Storm of Masks Cover Revamp & New Edition

I've been neglecting this blog again. I know, who's surprised?

It's hard motivating myself to work, so when I do I tend to spend my words on my manuscripts instead of the blog these days. I did post about this on Twitter & Instagram, though! I figured I should share it here while I was at it, since work is flying by.

I'm publishing a new edition of Storm of Masks really soon, with several additional scenes, a new chapter, and a newly added epilogue & prologue. The new edition will also contain my novella Dreamseeker as a free bonus!

So, why a new edition? Basically, I originally envisioned Storm of Masks as a standalone novel, but the characters weren't done with me - or each other - and the idea for the sequel kept spinning out of control in my head until I couldn't ignore it. Now that Storm of Masks is the first book in a duology, I thought it needed a few minor tweaks and prods in a right direction.

Since I'm a total cheater, I decided that while I'm at it I may as well add some new material and explore things I didn't have time to in the original edition. Those new elements will also come into play in book 2, Riot of Souls.

Jen herself and a few minor characters get a more of the spotlight in the edition, which I feel like they definitely deserve, and there's a bit more spook factor, which I feel like we all definitely deserve.

And, just because I'm me, I shoved a few more pop culture references and a tad more gay stuff in there. :) And, you know, way more ghosts...

I also felt that, since I know the world in and out now, and in a more concrete way than I did the first time around, I could tighten some of the world building and fantastical aspects and harness them better.

I think the finished product is something pretty special, and I'm really excited to share it.

I've had a tough go of things lately, and my mental health really took a hit for a while - to the point where I almost, almost, seriously considered quitting writing & publishing altogether. It turns out I had to walk away from my work for a while and allow myself to just exist so I could work through some leftover stress I'd been putting off dealing with. After a few days away from the keyboard, my brain fog started to clear. I'm in a better place now and the writing bug has taken back its home in my brain, so for the foreseeable future I might manage not to be a total mess for once? Yes, this is as shocking a development for me as it is for y'all.

Anyway, while I leave you to drool over this cover, which really suits the book better than the original, I'm gonna hop back on putting the final touches on the book!

Final release date to come!

Your Existential Dread Is Showing

I feel like I spend too much time poking at my own wounds, making them worse, instead of doing things I know I need to in order to improve. I waste hours, days, months, beating myself up for shit as opposed to actually working to do better. I don't really have a point with this, I'm not going anywhere special with it, it's just that it's hard to work as a writer when you aren't earning much income at all and people aren't really finding or reading your work and you're drowning in an ocean of mental illness.

I'm sure I'm not the only one out there with problems, so I hate complaining and I usually just bottle all my shit up until it overflows and ruins my life, usually in the form of doing something really self-destructive or starting a fight with someone I care about.

Actually, a lot of my personal relationships and friendships have deteriorated over the past two years. That's probably my fault for continuously isolating myself and distancing myself from people. The thing is, it feels like I should constantly be working, so there isn't time for a social life, and at the same time I feel convinced these people are better off not knowing me so I withhold my presence and emotional involvement with them and end up burning bridges. It's probably definitely not healthy, but it is what it is.

Basically what it means is that I have very few friends left and I'm unhealthily obsessed with my work, namely the fact that I can't stop not doing it and procrastinating or going on like twenty hour work sessions where I lose track of time and nearly kill myself.

Earlier this year I got into a car crash, and the day after I was attacked by a dog. My anxiety has been getting worse and worse, and it only increased when I started to fear physical danger and have intrusive thoughts more and more often after these experiences. I stopped leaving the house much, or at all, going for weeks and weeks at a time without going farther than my own back yard. I've spent days on end in bed, staring at a wall or drifting in and out of sleep. I'm basically a depressed collection of aches and pains, depressive tendencies, and pop culture trivia, blaming myself for every problem in the world while tweeting obsessively about American Horror Story. And I beat myself up for that too.

It's crazy to me, because so many people in this community are open to talking about their mental illness and how it affects their work, and I really only talk about mine when I'm mocking myself and turning the situation into a joke.

If I do let out a cry for help or let on how bad things are, I either delete it hours later or it just goes ignored, and instead of trying to fix the issues I stew in them, alone. I feel like it's not healthy that I haven't acknowledged how much I'm struggling, but the fact is there's a lot of pressure on me from every person and direction in my life, and I've already let so many people down that the thought of disappointing them even more by focusing on how much I'm struggling instead of trying to advance my career actually makes me wanna bury my head in the sand. Yeah.

A large part of it is that I have no routine and no healthy habits. I exist primarily on a diet of frozen foods, pot, and black coffee (fairly sure I have stomach ulcers or something but am I cutting down on coffee? Nahhhhh) and I have a totally irregular sleep cycle. It's normal for me to spend five hours online, pass out and sleep for like twelve hours, then wake up and spend the entire day on the internet again.

To put things in perspective, I've got six series on the go right now as well as countless standalone titles and things I haven't announced yet, I'm dealing with anxiety, depression, paranoia and self-destructive tendencies largely alone with no support system, I'm poor as hell and my career isn't where I feel it should be, and I compensate for the insane amount of responsibility I'm carrying on my shoulders...how? By bottling up all my emotions, blocking people out, and refusing to deal with anything or acknowledge the hand I've been dealt in life. Of course.

Has anyone found out why this generation is so unhealthy yet? I'd really like to know what's in the water that we're all anxious depressive fuckheads like this, but as of yet I have like zero solid leads. Is it internet porn? Copious drug use? Doomsday fears? Radioactive tap water? Cell signals rotting our brains?

I. Don't. Know.

What I do know is that I need to work on blaming myself less. There's this line from episode 3 or 4 of the Shannara Chronicles that I've been thinking about for days now, where someone tells one of the main characters something alone the lines of, "All of this isn't happening because of you. It's happening to you. The sooner you accept that, the easier it will be."

So every day I've been trying to remind myself that all of this-all the pain and trauma and bullshit-is happening to me, and it isn't my fault.

I didn't ask to be born. I don't know why I was or why any of us are here. I don't know what comes when we die or if there even is anything after we die. And that's not a personal failing. It's an abjectly horrifying fact that we all, in some way, have to deal with. And I have not been dealing. I've been sweeping my problems under the rug and hoping they go away. It isn't working.

I don't know how many times I can do the same thing and expect different results. So this is me doing something entirely new and actually talking about the fact that I've got problems and issues and that most days I end up crying before six in the evening, and hoping that looking my demons in their glowing red and yellow eyes makes it a little easier to carry them on my shoulders all day.

I'm gonna drink some water and try to do physical activities and interact with other human beings for once. I'm gonna not keep convincing myself that I'm literally the devil and some unseen force who governs all our fates is condemning my soul or whatever, like some cosmic elf on the shelf shaking its head and smacking its gum at me from beyond the veil. I'm going to stop purposely looking for marks against myself to write on my karmic scoreboard and just let myself float.

At the end of the day we're all sad, confused, bitter little children running around on this rock crying out for whoever left us here. I'd like to think that I'm hardly responsible or even capable of being responsible for every bad thing that happens in the world, so I better start acting like it.

Hollywood Homicide by Kellye Garrett Cover Reveal

Guys, today is the reveal of Kellye Garrett's debut novel, Hollywood Homicide! I have to say, this cover is beautiful and illustrated covers are always some of my favorites. The blue and pink tones really stand out strong here, and the main character Dayna is rendered in a fantastic style...

Title: Hollywood Homicide

Book 1 in the Detective By Day Series

Publisher: Midnight Ink

Release Date: August 8, 2017

Book Blurb:

Dayna Anderson doesn’t set out to solve a murder. All the semi-famous, mega-broke black actress wants is to help her parents keep their house. After witnessing a deadly hit-and-run, she figures pursuing the fifteen-grand reward isn’t the craziest thing a Hollywood actress has done for some cash.

But what starts as simply trying to remember a speeding car soon blossoms into a full-on investigation. As Dayna digs deeper into the victim’s life, she wants more than just reward money. She’s determined to find the poor woman’s killer too. When she connects the accident to a notorious Hollywood crime spree, Dayna chases down leads at paparazzi hot spots, celeb homes and movie premieres. She loves every second—until someone tries to kill her.

And there are no second takes in real life.

About Kellye Garrett

Kellye Garrett spent 8 years working in Hollywood, including a stint writing for the CBS drama Cold Case. People were always surprised to learn what she did for a living—probably because she seemed way too happy to be brainstorming ways to murder people. A former magazine editor, Kellye holds a B.S. in magazine writing from Florida A&M and an MFA in screenwriting from USC’s famed film school. Having moved back to her native New Jersey, she spends her mornings commuting to Manhattan for her job at a leading media company—while still happily brainstorming ways to commit murder.

Her first novel, Hollywood Homicide, will be released by Midnight Ink in August 2017. It’s the first book in the Detective by Day series. 

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Blog 

You can pre-order the e-book and print edition on Amazon.

October and Junk

I know, I know, I know. I haven't blogged since October started. I'm not good at this.

Since the month started I've written a novella called Iceblood for the new edition of Souls of Salt & Seawater I'm putting out, and tonight on Twitter and Goodreads I announced I'm also working on a new edition of Blood of Midnight.

The new edition is mainly jut a project I took on because I'm a perfectionist. Looking back at BOM as I start writing book two, I realized that there were a few seeds I meant to plant and didn't, a few paths I could have and should have gone that I just didn't recognize for what they were at the time. To be clear this isn't a rewrite or a drastic change or anything - I'm adding new content, not changing what exists.

Mostly it's just going to be sexier, more dangerous, and a tad longer. I wanted to explore a few side characters more and give them the screen time they deserved, as well as taking a closer look at the main trio.

I'm hoping to put those both out around the same time, before the end of this month. But I also have a third little project I'm working on that, should I finish it, I would be sooo happy to share during the beginning of November, too.

Outside the world of writing I'm kind of just pumped for Halloween. Obviously, last month I wrote a book about it, but I'm mostly excited for discount candy when it's over. I know I shouldn't gorge on mini-Mars bars or whatever, but nobody can stop me.

Today Grimes released a bunch of new music videos, including this perfect one for Belly of the Beat, the best song on Art Angels:

I've also been listening to The Black Book by Jully Black on Spotify, which is still a really strong album. I'm actually surprised how much the music still holds up, since I'm pretty sure it came out over six or seven years ago. I remember buying it at HMV but I lost the CD over the years :I

Anyway, I'm in good company as far as writing music goes, and also drinking a bunch of coffee and green tea. Recently I went into a depressive phase where I couldn't write for two months or so, and I almost slipped back into it after publishing Storm of Masks, but writing Iceblood knocked me back on track, so I'm feeling optimistic about getting lots of work done this month!

____

Like my blog? You can check out my published works here!

5 Things You Should Know Before Self-Publishing

1) Your First Book Won't Be Your Big Break

Take a deep breath. Now exhale.

Your first self-published work probably won't launch you to the top of bestseller lists or turn you into an overnight rockstar. This is okay. It's normal. You are not a failure.

The market is overflowing with indie books at the moment, and that will not be changing anytime soon. Readers want to see that an author is dedicated to their calling and capable of producing multiple works sometimes before taking a chance on them. Chances are you might not see a huge jump in sales until after you publish your third or fourth work. That's okay. It's normal.

Focus on creating good art and nurturing other artists, and in time, you will succeed. You have to prove you have the chops to keep at it even if it seems like stormy waters at first.

Tips: 

• Books 200 pages and longer tend to sell better. Your cover is pretty important, but a good cover is worthless without a blurb that can keep up with it.
• 
  
• $2.99 is the best price point, but 99 cent deals do have their limited power.
• 
  
• If you can afford a placement (I can't) Netgalley is a lifesaver, and will help your book find readers better than almost anything else. Even I use it to find books to read, and end up reviewing and rating a large amount of them on other sites.
• 
  
• Writing an entire series to completion before publishing the first installment, so the reader has less wait time between books, is a genius idea, if you have the patience to carry it out.

2) You Need to Multitask

You can't just be a writer. You need to be an editor and a marketer, a cover artist and an agent, a website moderator and a social media guru, all while presenting a strong brand and personality. It seem impossible - supporting other writers and creators while maintaining an Instagram account while writing your next book while editing another manuscript while you format paperbacks and launch marketing endeavors. You will find your stride, though, I promise.

Sometimes this work can be overwhelming, sometimes it will feel like you are drowning. Turn off the wifi, pour a glass of wine, open a blank word doc, and go crazy. Or don't - open a new Chrome tab and binge on American Horror Story. You deserve it, you golden angel, you.

And when you're in a better place, and you feel like the superhero you are once more, get back to doing what you know you're meant to.

Tips:

• If social media makes you gag like me, it can be best to stick to one site and make good friends, so it feels like less of a chore to use it. Twitter has a great community of authors.
•  
• Self-publishing forums like those on Reddit and Absolute Write will teach you everything, make you feel less alone, and save your ass ten times at least.
•  
• People will tell you not to work on more than one project at a time: those people are boring and lack vision, but to each their own... I find multiple projects at once keeps me fresh, on my toes, and focused on what I'm doing. I tend to draft one project at a time while editing one or two others, and I'm constantly working on new outlines. I know it sounds overwhelming, but being able to jump from project to project and still feel productive might just be a godsend for you like it was for me - you do not want to feel trapped by your own art.
•  
• Building a network feels like less of a chore when you're making friends and helping authors achieve their dreams as well. Make friends, do your best to support them and take a genuine interest. It makes this so much easier.
•  
• Be yourself. And when I say this, I mean it less in the corny, 'They'll like you for who you are!' way, and more in a 'Don't be a fake, phony asshole!' kinda way. Don't be fake. Don't feel like you need to perform or change yourself to please others or move product. It will blow up in your face: nobody likes a fake bitch, not even when she's writing The Next Big Thing TM.

3) Focus on What Interests You

I've written a lot of books. I've put my heart and soul and blood and tears on paper (Shadows of Ourselves), let myself get lost in a pretty, captivating daydream (Souls of Salt & Seawater), and written simple, bubbly commercial novels, just for fun (Storm of Masks), and you know what I learned?

If you are working on a project that you love and believe in, a project that feels like a part of you, you will work faster. You will work better.

When I truly love one of my books, I'm more willing to champion it, more willing to put my stock and money and time behind it, and this work feels less backbreaking.

AKA, do your best to pick projects you will have fun with and see through to the end - don't force yourself to write something to an audience that you have no strong feelings for. A book you love will write itself, a book that isn't right for you will feel like torture to complete.

Tips:

• Let an outline or idea sit for a time before leaping on it, to see if it takes over your subconscious mind. If a world or character won't shut up, it's probably worth exploring.
•  
• Do not ignore early warning signs, or you will end up scraping 30,000 words and having to start a book again from scratch. Or, worse, abandoning it entirely. It is not fun throwing out days worth of hard work, people.

4) Don't Lose Patience

Rome was not built in a day. If your work is out there, it will find readers. Somehow, some way. Sometimes it takes a shove, or a gentle nudge. Sometimes you have to let it find its own way. Just trust yourself and keep moving forward. Letting yourself stagnate and your muscles atrophy serves nobody. All authors have that one book that under-performs. Do not let it be the end of your art.

Tips:

• AT LEAST ONCE in your writing career, but probably way more times than that, you will find yourself sitting on the floor in your underwear, getting drunk and crying, wondering if you're throwing your life away. You may or may not try to ask your dead relatives for advice from beyond the grave. They won't give it to you, though, selfish villains that they are. This is normal. This is the stress of being a living, working artist. But you know why you got into this and you know what it means to you, so don't you fucking let your stress win. We've all felt like we were facing doomsday at one point or another, legacy or self-published, and those storms always pass. It doesn't matter if you're a first-time indie or the next Suzanne Collins with hype and a big six publisher and a movie deal at your back - you have undertaken a huge project, and you are allowed to have a human moment about it, okay?
•  
• Sometimes you need to unplug your wifi box, turn off the lights, crawl into bed with a pizza pocket and a good book, and lose yourself. Sometimes you need to spend four days not writing, just watching an entire season of a TV drama in one sitting every day, in order to give your brain and soul a rest. This is alright, you are not awful and you are not a failure.
•  
• Some books are a success right off the bat, others do not find an audience for years. The guy who wrote Moby Dick didn't get famous until after he died, and we all love that ugly ass white whale and the rugged sailors who hunt it now, don't we?
•  
• You may stress eat an entire box of crackers, half a cake, ten greasy burgers, and an entire bottle of wine. It's part of the job: don't beat yourself up.
•  
• Books go through many incarnations; a future edition with a new cover or marketing angle might do better, so never lose hope!

5) Have Fun

Don't worry if what you're trying is what other people are doing or if you don't fall enough into line with conventional wisdom. History has been made by those who left old paths behind and formed new ones!

At the end of the day you cannot force yourself to do something you don't want to do. If you have to ignore marketing to finish a book, do it. If you have to sacrifice social media followers to finish a project or you have to spend more time on each book than other authors do, so be it. Do whatever feels right for you - and whatever is effective. You're aiming for results, not another way to blend into the herd.

Once again: TRUST YOURSELF, and know that if you're having fun, you've gotta be doing at least something right.

Tips:

• Let inspiration take over. A few days before publishing Shadows of Ourselves, I took the book in a new direction at the last minute - changing the cover and pitch focus of the book. It turned out to be (at the time, though I think Divinity may have surpassed it by now) my most successful book yet. I was very weary of making changes like that so late in the process, especially since I'd shared the old cover widely, but it was worth it. I put out the book as an Urban Fantasy instead of a Paranormal Romance, and it was a very good idea, even though it scared me at the time. Don't be afraid to listen to your inner voice and follow your instincts. It pays off.
•  
• Some days you will write 15,000 words in a day and gain twenty new followers and sell thirty books and feel like you're flying. Other days managing 500 words feels like pulling hairs from your head, and your zero sales so far do not help, and so you will end up on the couch rewatching Confessions of a Shopaholic because you have an insatiable crush on Hugh Dancy. It is all good. Don't be too hard on yourself.
•  
• Remember that at the end of the day, life is a journey. My biggest goal in life used to be becoming an author. Once I actually became an author, I realized letting the people in my life know I love them and experiencing new things is vastly more important to me. Your work is not everything. You are not building the great wall or saving millions of lives or changing the world - you're telling a fun story. Go write your YA robot war manifesto complete with cheesy love triangle and chosen one trope and just have fun with it. You'll be okay.

***

Like my work? Buy my books!

Or, follow me:

Twitter.

Instagram.

This Is Why I Cry All The Time

Revisions make me cry. I say this because I'm knee-deep in edits for the new edition of Souls of Salt & Seawater:

It's not heavy edits or anything - mostly just finer copy editing than the book got before. There are a few new lines here and there, but the main burnt of new material is a bonus short story I'm including that's never been published.

So why am I crying? This computer screen hurts my eyes, and I probably spend too much of my time off online to be still staring at it. I got new glasses that cut blue light from screens in half, but God, the struggle is real.

Whatever, though. Mermaids take priority.

I don't have much to say about the new edition right now: I'll share a lot more details the night before release. (I have no date picked yet, but within the next month!)

Aside from that I've been hiding from weird noises in the night, eating too much rice to be considered healthy, and drinking insane amounts of coffee. Also fucking around on Twitter, but what else is new?

***

If you enjoy my work you can buy my published books here.

Thanks for reading!

Shameless Instagram Plug

I have an instagram. It's https://www.instagram.com/royal_hijinx/

You should follow me.

I've plugged my insta here before, but I'm doing it again because I recently changed my username/url, so I wanted to make sure it was accessible to everyone. Also, I really enjoy taking and cataloging pretty pictures. It's why I love Pinterest and Tumblr; the only difference is with insta they all come from me.

I tend to check out everyone who follows me, so there's always a chance I'll follow back, too~

Balance

Storm of Masks is out, and you should probably buy it and read it and let it get you super excited for the fall. I mean, if you want.

That's actually not what I wanna talk about, right now, though. I put the book out the other day and it's been nice not being near the end of a project for a while, so I can just float. I'm so glad it's done and out there and it's just out of my hands - I wrote the best book I can, and it has to sink or swim on its own.

I've spent the last couple days just hanging out with friends, listening to music, catching up on BoJack Horseman and rewatching Jessica Jones. Fun, easy stuff.

I'm still working, but since SoM is published, I'm taking a couple days to play around with various projects and outlines and see what direction I wanna go in next. I think I may dive into the second books in the Evernight Falling Saga and the Seraph Chronicles. If I could finish ToS and Atrocity and put them both out around the same time, I'd be sososo happy.

One thing I've been focusing on a lot though is life outside writing. I've been publishing since the tail end of 2014, and it's been my absolute life focus since early 2015 - work, work, and more work. I'm not burning out, really, just more like taking a step back. I'm not where I hoped I'd be at this point with my career and lifestyle, and I'm trying to assess what needs to change. I know I'm dedicated to my books and can't stop writing, no matter what I do. I've essentially stopped trying to be a marketing machine and am just working on putting out a large, diverse body of work, so there's something for everyone.

But it isn't enough for me anymore to only focus on work and live my life. In the next year I'd like to get out a lot more and also bring up my income a bit, so I'm not a constant ball of worry and stress.

It just doesn't seem worth it to me to literally kill myself for my job and not see results, so right now I'm drifting and trying to figure out what new approach I'm going to take, while trying to balance work and actual recreation more.

I tend to write all day when I write, so it's around eight hour bursts of writing. I typically write 6 to 7 thousand words a day, as well as work on outlines for other wips. It takes a lot out of you to put in that much work and see very little reward, but this is both a numbers game and a test of patience. I know hard work pays off, but it's still, you know, hard.

So I'm compensating with a short vacation. Netflix and long walks and hanging out with the people in my life, being a human being before an author for once.

As much as I love what I do I think I've become a bit of a workaholic and let it turn into my sole focus, but I'm alive and I want to experience this world before I lose it, because we all will someday. I don't like that I often push away valuable, enriching experiences in search of more work time, so right now that's where I'm at, is trying to find a happy middle ground.

Storm of Masks Cover Reveal

If you noticed I haven't been blogging much this summer, it's because I have so many projects going at once...including one that I'm finally ready to share!

Storm of Masks is a paranormal romance set in a small town, full of mystery, ghouls, and holiday festivity! Halloween is my favorite holiday, and fall is the best season in my humble opinion, so I wanted to write a book celebrating them as we get closer to that magic time of year.

Storm of Masks is set in the small town of Ashbrook, which is home to an annual Fall Festival gearing up to Halloween, which the locals go all out for.

It's usually Jen Gordan's favorite time of year...but this year, she's gained the uncanny ability to see ghouls. And they're everywhere.

To get answers she has to turn to the charming new boy in school, Carter Lord.

I'm glad I held off on sharing this one, because it originally had a different name, but Storm of Masks came from a line I drafted closer to the end of the book, and I really loved it, because it fits the book perfectly.

Everyone wears masks; the living, the dead. They hide parts of themselves from us and let others radiate. It's not always deceptive, either; it's part of life.

I wanted to explore the different parts of people that war with each other and the facades we build against those around us. Anybody you think you know can be keeping secrets, and isn't Halloween the best time of year to start yanking off masks for a peek at what's underneath?

I can't wait to share this story, but for now I'll leave you all with a quote from the book!

       The days went on like that, a blur of rotting leaves and morning conversations, the bitter burn of hot coffee and the bite of frost filling the air. Long hours in stifling classrooms listening to shuffling sheets of paper lulled me into a sense of peace. I buried myself in routine and academia, doing my best to ignore the ghouls.

Shelves, eBook Pricing, and Cheekbones

I rearranged my book shelves and I gotta say, they're looking better than ever. Last night I noticed I'd lost my copy of Night Myst, the first Indigo Court book, so I bought the ebook on Kobo because I wanted to reread. It cost me fucking ten dollars. FOR AN EBOOK.

I mean, it's traditionally published, but still. It's makes me mad that publishers expect readers to dole out ten dollars or more for a digital file they consume in less than two days.

I will never charge more then five dollars for an ebook, and that's God's honest damn truth. (Fun fact: Divinity is on sale for 99¢ right now!) I mean if I'm ever working with a publisher, they'll be in control of that, but still, all my self-published ebooks have been and will be under five dollars.

Look, for ten dollars I could buy three paperbacks on Amazon or at a used bookstore. For ten bucks I can get a to-go combo of the best Chinese food in the city. I can buy new headphones and a fancy candle or body lotion. I don't need to spend ten dollars on a fucking ebook I'm gonna blow through in two or three sittings. I'm telling people fun stories with romance and action and swords and explosions - I don't think it's fair to charge an arm and a leg for a story.

I mean, there are exceptions, sure. If it's a box set or a super long book. Like, as an author, if I'm writing a book and it turns out to be this 200,000 word epic, yeah, I expect to get paid fairly for that. But even then, at least to me, for how fast I write, yeah, that's still only gonna be an eight dollar book, you know?

Maybe it's me - maybe I'm cheap and skeptic because I grew up poor and even now, ten or twenty bucks that I get to spend on myself instead of essentials is a rare treat that I want to squeeze every penny out of, because it's rare, but most of that money goes to books. And I think it's kind of unfair to charge a reader that much.

But I'm off on a tangent; the point is, I'm rereading Night Myst so I can devour this whole series. The covers are beautiful and the story, from what I recall, is so much fun. Definitely worth a read.

Meanwhile I'm drafting Atrocity (gah!) and making plans for a bunch of other fun stuff I can't wait to share.

I'm also working on an anthology set in the menagerie world (Shadows of Ourselves, Maelstrom, et-cet) and it's so much fun. It's called City Magik, and I'll probably be fairly hush on it until the day it comes out, but it's great and the cover is a beauty.

In the meantime I'm listening to a lot of Tinashe and mainlining coffee. And watching Eye Candy, which I never saw and should not have been cancelled. I can't get over how good this show is.

Also, I really wish I could pull off the same angles as Victoria Justice. Damn, those cheekbones. Color me jealous.

More Music

I've been compiling a lot of good writing music lately. I should probably make another 8Tracks playlist but I'm lazy, so I'm gonna share some of it here instead. I listened to a lot of these while writing Divinity...

Divinity Pre-order + Vacation!

So, Divinity is available for pre-order, and I'm now going on vacation. I'm only gonna take two or three days, but it's gonna be a nice bit of rest before I hop onto Tears of Sunrise and the sequel to Divinity.

I'm going to read And I Darken and enjoy the new speaker I just bought for my computer and blatantly ignore social media and get back into sketching and go on walks and venture into the city for some rare human interaction.

In short, I'm doing all I can to avoid being burnt-out. I have to write Untold as well, but the plot for that just changed drastically and it's still in the outlining stages because of the switch.

It's so much I need to take a step back for a few days, get my head back in balance, and then hop back in.

I always like a little break after publishing a new book, anyway, for some reason. Postpartum depression or something, indie author version, but my books burn bright and fast and once they're done I miss the fun of writing them, but I'm also a little dead. It's nice to be able to breath out, sit back, and feel my shoulders relax knowing there's no deadline or release date on my shoulders and I can do what I want.

I wanted to write Untold next because I already revealed the cover, but I'm not gonna rush it - I think the idea needs some time in the incubator.

What I'll probably write next is the first sequel to Divinity. I can see it being 4 or 5 books, honestly, so I want to get another one out fast. Then it will probably be Tears of Sunrise.

After that - the world...

Angels and Everything

So last night I finished my last round of copy edits on Divinity, wrote the acknowledgements, formatted the ebook, and sent it off through Amazon's review system. The pre-order should be up within 12 hours if everything goes right. And if it doesn't, I guess I can always bury myself under a blanket nest and pretend the world ended.

I'm super excited to be putting another book out, but I also plan to fix the whole paperback situation today after I've done the cat box and dishes - aka, the lack of a paperback edition.

I haven't seen the SOSAS paperback, but I'm sure it's beautiful.

And it's my only book available as a paperback.

Why? I'm lazy. And formatting paperbacks doesn't just mean more formatting and more forms to fill out - it also means more graphic design, more proofing, hours of work for each book that could be spent...writing a new book.

I wrote the draft of Divinity, which was like 30,000 words, in 7 days, and edited it in 5. The finished book is over 53,000 words, and I'm kind of in love with it. I write books fairly fast.

But that doesn't mean they don't take time.

Especially when you consider that I have 4 novel series going right now:

-The Charmers Series
-The Evernight Falling Chronicles
-The Dreamworld Duet
-The Seraph Chronicles

And 4 standalones to write:

-Maelstrom
-Untold
-We Die Like Angels
-Desperation

As well as some projects I'm kicking around the side. I was also originally writing a book called A Darkness So Divine, but I scraped the project.

To be perfectly clear I love having a lot going on and a lot of projects to choose from, but it is also a huge workload and a lot of pressure, so I've put off working on paperback editions to focus on more drafting and editing for new projects.

But I think I need a tiny break from publishing stuff, and the best thing to do would be focus on new editions of old books instead of putting out new titles, and let myself take more time to write for a bit.

So I'm going to hold off on announcing release dates until I have two or three books ready to publish at once, and then I'm gonna drop a bunch of 'em on you like bombs.

In the meantime, paperbacks.

I hope I can order some soon - I particularly want Divinity and Shadows of Ourselves in paperback. Shadows is still my best book in my opinion, but Divinity is fun of a different kind.

And the sex is a lot more detailed. >:D

I'll post when the Divinity pre-order goes up, but if you're a blogger who wants and arc feel free to comment or message me at ApolloBlake@mail.com for a copy!

The Return to Editing Hell - Also, Cake

I'm deep in the pits of editing hell, sorting through alternate characterizations and back stories and fictional family trees, so I can't take the time to write a super long blog post today.

Once I finish this round of edits I'm starting tonight I'll be writing another self-publishing know-how type post, though. Probably.

Right now I'm focused on making Divinity the most fun adventure I can. . .

I've been eating this Dairy Queen ice cream cake while I obsessively edit and tweak the cover design. I think it's pretty fun, so far. It's got angels and monsters and hot boys and Devil Wears Prada-ish subplots. I feel like readers will be able to tell I'm only scratching the surface of things with this book, and the questions they're left with will lead them onto book two.

Because, damn, book 2. Things are going to go a little insane.

I don't think I realized when I started writing these how action-driven the series was going to be, overall, and I'm having fun coordinating fight scenes and stuff. Every time I try to write a romance I inevitably end up throwing in battle scenes, because I can't help myself.

I just have to ask myself, if my book doesn't have elaborate fight scenes then am I doing my inner six year-old, who lived on Dark Angel and Kill Bill and Pirates of the Caribbean, any justice at all?

Nope. So, more swords.

It seems like a pretty simple solution to all my problems.

One thing I really love about Divinity and the Seraph Chronicles in general is I'm letting myself play around with pov and verb-tense. I know that's not something everyone loves, but I feel like when it's done right it's actually fairly enjoyable.

Right now there is an epilogue I'm thinking of taking out, even though I like it quite a lot - I feel like it fucks with the momentum of the book.

Since I'm too lazy to search for a good, non-spoiler-y quote right now, I'll leave you with a bit of the music I've been listening to while writing this bad boy;

Things I wish I Knew Before I Started Self-Publishing

There are plenty of posts like this out there, and plenty more that teach you how to self-publish piece by piece. I don't feel the need to make too many in-depth tutorials about that, because there are people who have already said those things better than I can.

There are also certainly authors who have been both writing and self-publishing for much longer than me. I've been writing for nearly nine years now, but I've only been publishing since 2014--first, writing erotic romance under a pen name, and later, the young adult and new adult books I write and publish now as Apollo Blake. On July 29th I'm putting out my first New Adult paranormal romance with erotic aspects in it as Cosmo Knox to separate it from the more tame books. So while I do feel confident giving publishing advice and guidance, I'm also aware that there are authors out there with much more in their repertoire to share than I have.

If anything, the most advice I have to offer is about graphic design (I do have some cover design tutorials planned for the future) but there are quite a few thing I wish I'd known when I started self-publishing, and I find it fascinating to hear about other writer's processes anyway, so I figured I would share them for any beginners out there.


Writing your next book is more important than any kind of social media marketing you can do.

Social media followers aren't necessarily book-buyers. Having a large number of followers doesn't guarantee success or sales, and relying on them too much as opposed to producing more product will hurt you in the long run. It's good to get the word out there, but another book that's produced with care and good craft has more push behind it at the end of the day than a tweet that gets 15 minutes of attention.

This isn't to say social media is useless; it can lead to increased sales, but it's much more common for a new book to spur on sales than it is for one of your tweets or blog posts to be one of the few that goes viral. Sure, a new social media post might get you some more sales, but a new book is almost guaranteed to.

You can make good book covers yourself, but you have to be honest with yourself.

Buy a graphics program like Photoshop or Paint Tool Sai. (I use Sai, because I like it best, but it's not really meant for photo-manipulation.) If you can afford it, a graphics tablet. (I like Wacom.)

Now learn to use them. Learn by doing. You can be surprised how purely awesome you can get at developing new skill-sets when you have the internet at your disposal. Learning new languages and instruments and stuff like graphic design or how to build furniture gets much easier. Develop an eye for good stock and look at photo-manipulation tutorials and learn how to create new effects. Improvise using the tools in the program you like and you'll develop both a style and a useful eye for aesthetic and emotion in imagery, over time. It helps to watch a lot of video tutorials and look at which kind of covers you like, observe how other editors place things and how they adjust colors. There is a wealth of both speedpaints and tutorials on Youtube that are not only amazing, but also entertaining as hell.

Eventually you'll be producing high-quality covers and saving costs on cover design by doing it yourself while getting just as good a product, but you have to be honest with yourself; evaluate your art and question how it stands up against other authors, compare it to the covers on bestselling books. Learn about what draws the reader eye and what people like in visual imagery, learn about colors and how certain aesthetics evoke a certain emotion, look at other covers in that genre. You can't learn design if you can't see where you error and learn to improve, but it is both fun and worth it.

I have never taken a professional design course, everything I know about image editing I learned myself, and (not to brag) I think I've created some very pretty book covers:

 

You can find good stock on Canva for a dollar an image, Pixabay and sites like it have free commercial-use stock, and you can even find cool textures and stock on DeviantArt that creators put out for free commercial use. (Always be sure to read stock and resource rules! I tend to use DA for textures and little else.)

Reviews aren't always an indication of sales.

I have some books that have four- and five-star reviews that don't sell as many copies as my books with zero. Publishing is a weird industry, and while reviews (both positive and negative) definitely help, they don't always have an affect, or, when they do, a large one. My title with the best sales has zero reviews and has still become my top earner. Don't sweat it if your book doesn't get reviews straight off the bat; a quality product will still draw sales regardless.

It's better to write the book only you can write than try to fit into genre norms. 

Genres are meant to indicate certain aspects of your work to readers and buyers, not to dictate every aspect of the content itself. Allowing genre or age group to force your writing into a box where you strive to hit genre trends will hurt you and your career. More importantly, it will usually negatively impact your creativity and take the fun out of writing. Don't sacrifice aspects of your art in order to turn your book into a clone of its peers. Allow your original voice to shine through. It's easy to start thinking of your books as solely commercial ventures once you become your own publisher, but don't lose sight of your unique artistic voice, because it will always strengthen the personality of your work. 

It's good to have a backlist, even if waiting to publish is painful.

Waiting to put out a book you know is ready sucks, but you will always draw more readers putting out the books in a series closer to each other than you would putting out one book at a time. Even unrelated novels are more beneficial financially if they're put out closer together--readers want to binge, just like TV audiences do. Content consumers have big appetites all around. If you want to be prolific but don't want to waste time building up a backlist of long novels or simply don't have it, novellas are a fun way to put out titles faster without sacrificing story and quality, sort of a showcase of what you can do as an author, and a fun little reading experience on its own. Be warned, though--novella readers and novel readers tend to run in different crowds, so you can't always be confident in them following you over to longer works. There is a decent market for novellas, though, and they're both fun to write and useful for developing a stronger writing skill-set, just like short stories, but with a bit more meat on their bones.

Other authors are your friends and you should be giving back.

The indie community has your back. Really, they do. For every author that seems like a living spam-bot just throwing their books at you, there are two more who are kind, thoughtful, talented, and creating good art. Give back. Spread the word, offer a helping hand, use word of mouth to help the careers of other indies. Put your money where your mouth is, so to speak.

Making good art is better than making acceptable art.

Good enough isn't good enough. You should be striving to make each book you put out better than the last and deliver the best product you can. Always be looking for ways to improve on all aspects of production, be it voice, cover design, formatting, marketing, or more. You owe it to people buying your books to work as hard as you can to create an enjoyable, riveting experience.

Authors like Jennifer Ellision, Leigh Ann Kopans, and Nenia Campbell make really good art and put out books with production value (editing, cover-quality, prose, and formatting) that matches their traditionally-published peers.

Be honest with yourself with what you're putting out and do your best to improve it. It's not uncommon for me to release new editions of old books that I've given a firmer editing or a new cover because of how much I've learned since its initial release. That's another thing: no book left behind. You might think its too late to save a title in your catalog that didn't have the best cover or had a few odd quirks in the formatting, but it's next to nothing to give a book a new, better cover or another editing pass and tweak it to improve the overall quality, and it can rejuvenate an old title and bring in new sales. You might not think it matters, but it matters to people who will read that book in the future, so don't just strive to improve with new books--apply what you learn as you go to the old ones, too.

Don't take yourself too seriously.

The number one cause of writer's block is putting too much weight on your own shoulders. Let's be honest for a minute, okay? You're not curing the zombie virus, you're not ending world violence, you're not building a helicopter or sailing across the ocean on a floating mattress--so take a deep breath and chill. At the end of the day no matter how much work goes into your book it isn't going to turn into some magic tome whose pages glow that cures diseases with just a touch and saves the world. You're just writing a book. Have fun with it, and try to make it fun for the reader. Accept that when it's done it's done, and move on to the next project.

Seriously, write the book only you can write.

You will always write faster when you're not writing something just because you feel like it's what you should be writing. What do you like in a story? If you love problematic kidnap romance (ahem, ahem) then don't force yourself to write worldly literary fiction, just 'cause it seems proper. If you like experimental lyrical prose, quit forcing yourself to slam out chick-lit novels that annoy you. If your favorite books are trashy paperback crime novels or formulaic fantasy romances that are fun to read at the laundromat, why are you writing dark magical realism and trying to be the next Neil Gaimon? It's not that hard to figure out that if you write what you love, you will love writing. Have fun and you'll get more done, that's my motto and I'm sticking to it.

To be clear, there can be a marked difference between reading tastes and writing tastes. I love reading memoirs, but whenever I try to write one of my own I cringe. I adore historical novels, but I think if I ever try to write one I'll rip my own hair out of my head. I like to read light, fluffy, breezy romance books to wind down after stressful work days, but whenever I try to write them I end up with really gritty, dark stories about, like, substance abuse and mental illness and abuse, but with werewolves and pixies running around in the background.

So, really, there's no accounting for your tastes as a writer--but you know you best. Do what you enjoy and leave the rest to other writers. Don't fight your voice, and you'll find writing regains its joy for you.

Also, read these books:

2k to 10k by Rachel Aaron, Let's Get Digital by David Gaughran, On Writing by Stephen King, Writing Magic by Gail Carson Levine.

I will freely admit that I regularly reread sections of 2k to 10k every time I start drafting a new manuscript. The editing method she puts forth in that book also changed the way I edit forever, making it much more time-efficient and effective for strengthening my stories. And fun. I used it for Shadows of Ourselves and edited that book in record time, so I am never going back.

That's what I got, really. My other advice is basically drink lots of water and some coffee, take breaks from writing to walk around and breathe for a minute, and make lots of cool writing playlists on 8tracks to inspire you. Pinterest is also a life saver.

(You can see my endless pretty boards here, if you like nice pictures and magic and apartment porn!)

*Bonus; the best writing snacks you will ever discover!

Swiss Cheese Crackers:

I honestly don't know if these exist in the US or other countries, but if you live in Canada (at least on the East Coast) then you'll probably be able to find them, and let me tell you--I WOULD GIVE UP MY FIRSTBORN RAPUNZEL-STYLE FOR A LIFETIME SUPPLY OF THESE SWEET LITTLE MIRACLES. I can't tell you how many times I've crammed a box of these down my face while pulling off an eleven thousand words writing night. They never get old. These are the ones I pull out for long-haul, I'm gonna be here for twelve to fifteen hours writing fests.

PB & J on Toast.

I'm crying right now. The only thing better than pb & j is pb & j oN TOAST. Seriously, take a break to eat this and feel that godly peanut butter energy flow back through your body. Drink some water (or more coffee, if you roll like me) and hop back on the keyboard to watch the words fly.

Plain, Salted Crackers

Yeah, I admit it, sometimes I go two days without consuming anything but water, black coffee, and plain crackers. Am I a destitute London street urchin who sometimes steals away into the kitchen of a hipster cafe at night to get some brew? Does some tragic disease make it so I can only digest saltines? Nope and no way, my friend, it's just that sometimes the best thing to take the edge off is a crunchy cracker. And, also, sometimes, you work better when you're hungry. Obviously don't starve yourself, but it's okay to let yourself feel the edge of hunger sometimes, and you might just find it sharpens your mind for a bit and helps you get in touch with the psyche of your characters. Especially if you're writing like, angsty emotional scenes.

Plus, crackers are pretty good, either way.

Microwave Rice. (Bonus points if you also fry an egg or slice up cucumbers or mushrooms.)

  

If you want the warmth and heartiness of a big meal but not a lot of cooking time, because you've been running on fumes for hours and hours now and you just remembered you're a human being who needs food to survive, and not just words, then throw a cup of rice and a cup of cold water in a microwaveable dish with a teaspoon of butter and microwave it for 6 minutes, stirring at the 3 minute mark. 9 times out of 10 this makes perfect, delicious rice that's even better with a hot fried egg on top.

Water.

I'm not one of those people who thinks water is a cure-all, but get up right now and go take a drink of cold water and tell my it didn't clear your head and refresh you. I tend to keep a cup or bottle beside me as I'm writing, both because it's my favorite drink and because it's an excuse to get up and stretch my feet for a second. Most people don't consume enough water, so this one is really important to remember.

Raw Carrots.

You guys have no idea how much I love carrots. Seriously, grab one from the fridge, peel that shit with a peeler or a knife, and run it under cold water--tell me you don't feel like you just leveled up. They're just really refreshing, they perk you right up. They have the added benefit of being really crunchy.

Coffee.

I drink my coffee black. Am I a hipster? No, I am, sadly, just A Sucker With Bad Genes. For some reason if I put sugar and milk in my coffee I get really bad heartbearn and acid reflux. Sometimes I put cinnamon in there, though. Or ice cream. But usually it's black.

I will fully admit that I sometimes drink up to nine coffees a day. I will also freely admit that I added this to the list pure to add delicious coffee pictures.

...Now go make a coffee and get writing! (Or, if you like reading and wanna support me, you could check out my books, here!)