Checkpoint
The reason I do this turns 3.
My youngest daughter was six months old when I started publishing my fiction on Substack. Suddenly she’s 3, and while nap times are a thing of the past, I’m grateful for everything. I don’t know if I would have ever ventured into fiction if she hadn’t surprised us and paused my return to work for another couple of years. Now I’m a full time1 author, so any job I took would be a ‘side hustle’. Funny how things work out.
The future of my serials on Substack
I’ve been serialising my novels on Substack since 2024, and though it has been great at helping me reach a deadline and prioritise writing, I’m finding it hard to market my published books (I’m embarrassingly active on several social media channels as well as my own blog outside of Substack) while also remembering to link up my latest serial.
I do think it works when it comes to finding readers and practising my skills, but four serialised novels later, I’m finding it tough to keep up. That’s over 60k words each time, and it’s broken down into manageable episodes for my subscribers. Salome is going to finish its course, but I don’t know if I’ll serialise another novel. Shorter stories and novellas, maybe, but the novel aspect is really tricky when you have other titles you need to talk about.
I might post some personal reflections on it on my blog, but for now there is an interesting series you can watch here on Substack featuring Simon K Jones and S.E. Reid where they talk all about serials on Substack: the where, what, when, why, how and how much?
Salome is back
Speaking of serialised novels! After a short hiatus, Salome is back on Substack. This is a free serial and is a prequel novel to accompany my Muldoon supernatural thriller series. It returned for episode 19 on Friday last week.
Update to the serial schedule: Paid subscribers will now receive an early episode every Sunday, which will then be rolled out to free subscribers the following Friday. This will run for the rest of the summer.
I’ve started working on a cover for the book, and looking at stained glass windows, swords and chiaroscuro was a great way to pass some time.
It is also currently with Beta readers, and it’s been great getting some reader feedback.
Oceanus
Thank you so much to everyone who bought a copy of Oceanus when the second edition came out on 19th June. If you have the time, please leave a rating and/or a review on Goodreads and wherever you prefer to leave your reviews online. The word of mouth helps so much with book sales, and reviews fall into that.
Thank you so much to everyone who shared the love on Notes recently. I appreciate you.
Coming up:
I’ll be going live with Ian Barr on Saturday 18th July to talk about Shakespeare retellings and re-imaginings in light of Oceanus’ recent release and the upcoming release of Carnage! Ian can tell you more about the latter then.
I am working on the third Muldoon novel: Currently untitled as there is a lot going on in this one. Muldoon is back after the events of The Ring and there’s a new terror that settled in during his absence.
Currently Reading/Watching/Playing:
Still working my way through The Queen Of The Damned by Anne Rice.
Started on Grave Peril, the third instalment of the Dresden Files. So far, it is more interesting than Fool Moon was.
My husband bought me Until Dawn for my birthday (still a week away) and I’ve been having a great time. Genuinely scary at times, and I love the teen slasher/lonely mountain atmosphere.
Around Substack:
Keris Fox recently invited me over to her newsletter for five fun questions.
Wayne Johnson recently released a collection of short stories titled And Another Thing. It’s an eclectic mix of speculative short stories!
Ben Wakeman has launched pre-orders for his upcoming novel Harmony House, a speculative thriller. Find out more about it here.
Full time, not ‘full pay’.
You are so awesome to give me a shout out! Thank you very much.
Honored to know you and be part of your literary journey.