Find Out More: Cover Reveal and Ominous October

Hello! Welcome back! Today, I’ve got a few exciting things to share! As many of you have probably seen on my social media sites, I’ve got the cover design for my short story collection picked out, and I’m staging a cover reveal for that! Along with the cover reveal will come a link where you can preorder my book, a book I am currently in the editing stages of now. And, I’ll be doing a month-long, daily writing challenge event in October, so let’s dive into each of those projects a bit more, shall we?

First, the cover reveal. After I published my first book, The Secrets Behind My Eyes, I did some marketing research on the best ways to promote myself and my newest creation. There were a lot of suggestions, many of which I followed: create author social media accounts that you update regularly, create a website, create a blog that you update regularly, and spread the word on writing groups and through your friends and family that you’ve published a book. Great! I did that, and I would say, all in all, that it worked out well for me. My book is, by no means, a best seller, but it got far more traffic than I expected, so I’m happy with my progress. My author pages have done fairly well so far. I’ve gained roughly 400 followers across various social media platforms just since I began my author pages, so I’m pleased with my progress.

In my research, though, I discovered that there were things I could have done to, potentially, make the release of my first book even bigger. One suggestion was the cover reveal. Creating hype. So, I’m currently trying my hand at that. I sat down and worked on my cover for a few hours until I got it to where I was happy, and I can’t wait to show it to you. I will be doing a wide release of my cover on my social media accounts on Monday, September 21. For all of you that subscribe to my newsletter, though, you’ll get early access. I will be revealing my book cover in my newsletter that is set to release on Sunday, September 20. (Hint! If you’d like to see the book cover early, sign up for my newsletter! The form is at the bottom of this page!)

Another suggestion was to create a short trailer for your book, giving your audience a chance to see what your book is about. So, I currently have a book trailer in production that should be ready for release a few days after my cover reveal. The final suggestion was to share snippets of the stories or poetry I’d written and record yourself reading a few samples so the audience can get a feel for your tone and writing style. While I’ve done several releases of story snippets as well as full-length pieces of work, I haven’t been able to do any videos or recordings yet. Well, all that is about to change. Look for a video release of a few of my poems next week. If that goes well, I’ll be doing more for segments from my new book as well.

As I’ve been working on all of that, I’ve also been thinking ahead to a pre-order. I wanted to give anyone interested the opportunity to get the book on release day instead of having to wait several days for the book to show up on their door. I also want to give my followers an incentive to pre-order the book. I haven’t worked out exact details for that yet, but more information will be released over time. On top of that, I’m hoping to time it so that the audiobook can be released at the same time as the ebook and print versions of the book. I know that some of my followers prefer audiobooks, and while there is still one underway on my first book, I want to give all my followers a fair chance at the version they want at the same time as everyone else.

Now, for the most fun part. For the month of October, I’m challenging myself to write every day. NaNoWriMo will begin on November first, and I want to be in the habit of writing every day in order to help me reach my goal. That said, October is a fun month because it’s also the month that contains Halloween. Now, I love fall, and I love scary things; yet, I’ve never been as big into Halloween as some other people I know. This could just be because I don’t have children yet, but whatever the case, I want to use Halloween to my advantage this year. So, for the month of October, I’ll be putting on an event that I’m fondly naming Ominous October. I’ll be releasing a prompt word every day that relates, in some way, to something scary or Halloween-esque. On that day, I’ll also release at least a segment of whatever piece of writing I’ve done for the day. I’m not planning to limit myself to any particular type of artistic expression. If I feel inspired to write a poem, I’ll release some poetry. If I feel like writing a short story, a small scene, a joke, or a sonnet, I’ll let my creativity flow where it wills. I’m hoping that I’ll have authors that also want to participate in this challenge with me. So, during the last week of September, I will release a list of all the word prompts I’ll be using for the month of October. That way, if anyone wishes to participate, they have time to mull over each word and prepare themselves. The idea, of course, is not to write the fill until the day of the prompt in order to promote daily writing, but I’m, again, not going to police my event. I just love it when new things get created. You’ll see more information about Ominous October coming out over the next few weeks on my social media as well.

Last but not least, my final August word count. It feels as though it’s been a long time coming, and, in reality, it has. But it’s finally done, and the final word count is here: 40,285

Thank you all for your continued support! I can’t wait for you to get your hands on my next book! I’ll see you back here next weekend. Ciao!