Update 61: Week of 23 Jun
Writing about gods, dragons, space mermaids, AIs, and more with queer characters and some art on the side.
More sales incoming!
There are so many epic sales happening soon, but I’m going to limit it a bit.
Pride Book Fair - fantasy romance bundle on itch.io (still going until the 30th) - that’s 16 books for $30!!!
Pride Book Fair - the other bundles for this promo are also until the 30th, and a really popular one so far is 110 books for $100!!!
Kobo Canaada Day - Last Sunrise is going on sale TODAY until 2 July (Canada only) for only $0.99!!
Smashwords Annual Summer Sale - for all of July, authors are putting their books anywhere from 25% to 100% off!! Soultaming is 25% off and Star Catcher is 50%!!! (You’re going to hear about this one again mid-month along with the next epic and best sale ever happening at the end of August!)
Friendly reminder for those of you getting your $0.99 books.
Most of the sales that indie authors participate in require for that price drop to be visible on all retailers where their book is. If you can, help an indie author out by getting it via a different retailer than the river. Here is a breakdown of roughly how much an author makes from a 99cent book on each retailer (excluding exchange rates):
B&N - 0.69 🤩
Google Books - 0.69 🤩
Ko-Fi - up to 0.60* 😁
itch.io - up to 0.60* 😁
D2D (other retailers) - 0.59 ☺️
Kobo - 0.45 🤔
Amazon - 0.35 😬
*Some people who use Ko-Fi have opted into the 5% contributions, so they may get less than the 0.60 mentioned here. In addition, for both Ko-Fi and Itch.io there is a processing fee that can be different in different regions. Even so, you’re helping them get found!
Personal update
If anyone asked me (and they have) what I did last week, all I can say is that everything was a complete blur! We flew out on Tuesday, landed Wednesday and then… everything is a mix 😆
This week was a bit better, trying to get into a new routine and getting back into work slowly, but all the days are so similar!
The most important news though: the cats were absolute gems the entire trip!! They did amazing on the planes and car rides, and have since turned into their usual menaces, terrorizing us and waking us up one memorable morning at 6am
Writing update
I didn’t write at all last week (the blur!!) and though I had set aside some time in the evenings to write this week, that didn’t turn out so well either 😅 Good thing I gave myself until December to finish 3V3, no?
But the short story for the IAX Author Anthology is done and ready (just needs to be submitted). The novella is going through a final round of edits. And the world now has a name: Terminal Solution. Personally, I love it… let’s see if it sticks!!
No other writing updates from me 🥺
And even the lives… those are going to be on hold for a bit longer as I try and figure out a good schedule/time to do them. So far, I think it may be my afternoons (2pm EEST, so I may catch some of you EST early-birds) but I’m going to see how evenings progress starting next week and may try to do it then instead 🤔
Anyway! For now, on hold, but here’s my channel if you want to join me for writing, drawing, or fun design times, once I’m back 😃
Author site!!
One of the other things I’ve been working on is getting an author site up. I started doing it in Google Sites and was almost ready to launch a small version of it last week, but then Google decided to inform me that my custom domain was a no-go due to the way I set up my Google Workspace… yay… 😑
Good thing I’ve already set up my VSCode and GitHub for business site before and I like finding things to distract me, so I’ll be working on coding a few simple pages myself.
What that means for you though is one big thing - these updates are gonna become much shorter and less frequent as I switch over to MailerLite as my newsletter, but I do plan on still doing such updates on the website itself. Here is what I have at the moment, but the rest of it is in the works!
No art update
I haven’t done any new art either, but since I’ve decided to start coding my author site, I decided to share this instead… KhaosBooks is something I’ve been dreaming about doing for literal decades and once I do a business registration here and get everything legal set up, that’s going to be happening!
It’s going to be a hybrid publisher and if anyone wants to get into the publishing world, reach out! I already have someone to take care of all operations and flows, and a few artists and editors on-call, but if anyone is interested in helping build this up as a hybrid publisher for marginalized authors, reach out 😁
Sneak peek
3V3: From Darkness
Alael pulled his hands out of the dry soil, dirt clinging into the grooves of his skin and under his fingernails. One of his fingers snagged a stray dry branch, scratching him. Alael followed the example of those around him and rose from his crouch, patted his pants with his dirty hands, and then turned around.
Different dirt—lighter and dryer—was rising in a cloud in the distance as the two trucks from the camp neared. Alael squinted against the perpetually dark sky, then brushed under his nose. The soil that had clung to his hands settled under his nose. It was enough for the smell of fresh soil to fill his nostrils instead of the black smoke that rose from the factory in their camp.
By the time the trucks reached the camp gate—a makeshift fence of warped wire, metal struts, and two trailers—Alael and a few others had reached it as well. Alael watched the people disembark in a hurry. He immediately felt a wave of relief when he saw Joshua. But that was wiped away when one of the boys that had gone out was carried out of the truck. Brian was unconscious.
“Get him into quarantine. We got attacked,” Joshua ordered.
Interested in reading more??
As all cat parents know, this is a must. It was also the second biggest purchase we made for our new apartment with sister. They have yet to sleep on it though… -.-
