Not to be all clickbait here, but before I tell you what I’m excited for, I just want to know – have you seen my new website!? I’ve spent the last week completely redoing and redesigning a lot of the pages. Not all the pages, because I didn’t feel like there was anything ‘wrong’ with my previous, or half-current, template. I just wanted to smooth out my ‘customer journey’ (looking at me using buzzwords).
The biggest thing I always think about when doing posts and social media is, ‘Who is it that I want to attract?‘ and ‘how can I make them happy?”
Obviously, I do follow a handful of other authors, and the one thing that always concerns me is that they always talk about writing. Which is great for me, but why do their readers want to know about things like 5 Tips on Getting Through Writer’s Block and What My Day Looks Like as an Indie Author. Surely, talking, videoing, and ticktoking about writing will attract, well, other writers? Like myself. And while writers do read a lot, shouldn’t you also be writing for all the readers who don’t write?
It is a natural pitfall that I think writers do fall into because the first thing you are taught to write is write about what you know. So, I try not to do this. I try to share info about my books and create more of a fandom digital footprint. And that takes me to what I wanted to tell you about, which is Patreon.
I’ll be unpacking nine of the original 13 witches from the book, Lukas’s Field Guide to Witches, including some of my favourites, such as the Witch of Ages, the Decay Witch (featured in the video), and the water elemental witch, known as the Hydromancer.
Each post will expand on Luka’s journal and include further explanations, infographics, video, and information about the witch. It will be available for free (no tears for Tiers!), so that you can sign up and enjoy. This will also allow you to have a preview of what the books are all about, as well as inspire you to get the book that inspired Lukas to write the journal, which is The Dance Between Us.
Now, going back to what I was talking about, which is the customer journey… You’ll notice if you jump to my home page (not now… after you’ve read this) that I have a few doors available! Each one will take you to a specific genre, which will then suggest the book I’ve written.
Because… drumroll, please, can you believe it, I’ve written five books. Isn’t that crazy! Six, if you include the one that is being printed right now and shipped to me.
And the sixth book is the one I want to tell you about, if you don’t already know about it.
I have shared that I’ve got a new Sci-Fi book in my brain, with a turtle, and pollution, and an interesting tale about DNA, but that book is still in my brain, waiting to be downloaded. The book that is currently being printed and then shipped to me is Is It You?
Is It You? is a short book, at about 35K words, and the reason for that is that it is multiple choice. If you’re my age, you might remember the old ‘Pick Your Own Adventure’ books of the 80’s and 90’s. If you are younger, then let me tell you a little about the concept. Unlike a regular book, where you read from page 1 to page 250, a multiple-choice book is read in chapters. You read the first chapter, then at the end of the chapter, the book offers you some choices. Each choice directs you to a different chapter, where you can carry on reading based on the decision you make. At the end of that chapter are some choices. You keep going until you get an ending.
In Is It You? there are 8 possible endings for your character, as well as something else. Which I’m not going to tell you about, but you should know about. The book centres around a character called Jim (who is you), and he wakes up after suffering a rather nasty bump to his head, causing him to have some memory loss. He stumbles into his lounge, and oh crap, there is a dead body on the floor. While in shock, you start wandering what to do about it, when you hear sirens outside, and they are getting louder.
What do you do?
Run? Stay? Hide the body? Hide yourself? Tell the truth when the cops come? Tell a lie?
You get the idea. I will reveal to you right now that one of those choices above leads you directly to an ending. Most of the endings are hidden after a 5-8 steps, but I thought, just to get everyone in the mood, I should plant one right at the beginning so that you get into the spirit of things.
I will be releasing an ebook version, which I will do my best to link up, so that readers can click on choices to take them to a chapter – but this is heavily dependent on whether your actual readers allow for it.
And I’m also attempting to build on in Lovable, but I’m kinda restricted on credits, so that’s going to take a while to get up and going.
Now, I am in the process of converting a lot of my books to audio, using ElevenLabs, but that is also dependent on credits, and, given the nature of Is It You, I probably won’t convert that one. The last thing you want while you’re walking, listening to an audiobook, is to stop and fumble with your device to pick a chapter choice.
So a lot is going on, a lot of it is slow and steady stuff, but the first entry of Patreon is live now if you want to go check that one out so long!
