And so we’ve come (quite quickly!) to the end of June…

Wait. It’s not actually June anymore, is it?

I am late by a day on the update, but there’s a good reason why, which we’ll get to shortly.

In my last update I talked about trying to DO ALL THE THINGS ALL THE TIME. This past month was all about DOING ALL THE THINGS ALL THE TIME EVEN HARDER while adding even more things to do, namely prepping for the upcoming InfinityCon and jumping into a writer’s group.

I’ve been doing cons sporadically since I first released Bloodlands and my table set-up has remained fairly consistent since, but now that I’m gearing up for another release, I wanted to change things up a little, primarily with some rebranding.

When I first started out, I had this idea of offering my services as an editor and helping others publish their own books. I already had a neglected blog called “Exploding Fiction Apparatus” from my college days, so I ran with that as the name of my “publishing company” and put it front-and-center in my branding. That also had the handy side effect of allowing me to NOT be front-and-center in my own branding, which was great since I don’t love being the center of attention.

The side business of helping others self-publish didn’t really happen, though. I quickly found my hands full with managing my own writing and marketing. I eventually took a few courses on author marketing and content creation, which reinforced what I’d kind of already started to figure out–that my branding as an author really needed to be centered on, well… me.

Much as I’m not comfortable being the center of attention, it’s a necessary evil of being an indie author. I don’t have the marketing might of a publisher behind me, so I have to be my own strongest advocate if I want to be successful at all.

I also need to be able to define what I’m offering to my potential readers, which means doing something else I don’t really love–defining my genres.

I don’t spare much consideration for what genre my stories fall into as I’m writing them. I focus on building a good story with interesting characters, and it usually just happens to end up involving some kind of fantasy element, in part because I’m an escapist at heart and also because adding fantastical elements to a story gives me more license to be creative with whatever trauma I’m low-key fictionalizing and airing out.

That having been said, I do understand the importance of letting your potential readers know what kind of story you’re offering them. I’m an avid reader myself (as you may have noticed), and while I’ll read a lot of different genres, I’m 100% more likely to pick up a book full of monsters and sword fighting than I am to pick up a book with a half-naked Fabio on the cover. With that perspective in mind, I reluctantly shuffled myself into a few boxes that I felt I’d fit into, namely fantasy, horror, and action/adventure.

Speaking of horror, it’s time for the monthly book update!

The rewrite is done. I very narrowly hit my goal of completing it by the end of June, which is why this update is a little late. Much as I want to stay consistent in my communications with my readers, there will be times when I can’t hit all of my deadlines. When that happens and I need to prioritize, the writing always has to come first.

The next phase will be revision work. There are still a few rough areas that may need tweaking in terms of plot, but for the most part, the revision phase is all about polishing so that the story will be fit for human consumption. Ideally, that should go faster than the rewriting phase.

Afterwards comes the beta reading, in which other people finally get a peek at my monster-child to tell me all the ways it’s still ugly. That’ll help me make more improvements.

That’s pretty much it! The next big non-writing project will be rebranding the website. Things may start to look a little different, so stay tuned for more improvements!