indie writer

Should I Serialise My Work-In-Progress?

~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments

A fun way to gain new readers or a huge piracy risk?

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

I’ve been feeling the urge for a while now to serialise my work-in-progress. I’m not sure which one. Perhaps Black Hare Valley Book 1 – testing the waters before it’s eventual release. Or perhaps a book I’ve not written yet – in other words, I’ll write a chapter each week and share it’s progress as it happens.

I’m not sure where this urge came from other than the fact I’ve seen other authors doing this and thought it looked fun. It could potentially be a cool way to gain interest and new readers. It could bring me some useful feedback too. It would be a nice incentive to write. And, I’ve sort of done it before.

If you’ve followed my blog from it’s very early days you’ll remember me sharing The Boy With The Thorn In Its Side chapter by chapter, way, way before it was published. This blog was the first part of my author platform to exist and sharing my work back then was scary but exciting! Nothing bad came of doing that either. In fact, I got regular supportive comments and those early readers gave me the confidence to keep going. I also wrote The Tree Of Rebels straight onto Wattpad, sharing a chapter a week until it was written. The final book I released was a more polished version.

These days though, I worry more about the risks of posting a future book like this. I recently found out that one of my books has been illegally pirated onto the LibGen site. This is the site Meta has been scraping books without the author’s permission, and without any payment to the author, to use the data to train its AI models. There is a court battle on the horizon that will affect us all.

My books being pirated and illegally downloaded is horrible enough, but the thought of a book not yet published being stolen in this way worries me more. I guess it didn’t worry me so much back in the day because I was just starting out. I wasn’t even sure I would ever publish anything at that point.

But now… I’d feel sick if I shared a work-in-progress only to have it stolen by someone else.

I guess I’m writing this to ask if anyone has any advice? I’d like to know if readers would be interested in this sort of thing. Would you like to receive a chapter a week as a book is being written? Would you prefer something like that to be free? Or do you think it’s something I should only offer to paid subscribers? Does anyone know how best I could protect the work against theft?

And finally, if I did do it, what would you be more interested in? Black Hare Valley which is written but not ready for release…. Or something brand new, something I write on the go, just for you?

Let me know!

Building An Author Platform: If It’s Not Working, Should We Scrap It and Start Again?

~ ChanAtkins ~ 6 Comments

Coming to terms with what works and what doesn’t.

Image by congerdesign from Pixabay

If only I knew where my sales came from.

Sometimes I know – a reader might comment that they’ve just bought my book, and if they’re commenting on Facebook, I’ll probably assume that Facebook is where they discovered my book. Sometimes other authors will buy one of my books after getting to know me. But mostly I have no clue how my books were discovered.

Of course my dashboards on KDP and Draft 2 Digital show me how many units have been sold via various platforms, but how those readers found me and my books is a mystery.

I wrote last week about how Medium boosted my confidence as a paid writer, only to take it away again when things changed there, and this week I want to continue to be honest with you.

My author platform is not working.

You might wonder how I know this. Well, it’s fairly simple to figure out. I get sales for my books and I don’t know how those readers found me, but that’s just one way to look at the facts. The other fact is this: likes and follows do not translate to sales. Let’s take Facebook as an example.

On Facebook I have 1,400 followers roughly. In theory, that should be 1,400 people who are following my page because they are interested in me and my books. But that cannot be true, because the figures do not add up. Every time I post about a new book, the same names pop up to comment and congratulate, and I’m pretty sure it’s the same lovely handful of loyal readers that go on to buy the book and leave a review.

What I am forcing myself to consider now is this: why are all those other people following my page if they don’t want to read my books? Is it a false audience? Is it a waste of my time? Would my time be better spent building up another audience elsewhere, as annoying as that is to consider?

In theory, every time I release a book, a fair chunk of those 1,400 followers should buy it and leave a review. But I know they don’t because my sales and reviews do not show this. So, why are they there? Why are they following? Is it to be supportive? They like me enough to follow what I post but not enough to try my books? Is it a like for like thing? Did they like my page hoping I would like theirs, for example? Or is it that Facebook has reduced my visibility so much that most of those 1,400 people are never shown my posts so have no idea when I have a new book out?

I suspect all of the above is true and it leaves me with a dilemma.

Do I rip it up and start over? Do I quit Facebook because it is not working for me? Do I pour more efforts into other platforms that might give me better visibility?

My concern is that the same thing would happen again. I do wish we lived in a world where people only followed accounts they are actually interested in. I would rather have 40 likes on my author page and 40 regular loyal readers, than 1,400 people who give me false hope every time I post about my books.

Building an author platform is something else they tell you to do when you start as an indie. It’s something I have always embraced, understood and worked hard at. I’ve even run workshops on how to start building one.

It used to work better – that’s for sure.

So, what is the answer? Keep adding more social media accounts in the hope that somehow it might bring you the readers you desire? Or quit the ones that are giving me a false audience? I am sticking with Medium in the hopes my visibility there returns to what it was – and I am enjoying posting on Substack and BlueSky. I prefer these three to Facebook and Instagram so I am tempted to slowly replace them. But I do wonder if the same thing will happen again.

Should I care? Should it matter? I can’t help feeling frustrated by it.

Let me know what your thoughts are! If you’re an author, have you ever found your follows results in sales? If you’re a reader, do you follow authors you don’t read and if so, why?

Medium Gave Me What 12 Years of Publishing and 23 Books Couldn’t

~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments

And then it took it away again…

Image by rawpixel from Pixabay

It’s coming up two years since I joined the writing platform Medium. For years, various author friends had mentioned it, enthused about it and encouraged me to join, but I resisted because I didn’t think I had the time. Almost two years ago a writer friend messaged me again after reading one of my blogs and finally persuaded me to join Medium by asserting that my blog topics and style were just the sort of thing that did well on Medium.

I gave in and joined and I quickly discovered he was right! Once I had joined the Partner Programme and was eligible to earn from my essays, articles, stories and poems, I found the boosts, the positive comments and the money came flowing in.

I was overjoyed. I felt validated. I felt like a real writer.

You’d think that after 12 years of publishing and 23 books released, I’d feel like a real writer, but the truth is, I don’t. Not much has changed for me during those 12 years. I have never had the spare money to throw at advertising my books, but I have done everything they tell you to do to get your books noticed. One of the main pieces of advice I recall reading at the time, was to get on with writing the next book, because once you have more books out there, it all gets easier.

I have never found that to be true. From the moment I published The Mess of Me in 2013, to the moment I released its sequel The Mess Of Us in 2025, I have made a few sales a month. Yes, some months are better than others, and I have never, ever had a month without sales. I am told that for an indie author with no advertising budget, that is not too shabby. And I do agree – with the billions of other books to compete with out there and the social media algorithms wanting you to pay to be seen, it is extremely hard to get sales and make it.

A few years back I reached out to some successful indie authors to ask what their secret was. The answer was not surprising – money. These authors were able to spend hundreds of pounds marketing their books at the start and now they don’t have to. They’ve made a name for themselves, and gained a loyal following.

I am constantly shouting into the abyss, despite how hard I work, despite how many books I write and publish, despite overwhelmingly positive reviews and a handful of awards… I cannot do any better. I am stuck right where I was at the start.

So, although I am still as addicted to writing as ever, and I will never stop as long as I have these ideas in my head, I am honestly hard-pressed to feel like a real writer most days. It doesn’t help that my close family and friends don’t give a shit and refuse to do the one thing they could do to support me in my life.

You can imagine how elated I felt when Medium started rewarding me so quickly. I was so happy! People were reading and commenting on my work. I was getting boosted regularly. Somehow, I was doing it right! And I was getting paid! I was making extra money, more than I had dreamed of to be honest. It made a massive difference to our finances and I even started thinking about putting some away and using it to better market my books.

Then in January, everything changed.

No one knows why and as far as I can tell, the answers are still not terribly forthcoming. Views, reads and earnings plummeted. At the same time, AI slop, bots, scammers and spammers were going through the roof and basically ruining it for everyone. Some say the drop in earnings is a reflection of Medium getting to grips with all that… But I don’t know.

I wasn’t too bad off in January because I’d been boosted a few times in December. January was awful. I barely made anything, and February was even worse. No boosts – which is a shame but not the be all and end all. I once made $15 on a short story that wasn’t boosted. It would take me a long time to make $15 from my books. No kidding.

By the time March arrived I felt like giving up. Millions of writers had jumped ship to Substack and I did the same, though I kept my Medium account. I still posted in February, but not as much. I suppose I had a crisis of confidence. I kept taking it personally. What had I done wrong? Had my writing declined in quality? Was the stuff I wrote just not wanted anymore? I still can’t figure it out.

Substack is great, by the way, and is shaping up to be one of my favourite places to hang out. It’s newsletters, any kind of writing, and social media all wrapped up in one. It took me a little while to get myself settled in, but at the moment I am posting an end of the month author newsletter, an end of the week round-up, and any poems or short stories I would normally put on Medium, I now put on Substack first.

Substack is a lot of fun but it is not as easy to make money there. Money is raised from having paid subscribers. I feel grateful enough to have any subscribers, whether there or here on my trusty old blog. To ask them to pay seems a lot.

I’ve set mine up for paid but have no paid subs yet and I don’t expect to get any for a long time. Still, I am happy to have almost 100 subscribers who I really hope are genuinely interested in me and my books. Let’s see what happens.

Back to Medium – I am not ready to give up on it just yet. It was foolish to ever rely on it for an income, and I didn’t, not really. It was just very handy extra money that made life easier for a bit. I am hanging around to see what happens, and like everyone else, I guess I am trying to crack the code again.

I decided to up my game in March and my content has increased back to my usual levels. It’s not making a difference so far and at this rate it is soon going to be hard to recoup the $5 you pay to be a member.

It makes me feel sad, in all honesty. All I ever wanted in my life was to be a writer. I am a writer and on good days I am incredibly proud of myself, my books, and the work I put in. I couldn’t give up writing, if I tried. It’s just what I do. It’s who I am.

But for a while there, Medium made me feel like a real writer. You know, someone whose words get read by hundreds, if not thousands of people. Someone who uses writing money to pay the bills. It was nice while it lasted but now I am right back where I began.

There had to be an answer somewhere. I guess I will keep on looking.

Giving up is not an option. And for all its faults and ups and downs, I will continue to publish writing on Medium. Writing there has given me an outlet for other types of work, such as essays, articles and poems, and like I always tell the kids I work with, writing in many formats and writing as often as you can, is how you get better.

I’m in it for the long haul.

Giving Myself Permission to Draw Reminds Me Of When I Gave Myself Permission To Write

~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments

Reclaiming my love of drawing

When I was a child I’d lose hours alone with a notebook, writing stories about lost and neglected animals and illustrating them myself. If you’d asked me back then I would have told you I longed to be an author and I’d also have told you how much I loved drawing. I did go on to study GCSE Art but that was where my attempts to draw came to an end. I stuck with writing for longer – though it fizzled out when I became a mother and I lost an entire decade where I did not write at all.

As a teenager, I used to sketch the characters in the stories I was working on, including The Boy With The Thorn In His Side, but post aged sixteen, I barely drew again. That’s as far as I allowed my skills to develop.

It’s sad when we grow up and lose our creativity and it happens all the time and to most people. Children are naturally creative in everything they do. They are curious about materials, they like to dance, move around, play make believe, sing, make noise, scribble and paint and make up stories. They don’t worry about being ‘good’ at it and they certainly don’t entertain the idea of making a ‘career’ out of it.

Yet as adults it is those two concerns that inevitably lead to us distancing ourselves from the creative pursuits we used to enjoy.

I remember going through a phase as a teenager where I would write little poems onto notepaper then illustrate the edges and paint over with water colours. I remember being thrilled with the results! Years later, when I finally got back into writing, I told myself it was just novel writing and that poetry was not my thing. Even when reclaiming writing, I was still putting up barriers to my creativity.

My journey with writing will never be over and I’m happy to say that as the years passed I naturally found myself progressing to embrace all forms of writing. Novels, short stories, flash fiction, essays, articles and yes, poetry! I love them all and practice them all every week.

What stopped me writing for a decade was not thinking I was good enough and not believing I could earn money from it. I’m so relieved that the urge continued to persist inside of me and that eventually it grew too big to ignore. I finally gave in and the dam burst in spectacular fashion. I recently published my twenty-third book, and earn monthly from writing in various forms on Medium. I’ve also had essays and articles published by various magazines over the years.

I have confidence in my writing now, but I still embrace progression and experimentation with it.

Back to drawing. Recently I started to get a very strong urge to draw. It reminded me very much of those urges to write I eventually gave into. It’s like a little bit of the old you poking relentlessly at your brain demanding to be let in, remembered and nurtured.

I started feeling like I wanted to create a graphic novel version of Black Hare Valley for crying out loud, that’s how strong the urge was. I gave in, to some extent. I didn’t plan to. But I was buying some supplies for my kids writing clubs in The Range and spotted some nice sketchbooks and before I knew it I had tucked one under my arm. It felt like giving myself a treat. Giving myself permission.

I’ve started playing around with ideas of sketches for Black Hare Valley. I’ve had fun with a few art tutorials and workbooks and had some helpful tips from my son who is studying A-Level Art. I’ve been pleased with my efforts but do you know what instantly occurred to me when I examined them?

one of the hares I’ve drawn for Black Hare Valley – just practicing!

They are the same level as the character drawings I did as a teenager. I haven’t gotten any better or matured my skills because I did not keep it up. Imagine how much better I would be at drawing now if I had not pushed that side of me away for so long!

Now every time I feel a bit embarrassed about my artistic efforts, and every time I feel like I am wasting my time or shouldn’t be doing it, I remind myself of how and why writing came back to me. It came back to me by itself. It hammered at my mind until I let it back in and once it had me in its grip again it refused to ever let go.

the bookshop in Black Hare Valley – a major location!

And because I stuck with it and practiced it, and tried new things, and studied it, and learnt from others, and got feedback, and kept going…. I got better!

I need to remind myself that the same thing applies to art.

the white hare – a character in Black Hare Valley – needs work!

My challenge is this: I want to illustrate the entire Black Hare Valley series myself. To do this I need to discover, embrace and improve my own style, much like writers do with their voice. I feel excited. I feel motivated. Whatever happens, it is good to have a challenge and a new hobby!

the ruins in Black Hare Valley – a major location
The raven in Black Hare Valley – another character – just pencil so far, will be going over with pen.