Welcome New Subscribers! There’s a whole bunch of you who signed up at the Ghost Ship Markets over the summer, so you’re all fantastic people I’ve had lovely chats with. You’re joining a group of similarly fabulous people, and I’m so lucky to have a readership as cool as you all 🥰🥰

(The last newsletter had a newsletter-only outtakes reel, and for those who missed it last time and those who are new, here’s the link so you can laugh at/with me 😁)

If you follow me on FB/IG, you know that we have come to the painful decision that the second book in the series, Blood Sine Qua Non, has had abysmal sales (except from the dedicated fans—and I love all of you!) because so few people know what the Latin phrase “Sine Qua Non” means…and even fewer can pronounce it, to recommend it to their friends.

So, after an inordinate amount of workshopping (I always go into name-workshopping with such naïve enthusiasm, and by the end I disheartedly accept whatever name everyone objects to LEAST, just to make the torment stop 😥) we’re going with Blood Demands, which is short, sweet, and to the point—and entirely in English 🙄

(I’d like to take a moment here to make a special shout-out to those of you who have bought up the last copies of Blood Sine Qua Non so you can have it with it’s awesome Latin name. Thank you for restoring my faith in humanity…or at least a wonderful little segment of it! 😍 )

We’re doing the same for Book III, but we’ve reached an impasse on the rename and are reaching out to you lot to help us…

👻🛳️🛒

This past Saturday was my last Ghost Ship Market at ManRay for the season. It was a perfect day, except for my sadness that I won’t be vending there again until October.

For those of you reading this who are not fellow authors, you should be aware that being an indie author absolutely sucks for the majority of the time. There are not really days off, and every day you have more on your to-do list (including items which you don’t actually really know how to do and are desperately trying to learn and not fuck up) than you can possibly do, and there is just massive stress/worry/overwhelmation.

But then you have a day like last Saturday, and it’s all worth it…

I had so many new people getting excited about the books, including a guy whose adorable dog is named Anushka and nicknamed “Noosh”! (He got a free tote bag, obviously.)

And I had one guy who, before I had gotten more than a few sentences into my patter, said, “I’ll take the Four Book Deal, please.” No fuss, no muss, the man just wanted his books! (I hope he loves them.)

And THEN, there was the wonderful fan who bought Blood Ex Libris at the last show, and came back this time to buy ALL THE REST. She got a huge hug and gushing appreciation (as well as a free tote bag!)

There is a second part to that greatness: I asked what her favorite aspect of BXL was, and she turned a fascinating shade of red and said, “The…romance…” 😳

Now, the amount of “spice” in my books has been a problem from the beginning, which was at first a complete shock and continues to be a thorn in my side. First off, vampires have been the ultimate “sex monsters” since the Victorian era. At a time when you could not write about sex, their seductive mesmerism and the whole “teeth penetrating skin” thang let authors be free to explore sexual fascination and fears of aspects like sexually transmitted disease. And from Anne Rice on, the sexual didn’t have to be implied anymore, it could be Right Up Front.

For me, writing vampires without sex would be like trying to sell “Reese’s Cups” that are just a spoonful of peanut butter.

But I think most of you who are reading this know about the hell I went through with my former publisher due to the sex scenes in my books. And then the complications of having that publisher list my book as a “romance” when they clearly do not fit with the requirements romance readers have for their preferred genre. (The worst reviews my books have gotten have been from angry romance readers who feel I have personally let them down. I never want a romance reader to pick my books up thinking they are romances ever again! I’ve also gotten reviews that my books are just “pure smut” when there are just five sex scenes in there, and then a whole lot of not-sex scenes. For a long time, I felt like I just couldn’t win.)

So, when I meet someone who thinks my books are just right, and in particular values those spicy bits which have caused me so much hair-tearing over the past years, that just brings me a healing sense of validation, that my vision for this series and my fighting to remain true to the characters has been worth all of the rejection letters, the atrocious treatment by my former publishers and going through getting my rights reverted to me, and the reviews of people who just don’t get it. Because when my books reach the people who get them, they bring them real enjoyment, real pleasure in reading, and feeling like someone is writing books for them. (Which, yes, that’s what I’m doing!)

There was also some fun with the other vendors at the event, including during tear-down, I was saying with mock-frustration that my new, gorgeous hand-painted scroll which says, “Vampire” in large letters did not in any way help people who were walking by to figure out what my series is about (people still walked up to my table and asked, “So what are these books about?” when I was hoping that this time the opening question might be, “So why are these vampire books different and something I need to buy?”) and so all the other vendors started shouting out what my books were clearly about: “You obviously write about werewolves, Raven!” “No, she’s writing about aliens!” “No, she’s writing about the faeries!” so I announced that the books were about were-hedgehogs, and the little sprites who ride them into battle and it suddenly got quiet and then it was agreed that everyone wanted to read that, actually, so I guess that’s my next series? 😉

Anyway, I had a day where I sold a whole lotta books and felt supported and valued by the local community, and oh, that did my soul good! 🥰

So, I’ll be going on vacation to The Pennsic War for two weeks shortly. Now, me being me, that means I’ll still be working on the short story I’ve been desperately trying to finish (not writer’s block, but so damn busy working on marketing and rebranding BSQN and the B3 launch and all the audiobook stuff) and then finally getting stuck back in to Book IV, which was going to be called Blood Ad Abyssum but now I need to come up with a just-English title. And I’ll still be doing the social media stuffs, because I’m finally seeing some nice growth there, and I do NOT want it to atrophy. But since I’ll hopefully be well stuck-in to writing, any emails or messages will be answered when I get around to them, not in any sort of timely manner.

The audiobook for Blood Triad will drop on August 13th ! Sorting out pre-sales for audiobooks is complicated as hell, so just mark your calendars—or wait to see it take over my social media 😉

Your music recs for today (I couldn’t choose just one!) are Work All Day by Andres Levin, Lisa Fischer, Meshell Ndegeocello, Telmary, and Sly Dunbar and Energy Gang by D Double E and Sir Spyro and I think you can see the common theme there 👩‍🏭

Stay cool, my friends, and be good or be good at it 😘