Do You Have Merch Demands?

https://forms.gle/Vtzcs5PigWmrcBHt5

This year I’m getting serious about merch to support my readers, so just tell me what you demand and I’ll make it for you! 🥰

You can choose more than one item, and please do! This form won’t save your email address, and is totally private. Taking a moment to tell me what merch you’re interested in will really help — thank you! 🙏

“Finding Bela Lugosi” is ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE!

My tongue piercing was new!

In college, in front of my

Bela Lugosi’s Dead poster

As you may recall from a previous newsletter, the story behind this story is longer than, well, the story 😂😭 But there is an update that ties it all up in a nice knot! 🎁

One of the readers of this newsletter works in a music rights company, and reached out to help me get a happy ending to this story.

This is the power of you readers. I can write the stories, yes, but so much of getting the stories out into the world is actually something you can control. Usually, it’s something like pre-orders or Kickstarters, but this reader of the series got a bit more hands-on, and helped me find the actual lawyer who works for Bauhaus in this capacity.

Harry, the lawyer, turned out to be not only a delight to correspond with, but someone who actually wanted to help things along. (This is the more-fiction-than-fiction part of the story…) Anyway, Harry sent the story to the lads in Bauhaus, sent them occasional reminders to read it and get back to him, and at the end of last week, wrote to me to say that all the members of the band had signed off on me using the lyrics in my story!

This is the first place I’m announcing it, because you newsletter readers are the best of the readers of the series—as made clear by this story! I cannot express strongly enough how exciting this is for me: first off, Peter Murphy, Daniel Ash, David J, and Kevin Haskins have all read a story by me, now! And not just that, liked it enough to say, “We approve: go ahead and use these lyrics in your story!”

“Finding Bela Lugosi” is going to be a free story for everyone who signs up for the newsletter, which means that you will get your copy automagically, as you’re already signed up.

It would be ready to put in this very newsletter, except that I got so excited by the news that I asked the amazing Kwasi to make a cover for this story. I had made a rough-and-ready one of my own, when I was unsure if I could even use the Bauhaus lyrics. But after the lads gave their OK, I decided that a proper Kwasi cover had to happen, so he is in the process of drawing it as you read this, and so “Finding Bela Lugosi” will likely show up in the next newsletter. And maybe I should have saved the whole announcement until then…but I was just so thrilled and excited and need to tell you about it!

Answering Reader Questions: Send Yours In!

I’m starting a new series of videos answering reader questions. You lot always have the best questions, stuff I could only dream of readers asking, because you are a bunch of inquisitive, smart (and smart-alec!) free-thinkers whose brain-hamsters definitely run on some really cool wheels! So hit reply and email me (or send me voice messages in the IG or Facebook messaging apps) and I will will make a video just for you!

Those Lesbian Vampire Pirates are buckling some swashes! (Also Friggin’ In The Riggin’ 😉)

I’m well-stuck in to taking that short story up to a novella. Basically, my editor sent the story back to me and told me that it needed to be about double in length. We all know that writing short fiction is truly painful for me, so padding this bish up instead of cutting it down is an honest treat that I will probably never experience again.

One of the things being added is a second naval battle scene (at my editor’s unambiguous demand… and if you can call a raw amateur boat attack on the Hudson River a “naval battle” 😂) So I’m living in a world of jibs and gaff-rigged sloops and the deck moving under my feet as I try to choreograph the fighting. (Don’t worry! While this wee skirmish is a riverine affair, a real blue water pirate battle happens later in the story, promise!)

Some of this is being made more accessible by me relistening to the Patrick O’Brian “Aubreyad” (yes, all twenty-one books!) I know there are a few fans of that series who read this newsletter, and “A glass with you!” For those who have never dipped their toes, you’ll see the influence on my writing in the brisk action scenes and the unexpected humor and the untranslated use of foreign languages—although I do offer that nice glossary at the end of the books! Basically, Patrick O’Brian added at least 30% more nerdery to my series. I highly recommend them in audiobook read by Patrick Tull.

Master and Commander Audiobook on Libro.fm

It is the dawn of the nineteenth century; Britain is at war with Napoleon’s France. Jack Aubrey, a young lieutenant in Nelson’s navy, is promoted to command of H.M.S. Sophie?, an old, slow brig unlikely to make his fortune. But Captain Aubrey is a brave and gifted seaman, his thirst for adventure and victory immense. With the aid of his friend…

libro.fm/audiobooks/9781501992551-master-and-commander

I was going to write more about my writing process, but I find I just want to get back to that actual writing, and this newsletter is long enough, so I’ll save that for a future one. Just know that new stories are almost in your hot lil’ hands!

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To everyone who made it this far, you’re fucking amazing! Until next time, be good or be good at it! 😘

💭 I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP PAPERBACKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Eternal

Blood Triad

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Grab the whole series in Amazon’s KU

So, this happened right before my hand surgery, and then it kinda got lost in the noise of post-op recovery shenanigans, but it’s proper exciting news and deserved a spotlight in this newsletter…

Blood Eternal has a song written for it (specifically about the conflict between Bagamil and V’ukh in the am’r origin story) by the band Die Feen. If you have not heard of them yet, here’s a description from Nocturnazine’s Scott Baker Graham: “Die Feen is a blistering, yet soulful Post-Punk band dispensing the truth from the capital of lies—Washington, DC. Chris Best’s deep and powerful baritone is reminiscent of Peter Murphy of Bauhaus and Ian Curtis of Joy Division, but Die Feen possesses catchy New Wave-tinged melodies and pop-song craftsmanship that these bands lacked. If you’re longing for the past but want to rock out in the present, Die Feen has you covered. Plus, their bass player goes by the handle of Dick Thunder. ‘Nuff said.”

Below is an interview from Nocturnazine with Die Feen and me.

And here are some places to listen:

Die Feen – Mistakes Listen to Mistakes on TIDAL tidal.com/browse/track/414326292?u

Mistakes Die Feen · Mistakes · Song · 2025 open.spotify.com/track/0L3jT8V9EOu9wPcEjJMxeY

Mistakes – Single by Die Feen on Apple Music Album · 2025 · 1 Song music.apple.com/us/album/mistakes-single/1793484926

Chris and I have known each other forever. Here’s the first picture I have of us together, getting sushi to celebrate my 19^th birthday.

We’ve eaten a vast amount of sushi and KBBQ over the years

This is why cherishing old friends and making sure to stay in touch is so vital. Because, someday, decades later, you might get to collaborate in mixing your art in exciting new ways. Thank you, Chris, for being inspired to give voice to Bagamil in such a way, and bringing the Blood & Ancient Scrolls Series to an entirely new medium!

We Slayed It At Ve Neil’s Vampire Weekend Convention

Sadly, due to my surgery, I couldn’t fly out to one of this year’s events I was super excited about: Ve Neil’s Vampire Weekend

So the other half of Immoral Influence Publications, Lore, stepped up to run the whole show and accomplished what can only be called a miracle. The booth was stupendous, there was brand new swag to test-drive, and the whole thing was an unqualified triumph, and I cannot thank her enough for all the kick-ass energy she brought to it: like Noosh running through the gory mêlée in Blood Demands! (Only in this case, people just brought books and left smiling.)

The new Noosh-kicking-ass & Oscar Wilde cups were a surprise hit!

Lestat and Louis meet the am’r…now I kinda wanna write that story!

Lore wants to thank everyone who stopped by the IIP booth and let her nerd out about the books to them! She also wants to know what fun things you want to see at the booth next time, from new merch, to raffles, and games: if you have a blood demand (haha) just hit reply and tell us!

(And don’t worry if you missed the sneaky new cup releases, Lore is going to figure out how to photograph them in their blood and glitter glory so we can list them for sale on the site soon!)

LibGen & Meta & (the bad kind of) Pirates

For those who have not been following along, here’s this ugly bit of news.

When I tested The Atlantic’s LibGen search engine, none of my books were stolen by Meta to train their A.I.

At first, I just breathed a sigh of relief, and then I kind of chuckled ruefully about how big the series has not yet become….

And then it hit me: I’ve been really vigorous with searching my out books on pirated sites and issuing takedown notices. My first publisher got very grumpy about it. “There are always going to be pirates,” they whined, “It’s not worth the time to go after every one. You’ll never find them all. Just go on with writing other books and forget about it.”

But. Many of the books that were used in LibGen came from pirated sites. If I had not been so motivated to get every pirated copy of my books I could find taken down, perhaps the results of my search would have been rather different…

This is all to say, if you think something is important, don’t let people who do not care as much as you talk you out of it. And yet again to raise a middle finger to my horrible old publisher. I did a quick search, and pretty much EVERY book by their lead author is on the LibGen list. So I hope they are happy with their choices, and whether they are or not: they can go suck an egg. 🥚

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Boycotting That Company With The Name Of A South American River

If you have any friends who want to be part of the boycott of companies who have slashed and burned their DEI policies after the Tangerine Tyrant took office, but are worried about indie authors suffering, just send them this:

Clearly, I have exciting new swag to talk about in the next newsletter, but that won’t be all… To everyone who made it this far, you’re fucking amazing! Until next time, be good or be good at it! 😘

💭 I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP PAPERBACKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Eternal

Blood Triad

SHOP EBOOKS & AUDIOBOOKS:

Grab the whole series in Amazon’s KU

Snag the audiobooks from your preferred vendor

I’m so excited to finally have this book, the third of the Blood & Ancient Scrolls series, in its final form. Blood Eternal has been on a real journey. 

I first wrote it when I was under contract for three books to my previous publisher. You know, the horrible one. I had to write this book knowing that I would get no support in marketing it, and that even my editor did not understand or appreciate my writing. I felt very alone as I was writing it, and threw myself into the story for the escapism of it just as much as any reader.

Blood Eternal was the most challenging thing I’d written to date, especially the central story at the literal and figurative heart of the book: the origin story of the am’r.

I won’t say I didn’t feel the challenge, but I held myself open to it, and the story just poured out of me and now when I look back on it, it’s hard to imagine there was ever a time that story was not written, there are truths in it that are universal truths, and it feels almost like a real history that I uncovered, not created.

So there was joy in writing it, as well as stress and loneliness. But as soon as it was done, the editor at the former company tried to force me to just accept all her edits without having input (and she had given me very flawed edits in the past, including changing words to ones that meant the exact opposite (in Blood Ex Libris, she changed “voluptuous” to “slender”!!!) and in this book she had chopped my sentences down with no aesthetic sense at all – to the point that some no longer made any sense. She threatened that she was going to just throw out my revision after her edits, and I had to take it to the boss of the company to save my book from that.

My book was published, and no one in the world took notice except the few fans I’d already built up on the strength of the writing. (And thank you [you know who you are!] for sticking around through that and the years since!)

Then I was done with meeting the obligations of the contract, and could finally begin the legal process of having my rights reverted to me, which leads directly to where we are now!

You will remember that Blood Eternal was first Blood Ad Infinitum, and was part of the two books who had their titles changed last year, in an effort to reduce confusion—some people assumed the books were not written in English, because they didn’t recognize the Latin in the titles—and increase readership.

I wrote all about the painful process during the renaming of Blood Demands, and Blood Eternal was only slightly less intense and stressful a process, but now, finally, the listings online seem to be starting to be corrected, and just at the same time, the paperbacks have made their way to me so I can do signed copies for people!

Finally, finally, this book is in a finished place, and ready to start getting the reads it deserves.

Post-Op News

You may notice this is a longer email than that last one: I can type again! Once the cast came off (a week and half after surgery), I am now able to get the right angle to actually type with my left hand again (and thumbs are not used much in typing) so at least that terrible roadblock to productivity is gone.

To be honest, I was in a pretty bad place when I got out last week’s newsletter. I went into surgery completely ignorant, and had actually thought I’d be functional again within a few days of the procedure. But when I wrote that newsletter I was only able to sit at the computer for a couple hours, and then I wobbled unsteadily back to bed.

But the first few days after the surgery were a true ordeal, as they hadn’t given me strong enough pain medication, and my immediate post-op pain was not managed well at all. Also, I was really woozy and unsteady (not just because of the pain medication), and barely able to care for myself, never mind care for Archie. I had to get in an emergency dog-walker, and I leaned far too heavily on the people I live with. Lesson learned: if I ever get surgery again, I will book a home healthcare nurse for the three days immediately post-op (and a dog walker in advance!) so that I can get actual adequate care from a professional. File it under “lessons learned the hard way”—which I have far too many of in my life, sigh.

I am good now, however. The healing is going slowly of course, but the pain is manageable, and I start official PT today. (I’ve been doing prescribed exercises 6 times a day already. They hurt, but I do them.) And I have been able to cook dinners, can now walk the dog by myself (it took over a week to get there!), and type out newsletters for you!

I am stuck in business tax prep this week (Wheee!) but I am hopeful that after the taxes are done and dusted for the year, I can finally get into finishing that novella .. which I have officially decided will simply be titled That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story—not just because I can’t think of anything else, but because now everybody is demanding it 😂

Although a friend of mine pointed out the other night that the perfect portmanteau of “vampirates” is just waiting to be used, so I am now claiming that term and will be using it henceforth. You heard it here first, baby!

That novella already has cover art done, so expect a cover release in March, at the very least!

Strong female characters and a teaser for Book IV… 💥

International Women’s Day was on Saturday March 8^th . If you did not see the cool image I posted to socials, here it is:

Kick-ass female characters from Blood Ex Libris, Blood Demands, & Blood Triad

This is the first time this image of Araceli (who is a reader favorite, and also the reason I get bitched out by almost everyone who reads Blood Demands…)

The backstory here is that the original cover had Noosh in her blood-soaked glory dead center, and then relevant faces were going to surround her: Bagamil, Araceli, Lope, and our Baddies Orélie, and Julio Popper. Each face was drawn amazingly by Kwasi…but the cover was just too damn busy, and once they were taken out, it was magically perfect. So I’ve had all those faces waiting for the right moment for other little things, and it was time to feature Araceli.

As you know, my books feature strong female characters. I’ve been an angry lil’ feminist since nursery school. There was one day that my father came in to help out (all parents were encouraged to do so several times a year, but not a lot of fathers did, back in the day) and it was a day where we were playing this dumbass game where the boys marched around as soldiers, and the girls stayed together and made a big pot of soup for the hungry soldiers. (I think it was imaginary soup, but whatever.) My dad was tasked to lead the soldiers—and I wanted to be a soldier! I was told I could not be, and I had to make soup because I was a girl.

The feminist fire that started in my belly that day has never died down.

I might be smiling here, but trust I was about to get on a Hot Wheel and drive with feminist road rage 😉

I have had a complaint (from author Chaz Brenchley) that I have not had enough female villains in my books. (Although who can forget Bat Bitch?) I took it to heart, and you can expect the Big Bad in Book IV to be both female and our scariest villain so far! This is the official first teaser for the book!

Also, That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story is going to introduce you to a bunch of characters you’ll be hanging out with (or desperately fighting) in “Book IV Vampirates Galore” (now my new working title 😂) In fact, all the short stories that have come out and are about to come out are introducing characters from the upcoming novel. That’s the one silver lining from this novel taking much longer than expected to be written, is that I can build up the side characters in advance, so that readers can be delighted to bump into characters they have already met when they finally read the novel.

OK, my wrist is getting sore (thumb surgery impacts a much larger area than just the thumb), so I’m gonna call it quits for today. But stay tuned for more exciting news as the Blood & Ancient Scrolls series finally starts rolling again, now that the retitling project is finally complete! 🏆

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To everyone who made it this far, you’re fucking amazing! Until next time, be good or be good at it! 😘

💭 I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP PAPERBACKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Eternal

Blood Triad

SHOP EBOOKS & AUDIOBOOKS:

Grab the whole series in Amazon’s KU

Snag the audiobooks from your preferred vendor

So the newsletter this week is being transcribed because it turns out that I cannot type with the cast on after my surgery that happened last week…

For those of you who didn’t keep up on social media, I went in to get surgery on my left hand. And it was quite exciting. I’ve been dealing with the excitement of Post-Op ever since. I had assumed I would be able to type, with my fingers being free. That I could keep up with work, you know, as soon as I could sort of stumble out of bed. But in actuality, the way the cast is set, I cannot get my fingers down onto the keys. So minor hiccup, and one I hope that I can figure out some workarounds in the next 4 weeks in which this cast is on…

This really sucks

I don’t like the transcription because it really slows me down. And honestly, the pain levels are distraction, and my frustration levels are high. So this week’s newsletter will be short.

The exciting results for the Valentines 2025 poll are in and here they are:

I think you guys chose wisely! And it’s clear you can’t wait to meet Lady Ruthven!

I’m delighted to say there’s another exciting bit of news.

In the last letter newsletter, I sent out an update on the story “Finding Bela Lugosi,” and it turns out that one of the awesome readers of this newsletter actually works in the music rights industry, and was able to give me some more information heading towards me actually getting the rights to use the song Belo Lugosi’s dead in that story‼️

Hopefully in the next newsletter there will be news letting you know when that story will be put into your hot lil hands! (Also hopefully I will have found a better way to work around my cast!)

Here’s a video on my thoughts on the mustache in Nosferatu. This obviously is a vital piece of discussion in the world that we’re living in today. And so you know, please make time for it 😉

I’m really just going to be on the down low for the next few weeks. I’m on some pretty heavy duty painkillers and it’s slowing my roll pretty considerably. So, as always, please just keep recommending the series to friends and family and asking for them to be carried at your local library and local bookstores, and I will on my end be figuring out how to type as fast as I can, and in the meantime, spinning up story ideas in my head and getting them ready to roll for you to enjoy.

I just wanted to say thank you so much for being such great newsletter readers. It means so much to me that so many of you actually read the newsletter. I try every two weeks to make it be a newsletter you actually do want to open, but the fact that you DO and that so many of you participate in the polls and in all of that silly stuff I put in here, it just means so much to me and I just want you to know that you are the best newsletter readers that an author could hope for, and I really value and appreciate you! 🥰🥰🥰

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• Print high-quality books on demand

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I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP PAPERBACKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Eternal

Blood Triad

SHOP EBOOKS & AUDIOBOOKS:

Grab the whole series in Amazon’s KU

Snag the audiobooks from your preferred vendor

Happy Villaintine’s Day! 💘⚔️❤️‍🔥

It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for: the annual vote for the best Villaintine Card!

Here are your choices:

Option 1: “Let me take a stab at being your valentine…”

Option 2: “I love you to pieces, Valentine!”

Option 3: “I know the quickest way to your heart, Valentine!”

Problems with Amazon

If you have looked at the listings for Blood Ex Libris or Blood Demands on Amazon in the past months, you will notice the prices were strangely high and not my usual prices. No matter what I did on my end, I could not get the price I had set in KDP to show up on my page. It turns out Amazon has an “issue”  (ya think?!) with prices being listed as abnormally high and “they are working very hard to fix this.” (Not noticeably, since it’s still an issue halfway through February.)

Anyway, if you are an Amazon customer, and you see abnormally high prices, take a moment to let the seller know. (If you are a seller on Amazon, go check your prices! There may be a reason why sales have slumped for no obvious reason…!)

Anyway, I’m bringing this up because in the coming months I’m going to make a real shift to direct sales and minimizing Amazon links, because I can never tell when Amazon is going to do some shenanigans which destroy my sales goals for months at a time—which is just no way for me to grow my business to a sustainability level.

The ebooks are now entirely moved into KU, and my best audiobook sales are from Audible, so I cannot stop doing business with them entirely, but from this point forward, the best way to buy paperbacks is directly from me: and I will both be matching the Amazon price and also adding signatures to the books and swag to the packages—which you can’t get on Amazon!

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Thank you to everyone who got to the end of the newsletter: you fucking ROCK 🤘and I appreciate you! Until next time, BE GOOD OR BE GOOD AT IT! 😘

I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP PAPERBACKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Eternal

Blood Triad

SHOP EBOOKS & AUDIOBOOKS:

Grab the whole series in Amazon’s KU

Snag the audiobooks from your preferred vendor

I’m writing this through a horrific cold (which I’ve been bitching about over on Bluesky) and I could have just stayed in bed and continued binging Star Trek: TNG, but no, I have dragged my ailing ass over to the computer to write this for you. Be very glad emails cannot pass along germs, because this has been the Cold From Hell, and I hope you steer clear of it!

It all always bunches up 🙄

I have worked on both these new stories in the am’r world over very different months, but for some reason, they are both finally going to be available to read around the same time. “It never rains but it pours” and all.

I have worked on both these new stories in the am’r world over very different months, but for some reason, they are both finally going to be available to read around the same time. “It never rains but it pours” and all.

Firstly, you’ll be meeting Lady Ankaret Isobel L’Estrange Ruthven in the annual Villaintine’s Day Card. You haven’t met her yet, but she will be grabbing your attention by the short-n-curlies in the upcoming novella (which is still only titled “That Lesbian Vampire Pirates Story” and I’m starting to consider just shrugging and naming it “Friggin’ in the Riggin’” because a more useful name is just not coming to me…

This January has been a unique kind of busy, and I have my fingers crossed that February might be a little more sane 🤞 But hey, it’s keeping me out of trouble 😉

As you remember with the change of Blood Sine Qua Non to Blood Demands, changing a book’s title is one of the Dantean levels of hell. But I am delighted to announce that Blood Eternal (formerly Blood Ad Infinitum) is now available at Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Eternal-Belasco/dp/1960942158/

(Ingram is, of course, being a problem, but that’s just honestly not a surprise anymore 🙄)

I desperately need reviews, because I cannot move reviews over from the old Blood Ad Infinitum page. So if you have read the book under the old title, or if you’re finally sagging a copy of the book now, please take a moment to leave a review. I’ve talked in previous emails about how vital this is for indie authors. Amazon treats books differently the more reviews it gets. A few minutes from your day is really the difference between a book selling or not selling for us 🙏

Here is an ad. I’m still excited about the fact that people want to run ads in my newsletter! Remember, I get paid if you just click on it, so if you have a moment, please just click. “Every little helps!”

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Raven to give talk at Emerson College on Friday

I already have butterflies in my tummy 🦋🦋🦋 This Friday I’ll be giving the presentation about being an indie author (along with the amazing Cecila Tan) at Emerson College. I will be getting video, so expect to see some clips of how it goes. Here is a graphic I made for it to illustrate the point of how people give indie authors advice like, “Oh, just get an audiobook made” (or “just do a podcast” is a common piece of advice) It’s super easy to give advice like that but it should never just be one line item on an author’s “To Do List.”

I honestly left a few steps off because I ran out of room…

The Terror

I just finished binging the amazing AMC show The Terror. I started watching on a whim, and then was like, why is this thing SO DAMN GOOD? Once I looked it up all became clear: it’s based on a Dan Simmons novel (that I now must read) and includes Ridley Scott among its executive producers. This first season is like a Patrick O’Brian novel smashed into the Predator franchise film Prey, and it’s about as perfect as television can get: amazing actors all giving it their best, amazing costuming and sets, and the FX is stupendous. Don’t miss this!

Thank you to everyone who got to the end of the newsletter: you fucking ROCK 🤘and I appreciate you! Until next time, BE GOOD OR BE GOOD AT IT! 😘

💭 I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP EBOOKS, PAPERBACK, & AUDIOBOOKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Eternal

Blood Triad

As those of you who were around for the title change on Book II (Blood Sine Qua Non ➡️ Blood Demands) will remember, changing a book title is a ridiculous process (and one I hope to never experience again after this!)

At least going through it the second time is a bit less overwhelming because I know what nonsense to expect. But please, all of you, cross your fingers for this one to go more smoothly than Blood Demands on the Ingram level.

Last time, Ingram messed up my name on their listing, as just “belasco.” I found it pretty quickly, and submitted that they change how the name was inputted, and after the usual thing where Ingram ignores your customer service request for a few weeks they finally did so. At the time of sending this email it is still not repaired, and so people who are looking for Blood Demands in non-Amazon places like B&N still can’t find it. Bookstores tell me “Ingram needs to fix it on their end,” and Ingram tells me, “It’s been fixed—bookstores need to update their systems” and rinse and repeat, with the problem never getting resolved.

So everyone, please cross your fingers for me that this time Ingram does not mess up the new book listing! 🤞🤞🤞

 In Conversation with Paulette Kennedy

If you remember the last newsletter, I was having a conversation about vampires with the brilliant author Paulette Kennedy. Well, it rocked even harder than I anticipated, and happily if you didn’t catch it live, it’s available for replay! It runs about an hour, so perfect for your drive or for playing while you do laundry or the dishes—or while settled into a luxurious hot bath.

Instagram post by @pkennedywrites

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Follow me to friendlier skies 🦋

Unless you’ve been living under a very nice rock and ignoring all the news (which is a valid lifestyle option!) you’ll be aware that Meta has been and continues to be up to some shady, shady shit.

I am less and less enjoying spending time on Facebook (wading through ads and random other account’s posts to get to my friend’s posts is not my idea of a good time, nevermind how toxic the site is becoming) and Instagram is now just a work place for me. I can’t look at any content except “bookish” content, because it messes up the algorithm that determines who sees my posts, so even my scrolling through the app must be optimized for sales. If I pause too long over an adorable corgi skateboarding, there goes my carefully curated blah blah blah.

Bluesky has become the place where I really have fun. I was a pretty early adopter, but I didn’t really click with the place at first. Now, I count on it for some fun moments in my day. If you have a bsky account, give me a follow so I can share those happy moments with you!

https://bsky.app/profile/ravenbelasco.bsky.social

Villaintine’s Day 2025 Update

For those of you who’ve been around for over a year, you’ll remember the Villaintine’s Day madness from last year. For those who are new, basically, I make Valentine’s Day cards for you featuring one of the villains from the Blood & Ancient Scrolls series, and you get to choose which you like best.

Here was the selection from last year:

“If evil, then why hot?”

“The things I’ll do to your ❤️, Valentine”

“Hey girl, I put the BIG in Big Bad”

This year will feature a surprise Baddie, from the upcoming still-untitled “lesbian pirate vampires” story, and she will be showing up in the fourth book in the series as well! So something to seriously look forward to in February!

 WIP update

If it seems like I spend all my time trying to learn marketing and doing the business stuff for the books, well, yeah, there is too much of that in my life. However, that doesn’t mean that writing isn’t happening (just not as fast as any of us would like.) Here’s the current status for all works-in-progress:

• Blood Eternal — at Ingram, going through their system for as many weeks as that takes. Once Ingram announces it published, I can do the same over at Amazon. (There is an order, and it Must Be Done In That Order.) And then it will be available to buy!

• Bela Lugosi’s Dead (short story) — with sensitivity editor

• “lesbian pirate vampires” story — with reviewer before final revision (and I still need a damn title!) Cover reveal coming soon!

• Book IV — to be resumed in March. Most research done and/or research materials acquired, so the story can just take off smoothly from the research runway and fly in the (hopefully) friendly skies of “pure imagination”

OK, this is shorter newsletter, because my every day this month has too many things for me to do in it. So I’m off to do those things, which will hopefully lead to me getting stories out in February…!

Looking at the analytics from previous newsletters, nobody is clicking on the music rec links, so I’m going to stop wasting time on that section. If this distresses you, hit reply to this email and tell me you want me to keep doing the music recs.

For those of you who have read to this point, I appreciate you! 😍 Until the next newsletter: be good or be good at it!

💭 I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP EBOOKS, PAPERBACK, & AUDIOBOOKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Ad Infinitum

Table of Contents

TRYING THIS AGAIN: What do YOU want from this newsletter next year? POLL

What Those Stars Mean to Authors (and to Booksellers and Advertisers)

Actual really good stuff I’m not grumpy about 🤩

Also, in MORE chances for Raven to make a fool of herself in public… 😳

Music rec: GUNSHIP

So…last newsletter I put in a poll. AND NONE OF YOU DID IT. Not you. Nor you. Not even YOU, over there in the corner 🫵 I am calling out this nonsense, and asking you please to let me know what you want from this newsletter in 2025. Please? Just choose from the below…

Did you enjoy The Blood & Ancient Scrolls Series in 2024—or even before then? If you have derived pleasure from the books, but you haven’t had time to write a review, please do so 🙏🙏🙏

Indie authors survive mainly on reviews from readers like you. We do not have an agent or publisher doing marketing or promotion on our behalf, it’s just the writer—and the readers who support that writer. There’s not one book in my series that doesn’t need more Amazon reviews. Why? Because the more reviews a book has, the better Amazon treats that book: increasing placement in front of more new readers. It’s not an optimal system, because it leads to people paying for reviews in a desperate attempt to get ahead, and that means that people with “deep pockets” can have more successful books, no matter the quality of the writing.

I don’t have “deep pockets.” So I need every single one of you who loves this series to take a moment to drop me a review on Amazon. It doesn’t have to be an essay! Just a few lines mentioning one or two aspects of the book that touched you at the time of reading, or stayed with you since.

As for the matter of STARS. Here are two articles explaining why Amazon has skewed the rating system so that only 5-Star reviews are good for an author:

and

So if you think you are being “fair and honest” on Amazon, you may be hurting your favorite writers without intending to 🫤

(If you wonder why being an indie author makes me a bit grumpy, it’s shit like this that’s the cause. I would much rather you give the amount of stars you feel like giving, as the most logical thing. But Amazon isn’t logical, and I have to learn all this nonsense and then I have to beg people to give me 5-Star reviews just so they are not hurting my sales. It’s all frustrating and insane. But if I want to be an author, it’s the game I need to keep playing, so here we are.)

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Ad Infinitum

Blood Triad

Actual really good stuff I’m not grumpy about 😁

On Thursday January 2^nd 7pm EST (4pm PST) I get to have a conversation with the brilliant author Paulette Kennedy https://paulettekennedy.com/ and I honestly can’t express how excited I am. Paulette and I have so many interests and values in common, and we both seriously enjoy each other’s works. We are going to try and keep this as a serious discussion of vampire myth and history, so I will try to restrain myself from gushing about her work in the interview, but seriously, if you love thrillingly spooky history with a perfect feminist twist, you can’t go wrong with any of her books. (Yes, I have an author crush, OK?!) 🤩

Anyway, now that you know I have an author crush and I’ll be getting to talk to said object of my adoration, tune in on her page on Instagram Live to watch me desperately try not to make a fool of myself live and for all the world to see 😳

https://www.instagram.com/pkennedywrites/

Also, in MORE chances for Raven to make a fool of herself in public… 😂

I’ve been asked to give a talk at Emerson College on January 31^st about how to be a #IndieAuthor. This amuses me, as I really feel like I need another decade to do it really right…BUT, I definitely am ready right now to give the kind of talk I wish I had gotten, back when I was making the choice to live this dubious lifestyle. It’s mostly gonna be “Things You Should NOT Do As An Indie Author” with a smattering of “And You Should Be Aware Of These Things You Could Never Have Guessed,” tied up with a bow of “Here Are A Few Positive Assurances I Can Honestly Give You.” Hopefully, I will be able to help a new group of writers enter the indie publishing space with less painful lessons to learn the hard way, and I am seriously thrilled about that part.

Also thrilling is that the fucking fabulous author Cecilia Tan will be joining me in the talk, so it won’t just be me bitterly muttering about needing 5-Star Amazon Reviews, but their years of experience in dealing with this crazy profession as well. I know I will be taking notes!

I will post more information as we near the date. And it will also be recorded for replay online, for those of you who are just about to ask that…

I am also writing another article for Publisher’s Weekly (she says as if she’s all calm and not squeeing about this fact), so that basically my January eaten up—admittedly by wicked awesome things! I will have news about new stories in the Blood & Ancient Scrolls Series starting up in February, so keep on being patient with me, pretty please? More am’r really ARE on the way…

Music rec for this week comes from my dear friend Sara, who hipped me to GUNSHIP, which is like the best goth/industrial sounds of the 80s smashed with the best of the 90s, and all brought forward to be perfect for NOW. Here’s one of their brilliant albums, first in TIDAL, then Spotify

Thank you to everyone who got to the end of the newsletter: you fucking ROCK 🤘and I appreciate you! Until next time, BE GOOD OR BE GOOD AT IT! 😘

💭 I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP EBOOKS, PAPERBACK, & AUDIOBOOKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Ad Infinitum

Table of Contents Holiday Edition 🎁

• Jólabókaflód SALE

• Pandemonium Holiday Faire Wrap-up

• Santa loves the Blood & Ancient Scrolls Series!

• Raven’s Cool Yule holiday playlist

• What do YOU want from this newsletter next year POLL

Jólabókaflód is the Icelandic tradition of giving and receiving books on Christmas Eve, and drinking hot cocoa and reading and being cozy together. It’s just the kind of tradition I love best, so that’s what I’m celebrating!

SALE info below 👇

If you are desperate for gift ideas, it’s not too late to give signed copies of my books! Just go to www.ravenbelas.co, order the books you like, and in the notes tell me the name to sign the books to, and their address. I will sign the books, wrap them in pretty paper, and ship them directly to the lucky recipient. The SALE aspect is that this point, getting the books there by Dec 25^th will mean more expensive shipping, so I will eat that expense to get your gifts to your loved ones! 🎁📦📬

Here’s some of the wrapped books I’ve sent in previous years, to show you how lovely the results are:

Instagram post by @raven.belasco

If you have any questions, hit “reply” and I’ll be happy to answer them! 

You can also use Amazon, if you prefer. They are still offering delivery by Xmas day for paperback, but of course ebooks and audiobooks are very safe bets! (And a reminder: we are on ALL audiobook platforms except Spotify.)

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Ad Infinitum

Blood Triad

“I LIKE BIG BULBS & I CANNOT LIE” 😂

On Sunday the 15^th , I was back at Pandemonium for their Holiday Faire. It was a chaotic day, so I didn’t get as many great images as the Halloween one, but I still met some really cool people, and got word of the series out to more of the geeks, nerds, and other wonderfully unconventional folk of the Boston area.

Sadly, my spine issues have ramped up again, so while I do love interacting with bookish and/or geeky people, I had to grit my teeth as the hours of the event passed and my pain got worse and worse with each of them 😬🤕😵

I had ordered up a batch of bookmarks to hand out with each book I sold, and of course I ordered more than I actually sold, so I still have a batch of them. They are lovely: good weight, glossy, double-sided, and I had so much fun with the layout!

Aren’t they pretty?! Want one?

I thought, why not send these out to people who didn’t get a chance to get them for free before? So if you would like one, reply to this newsletter, and I will get one right out in the mail to you—there’s time enough for USPS to deliver it before you open the books waiting for you under the tree (or wherever your gifts are placed.)

I do want to thank each and every one of you. For so many things! For buying my books (often multiple releases, or in multiple formats) and supporting my efforts to make writing a self-sustaining career for me, for staying subscribed to this newsletter and reading my ramblings and putting up with my efforts at learning email marketing, and for clicking over to paid links to support me or videos on various social media. I put off doing a newsletter for so long, but actually, knowing you are reading these, that I have a core of caring and supportive friends like you—it means this newsletter does more for me than promoting my books. Thank you so much for being the best newsletter subscriber—and friend—that a writer could ever hope for! 💝

I did some images with Santa I took a few years ago, before the books had the new covers. I now have to go through and update the covers on all the images (Santa and I are both too busy this year to reshoot it! 😂) and that’s a project for this week, so I won’t bother you with an email once I get them done, but if you want to see them all they’ll go up on my IG and FB and Tiktok later this week. Here is one without the updated covers, so you can get a hint of the silliness…

Santa just got to THAT sex scene. You know, the one halfway through Chapter 2…

I started the Cool Yule Holiday Playlist long before there were playlists. I got into jazz and blues junior year of high school, and for one Christmas I was gifted with the Jass Records “Santa Claus Blues” compilation CD, and it quickly became my most important holiday tradition. I would cook holiday meals listening to that album, and decorate the tree, and wrap gifts. It was the perfect sound of my holiday: no Mariah Carey or WHAM! or other Mall Xmas songs!

It’s out of print. I don’t think you can actually buy a copy anymore

But there were a limited number of songs on the CD. (Although I do have the original CD in a box somewhere, it was ripped to my computer and has been carefully put into every phone since, so I never have an Xmas without it!) Once the option of playlists came into my life, I added more songs to the original ones, and now I have ten solid hours of holiday tunes (now expanded to include other genres that I think nicely fit the musical theme) that will take me through cooking, tree trimming, and wrapping.

If you are looking for something a bit different this holiday, I’m sharing a bit of my world with you 💖

Cool Yule on TIDAL

(Or Spotify, if you prefer🎄)

There won’t be another newsletter until the New Year, so I hope you all have PERFECT holidays, no matter what or how you celebrate. Until next time, be good or be good at it! 😘

💭 I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP EBOOKS, PAPERBACK, & AUDIOBOOKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Ad Infinitum