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April was busier than anticipated with life events, so writing took a bit of a backseat to the responsibilities of parenthood, half terms, and long-ass drives t'up north to explore the remnants of Roman Britain.
But that doesn’t mean the month wasn’t without any writing updates, as glacial as some of them were. There are some cool wins to share as well as a few lessons along the way…so what do you say? Let’s reflect on April’s accomplishments! |
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The Kindle Test
One of the final stages of my writing process is the ‘Kindle Test’—a final read through on my, believe it or not, Kindle that gives me a different platform and means to experience my story, allowing me to spot any lingering typos and/or errors before I hit publish and share the story with the world.
It’s not infallible—things still slip through now and then—but I’ve found it to be an integral step in my finalising phase because it gives me the chance to really put a stamp of approval on the ‘final manuscript (this time I super meant it), Version 10.epub’ file.
The easiest thing I can compare it to is the ‘car test’.
When in the final stages of mixing and listening to an EP or album, some bands would take their music and listen to it in the car while driving around. Listening in a Zen state while driving can allow one to hear issues or moments that would otherwise be overlooked or forgotten. It’s also a super gratifying moment to listen to something whilst driving that you and your band created and find that you love it. (I did this very test when I was in London’s greatest pop punk band no one ever knew of, Adventure Starts Tomorrow!)
That being said, I did not start the Kindle Test the way I’d planned to. With the cover having been commissioned last month, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go through the Kindle Test now, knowing I would invariably read through it again once I get the cover to give me a more complete experience—the same one future readers will have. Being able to read it with a cover ready to go puts me in a much more confident position to get the book out once the Kindle Test is done, versus, say, reading it now, then waiting another few months before the final cover is ready.
I may even end up reading it anyway and then doing it once more when the cover arrives, allowing me to really go through the edited manuscript with a fine-tooth comb. With my editor’s notes having been addressed and both major and minor issues tackled, it should be as done as can be.
By next month’s Recap, I should have more to share not only on the Kindle Test but also on the cover design itself.
The Final (Paper) Quest
Some good and bad news here.
What would you like first?
The bad?
Okay.
Your Paper Quest, the indie book subscription service that featured Steen a few years ago, introducing new readers to my work and to everyone’s favourite surly Canuck demon hunter, has decided to call it a day.
I’m gutted for them as both Ryan and Steve are great guys, and I really loved what YPQ represented: championing indie voices amongst a deluge of books that all felt safe, stale, and plastic.
Theirs was a line-in-the-sand tenet that indie doesn’t equate bad, just like ‘traditionally published’ and ‘Available in Waterstones’ doesn’t immediately equate to good.
I loved that and couldn’t have been prouder for Steen to have been part of their legacy. I look forward to what Ryan and Steve do next.
Now, the good news?
With the end must come a final box.
And in that final box…Burden.
Yes, my post-societal dystopian novel was selected alongside Steven William Hannah’s The First Rule to round out YPQ, and although it’s a bittersweet honour, it’s an honour nonetheless.
So thank you again to Steve and Ryan and to Your Paper Quest for featuring my stories, introducing me to new people, helping to grow my readership, and for believing in my writing and storytelling skills to feature me not once but twice.
I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: being involved in YPQ remains one of the most validating things I’ve experienced as an author.
Screw it, shall I double-dip with the good news?
Yeah?
Well, part of the YPQ process is to partake in a series of interviews. One is a written Q&A that will be shared on their site; the other is a video interview that will dive deeper into the process and work that went into Burden.
When Ryan’s initial question to me when he first finished Burden was ‘Firstly, how dare you?’ you know the inevitable interview is primed to be a fun conversation!
Navigating the Amazon (Ad Space)
Although the actual writing may have been a non-starter in April (which I’ll touch on below), I have been experimenting with Amazon Ads for the first time!
Given the success I enjoyed following my recent Meta campaign for Burden, I decided I finally needed to test out Amazon in the hopes of replicating the success of the previous month.
That…didn’t exactly happen, unfortunately.
It all started pretty prosperously: the first click led to a sale straight away! Great! More of this, please, I thought, ready to lean back and have people searching for stories similar to Burden discover my book via the ad and fall over themselves to pick up a copy.
Yeah.
Not so much.
An important distinction to note between Meta and Amazon campaigns is this: Meta takes the allocated budget regardless, every single day, pushing it to the audiences you’ve curated (assuming you didn’t just let Meta use AI to push it); Amazon, on the other hand, only takes payment when somebody clicks on the ad itself.
That’s key.
It means that, although the Amazon test has, by pretty much all metrics, failed in comparison to the Meta run, I may continue to run the campaign in the hope of catching a few people here and there.
Yes, people have clicked my link and ultimately not purchased the eBook, but those clicks have also transformed into KU reads and, on the odd occasion, what appears to be someone coming back and buying the book at a later date without clicking the ad again.
It’s not as effective, but it’s also not a premium expense that takes the daily allotment regardless. I have a pretty low daily spend because, well, I’m not Ryan Cahill or JF Penn just yet, but it does give me hope that I could eventually take what I’ve learned from both, expand, and eventually increase the budget to reach more people.
One thing I’ve determined from this learning experience is that series are king. It’s a truism I learned while taking a course on author advertising strategies. I didn’t expect Burden to be a breakthrough exception to the rule (despite it doing pretty, all things considered!), but as I approach the end of my 1:1 24-day test, I’m cautiously optimistic that when I return to advertising my next Ultraverse book, highlighting it as part of a series, there will be a significant boost for the first book and subsequent read through to the second.
Try Honesty
I low-key hate writing updates that don’t include significant writing news. Other authors are so prolific with rapid releases and fast writing. I’m not one of them. Never have been. Between life, parenting, coaching/training BJJ, and a plethora of other things pulling at my attention, I often fall into a funk and spiral—which in some ways is a real privilege.
However, it acts as a harsh reminder that I’m not yet writing to survive. Now that’s the mantra I need to start adhering to. Because having gone through April and, frankly, the past few months with only minimal actual WRITING having taken place, I’m starting to veer into major fraud and imposter syndrome territory.
I don’t feel worthy of calling myself an author, and that thought roots deeply and festers fast. It corrupts and, with the way I’m wired, it quickly devolves into me doing less and less, convincing myself more and more of how I was never an author. Not really. Not compared to others. Not when looking at the ones who are making a decent living off their work.
Not me.
Never me.
I’ve been here before and have no doubt I’ll be here again…
But then I get featured in Your Paper Quest. Then I have people wanting to talk to me about my writing and process. Then I have people starting to follow me on social media or subscribing to this very newsletter, and the doubt and pain fade a little, if only for a time.
But I know the answer here because it’s a truth that has been almost fizzing within me, like an itch I just can’t scratch without committing to the solution…
I need to fucking write.
I need to fucking Write Steve Write!
So, within the next few weeks, with the Kindle Test and the cover moving forward, I’m going to once again dive into the word mines with my next novel, the third and final part of my Ultraverse series. It may not be the final Ultraverse-based story I ever write, but for the time being, it will be the last that follows this particular cast of misfits. And if I’m able to spin enough plates, I may also begin plotting the next Steen novel!
The zero draft of the third Ultraverse novel has been ready for a while. I actually finished it quite a long time ago, but between Burden and Evolution, it took a back seat.
Now it’s time to dust it off and go through it with my initial skeletal story notes, tidying it up and getting it ready for beta readers. Once that’s done, well, it’s a long road, and I personally have a super comprehensive multi-step checklist (seriously, there are so many check boxes on this thing!)…but I hope you continue to check in via The Recap and follow me on this ride.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, after all.
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Going Up T'North
April’s core really revolved around one event: half term.
With my son out of school for two weeks and me being his primary caregiver, that meant two weeks of being AFK.
The first week was fun, full of hanging out, some video games, and even a surprise trip to the cinema so I could treat Austin to a screening of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. But the second week was the main event: a family trip up north to Northumberland, the highest county in England, before crossing over into Scotland.
We stayed in a place called Cresswell, which isn’t at the tippity-top of the county, but we certainly made the most of our stay, travelling almost every day in order to explore the ruins of Roman Britain, Hadrian’s Wall, and all the interesting places adjacent to it, including a temple of Mithras, which I think Assassin’s Creed fans can appreciate.
Another major highlight was exploring what was billed as the world’s first smart home—a ‘house’ within miles of land that, quite frankly, felt like I was exploring the Spencer Mansion from Resident Evil.
I cannot stress enough that this place, with its locked doors, basement, passages, six-foot high, ten-ton marble fireplace, laboratory (yes, a room used as a laboratory!) and surrounding land that includes an iron bridge, water powerhouse, a pump house, and rock garden, all felt straight out of a Resident Evil game.
It was easy to picture the place at night, zombies shuffling around as someone carefully navigates the gardens to locate a key that would finally grant access to a hidden door on the third floor of the labyrinthine mansion…
Sorry, what were we talking about?
Oh, yeah, the north!
Lovely people, great days out, and some fascinating history to wallow in. I really enjoyed visiting the ruins of Roman forts, taking the time at different museums to learn about their way of life and observing artefacts of a bygone era. We were even lucky enough to witness a real-life excavation whilst at Magna Roman Fort, where my son was able to ask plenty of questions to one of the archeologists (including “Have you found any bones today?” Nice one, son). He even held a piece of discovered Roman pottery that had been unearthed that very day! |
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Hadrian’s Wall
This is going to be a very different TML recommendation as it’s not a book, movie, TV show, video game, or album. Nope, this month it’s a place and, given the previous section, I’m sure you’re not too surprised to discover it’s…Hadrian’s Wall!
There’s something so humbling about visiting ruins like these alongside the Roman forts we stopped at along the way. It really puts things in perspective for me, including the relative impermanence of everything. I mean, Rome was an empire! They believed it would last forever and a day, yet there I was visiting its bones with my family, learning about the Romans that once occupied this land and how their society and innovations helped shape our modern everyday, admiring the remains of a wall that inspired George RR Martin as he wrote Game of Thrones!
A particular highlight was having lunch within the dip of the Sycamore Gap, just to the right of where the sycamore tree once stood prior to the senseless vandalism it was sadly victim of. Still, although the tree was no longer there, the gap remains, and shoots have even sprouted from the trunk's remains, giving hope for the future.
If you ever find yourself up north in Northumberland, don’t hesitate to get your walking boots on and go exploring the many sites along Hadrian’s Wall as well as the wall itself. Pack a lunch, take a hike, and enjoy the scenery from within the gap…it’s truly beautiful. Thank me later!
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Take care, and all the best! |
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