Hello, lovelies!

I hope you’ve all been well. Alice and I have been very busy but doing well at this end. It’s been a proper age, hasn’t it? I don’t know where the first half of 2023 has gone!

Oh, wait…yes, I do. On top of my new 9-to-5 job, I wrapped up some very intense editing contracts that I can finally say are done! One of the books, Backwoods Boy by Richard Irving, will be featured here as soon as it’s properly published and on sale; the rest were a corporate contract that I will…never touch again (unless to discuss super fun, nightmare clients in a future blog post).

I’m very happy to report, thanks to my day job, I’ll only be taking select books for freelance editing. Brilliantly, this means a focus on series like Rebecca Schmid and Niamh Schmid’s A Daughter’s Ransom series and more fun books to post about here (including Rebecca Schmid’s solo novel, Askefise).

But on to the long-overdue updates for Scribe Cat Books!

Reviews

Over on Goodreads, Phantasmias has been getting wonderful reviews since its release. I’m so grateful whenever a reader takes time to let me know, publicly or privately, what they think of my stories. I’m equally delighted by the comments about which stories and characters were favourites as I am for which stories were truly spine-tingling—it’s giving me direction on where to take the stories of Phantasmias II.

Whether readers are sharing what they love, what they want to see more of, or what I need to improve on, reviews are really the independent author’s best learning experience. I’m not sure what the etiquette is to respond to reviews directly on Goodreads; but if you send me a question on Goodreads, private message, or email, I’m always happy to discuss my stories and process.

I’m also looking into blogs and review websites to get Phantasmias to more readers. I don’t like the idea of paid reviews; I worry reviewers feel they need to praise books they’re paid to review. However, the feedback is always invaluable and inspires me to write more.

Revisions

Tom and I are still plodding along on the Phantasmias audiobook. Honestly, it’s a much larger endeavour than I gave it credit for. Both of us have day jobs and other projects, so recording stories is a slow process. I’d honestly rather this approach than trying to rush something out the door though!

Ironically, going over Phantasmias for recording has resulted in some revisions to the print book and eBook. I’m aiming for a second print run by the end of the year, since I’m running low on the softcovers. Nothing will be changing on the glorious cover art, but some interior tweaks might be caught by eagle-eyed observers. Most notably though, I’m adjusting the margins that bugged me so much from my experience with Marquis Printing.

But it isn’t just my first book getting revisions; ScribeCat.ca is also getting a makeover of sorts. I’ve been making adjustments to the main page to best showcase everything I’m up to. I think, for the rest of 2023, this will largely be updates to Ko-fi and whether I manage to get either Phantasmias II or my fantasy novel together by the end of the year.

That’s been a major area of revisions when I’ve had time to write. The novel is…weirdly, I love what I’ve written up to a certain point, and then it becomes a struggle. That kind of writer’s block usually means, for me at least, that I need to revise the last chapter because the story isn’t sitting where I need it to. Earlier in the year, I deleted three or four chapters—just scrapped them entirely—and suddenly the words were flowing again. My muse is a very funny thing. I’d like to at least share some artwork either of the book’s characters or Phantasmias characters before the end of the year. I’ve also dabbled with the idea of posting some of the novel’s worldbuilding segments for those interested.

Whether it’s on my lunch break or the scant evenings or weekends I have free, I am still striking the keyboard and getting words in!

Recalibrating

You may have noticed some changes when it comes to my social media presence. I’m generally kind of skittish when it comes to posting my thoughts into the wilds, so, naturally, no sooner had I adapted to posting to Twitter than the silly thing started imploding on itself.

I’m not here to debate on the grander scheme of social media. As an independent author, however, I rely on various tools to stay in touch with my readers (and other authors for that matter!), so it was heartbreaking to see the writing community of Twitter panic (and continue to do so). I still post there occasionally, but it’s…a task. Scrolling my feed is kind of a nightmare, even when I have a list filtered for people I enjoy interacting with! Never mind all the spam accounts following and adding me to weird groups. It’s slowly becoming like Facebook for me (where I post seldomly…maybe once a year, ha). I’m still active over on my Instagram, of course, but slowly migrating to Mastodon and Ko-fi!

A list of my internet locations (also available in the secondary navigation bar above):

• Instagram, mostly photos of Alice but also books sometimes, ha.

• Goodreads, of course, has my books and reviews, but you can also ask me questions and keep updated on blog posts.

• Mastodon, trying to use this as I did Twitter, but it’s a little intimidating still. I haven’t re-discovered my writing community niche as yet.

• Ko-Fi, to post free story snippets and eventually premium chapters (had to label it NSFW for horror themes and fictional fantasy violence)

• I also have a Hive account, @ScribeCat

I try to vary the content across my social media so it isn’t the same posts across all platforms (to some extent). I think that’s the best part about this variety of platforms. Instagram is great for photos; Goodreads focuses on my books that are published; Mastodon is fab for short updates (just wish SquareSpace had an embedded stream feature like they did with Twitter); and Ko-Fi lets me post free and paid content.

That was a big change at the end of last year. I dropped Patreon and started exploring Ko-Fi. I didn’t get into independently publishing my books for money (it’d be great to make a living, but that’s like winning the lottery). However, I love the idea of testing maybe some other genres as free and paid chapters over on Ko-Fi. Unlike Patreon, Ko-Fi doesn’t take fees on donations (as little as $1 properly!); it allows for one-off or monthly subscriptions; and I can post as much as I like. I haven’t, as yet, posted any paid stories or set up monthly memberships, but it’s something I’m looking at. For now, it’s hosting the samples for Phantasmias and maybe it’ll host Fantasy Unbound soon too.

It might take me until the end of 2023 to find a rhythm for posting again. Even this blog, I hope, will become less terrifying for me to update. I’m always so concerned about staying on topic or providing something useful…but sometimes, I think, I just need to do these little updates so you hear from me!

On that note, thank you for reading my newest update. Alice and I hope you have a lovely day! ❤️