indie author

The Which Book To Release Next Dilemma!

~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments

I think I’ve changed my mind again…

rough cover idea for Black Hare Valley – image is mine

If you’re a regular reader here on my blog you will already know that I tend to juggle multiple writing projects at the same time. I cannot seem to just focus on one book until it is published and then start the next one. Instead, I’ll have one ‘priority’ book which is closest to being ready for release, one that is written and going through various edits and drafts, and usually one I am writing fresh…

This often proves to be a huge headache and mildly stressful but I’ve accepted it. I think I am mostly driven by a haunting fear of dying before I write and release all the books in my head. I’m just trying to get the job done.

Anyway, my most recent release was The Dark Finds You – a gritty crime thriller connected to lots of my other books. It was supposed to be the final book in a shared universe, a crossover book which would pull together and tie up various character’s storylines with a brand new plot.

https://books2read.com/u/mKjewB

That was all great until I started reading the paperback proof just to check it and suddenly got a whole new idea for a part two! I could not resist and ended up penning that book over Christmas. It’s now awaiting its sixth draft, and of course, part two led me to part three… The Dark Finds You has become a trilogy. So much for tying up that universe! I guess I just love these characters too much.

That led me to a dilemma. The next book due to be released after The Dark Finds You was Black Hare Valley Book 1. I had planned to release it on May 1st 2026 and then spread the 5 book series out over a year or two. But it suddenly felt weird, interrupting one now unfinished universe to introduce a brand new, and very different, universe.

So, I decided to delay releasing Black Hare Valley for now and concentrate on getting The Dark Finds You trilogy done. Part Three has just been finished in the first draft and I figured within a six to nine month period I could get them up to scratch and publish directly after The Dark Finds You.

That seemed to make sense!

But last weekend I had another wobble and found myself doubting that decision. And I think I have changed my mind again…

The reasons for doubting the decision are as follows:

  • I’ve really been missing Black Hare Valley! I think this was acerbated by book one coming back from my editor with lovely comments and not too much work to do re editing my end. I just kind of want to get stuck in now and get it done. I’ve been thinking about these characters and missing them. I am genuinely looking forward to doing the edits.
  • I’ve had various doubts about The Dark Finds You parts 2 and 3… I think it’s just because they’re still quite new. I’ve 99% happy with part 2 and about 80% happy with part 3, but I’ve only just finished the first draft, so that’s to be expected. Usually I do the second draft and like the book much more than I expect to. This is probably just a little confidence crisis, but it makes me want to go back to Black Hare Valley until I can figure it out…
  • Towards the end of the first draft of The Dark Finds You part 3 I started to slow down. I just wasn’t feeling it the way I wanted to and I am still not sure why. A reluctance to write is unusual for me and normally means something is not quite right somewhere and I just need to figure out what it is.
  • I wonder if it really matters what order I release them in? Black Hare Valley is nearly ready to go, so why wait? The Dark Finds You trilogy might now be trickier than I imagined to get right and I don’t know how long that will take.

So, with all that in mind, I think I have decided to postpone release of the rest of The Dark Finds You trilogy and just get going with Black Hare Valley instead. I am not sure yet whether I will release all five books in the series and then go back to The Dark Finds You, or whether I will go back and forth between the two very different worlds!

I will, of course, keep you updated!

Draft 2 Digital Have Partnered With Bookshop.org!

~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments

All my titles are now being published to Bookshop.org

my books in a connected universe! Image is mine

Just a quick one this week folks! I thought I would let you know the exciting news that Draft 2 Digital have partnered with Bookshop.org which is fantastic news for indie authors like myself.

Bookshop.org launched in 2020 as an Amazon alternative and champion of independent book shops and indie authors. As an indie author I could have added my books to it back then but I never got around to it. However, I recently had an email from the team at Draft 2 Digital announcing their new partnership with Bookshop.

The good news is all I had to do was check a box and now all of my titles will be published and available on Bookshop.org in ebook and paperback. Draft 2 Digital is fast becoming a far more enticing place to be for indie authors and the link with Bookshop.org means our readers have even more places to find our books and avoid supporting Amazon if they wish to.

The whole process of uploading ebooks and formatting paperbacks on Draft 2 Digital is far preferable to the Amazon experience. I also much prefer their paperbacks to Amazon’s.

These days, perhaps because I largely only share the universal book links Draft 2 Digital generate for me, I get most of my sales through platforms other than Amazon. It makes me wonder if we even need Amazon anymore, which is something I never thought I would say.

I’m going to wait and see what happens with Bookshop.org. My books are not on there yet but it says ‘publishing’ on my Draft 2 Digital dashboard. It may be that in the future I ditch the evil ‘Zon for good.

That would feel good, to be honest! Amazon are famously terrible for indie authors, appalling at sorting out problems and communicating and we all know they are not an ethical company whatsoever.

I’ll see what happens but personally I would love to dump them.

What do you think?

The Danger of Juggling Too Many Writing Projects

~ ChanAtkins ~ 2 Comments

I wouldn’t advise anyone to do what I do…

Image by Theodor Moise from Pixabay

The other evening I was sitting at my laptop in my bedroom typing away when my youngest child wandered in to ask what I was up to. I assumed he wanted the short answer, ‘writing’, but he wanted the long one. He wanted to know what book I was working on. Sweet of him, but I instantly rolled my eyes and laughed. I held up my hand and warned him. I can’t answer that quickly, I told him, it’s always a long and complicated answer!

So, bless him, that’s what he got and to his credit, he did seem interested. He kept asking more questions so I assume he was legitimately intrigued! My answer went a bit like this, “I’m writing what might be part three to the book I just published… but I’m still not 100% sure if I am going to do it, but I just finished the fifth edit on part two, so I need a little break from editing, but really I should be editing the next Black Hare Valley book, but I’m probably delaying that series now while I get this one done which was always meant to be one book but now looks like it will be a trilogy…or I should be starting the rewrite for The 7th Child which is an unrelated book I wrote recently which really needs a big rewrite, but I’m just not in the mood to do it yet, probably because these books are too much in my mind. Plus, I did write a chapter or two of another unrelated book recently, but I’m gonna have to ignore that too…”

We also got into how the trilogy that wasn’t meant to be is related to and connected to lots of my other books.

He nodded and grinned. Probably wondered how unhinged his mother is. I felt suddenly exhausted by the work I have given myself. It isn’t easy juggling multiple projects and although I long ago accepted that this is just the way my mind works and there is no point resisting it, I do sometimes feel myself buckle under the weight of it.

In an ideal world I would get an idea, plan and plot and research, start writing, finish book, edit, edit, revise, edit and so on, publish, market and then start again with a new idea. I feel like that would be so peaceful, so organised, so chilled… I truly envy people who work like that.

It has never been like that for me. I have always found myself balancing multiple writing projects, editing something while writing something new, marketing old books while marketing new books, writing down ideas I didn’t want, feeling books push to the front and jump the queue, and books that were meant to be standalones evolving into trilogies…. Most evenings involve me splitting my time between editing one book and writing another.

Most of the time it’s fine and I just go with it. There is always one book that is the priority and that is usually the one closest to being published, but not always. I try to prioritise that one so my approach isn’t completely scattergun. The book that is furthest ahead will keep getting pushed towards that publication finish line. There is always another book, maybe two, being written at the same time though. I just can’t help it.

And sometimes it does stress me out. I think one of the hardest things is having my mind in several different books at the same time. The worlds might be very different, for example. I’ll be fully immersed in the world of one book and then have to switch vibes to work on another. This is hard when it comes to characters. Character is the most important element of story writing for me, and I’m always extremely happy when my reviews mention how much the reader loved the characters. But it would genuinely be better to just concentrate on one book at a time and be fully engaged with that set of characters. Instead, I am all over the place, and I am constantly worrying that it might dilute the characters or that I might confuse them.

To be fair, I don’t think that has ever happened but it is one of the reasons I wish I could concentrate on one project at a time.

The other thing that makes it hard is time. I wish I had more time. I wish every day was twice as long and then I could get everything done twice as fast and get on to the next waiting story. I think I live with the fear that I will die before I get all my books written. There is a tab on this site for my upcoming books – that should give you an idea of the amount of noise in my head all the time! Every time I get a book finished and published, I feel such an incredible sense of relief and letting go.

It’s also difficult from a stress point of view. A lot of the time it is fun working like this, jumping from one project to the next every day. It keeps things fresh and exciting. Sometimes though, it is stressful. It feels like I have given myself an unbearable load of homework and it often feels like something terrible will happen if I don’t complete it all!

I have my everyday to-do lists: plant seeds, change the beds, order dog food, water the plants, put the washing on, etc. Then I have my work-related to-do list: reply to that email, check online banking, prep the next weeks lessons, edit the children’s project and so on.

And then there is the endless writing to-do list I insist on giving myself. My on-going projects are on a piece of paper pinned to the wall beside me when I write. About twice a year I get the thrill of ticking one book off because I have published it! But the rest lays heavy on my shoulders. And I really, really don’t want to get any new ideas. Which is why I often avoid writing short stories…

Who knows what they could grow into?

My 2025 Goals Vs The Reality!

~ ChanAtkins ~ 5 Comments

What I set out to achieve this year and how well I did!

Hello everyone! It’s that time of year once again where I dig out the goals I set myself for 2025 and see how well I did. I always find this exciting because once I set those goals at the start of the year I do tend to instantly forget them! It’s fun to see where my head was at a year ago and what was important to me going into that fresh new year.

Let’s dive in, see what I set myself up for and see whether I managed it or not!

Goal No 1: Publish The Mess Of Us February 2025 

Reality= Achieved: Yeah, this wasn’t going to get missed was it? The preorder was all ready to go! An easy start!

    Goal No 2: Go through my editors suggestions for The Dark Finds You and prepare it for release summer 2025 –

    Reality= Achieved, sort of?: Okay, The Dark Finds You is released on 9th January 2026 so I didn’t meet the goal of releasing it in the summer of 2025. I did, however, go through the final suggested edits! Half and half?

    Goal No. 3: Publish The World You Gave Us through Chasing Driftwood Books 

    Reality = Achieved!: This anthology written by the children I work with was indeed released June 2025. I suspect that’s why The Dark Finds You got moved back several months! It was a hard slog editing, formatting and getting it ready for release but the kids were all so proud of it and we launched straight into another one!

    Goal No 4: Send Black Hare Valley Book 1 to beta readers and my editor 

    Reality= Achieved sort of?: Another half and half. I did send it to Beta readers if you count serialising for feedback here and on Substack? I certainly got feedback! It didn’t make it to my editor though so I didn’t meet that part of the goal. I’m now on the final edits before I send it, so I was close!

    Goal No 5: Get both Black Hare Valley books 2 and 3 to 5th draft status 

    Reality= Failed!: They were only in first draft a year ago and they are now in third, so I didn’t get close to 5th draft. I set myself a tough challenge with that one!

    Goal No 6: Finish the companion book I am working on 

    Reality= Achieved!: I just finished the third draft of this Black Hare Valley book the other day. It’s now book 4, rather than a companion book though…

    Goal No 7: Continue to build and progress Chasing Driftwood Books 

    Reality= Failed!: Honestly, this almost fell apart this year. I just don’t have the time I ideally would like to commit to it. We are still going however and we just posted a 2025 round-up on the website of everything we’ve been up to and what are plans are for 2026!

    Goal No 8: Continue to keep as physically and mentally well as possible! 

    Reality = Achieved!: I am still sticking with Pilates and Calisthenics in order to keep as fit and flexible as I can as I drift closer to my 50s! Still walking lots and pottering in the garden too. Mental health wise, despite the challenges of the perimenopause, I am doing well!

    Goal No 9: Restart my vegetable plot 

    Reality= Achieved!: This is one of the things I am happiest about. I actually did really well in the garden this year, especially with tomatoes which I have always struggled with! Considering I was giving myself a gentle way back in, it all sort of exploded. I’d say I’m even more into it now, even more obsessed with turning my space into a sustainable food garden! For the first time ever I got a piece of paper and planned my new patch. I researched companion plants and plants that hate each other. I took multiple cuttings of herbs and fruit bushes I already have. I put up a new fence and created an archway entrance which beans will grow up. I have also been making trellises out of old sticks and these form a sort of grid/fence structure from the old tires I have. It all looks quite quirky and I love it! I also planted winter seeds and currently have broad beans, peas and winter lettuces on the go! I created a keyhole bed which is a key-shaped raised bed (made mine out of old logs) with a chicken wire compost circle in the middle. The idea is the compost leaches out to the soil. I’ve got another compost in the corner and plan on adding a second greenhouse. I am genuinely so excited and I’m out there every day planning and sorting and preparing! I guess the lesson I have finally learned is that gardening starts in the winter!

    Goal No 10: Reconnect with nature whenever and wherever I can

    Reality= Achieved: I have continued to try to name nature whenever I can. If I don’t know the name of something locally I take a picture and look it up later. This year I have also become very interested in the benefits of herbs and plan to grow a lot more next year. I’ve been drying my own and plan to start making teas too.

    In conclusion, I failed two, achieved six and partly-achieved two which I think is pretty good considering it’s been a busy year!

    Look out for my first post of 2026 where I will set out my goals for the next year! Thank you, as always, for being part of my writing and publishing journey and for joining me here in my little corner of the internet.

    Have a wonderful festive period and a very happy New Year!