self publishing

The Serialisation of Black Hare Valley Starts Next Week!

~ ChanAtkins ~ 2 Comments

Will you be coming along for the ride? (You need to be subscribed here or on Substack, not just following.)

a rough mock-up idea for the cover – photo is mine!

A few weeks ago while in the middle of fighting writers block, the re-emergence of imposter syndrome and a general frustration with writing and publishing, I had the crazy idea of serialising my current WIP, Black Hare Valley and offering it to subscribers to read for free. That was a rollercoaster of thoughts and emotions, I can tell you.

My biggest fears in sharing the WIP were people copying or pirating the work, and people just not reading it at all. I am still scared of both those things but I have decided to kick fear aside and do it anyway. After all, that’s what writers do, over and over. Despite it being one of the lowest paid jobs there is, despite AI rising up to steal it from us, quite literally, despite loved ones often not being supportive, we still do it anyway. We write anyway.

I made the decision to share it in hope of the following outcomes:

  • increasing my follows and subscriptions on Substack where I’ll also be sharing it
  • increasing my follows and subscriptions here on my blog
  • enticing paid subscribers on Substack – worth a go!
  • increasing my open/read ratio on Substack
  • enticing people to read my other books if they enjoy the serialisation
  • enticing people to purchase Black Hare Valley when it is finally published
  • enticing people to purchase the rest of the series when it’s published as I won’t be serialising all of it
  • gaining honest feedback from early readers of Black Hare Valley
  • hopefully getting some positive comments that will encourage me to keep going!
  • having conversations with readers about the series
  • having fun!
  • feeling brave for trying something new

I’m posting the list here as I want to refer back to it when the experiment is over. It will be interesting to see if I achieve any of the goals mentioned ahead, and if nothing else, doing this will provide me with some blogging content as I examine what worked and what didn’t.

So, how will it work?

If you are subscribed to my blog or my Substack, you will get a new chapter every Thursday morning. Please note, you have to be SUBSCRIBED not just FOLLOWING. For those following my blog, you will still get the Friday posts as normal but to get the chapters you need to be subscribed either here or on my Substack:

https://substack.com/@chantelleatkins: The Serialisation of Black Hare Valley Starts Next Week!

The first chapter will go live on Thursday 1st May. May Day is a very significant event in Black Hare Valley so I figured it would make sense to kick it all off on may Day! I may, however, divide the chapters into two parts as they are quite long, so it might be Chapter 1, Part 1 one week, followed by Chapter 1, part 2 the next week. I will also include the rough sketches for each chapter to help bring the town alive for you, and the first instalment will also have a map of the town attached.

I am actually really excited about this. It feels brave at least! It feels like I am doing something, being proactive and trying something new.

Black Hare Valley is probably best described as British Folklore Horror, so if that sounds like your kind of thing, I really hope you’ll come along for the ride!

I’m Having A Huge Crisis of Confidence

~ ChanAtkins ~ 6 Comments

But I am determined to get through this…

Image by Jakub Kopczyński from Pixabay

A few weeks ago I wrote here and on Substack about suffering writers block for the first time in my life. I was able to recognise the signs and the symptoms I’ve spent the last decade helping my students through. As a creative writing tutor, dealing with other people’s writers block has been extremely common. I had all the classic signs and was procrastinating like hell. I was even starting to dread my evening’s writing – something that is not like me at all.

I was scrolling through my phone, opening up new tabs on my laptop and scrolling through various feeds. I was ‘checking’ things like emails and my bank account, when I really didn’t need to. In short, I was putting off writing. And when I did open up that blank page, whether it’s here on my blog, a new story on Medium or a new post on Substack, I was faltering. Hesitating. I was finding it hard.

There were a few reasons for this and I did manage to get through it. I even managed to push through and finish my current work-in-progress, which was the Black Hare Valley diary style companion book.

But the feeling of being disconnected to writing has not gone away and in all honesty, it is making me feel sick. So I decided to come here and be honest about it. This blog was the very first thing I shared my writing on. Way before I published any books, and a whole decade before I discovered things like Medium and Substack, I was just here. Writing about writing, writing about life. Just writing.

If I am going to be really honest about this situation, then I have to face some uncomfortable truths, and facing those would be easier if I thought I had a solution, a way forward. The thing is, I don’t. Except for to keep trying…

The truth is I am having a huge crisis of confidence when it comes to writing. I am doubting myself like never before. I am getting ideas that I fail to follow through on. I am starting stories, poems and essays and not finishing them. I am reading and editing current WIPs and hating every word. I am feeling like an imposter, all these years later. If I am really, really honest, I am feeling like a loser. A failure.

I don’t want to harp on about why. I have covered this in other posts. I think the main issue is that all these years and books later, I am still no further along, at least not in sales and reviews. I know, I know, I shouldn’t fixate on them. I love writing and would do it anyway. I know that success can be measured in other ways, such as my writing improving, or just the amount of work I have produced.

But I don’t know. It doesn’t feel enough. I am a few years away from turning fifty and I cannot help feeling left behind somehow… Unimportant.

I don’t expect anyone to feel sorry for me or to offer advice, by the way. I am just returning to this blog in the manner in which it started. Me, offloading my thoughts and feelings. Me, trying to figure things out. It helped back then so I am hoping it will help now.

Two weeks ago I blogged about building an author platform and whether you should scrap it and start again if it’s not working. I guess this post is related to that question. Last week I blogged about whether I should serialise my WIP on here, Substack or Medium. I kind of want to but I am scared.

The reasons to do it come from the author platform query. If it’s not working, try something new. Is it time, for example, that I did try a new approach? Maybe offering my writing for free will bring in new readers, who will then go on to purchase my other books. Maybe it is worth a try,

But my biggest fear is still no one reading it…

I can’t imagine how horrible that would feel after everything.

Things continue to be a shitshow over on Medium. If my earnings go any lower, I will need to rethink my membership. Just months ago I was making hundreds every month and it gave me such a confidence boost! I felt like a real writer! I even saw an uptick in my book sales.

Now I feel like I am questioning everything I do. I guess I need a confidence boost from somewhere and serialising my WIP and offering it for free could be the way to do it…

Or it could backfire horribly…

Still, I suppose that is the worst that can happen and if it did? I would have something to blog about for a while!

Let me know what you think in the comments. Could giving work away like this bring in new readers and give me the boost of interest I need right now? Or could it make things worse?

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?