Juggling like a Mo'fo --

All the tasks! All the time!

I sent off the capstone to my Photobomb series this morning (the one where I was pretending that a fictional character whose journal I “stole” was mad at me) and in it I included a link to my newsletter where they could download the book for free…

(And it occurs to me, you all might as well get in on the action too! But this link dies tonight at 12 EST, so hurry!)

I have no idea how many people (if any!) will bite, or not. And, it kind of hurts my soul, to be tapdancing so aggressively for attention, BUT…

the whole shebang was pretty enjoyable for me.

I really like creating immersive experiences (even if it is for the occasional fun-hating-heathen) and that sort of reinforces my decision here to turn The House into a game, ASAP.

I spent most of yesterday working on the UI for it, and beginning to understand the code — mind you, GPT’s doing the heavy-lifting, based off of my twine game, but I still need to *get* how things nest — if I can do my own troubleshooting, sometimes it’s faster, etc.

I’m excited though — we coded up through the character’s entrance to The House and I think things will progress very quickly from here!

There will be a bottleneck while I create (and upscale) all the images for the backgrounds, and then all the sounds and what not, but I can see how the flow will be taking place shortly, woohoo!

Which is great, because I just got approved as a Steamworks Dev!

But, me being me, I’ve got 14 other balls in the air, so let me paint the picture of my next three months for y’all….

I have 3000 books coming in from China.

Probably on/around the 22nd of this month.

This means that I need to get my garage cleared to handle them — I’ve got a junk removal company coming on the 17th to clear out space, woohoo!

It also means that I need to order 3000 books worth of packing material, AIE.

I’ve already ordered 1k of fancy bespoke tissue paper for Nightmare, and the velvet bags for AITA? but I still need bubble wrap and bubble mailers, and just the physical act of ‘where to put all the packing materials before we use them’ is quite a lot of thinking.

I even have to consider how many metallic sharpies and thermal printer paper and what not for all of them, you know?

So…I just bit the bullet and placed my Mega Order for $2,000 worth of packing materials, most of which’ll land late next week — and I am SO GLAD I figured out my California Resell Tax Exemption thingy, PHEW.

Photobomb Releases — Tomorrow!

I’ve done almost everything I can for this release (I’m only saying almost to leave room for me not having thought of something? But I really have 100% thought out the box like whoa and tried!)

We’ll see!

Love Her releases in 3 languages, in July!

I finished Love Her in April, my narrators read it, and I’m paying the invoice for the audiobook editing today!

I also sent it to my German translator, she’s done and it’s at the proofer, and then I’m having my Italian AI translation edited by that editor...

ONE BOOK + THREE LANGUAGES = LIVING THE DREAM!

Now to get ahead….

Shadowshifted (the last Nightshifted book) is having a cover done currently (writing/release date TBD)

Hate Her — writing/release date TBD

Guarded by the AI though…that’s got a pre-order date in Dec. And if I wanna hit that (AND I DO) AND get audio done in time…I need to get CRUISING. I reached out to those narrators earlier this week — looks like everyone has time in November, sooo….

Here’s what I think my plan is currently, for the rest of 2025:

JUNE - The House Game (and a Shopify Store refresh!)

JULY - 3000 books land & Love Her’s release, plus do another massive book order if things are going well! Also set up another book for the retro line!

AUG - start writing Guarded by the AI, keep selling books!

SEPT - write Guarded by the AI (finish?) / write Hate Her

OCT - Hopefully things’ve gone well and more books land to sell AND all the writing I need to do gets done.

NOV - Guarded by the AI goes to narrators, Hate Her’s audio plan makes sense and…

The astute among you will note that there’s NO PLANS IN HERE for an animated Bend Her series yet — Kickstarter or no — but I’ve got a very good reason for that.

Mostly, in that the tech behind the scenes is leaping forward RADICALLY.

Almost every day.

So I’m trying to keep things loose enough (this is what loose looks like for me) that once I think the tech is there I can jump in with both feet, ASAP.

If I sell 3k books hella quickly (which is possible!) then I’ll be set up for success for all the rest of my endeavors — because all of the above still involves me holding down a part-time day job as well.

But if I can get that $ in my hand — reinvest a big chunk of it into my next set of books — pay off my debt — and then have *breathing room*…then I can definitely see fitting in a Kickstarter for Bend Her sometime in September, for me to complete over the holidays.

Hopefully my funds will also be bolstered by the success of The House’s game (and hell, if that takes off, I would not mind detouring into getting all of my books done up as visual novels ASAP).

So — anyhow — that’s where we are and what’s on deck moving forward!

The rest of this week is hustling on the House — I’ll report back!

xo!

me