Good morning. Happy summer! School is out, and the teacher part of me is having a little rest. After a 2-week holiday, I am back home and feeling refreshed. Mont Saint-Michel in France was amazing as always, and the views, history, and culture that are steeped into every stone and pillar of that island off the coast of Brittany/Normandy were truly an escape.
I have been working hard since returning home, dedicating all my free time outside of sleep to updating my books, website, and descriptions. I felt that everything needed a little makeover and a bit more attention, so I have new descriptions and covers for some titles, which I hope will better capture the essence of my books. The never-ending spiral that is independently publishing!
Little update… I have been producing my audiobooks and having a lot of fun, as well as some frustration, with this process. The process does get easier, and I understand how to format the audiobook much better now, but boy, that was another huge learning curve. I really am becoming a DIY published author and narrator.
In the future, it would be nice if this could be done for me, but again, with rising costs, doing it myself just made sense, and I think I’ve created five books that sound great! I’ve been listening to some audiobooks (for the first time), and I hope I’ve captured the listeners’ attention with my narratives and stories.
I write and edit my own books. I design my front covers (some advise against it, but with the rising costs of having my books in all formats, it’s a must for now). I am formatting and publishing my books, and now I am producing and narrating my audiobooks. Then there is the marketing, which I suck at!! Trying to get your books seen after all that work can be demoralising, but the uphill struggle continues.
I’m still keen to keep reading other authors’ work, with a focus for now on independently published authors. I want to promote writers like myself who are working tirelessly to have their books in the public domain and seen. I am always so impressed with the effort and novels I’ve read. As good, if not better in some cases, than the highly publicised and, let’s be honest, sometimes overhyped narratives of those who are traditionally published. I enjoy all books, but when I see that independent authors are not getting the same level of hype for work that is just as good, it is frustrating.
Anyway, that’s where I am currently, but please take a look at my website (beccastormbooks.co.uk) to see some of the changes I’ve made as I update my catalogue of titles. I have three books in production, and one of them should be ready for release next month, all going well. A Coven Lost is the prequel to The Last Coven and is set in the backdrop of the earlier witch trials of Ayrshire, Scotland, in 1618. Again, I hope to attract readers who enjoy the supernatural blended with historical fact as the story of Margaret Barclay unfolds on the pages.
A Curse of Blood, my dark versus light portal fantasy, is the next instalment of the Blood and Power series and continues where book 1, A Curse of Power, left off. I hope to have this finished by November. So I’ll be busy, spending the last few weeks of my summer break writing and editing to have these books ready for their release.
I hope you are all doing well and enjoying your summer. Take care and happy reading!
Becca
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