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Skyla Dawn Cameron

My characters kill people so I don't have to.

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October 12, 2025 By Skyla Dawn Cameron Leave a Comment

Thirty-Six Hours

My insomnia’s not been great the past several months–for a while it was the pain from a shoulder injury and the rest of the time it just seems to be my brain. I didn’t sleep much in my twenties–some was untreated mania, some was just me–but it’s been abundantly clear two decades later that I don’t handle that well long-term anymore and can’t function on a couple of hours of sleep.

Turns out my brain and body still have my back in an emergency, though, as I went thirty-six hours without sleep first up monitoring Shawn all night and then waiting for word from the vet while he stayed there all day. We’re treating him for idiopathic cystitis and an underlying infection (just in case)*; I’m familiar with FIC, although it’s been nearly a decade since I’ve dealt with it and in that case we knew the source of the stress and that it was best to rehome him.

With Shawn, I cannot fathom what is stressing him. The most exciting thing that happened last week was that I wouldn’t let him sit on my laundry drying on the rack which he likes to use as a jungle gym.

Close-up of the face of a long-haired black cat with his paws on the keyboard of an open laptop. He looks pretty rough.
Friday night. He looks about as well here as I feel.

It’s a long weekend in Canada and my biggest concern, that he might have a blockage, is at least a distant one now as there were no crystals in his urine. Just “full of blood” and those are not words I want to hear in reference to this cat unless we’re speaking about his veins.

I just…my heart breaks for him and I simply don’t know what to do.

I don’t know why him.

Two neonatal kittens nestled in a woman's hands.
Three-week-old black kitten with his eyes open, looking to the side.
Nine-week-old black kitten on his back looking for trouble
Long-haired black adult cat with green eyes looking to the side.

No cat deserves to suffer anything, ever. But Shawn is just the most gentle-natured, sweet boy, and he has been through so much trauma literally from birth. His mom was killed when he was twenty-four hours old. Whether he knows it or not, he lost one brother to hypothermia, which he almost died from as well. He went through the rough stress of having a human raise him (Mom is always best) and complications from formula resulting in needing an enema twice. He lost his brother at eight weeks old. He’s had a cardiac ultrasound to double check anything wonky with his heart, he’s had a terrible eye ulcer and other random injuries, he’s been in for x-rays when his behaviour is off, he’s gets awful huge hairballs unless he stays on one food, he’s had two dental surgeries–one at 2 years old and one at 3–and lest we forget less than a year ago we discovered HIS JAW CAN LOCK OPEN IF HE YAWNS REALLY BIG. I dote over him nonstop, I start monitoring if the slightest thing is off, I have called the pet poison hotline I don’t know how many times, he gets yearly bloodwork to watch for issues. My every thought since he was two days old has been centered around his health and safety.

A long-haired black cat with green eyes lies in the middle of a bed amongst pillows and blankets. He has no plans to move.

Now his bladder is full of blood, no one knows why, I have to keep him calm (he has no stress!) and keep getting extra water in him (he drinks all the time! he only accepts water mixed in his food if I physically hand-feed him it because he doesn’t like his face messy!) and even two days into treatment he’s just back and forth to the box straining, over and over. I still don’t even know for sure this isn’t cancer.

But I don’t understand why everything terrible just keeps happening to this cat. He’s not even seven years old and we have not gone a single year without a crisis (often more than one) and thousands of dollars in vet bills.

He’s supposed to go on a prescription canned food now, which will cause complications if he’s not exclusively on his hairball food, and we’re to keep meds around for more episodes if this is, indeed, FIC. I don’t know if calming supplements and Feliway will actually help, which just tack on more and more monthly expenses.

A long-haired black cat with green eyes lying on a bed next to a keyboard, looking up and with a fang poking out.

We can manage some vet visits. Long-term? I don’t know how to afford this atop all of Libby’s medications and food, and keep up with the health of my other elderly cats. Rent goes up in January (again) and I am running out of personal expenses to cut–the only streaming service I have left is Prime because I use the free shipping so often since I don’t drive. The only other monthly expenses I can cut out are groceries, medications the govt doesn’t cover, and my vitamins (needed because of deficiencies that come from being sick). I know I will try, I will do anything for him, but the market for selling kidneys is probably not great in this economy.

[ETA: I had some points to use from all my autoships of pet foods and got a three-month supply of Feliway Optimum to try out with him for free, so if it helps, I’ll worry later about how to manage it all.]

There is a wishlist with some extra stuff like Feliway, calming supplements (thank you to Krista for testing it), maybe a battery-powered fountain because I don’t have extra outlets in my room but he needs to drink more, etc. If the wishlist shipping throws an error for some reason: I cannot fix that. Please do not give me an extra chore right now like dealing with Amazon chatbots. It could be because of the Canada Post strike, I don’t know.

Last year, everyone was tremendously supportive for my birthday, which is the only reason I’ve had some savings for vet bills right now, and if no one is inclined to help with anything right now, that’s okay! But because I get asked “do you have a wishlist?”, even though it’s rarely used, yes I do (for him and silly gifts for me). I’ve tried to make it easy and clear how to do so and what we need, I made a whole sponsor-a-cat page for it last year. My mailing address is on my website, same place it’s been the past 10+ years, if it works better to order and just ship there instead of using the actual list. I have explained Petsmart CA and Amazon CA gift cards absolutely help as well. My PayPal address has not changed. All of those are options.

I am beyond exhausted and scared right now; I appreciate others like to help, but please don’t ask me to do jump through more hoops to accept it, I don’t have it in me to troubleshoot Amazon.

Last week I had a lot of success staying offline and getting headway on client projects and writing, and remembering how to focus and rest by using the Freedom app to stay offline. Then Friday threw everything into chaos and I’m still not sure if/when we have to head back this week for more potential tests, more meds, or what he needs, but I’ll try to work around that and exhaustion. He just remains my whole focus right now.

Ken from the Barbie movie saying "My job is just Beach" except it says Shawn instead of Beach.

Today I’m resting** because I’m still not sleeping much. Shawn’s on kitty ativan plus some gabapentin, so he’s napping a lot as well; I’m overwhelmed again with the apartment, which I’d been chipping away at to get in some semblance of order, and I’m depressed, and I’m disappointed more vet expenses mean I can’t get some household things I’d been planning to get, and I’m worried, and very much not my best self right now.

I’m just so upset this poor little guy has one more thing going wrong. With everything’s he’s been through, I so badly want him to have a happy normal long life.

Another day and a half before the vet opens, hoping there’ll be progress to report.


*I am not asking for advice. I have a lot of cat experience. I have good veterinarians I work with. Please do not offer unsolicited advice.

**And playing Wanderstop and jesus christ this game is attacking me at every turn.

Filed Under: blog

October 2, 2025 By Skyla Dawn Cameron 2 Comments

“Why is the pandemic mentioned so much in Dweller?”–Media Literacy and Real-World Consequences

The primary relief I have at the audiobooks no longer being freely available but now requiring purchase is that they are more likely to be read by the people who are truly interested and therefore the right audience (even if it amounts to *checks notes* six people) instead of those just grabbing it because it’s free.

Buried amongst all the whining about “wokeness” (seriously, do you hear yourselves) was the “I would’ve liked this better if the pandemic wasn’t mentioned so much.”

The book takes place in 2020.

The book is written in first person.

The book’s protagonist is immunocompromised with an autoimmune disease.*

<insert “I don’t know what I expected” gif>

This is not hidden information–this is right in the text. One doesn’t even need think hard to figure it out. The jacket copy says “amidst the 2020 pandemic” because that is the premise: Norah has nowhere to go, cannot sell the house, and is extremely isolated because it is 2020.

There were no vaccines. No antivirals. Hospitals were overwhelmed; sirens went by constantly and patients were stacked in hallways. And Norah, as explicitly stated in the text, is at high risk. Not only of COVID-19 but, if she did pick up the virus, she would have to stop taking her immunosuppressants to fight it and then risk a relapse of her disease (this has, in fact, happened to a friend of mine).

Do you know how complicated things become when you relapse? Did you know that the previous medications that worked to control your immune system might not work anymore? That it can take a year or more of trying to treat it before you’re moved to a different therapy, which means a year or more of irreversible damage being done to your body as your own immune system attacks you? (ASK ME HOW I KNOW) It’s not a “maybe I die or maybe I don’t” situation for many people–it’s a “maybe I die or maybe I have my remission set back and I’ll be so sick I’ll wish I was dead” and if you’ve never had your body turn on you before, you cannot understand what a threat that is.

If a single woman like her gets sick, she also has no one. No one to look after her pets. No one to check in on her. She could get sick and die in her house in a new town where she barely knows anyone and no one would know. This is a very real and valid fear for single people.

Repeating, again: the book is written in first-person POV.

Norah is going to approach every interaction with a new person with these factors in mind. Because as the “virtue signal” crowd do not seem to understand: I am not, as a writer, trying to “virtue signal” things, I am merely writing the character as she exists. This is her personality.

I have written a number of books in first person; they are each shaped by the character I’m writing, from the structure to the voice to the pacing. I realize there is a tendency for shitty inexperienced writers to use first person without understanding point-of-view and what it means and treat it as bland, and readers might be accustomed to that, but I am not one of them; if I land on a story needing to be told that way, then it’s going to reflect the character very closely. First-person means intimacy with the POV–you get their thoughts, their views, and how they approach the world; what they notice and what they don’t mention are all part of character-building.**

This is why, in contrast to Norah, Thea in Watcher–which takes place only a year after Dweller–is less concerned about getting sick and more overwhelmed with suddenly being around people at her surprise party, since she has tremendous social anxiety and has been isolated for eighteen months. ***

Dweller is from Norah’s point of view so she’s going to acknowledge masking and social distancing because this is what it’s like to be in her head.

She’s also going to worry about her cats because they are her priority.

She’s going to worry about money because she’s a freelancer who is broke during a time when a lot of jobs had uncertainty.

All of this is authentic to her character and the story. This is in the text.

“I don’t need to be reminded over and over”–don’t you? Because I’m pretty sure folks do, in fact, need to be reminded, because I don’t see much difference between people complaining about it in a book and people complaining now when they’re reminded that others still need to mask because of risks to themselves or loved ones.****

There are very few things I take personally but this is one of them–because I have to explain this over and over to people.

I am sick. I am on two immunosuppressants. I am isolated, still, because there is no one I can trust to take simple precautions.

I am single and if I even get the flu I would have no one to help me–three of my cats need medicating (one every eight hours), and if something happens to me, they have no one who can do this for them. I am the sole provider for my household and if I get a virus that can cause cognitive damage, I’ll no longer be able to work since I’m a writer and require my brain.

And I am surrounded by people who are “tired of it”, from strangers who have harassed me while I’m grocery shopping to waiting for bloodwork at the hospital around unmasked people who are clearly sick to family members who make snarky remarks instead of offering to rapid test so I can be included at holiday dinners. People who would rather I disappear than see me going about my business in a mask because it makes them feel a certain way.

I don’t care when people don’t like my books or anyone else’s. I do care about attitudes that affect real lives in the real world, whether they be ones that promote transphobia, racism, sexism, or, yes, complaining that some people care about masking and precautions. I care that as a society, people have memory-holed 2020 and act like it didn’t happen, while I have to worry that going past people hacking in the aisles at the pharmacy when I pick up medication is going to unravel the delicate balance of my health and my entire life. I care that no one seems to think about other people.

If we don’t talk about 2020, if we don’t talk about airborne viruses and the basic public health measures denied to us by our governments, if we don’t talk about the challenges chronically ill people live with, even in fiction, then how do we talk about it in real life? Without talking about trauma, nothing will change. Nothing will get better. Nothing is learned from all that loss. That is literally the thrust of the book.

Norah’s mentions of pandemic living in that book represent a fraction of the mental calculations people like her–and like me, like friends of mine, like many readers–actually go through on a daily basis. There are, in fact, plenty of people who think I didn’t go far enough with it. And if being reminded of what 2020 was like and what 2025 continues to be like for many of us ruins your escape, imagine what the rest of us are living with.

…anyway, it’s currently on sale. Buy my book if you’re not scandalized by paper plates and people who are conscious of incurable airborne viruses.

A promo image with a book cover that shows a dark stairway in a house and the title Dweller on the Threshold. The text says "Yes, it's scary, but...nothing bad happens to the cats." There's an illustration of a young woman sitting on the floor with two cats in her arms, one black and one grey. The rest of the text says "on sale until October 31" and "Now in eBook, audiobook, paperback, hardcover, and large-print."

* While it’s not named, some of you might be able to read between the lines and have an idea.

** Truly, this is killing me. There’s been this rash of whining that Livi’s inconsistent as a character because she makes bad decisions in Solomon’s Seal that don’t prioritize her daughter even though she claims her daughter is the most important thing to her. Yes, because she is not a great mom! She’s a young woman who had to grow up too fast with no good parental role models. She’s doing her best. It’s better than her parents were but it’s still not great. She tells you her daughter is the most important thing to her, and it’s probably true, but she’s never really thought about what that means in terms of her own actions. It’s in the fifth book, dealing with her own mom and having a mental health breakdown, that she really starts to understand she’s not very good at this either. This is literally part of her character arc.

I’m dismayed at the number of people who do not understand a story filtered through a character’s perspective is perhaps not telling you objective truth and/or part of their arc.

*** This is also why Waverly, whose books are set right now in 2024/2025, goes from not thinking about it a whole lot in The Killing Beach to obsessively worrying about air filtration later on–someone she loves is at risk with a heart condition and that changes her entire perspective. Her obsessive tendencies and anxiety means she thinks about it 10x more than even Norah does–that’s her character.

People are different. This is reflected in books. If you want every character to act exactly one way, maybe fiction is not for you.

**** Also because despite spending the first couple of chapters establishing the situation, there is still whining “Why didn’t she just leave the house?” Because “has no savings and cannot just sell the house given the real estate situation while everyone is dying of a novel virus” apparently wasn’t clear. 🙃

Filed Under: blog

September 30, 2025 By Skyla Dawn Cameron 1 Comment

All Audiobooks Now Available

With today’s release of Odin’s Spear, that makes all four* available!

Now available for purchase. Ex-debutante. Single mother. Treasure hunter.

Then there are two audiobook covers for adventure books, Solomon's Seal and Odin's Spear--the first has the silhouette of a woman standing in the mouth of a cave with the glow of sunlight behind her and the other has the silhouette of a woman scuba diving.

Get started with the Livi Talbot series by buying the first two in audio.

Dweller on the Threshold:

Buy Direct at Payhip

Kobo | Apple Books | GooglePlay | Libro.FM | Audiobooks Now | Downpour

Watcher of the Woods:

Buy Direct at Payhip

Kobo | Apple Books | Libro.FM | Audiobooks Now | Downpour

Solomon’s Seal:

Buy Direct at Payhip

Kobo | Apple Books | GooglePlay | Libro.FM | Audiobooks Now | Downpour

Odin’s Spear:

Buy Direct at Payhip

Kobo | Apple Books | Libro.FM | Audiobooks Now | Downpour


I would love for there to be more.

I cannot afford more.

It will take time to build up sales as this is a different market, so I’m trying not to feel too demoralized here. But I ask, again, that if you’re an audio reader and you want there to be more, please pick up copies**. Most of these sites have credit options as well, and there are discounts to buy direct from me. Libraries should be able to order as well.

You can also click “notify” on the Kickstarter pre-launch page for Emperor’s Tomb. In January I will check those numbers as well as the sales numbers of the first two books to see if I think a KS would be viable. If not, I’ll wait and check again in June and crunch more numbers. I would be thrilled to have it work out–Kristi Burns is very talented and super nice, and the company produces wonderful work. But I will not launch it unless I’m fairly certain it’ll fund; Kickstarters represent so much stress and work, and I can’t afford to waste my time when I could be writing (or my limited morale) on something that fails.

A Kickstarter banner that says Emperor's Tomb with a woman standing on a mountain holding a machete over her shoulder and a foggy forest in the distance.

At times there was a bit of a learning curve but I’m still glad I had this opportunity and to see where this new format and market goes from here.

Speaking of learning curves, I have a big October sale coming to Payhip as of tomorrow–everything spooky will have some kind of discount, including bundles, and I’ve learned so many new ins and outs of the store. I really want to do more print direct (which will be expensive so I’ll wait and see if anyone decides to buy Dweller in paperback direct), and in the new year I’ll have sticker packages (hopefully Canada Post will let me mail things by then). I’m in a couple of horror promos this month at Kobo as well, including my first audio one. I’m really hopeful it goes well.

Overall, it’s been A Month–a lot of ups and downs, a lot of disheartening dealings with people with regards to publishing, but I’m just trying to trudge ahead and focus on writing. Waverly 6 is presently up for preorder as my brain needed some kind of dopamine hit I guess for another preorder (and the book is written, it just needs heavy revising).

I have a rebrand of the Oblivion covers to do but I need some time to go through the files and tweak/clean up and ugh I’ve got too much else to worry about right now.

May this fall be quiet and productive.


* Mostly. Understand I rarely say this but INaudio has been a nightmare for distribution. I understand there’s a split from Findaway and stuff is going on, but the website has been janky, that caused issues when selecting distributors, Watcher and Odin’s Spear have been tied up at Google Play, and no one at INaudio will respond to my email (it’s been a MONTH). I had to send actual takedown notices but because the ISBNs were claimed but books not actually listed, Google says they can’t take them down.

There were also issues with Libro.fm today but they’ve restored the links (it affected everyone, due to an increase of fraudulent books coming from INaudio).

** Everand listens don’t count. I don’t have access to those stats, so it doesn’t give me a way to measure whether there’s further interest or not. The books will be removed as of tomorrow so at least that’s no longer a concern, but if you come here as an Everand listener, that is why I don’t count listens–I simply have no idea what the numbers are.

That said, thank you thank you thank you to everyone who gave the books a listen there, and I do hope you’ll explore what I have available for sale and support my other work.

*cue “I Will Remember You“*

Filed Under: blog

September 10, 2025 By Skyla Dawn Cameron 4 Comments

Rebranded (and a Little Nostalgic)

Due to a confluence of events, yesterday was a bit of a wash for work, and I decided fuck it, I’ll start uploading all the Livi Talbot cover rebrands.

This meant remaking the eBook files, changing everything on here*, Payhip, D2D, and Kobo. I haven’t remade the audio files yet but that only affects what’s bought direct from me–the covers are changed everywhere. All of it was so much work but it’s my birthday soon and I’m taking two weeks off, so I don’t want admin stuff hanging over my head while I have to write Demon Fall’s finale (and, hopefully, affording some of my favourite appetizers–I’m trying to eat what’s in my freezer to make room for them, and keep eyeing my list lol).

My plan of approach for the past couple of years when I’d been considering re-designing them was to lean harder on the adventure look rather than UF, and the shorthand I and other women I know use when talking graphic design is “boy covers”. It doesn’t matter the genre–I’ve done “boy covers” for women’s SF books, contemporary books, fantasy books–and it doesn’t even mean the books are marketed to boys, but certain branding elements like large text, particular fonts, and other elements signal “this is not a girl book” because, unfortunately, among many women readers anything at this point with a women’s name and a female character now has the expectation of being genre Romance. There is, perhaps, some comfort to know it’s not just me but happening to a lot of writers, but UF is so conflated with PNR at this point that it’s an impossible expectation to shake and I have to step away from it entirely.**

The silhouette of a woman stands in the glowing mouth of a cave.
The silhouette of a woman scuba diving in the dark ocean.
The silhouette of a woman on a flight of stairs going down. Ashford's Ghost is the title.
A woman stands on a mountain with more mountains in the misty distance. The title is Emperor's Tomb.
A woman in snow and climbing gear facing snowy mountains. The title is Shiva's Bow
A woman stands in a jungle overlooking a waterfall. Title is Yampellec's Idol.
A woman stands before a black river underground with a small boatman in a hood in the distance. Title is Charon's Gold.

I refuse to change my name or hide my gender, however this, at least, signals a different kind of book, and I won’t have people skipping and/or complaining about the action present in my action series.*** It’s too late to make much of a difference, the damage has been done to both the series and my brain, but I’m still hoping the rebrand will help the audiobooks. Which is to say, anticipating inevitable questions: no, the rebrand does not mean the last book is coming.

It’s unwritten. I haven’t touched it in two and a half years after writing maybe two or three thousand words on it.

I’d thought, originally, I would hold off on doing the rebrands until that book was written. But it’s been three years. Realistically, I am not going to suddenly pick up this book and write it. I’d hoped to last fall but due to circumstances being what the were, and the pressure I continue to feel, it did not happen and I am unlikely to have another opportunity in my lifetime to take a few months off to focus on researching and writing it.

But to give these audiobooks a chance to do well enough to justify crowdfunding a third (I will be shocked, honestly, if I even sell a half dozen of them), I have to put my best foot forward and a change seemed in order. The boxsets are updated too.

The silhouette of a woman stands in the glow of the mouth of a cave with the title Solomon's Seal.
The silhouette of a woman in scuba gear under water with the title Odin's Spear.
Livi Talbot Vol I boxset
Livi Talbot Vol II boxset

I haven’t done print yet because it’ll take a lot longer to redo the interiors and wraps.

What I did not expect, as I remade the files, was having my gaze snagging and rereading bits and…enjoying them. Or at least remembering that I enjoyed them.

I didn’t expect this because I had an actual panic attack last year when I tried to proofread Solomon’s Seal prior to sending to Everand–like I spun out, questioning whether I could give the money back, until a friend stepped in and proofed for me. It was bad.

But West’s dramatic arrival on Mount Penglai and just how much he loved her; Laurel being an absolute badass when she’s in her comfort zone; Iluka afraid he’ll have his heart broken but diving all-in anyway; Livi’s unraveling until she’s so plainly just a young traumatized woman who had to grow up too fast and doesn’t have a clue what she’s doing.

I loved them so much.

I had so much I wanted to do. Livi’s reluctant buddy-cop team-up with Jo Choi as they venture deep into North Korea in book 8; the shakeup in book 9 that changed everything and led to what was really happening with the Pulse and Pulse-born (it’s not what you, or any of the characters, thought); the big arc involving the woman with the Nostoi who was in the airport parking lot in Yampellec and who collapsed the tunnel in Charon (and who gave West the ultimatum if you read Tiger’s Memory). There were big battles and big emotions and big character growth and big reveals and such a great finale. Even the [redacted] in an Egyptian tomb in that seventh book with so much angst.

I knew I loved them but I forgot what it felt like when I loved them, if that makes sense.

Under the adventure and the action and the magic window dressing, was always a part of my heart and my soul–a woman grappling with trauma and violence and violation and trying to be whole again. I loved it and I miss it.

My hope at this point is just to reach a place where I can accept that they’re in the world even if it killed my love for them instead of regretting it like I usually do, and remember to protect myself from it happening again. But I’m presently watching a friend go through the same thing with a series only ten times worse because she has such a bigger audience–just scores and scores of people who did not check the genre of what they were reading and do not seem to even read the text screaming endlessly at her. And to what end? Why? What purpose does it serve?

Do people not have enough to read out there that they have to send hatemail when they don’t like how a story went? Does anyone ever take responsibility and think “Oh, my bad, I guess this isn’t what I thought it was” instead of demanding to speak to the manager? Is this the ultimate result of treating art like interchangeable content built to suit the consumer for so long?

I have no idea but I am angry.

Say what you want about the right-wing lunatics constantly trashing Dweller but at least they don’t venture over to my inbox to tell me.

Friend, at least, has decided she doesn’t care anymore and is just trudging on; few people have my tendency to take their toys and go home, and the world is better for it, I think. Me, I still cannot even think of that seventh book without simultaneously hearing every terrible thing anyone said to or about me, every person who hate-read and complained endlessly, and predicting exactly what complaint will come from every single story choice I make.

I know several women writers now who are trying to craft their schedules around drafting entire series books back to back so they won’t have those voices in their heads while writing pivotal scenes (like I’m trying to do with Waverly) or holding on to books ready to publish, even to their financial detriment, to avoid having people screaming at them for releasing a new book other than the series one they want.

This is the state of independent publishing as a woman, apparently.

Anyway, tech issues were finally sorted and Dweller is officially out in the world. I am truly thrilled by the people with auditory processing disorders like me who still picked it up because of how great Hannah Church’s “Fuck you, Greg” line delivery is. 🥰

A spooky house up on a hill at night in the background, the windows glowing with light. There is a square audiobook cover for Dweller on the Threshold narrated by Hannah Church, and the rest of the text says "Audiobook now available" with a list of audiobook stores "Or buy direct from me now. That's way better, actually, because fuck those corporations, am I right?"

* I have also redone the top of the homepage here to push direct sales. Also slowly editing all book pages to push the direct sales links. I cut out Kindle so I guess I gotta take all this seriously and point people that way.

** Demons of Oblivion will also have a rebrand when I get a chance to go through the files and tweak the books. It’s staying UF, though, because honestly Zara turns off a lot of sexist readers of various genders anyway. Elis’s covers are staying because there’s basically no male lead for anyone to ship with her so no one bugs me.

*** No really, that is a thing! A COMMON thing! You pick up an action and adventure series, I don’t know what to tell you if you hate action?! But the sheer relief at be able to take the genre disclaimers out of the eBook’s interior description because I’m hoping I can assume some media literacy with these was extraordinary.

Filed Under: blog

September 7, 2025 By Skyla Dawn Cameron Leave a Comment

Fire bad. Tree pretty. But a very hot storefront.

Choosing not to sell on Kindle, especially with established series, is maybe not my best decision (but it is, as I’ve said, the only one my conscience will let me choose). This is the first month with none of my books on Kindle and I have to start leaning on other ways to make up for any loss in writing income there.

While Kindle readers with other apps have moved on to buy elsewhere, like at Kobo, those with dedicated Kindle eReaders need an epub file to side-load. Already some have converted to buying direct for that and I am so, so grateful (*waves to any who might be reading this*)–I know what a convenience Kindle is, as it was my first eReader years ago (and I still have the app! I still buy KU titles I want to read, I’m not an all-or-nothing boycotter). Taking the extra step to buy direct is incredible dedication, and I thank you.

But if I’m going to ask more previous Kindle readers to buy directly from me, I felt like I had to treat my store a little more seriously than as an afterthought, and in between writing I’ve spent the past several days exploring Payhip and creating a more visually attractive, organized storefront that also takes advantage of some of the other options like cross-selling and bundling discounts.

Screenshot of my sexy new Payhip landing page where there's a banner of a dark forest and the words "Horror, Mystery, and Adventure Await" with the usual shop things like navigation links, a shopping cart, etc.
Ta-da.
Shop! Shop all the things!

Eventually, it might be more prudent for me to try another way of selling direct, but for now Payhip is a good balance of making 90% of what people pay plus not having to handle VAT or worry about bandwidth and potential downtime, and there’s a plethora of info out there for customers to learn how to download and find their files without me needing to reinvent the wheel.

“Why would I spend $15 on an audiobook I might not be able to load?” could be a potential deterrent from buying, so the test file is featured prominently. An EPUB, PDF, and M4B (audiobook format) are available to download freely for readers who would like to try a test-run on any of them.

…

There are also bundles, so readers can get a discount buying both eBook and audiobook formats if available, and cross-selling bonuses like this one: buy the two-book Livi audio bundle and get the Vol I boxset discounted.

Screenshot from Payhip. The audiobook bundle image shows a dark-haired woman crouched on a rock in the forest. Below the price is a prompt to buy the eBook boxset for a discount.

In discussing the current state of publishing (“trashfire” comes to mind), friends and I have lamenting how difficult it is to find things–Kobo’s sales are at least curated, but Kindle has long been a mess and now it’s a cesspool of gen-AI books; Kickstarter is saturated with gen-AI slop special edition bling books; everyone touting Itchio as an alternative fails to point out you have to know where to look there to even find books. Aren’t direct stores like this going to be even more difficult for selling books?

My theory has been relying on word-of-mouth from readers will be more important than ever, as well as maybe a return to old-school tools like webrings/blog rolls only more for our independent shops. To that end, I’ve added some links to friends’ storefronts to the footer of mine, at least for now as a way to cross-promote other independent stores. For myself, at this point I’m just relying on visitors to my website clicking over to buy from Payhip.

I have done so much, from figuring out custom landing pages to the bundles to more customizing as much as possible, my brain actually feels like Swiss cheese however I think it’s fine to leave for now.

Down the line, I’m going to experiment with potential print-on-demand paperback integration, as well as replicating Patreon at Payhip for another patronage option, but that’ll take more brain than I have at present. The next task will be the eventual big update of the Livi cover rebrand* (remaking all the eBook and audiobook files, all the print files, re-uploading, swapping them out everywhere), and down the line the Demons of Oblivion cover rebranding (covers still in progress, I can’t finish until I have time to pick at the books, which I know I’ll do the moment I start remaking files).

But I’d like to actually write some books for a while rather than be a publisher and bookstore owner here, so I’m back to trying to get Demon Fall finished.

Thank you to everyone who has shopped there, anyone considering it, please give the test files a try and let me know if you have any questions.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer saying "fire bad, tree pretty" as she's mentally exhausted after a big battle.

* To that end, I’m looking for review quotes/endorsements from authors and reviewers for Livi, both to put on the new book covers and to feature on collection page (eg see Waverly’s at the bottom). If anyone can provide some, please comment/DM/message/reply etc to let me know plus how you’d like to be credited (eg reviewer site name, author of ___, etc).

Filed Under: blog

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MEET SKYLA DAWN

Writer of urban fantasy, thrillers/mysteries, and horror.
Fifth-generation crazy cat lady. Bitchy feminist.
So tired all the goddamn time.

My characters kill people so I don’t have to.

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Writing Waverly 8 and revising Waverly 4.

I'm not inclined to resign to maturity.