An image preview of Entry 16
An image preview of Entry 16

Orly’s Journals, my serialized online novel through Patreon is going quite well. I have eleven subscribers already and am hoping for more. I want more subscribers to increase discussion among the readers regarding Orly’s new ongoing story. I’ve been posting a journal entry each Thursday. This Thursday will be the be the sixteenth post. To keep up with the demands of serialization, I’m nine entries ahead in writing and am currently working on Entry 25.   

In addition to the journal entries, I’ve been posting image-based previews, solicitations from readers for character names and plot points, and my favorite—what I’m calling Scribbled Secrets where I post trivial information about Orly’s universe, inside and outside her trilogy, that the reader is likely unaware of. It’s fun to tell mine and Orly’s secrets.

As an independent author, I do have a small budget for marketing and promotion. But because that budget is small, I must be very selective when choosing what to throw my money at. Should I spend it on Amazon book ads? Instagram sponsored posts? Book review services? I’ve tried various approaches with limited success. But I feel like I should be more active in my attempt to increase awareness about Orly’s online journal and her book series. If anyone has any suggestions, my ears are open.

Other than that, I recently went through a minor writing slump where I was just spinning my wheels on the same entries. I think, at one point, I was only five entries ahead of what had already posted. I’m sure some, if not most, was due to depression. But I feel like I’ve gotten back up and am enjoying the substance and pace of what I’m writing again. If you’re one of the eleven people subscribed, I hope you’re enjoying reading the current work as much as I am enjoying writing it.

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I haven’t blogged in a while because not much has been going on. The three beta readers who planned to do a full read couldn’t meet my deadline so I had to scrap that extra read after a few weeks and turn the manuscript over to my sister for editing. We fell a little behind schedule as I got the pages to her later than expected and as I only allowed four weeks for my sister to get through the manuscript and she needed a couple weeks more as she has a stressful day job just like I do. But I received the manuscript back and accepted most of the revisions. I then gave the manuscript to my mother, who has been dying to read it, for one last proofreading, which she finished on Friday. Today, I finished writing the Thank You page. So after I post this, I’ll turn the final version over to my interior designer to complete the typesetting and layout. I’ll also be ready to send it to my audiobook narrator, Laura Bannister. If everything goes well, I think the print book and audiobook will release in November.

rtomoguchi TikTok page
Don’t be too blown away by the size of my following.

As far as my marketing effort goes, I didn’t make much progress with all the time I had while waiting to get the manuscript back. My efforts on Instagram fizzled and I’m making more of an effort on TikTok, but even that’s inconsistent as I have a hard time coming up with content. I had some pins made using the design from my favorite tattoo—a scribbled heart with a banner that has the names Yelena and Orly on it. I’ve sent a few of them out to readers hoping it’ll be a nice surprise. I’m also having bookmarks made, but I don’t have much visual sense so I’m hoping my designer can make something nice out of my ideas.

I hired a programmer to move my author website from tomoguchi.com to rtomoguchi.com. I did this to better match my social media handles.

I didn’t pick up any new hobbies during my time off from writing either. Instead, I’ve been reading and watching reality TV. I fell in love with this show called Ainori Love Wagon, but already watched all the available episodes. I hope it comes back for more seasons.

I’m stalling from posting this. Part of that is because I’m hoping I’ve forgotten something that I can mention to make my life sound more interesting. The other part is because I feel nervous to send off the manuscript for production. To assert that I am absolutely done with it, after three years of work, feels so final. I wish the moment was more unique, but here I am, sitting in my usual seat, at my usual Starbucks, on my second drink.

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It’s been two and a half months since my last blog post. In it, I announced I had finished the first full draft of Scribbles of the Empress and sent the final pages to my beta readers. As I revise heavily as I write, I believed my period of rewrites would be brief—two months—once I received feedback on the last chapters. At the end of May, I took a week off work to really push hard to complete my rewrites. I had originally booked an AirBnb in Portland for solitude and vegan food, but after flying to Colorado at the beginning of May for a work conference, I was too stressed to travel again and so I canceled it. Instead, I planned to rent a desk in a communal office during the week. I wrote there on Monday and Tuesday and got a lot of good work done. Daily parking cost more than the desk and the whole thing felt expensive, so on Wednesday, I decided I would write at Starbucks. The lobby to my usual Starbucks happened to be closed that morning, so I went to my second Starbucks, where to my surprise, an Instagram crush walked in for her morning coffee. I had problems concentrating in public, which is unusual. Maybe it only felt that way after the level of concentration I had while writing at that office. I would have gone back to the office for Thursday and Friday, despite the cost, but chose that Starbucks instead hoping my crush would come in again. She didn’t. But by Sunday, I did what I set out to do with my time off—I finished my rewrites.

Three of my beta readers are reading the entire manuscript as a whole now. Previously, they’d only ever seen it in batches, and that was over a span of thirty-three months. I’m still waiting to hear back from them. I know two of them have been busy with family commitments and the third can’t start reading until the NBA championships are over. I don’t expect anything major to come back, so I hope my next round of revisions will be minimal. I was hoping to give pages to my sister for editing by July 1, but now I think that’ll be delayed.

I’ve been talking to my psychologist about what to do now that the manuscript is pretty much out of my hands. I’ve decided not to jump into writing something new immediately. I’m going to turn my attention to trying to learn how to promote my work. I’ve been making an effort on Instagram, creating images on Canva that incorporates quotes from the new book. I’m also starting to look into TikTok because it seems like people can build large followings quite quickly. I had a stroke of luck last week when a magazine learned of my upcoming book release and asked for an interview. But beyond promotion, I told my psychologist that I want to do something, other than reading, with all this free time I have now. I even said I wanted to do something fun. So I’m thinking about taking Japanese language lessons, painting, and learning how to swim, among other things.

Instagram Image
One of my Canva creations for Instagram

My day job is really bringing me down though. I feel it’s actually affected my health as my blood pressure has recently increased and I’m now taking beta blockers as a result. I didn’t even go to the office today or yesterday because I felt too depressed about it. Yesterday, I worked from home, but today, I only replied to emails in the morning. I wish I could quit, but if I can’t support myself by being an author, I don’t know what other kind of job I’d be willing to do that paid enough. On top of this, I’m still feeling sad with letting go of Orly, now that her trilogy is complete. She’s been my constant companion since 2014. My days feel emptier without her.

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I’ve mentioned that I try to stay off social media as it is generally not good for my self-esteem, and so staying off is something I actually work on with my psychologist. Social media can also take up a lot of time, time that I should spend writing. Anyhow, I had been doing well with staying off, having deleted multiple apps on my phone, but I consciously decided to come back on recently in order to promote an eBook giveaway. I’ve had to come back on social media for reasons like this before, and it’s always been easy for me to get back off once my purpose is complete. But this time it wasn’t, and I think that’s because of the current quarantine situation we are living under.

I regularly text with many friends, but now I make an effort to text with even more, just to stay connected and feel that people are there and to let them know I’m there for them as well. But I realized I need to see faces, and in quarantine this just doesn’t happen. So I think that’s why it was harder to walk away from Facebook and Instagram this time. I need to see my friends beyond just their text messages.

My psychologist suggested video chatting, but that’s not easy for me, being shy and self-conscious (even though I have to do it during my day job and my therapy sessions are now via video chat). I don’t know why it’s so much harder for me to video chat when it’s personal, but it is. But I promised my psychologist that I would video call someone after our session, and I did, and that day I saw the faces of three friends while talking to them. It was a very good thing to do, and I’m going to try to do it more.

My Instagram video post @rtomoguchi.

But even with embracing video chat, I’m still on social media and am not ready to leave it. And now that I’m there, I realize how poorly I use it to promote my books and myself as an author. A lot of that is due to shyness and not wanting everything I post to feel like an advertisement. But I took a step forward and made a video post on my Instagram where I’m actually talking and showing my face. (I did use a filter though.)

I have an author Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, but now that doesn’t feel like enough. So I reinstalled Snapchat today and finally got on Tiktok. And dammit, now I feel overwhelmed. I want to promote my books, but honestly, I just don’t know how to do it well. I’ve read that I should focus on just one platform, but I don’t know which. Twitter is the easiest for me to post to, but I get the most interaction from readers on Instagram, despite not having any sexy pics.

I wish writing books was enough, but it’s so hard to make the books you’ve written stand out amongst all the other books out there and compete against all the other authors who are trying to do the same thing you’re doing. But beside social media and paid advertising, I don’t know what else authors can do besides hope someone famous will love their book and post about it.

I’ve been back on social media for sixteen days now. I don’t know how much longer I’ll stay. I should leave already as I’ve already felt some effects on my self-esteem, but right now, I still need to see faces. I guess that means I need to do more video chats in order to escape the social networks.

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