This month has been a ride. And no, not just emotionally. Keep reading. There’s a surprise at the end.

I didn’t join any writing bootcamps this time around. I’ve been deep in editing mode and focused on preparing for the launch. Tunnel vision. Tea-fuelled chaos. You know the usual indie lifestyle.

I did finish and format the final version of the map of Chinderia though, and I’m a little obsessed with how it turned out. If you haven’t seen it yet, feast your eyes here. A black-and-white version will be included in the book itself, but if you’d like the full-colour parchment edition (with extra details), it’s available as a preorder reward for Beast of Zarall. Just preorder before July 22nd and fill out this form—I’ll email it to you on release day.

I had some issues earlier this month with my newsletters. Some people reported they haven’t received anything — not even in their spam. So I had to learn a whole lot of technical skills to fix it. I did some voodoo magic with something called DNS and DKIM and domain authentication and stuff. I can’t explain you what they are, I was just clicking buttons, wasn’t even sure what I was doing, it was total chaos, screaming like on a rollercoaster the entire time. But anyway, it worked. If you’re not receiving any emails from me (and you’ve already checked your spam), please reach out. Being an indie author is apparently 40% writing and 60% fixing weird tech problems… Oh dear, now I’m doing math. Yuck…

Speaking of technical stuff, I also went and designed new chapter headings for Beast of Zarall. I have new POV characters, and they needed chapter headers. And I couldn’t pass the opportunity to make new ones for Beast and Olira too. I’ll share these on my next newsletter, going out in a few days.

In marketing news, since going Wide, I’ve been looking into ways I can promote Lion of Zarall outside Amazon’s ecosystem — and I discovered Kobo Plus. It’s KU equivalent of Kobo — subscribers get access to heaps of free books — except Kobo doesn’t have an exclusivity requirement for authors. I’ve also organized another StoryGraph giveaway. It will continue until July 18th. You can enter here.

And now, my big news…

I finished the last edits, defeated the last bit of self-doubt and wrestled my inner perfectionist into submission (temporarily), and hit the send button. Now, Beast of Zarall is out with my ARC readers. And I’m gonna go hide. Because once they finish it… well, let’s just say I expect chaos. 😱😬

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