this number. I absolutely love writing and this has been an absolute dream. Every single book that I've written has meant a lot to me in some way and I'm so glad that I can get them out into the world. It's the best feeling to see my books available for people to read!

If you had asked me ten years ago if I would have published ten books, I don't think I would have. My mental health had improved so much and writing has been a real outlet for me.

I don't want to stop writing or publishing and I can't wait to get my next one out. I'm so glad that people are enjoying my work and want to read more of it.

Thank you to everyone who has supported me along this journey and I'm going to keep going!

To recap, the ten books that I've currently published are:

Elemental Dragons #1: Blood and Water

Elemental Dragons #2: Venom and Earth

Elemental Dragons #3: Glass and Ice

Elemental Dragons #4: Cinder and Fire

Years

Mute

Celestial Plague #1: Nirvana

Celestial Plague #2: Heaven

Celestial Plague #3: Purgatory

Celestial Plague #4: Hell

The next series that I'll be publishing is Curse of Anubis, which will be four books. After that, I think that I'll be publishing the Empty Skies series and hopefully some of the Original Elementals series too. I still have loads of great ideas for books that I want to write so I don't think I'll run out of publishing material any time soon.

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed reading. Another thank you to everyone who has supported me so far and I hope you'll stay with me as I continue to publish books. See you next week. 

PS; don’t forget to check out these book bundles:

Kindle Unlimited Horror Bookfest

Exciting Woo-niverse Giveaways: Fantasy, Paranormal, Magical Realism, Supernatural, and Sci-Fi

How My Endings Have Changed

Hi all!

This week I thought I would talk about my book endings. As my mental state has improved, I've found that my book endings have changed a lot. They've gone from really dark endings to some lighter ones, or even ones where there's light at the end of the tunnel.

Celestial Plague.

This series would have ended with book three, with Jenna getting away with her crimes. With the release of book four, I wanted her to receive some comeuppance for her actions. I think turning into the very thing she hates is good enough for her. Plus, her friends are freed of their disease and are able to live forever. It's a much lighter one than the one I had originally planned with book three.

Street Rats.

As I'm sure you've heard, this book was written during an especially dark time of my life. I was getting bullied at work and was taking on more than I could handle. But whenever I complained, it was thrown back in my face that I was bring ungrateful. That's why the original ending of this book was depressing. The main character, Hailey, had been abandoned by all her friends and was left all alone. Her parents turned their backs on her and a few antagonists from earlier in the book appear to make her life hell again. Thankfully by the time it came to me writing the ending I felt much better so it's a lot lighter.

Mute.

This book was originally going to end with Audra killing the wendigo and getting caught by the police. She would be framed by the surviving characters and left in prison. There, her mother, who had turned into a wendigo, would break into her cell to kill her. Luckily I had the idea of resurrecting Solaris and having him bring his sister to the rescue. Even though her mother is left in the police station, Audra walks away with a chance.

Those are my darkest endings so far without spoiling too much about books that haven't come out yet. From now on, I'm going to write the endings that feel right rather than going off my mental state. My writing gets darker the more down I feel and I don't want that to keep happening.

That's it for this week, see you next week! 

PS; don’t forget to check out these book bundles before you go:

Spring Science Fiction and Fantasy Books in Kindle Unlimited!

Kindle Unlimited Horror Bookfest!

Reedsy BookEditor Review

Hi all,

This week I'm going to talk about Reedsy BookEditor. It's a tool that you can use to write, edit and format your book. I use it exclusively to format my books and all of mine have been done through this tool.

When I first learned about formatting a book I was instantly overwhelmed with how it could be done. From having to make sure that everything stayed inside the margins to using headings for chapters, I just didn't get it. I watched a tutorial on how to do it in Word and it instantly made my anxiety flare up. I was worried that this was the point where I would hit a dead end. That maybe my book wouldn't get published after all.

But then I discovered the Reedsy BookEditor and it couldn't have been more simple. I just uploaded my book and it did everything for me! The only thing that I had to do was the front and back matter, but that was easy enough to add.

If you wanted to, you could write and edit your entire book in it. I've never done this as I prefer using Word and then uploading it. The tool does do a simple spell check but I've found that usually picks up on character names and places so I've never really gone with its corrections.

It's really been a lifesaver when it comes to publishing and I can't see myself going forward without it. The only downside is that there aren't a lot of fonts to choose from. I go with the default so it doesn't bother me but it may be an issue for others.

Overall, I would highly recommend it. Even if you only use it for short stories or reader magnets. It saves a lot of hassle of either formatting your book yourself or hiring someone to do it for you. This is one of my favourite tools and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments! That's it for this week, see you next Sunday. 

PS; take a look at this giveaway before it’s over!

Epic Fantasy Spring Giveaway

My 2024 Writing Goals

Hi all,

As promised, here are my goals for 2024!

Write three books.

I would like to write the first drafts of the following books in 2024:

Original Elementals #8: Turf

Empty Skies #2: Freezing Constellations

Original Elementals #9: Arcturus

Publish two books.

I’m planning on publising Celestial Plague #4: Hell in April and Curse of Anubis #1 in October.

Re-name the Curse of Anubis books.

While I do like the names they currently have, I think I can do better. I’ve been looking at shorter, snappier titles and also longer ones. I don’t want to publish them with the titles they currently have.

Get two covers deisgned.

The first two books in the Curse of Anubis series will have covers by the end of the year. They will be designed by Deranged Doctor Design, as always.

Self-edit two books in the Curse of Anubis series.

I think I’ve been too hard on myself with self-editing in the past so this time I’m going to cut myself some slack. Editing two books myself is acheivable and I won’t be pushing myself too hard to get it done either.

Finish the Curse of Anubis Short Story Collection and make it available to my subscribers.

I’m planning on getting this enovella finished this year and I want to make it available to my newsletter subscribers before October.

Read 100 books.

I love reading and seeing as I blew my goal out of the water last year I thought I would increase it!

Work on my book sales.

I’d love to be able to publish more books, but in order to do that I need to sell more. I’m going to be tweaking a lot of my books descriptions, blurbs and categories to hopefully get more eyes on them. I want to continue publishing in the future and would like to increase the amount of books I’m able to publish in a year.

Create a Patreon.

Even if it’s not ready by the end of the year, I at least want to get started on it. I put it off a lot last year because I was worried that no-one would want to sign up to it. This is still one of my big goals although I’ve tweaked the original vision a bit. It will now be a hub for all things Elemental Dragons, which means that Original Elementals will be published on there first.

Participate in Camp NaNoWriMo and NaNoWriMo.

I love participating in these events and my writing wouldn’t be where it is without them. I want to participate in all three events again this year and hopefully get some books done in that time!

I’m being a bit kinder to myself this year which is why I’m not setting as many goals as I usually do. I want to try to focus on my mental health a bit more this year. I didn’t realise how hard I was pushing myself until I looked back at my goals from last year. I’m going to slow down a bit but still keep up with my writing.

What are your goals for this year? Let me know in the comments!

PS; don’t forget to check out these awesome book bundles!

Free to Dream (Sci-Fi & Fantasy)

KU Kickstart (All Genre - 1st in Series)

New Year, New Monsters 4: From the Caves

2023 Year in Review

Hi all,

It’s time for my year in review! Truthfully I haven’t been looking forward to this as I think I set my goals too high last time. I’m proud of what I’ve done but I think I could have been a bit nicer to myself. This will be reflected in next year’s goals. Either way, I still hit a few of my targets!

Write Five Books

I managed to write four books this year! They were:

Original Elementals #6: Sunrise

Empty Skies #1: Missing Constellations

Street Rats

Original Elementals #7: Stormburst

One off my goal, but I’ve still done pretty well! I have plenty of time to write all of the books that I want to write, which is what I need to keep reminding myself.

Publish two books

Celestial Plague #2: Heaven and Celestial Plague #3: Purgatory have both been published this year!

Edit three books

I just need to do one more self-edit of Curse of Anubis #1: Halfway and that will be two books edited this year. Celestial Plague #4: Hell is completely edited and ready for publication next year.

Get covers designed for the final books in Celestial Plague

I’ve had actually had five covers designed this year, three of which are in the Original Elementals series. You’ll have to wait to see those covers revealed though.

Write the Curse of Anubis Short Story Collection

I’ve written a lot of short stories in the Curse of Anubis universe, mostly thanks to the Furious Fiction monthly writimng challenge. I’m going to work on making a few of the stories a bit longer and then they’ll be ready to be made into a reader magnet. There are also a few stories that I still want to tell that I’ve drafted but not completely written yet.

Write more short stories

This one I’ve actually done a lot of! I’ve been writing a lot more short stories thanks to my writing group and the Furious Fiction challenge. A few have even been submitted to anthologies and have been accepted.

Design more merchandise

The Elemental Dragons bookmark was released this year and I was getting another one designed but unfortunately there were communication issues with the designer. I would love to get more dragon stickers designed in the future and maybe also some cats from my series.

Set up a Patreon

I’ve been stalling on this one because I’ve made a few changes to this plan. Instead of the Empty Skies series, it will instead be dedicated to Elemental Dragons. I want to turn it into a dragon lovers paradise. Everything on there will be dragon (or cat) related and I’d love to get this set in stone for 2024.

Build up my mailing list

This one has been great because I’ve got 450 people on my newsletter now. I’m running more polls and giveaways to hopefully drive up engagement. I’ll be releasing the Curse of Anubis Short Story Collection as well as a thank you to everyone who has supported me.

Continue learning Spanish

Unfortunately this one has taken a back seat this year. I’d love to pick it up again at some point and carry on learning.

Read 50 books

I blew this goal out of the water and read 126! I love reading and found so many good books this year. I read a lot of GameLit which was recommended to me by work colleagues. I’ve got plenty of books on my TBR list to get through which will hopefully make a dent in all of the piles around my flat.

Participate in both NaNoWriMo and Camp NaNoWriMo

I participated in all three again this year and loved every second of it. I managed to hit one million words written total throughout all the challeneges I’ve done over the years. I love the community and all of the work that goes into creating NaNoWriMo and how many writers participate. It’s my favourite writing challenge.

That’s it for this week! Next week I’m going to discuss my goals for 2024, so keep an eye out for that. See you next Sunday.

PS; if you’re looking for new monster books to read this year then check out this bundle:

New Year, New Monsters 4: From the Caves

StoryOrigin Review

Hi all, 

I last did a review post about Infostack and I wanted to do another. This time it's StoryOrigin. It's a platform where you can do newsletter swaps with other authors, join group promos and even send out review copies. I first joined when it was free and stuck with it when they added a payment system. It is now a core part of my newsletter as it brings me new fans and new eyes on my books. 

Newsletter Swaps

You can swap either free reader magnets or books available to buy. I do a mix of both to keep my newsletter going and generate a few sales. Without it, I wouldn't have been able to grow my newsletter so quickly. You can swap with other authors by genre so you can see who would be a great fit for your newsletter. You can also see their open and click rates to decide if you want to swap with them. 

Group Promos

I love creating and participating in group promos. They bring lots of new eyes to your books and are so much fun to organise. I love creating themed ones, such as dragons or monsters. I mostly use them to promote my Kindle Unlimited books, but I have done a few sales ones which have done quite well too. 

A group promo banner I created for a StoryOrigin promotion

I haven't used the other features yet, such as review copies. I do want to use it to gather more reviews at some point though. The dashboard is easy to use and you can keep all your links in one place. It's easy to upload reader magnets and create universal links for all of your books. Without StoryOrigin, I would be struggling a lot more with my newsletter. I know a lot of people compare it to Book Funnel, but I haven't tried that one so I can't comment on it. 

If you're looking for somewhere to build up your newsletter, I would recommend StoryOrigin. I've been using it for years and can't see myself without it. 

Do you like these reviews? If you do, let me know and I'll do some more! 

That's it for this week, see you next week. 

PS; don’t forget to check out these giveaways!

A Post-Apocalyptic Christmas Giveaway

A Giveaway for National Author’s Day

My First Solo Book Signing

Hi all!

This week i'm going to talk about my first ever solo book signing event! I've done a group signing before with other authors at a different bookshop but this one was entirely me and my own books! It was scary and exciting at the same time and I wanted to share with you how it went.

The signing was at The British Red Cross Bookshop in Plympton, where I was their author of the month for August. They interviewed me in February and I donated a few copies of my books for them to display as well as some bookmarks. They offered to let me do an event at one of their shops which I happily accepted. At first I wondered if I should do a book reading but I'm not confident enough with that yet. Instead, I decided a signing would be a good idea. I designed a poster advertising the event on social media.

First off, I took all of my books. I didn't want to confine myself to one genre and also wanted a variety for the table. I also took stickers, bookmarks, bookplates and pins. I wanted to use them to brighten up the table and give readers a little extra if they wanted it. After doing a bit of research online I found it would be a good idea to have a list to collect emails just in case anyone wanted to sign up to my newsletter. I didn't have any takers this time, but I still think it was a great idea. There was also a price list, which I printed two of. One for anyone who comes up to my table and one for the bookshop to keep at their till. We both kept track of everything that was sold and made sure the numbers matched up at the end of the signing. This worked out great as readers knew what the prices were when they had a look and there was no confusion with the bookshop either. The last thing I printed was a QR code that took readers to my Amazon page. If for any reason they didn't want a paperback yet or they preferred ebooks, they could take a look on there.

Now, I know that some of you are wondering how many I sold...

I sold five books!

For the first hour of the signing no-one had bought anything and I was starting to get disheartened. But my boyfriend came with me for support and we decided to do a bit of book shopping ourselves when we were there. It distracted me for a bit and I've got two more books to be added to my 'To Be Read' pile! Some members of my writer's group popped in to show their support and bought a couple signed copies which was lovely. 

Five books may not sound like a lot to some, but for my first signing I couldn't be happier. I was so worried that no-one would show up and I wouldn't sell anything. But I sold two bookmarks and a bookplate too! 

I'd love to do another signing at some point now that I have some experience. I know what to expect and hopefully I can improve for next time and try to draw more readers to my table. The staff in the bookshop were kind and supportive and did everything they could to make sure I was comfortable.

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed reading! Keep an eye out for next week's post, I think you might like it! See you then.

PS; don’t forget to check out these awesome book bundles!

Celebrating Book Lovers

Angels of August: Fantasy Novels & Box Sets Galore

My Feline Co-Author

Hi all! 

It's been a while since I wrote a post about Mishka, so I thought I would rectify that! She's my five year old cat who has been with me through several books. 

Writing. 

She assists me with my writing, usually by headbutting my phone or laptop. Occasionally she will place a paw on the keyboard to try to add stuff in. If I spend too long writing and not paying her enough attention, she will walk all over me until I pet her. She's always making sure that I take enough breaks. 

Editing. 

If I spend too long editing, she let's me know by screaming or walking over my laptop. Unfortunately she has a habit of deleting sentences that I often have to re-write anyway. A bit annoying, but helpful in the end.

Formatting. 

While I'm formatting my books, she usually takes this time to curl up beside me. Either by my hip or by my armpit. I guess this is the time she knows not to disturb me too much, except if I've done it too long without a break. 

Uploading books to Amazon. 

Despite publishing eight books, I still get nervous whenever it's time to hit publish. Luckily I have Mishka beside me. Just stroking her while she purrs eases my anxiety while my book uploads. She makes me feel better about the whole process. 

Marketing. 

Now we're back to headbutting my laptop. She loves doing this, just to let me know that she's still around and wants my attention. Whenever I run Amazon ads she wanders in front of the screen so I can't check the numbers too often. Either that or she paws at the keyboard.

Despite her being annoying sometimes, I wouldn't swap her for anything in the world. She's become a vital part of my author career, even if she is just screaming. I know I'm not the only one who has pets that help them write, quite a lot of authors have fuzzy companions to help them! 

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed reading. See you next week. 

Infostack Review

Hi all! 

I'm not sure about how many authors are aware of Infostack and the deals they offer, so I thought I would give my thoughts here. I've purchased their Write, Publish, Profit bundle three times and I'm happy with what I got. 

Infostack offer cheap bundles with certain themes and businesses in mind. The one that I'll be talking about is Write, Publish, Profit. They do other bundles as well, such as wellness, healthy eating and marketing. I've never tried any of them as they haven't been of any interest to me, but from what I've seen they look quite good too. 

They contact a variety of writers, marketers and course owners and bundle it all into one for $49. They have several ebooks, courses and worksheets that you can work through. Some are discounts on software or services, such as cover design or editing. There is a cheatsheet you can buy to help navigate your way through the bundle if you're confused too. 

My favourite part of these bundles are some of the courses you can take. I've always struggled with marketing and a few of the courses are really good and have helped with that. 

Anyone can purchase the bundle at any point in their writing journey. It covers starting your story to marketing it when it's published. Even though I've published books previously, I still find some of the writing and editing courses useful. 

I'm a huge fan of Infostack because of Write, Publish, Profit. I've just purchased 6.0 and I'm getting through everything in there slowly but surely! It's only offered once a year for a week, which means you have to sign up to their newsletter or risk missing out on the deal. For $49 you get a bundle worth thousands of everything was purchased individually. I was cautious when I first heard about it as I thought it was too good to be true. I'm so glad it wasn't! 

So, if you've never heard of Infostack before or you've been on the fence about purchasing from them, I'd say do it. The deals are amazing and have helped me so much with various aspects of being an author. 

That's it for this week, don't forget to check Infostack out! See you next week. 

Paperback Price Increase

Hi all,

Amazon have recently announced that they are increasing the price of their paperback production due to rising costs. I will be raising my prices slightly to align with this, but you can still order paperbacks at the current price before the middle of June. The current prices for my paperback books range from £9.99-£10.99, depending on the book and series. The price will only go up by a small amount, but I still wanted to give you a heads up just in case you were thinking about buying one.

I do have some plans for my paperback books, some long-term and some short-term. Seeing as this post is about paperbacks, I thought this would be a great place to discuss it!

Signed paperbacks.

Some authors use their own websites or sites like Etsy to sell signed paperback books. I've thought about this a lot and it is definitely something that I would like to do in the future. I would like to do bundles where you can buy a signed paperback, bookmark and some stickers as well. This would be exclusive to that site and I think it would be a great way to also sell some of the merchandise that I've had created. 

Distribution.

IngramSpark have recently scrapped the fee that they used to charge authors to upload their books to their database. I'm looking into this one, but it is definitely something that I have been interested in for a while. On Ingram, you can list your books at a discounted price and retailers/libraries may purchase them. I've looked into this before, but the £50 upload fee for each book is what always put me off. Now that it's gone, I'm thinking of uploading all of my books on there at some point. This will only be the paperback version, the ebook and hardcovers will still be available on Amazon.

Rewards.

I've discussed creating a Patreon several times before on my blog. For Camp NaNoWriMo July 2023 I will be writing the first draft of Missing Constellations, the book that would be a Patreon exclusive. My plan is to have a tier where patrons would get the option of receiving a signed paperback twice a year. They would also eventually get a signed copy of Missing Constellations, when that book has been completely published on Patreon and is ready for publication in ebook, paperback and hardcover on Amazon.

Giveaways.

I would love to get back into the habit of doing regular giveaways for paperbacks whenever a new book is published. I just love the feeling of readers receiving a signed copy.

If you want to order one of my paperbacks at the current price, make sure you do this before mid-June, as that is when the prices will be raised. That's it for this week, see you next Sunday!

PS; check out this Fantasy/Sci-Fi book bundle!

Summer Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books in Kindle Unlimited!