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

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

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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.

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.

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* 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“*

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.**

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.

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. 🥰

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* 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.

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.

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.

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.

* 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).