Ren J Dorian

[Blog]

The [first blog post] about this was published on May 25, 2022. It’s now well into July. Whoops.

(I won’t review what the challenge is. Review the above link if that interests you.)

I originally undertook that challenge because I realized I wasn’t writing as much as I wanted to. I still don’t know if it’s the pandemic, stress, timing, or, honestly, everything else that’s going on right now. But I feel like I can’t catch up to myself. The problem that caused me to undertake the write with me challenge still persists.

And I still want to do something about it. However, I think the timing was off before. Now I think it’ll be easier to batch any wwm (write with me) videos together so I can upload them in groups. I’ll probably keep the format the same (one spaced for ever day and included on the playlist), even though that wouldn’t necessarily be accurate to when the videos were made.

I did make it almost two weeks originally. Although I don’t have a set schedule decided yet, I have decided to continue the challenge. This time, I won’t be aiming for every day. Instead, I’ll be batching them for a while and trying to determine what schedule works best for me. I’ll probably be posting another one of these updates on it in the future.

In the meantime, here’s the playlist [link] again.

Now I’m off to upload videos.

 

Note from the future: Youtube videos successfully embedded on September 25th, 2022. I’ve also started uploading some with sound:

[Blog]

I’m just making that quick announcement.

I am officially on Bookbub! My books were added successfully and I was able to claim them without problem. My profile is also claimed and complete.

Here is my author profile:

https://www.bookbub.com/authors/ren-j-dorian

And here is a link to each book:

https://www.bookbub.com/books/victim-by-ren-j-dorian

https://www.bookbub.com/books/into-the-unknown-by-ren-j-dorian

https://www.bookbub.com/books/will-to-speak-by-ren-j-dorian

https://www.bookbub.com/books/it-began-with-a-dream-by-ren-j-dorian

Now to research Bookbub marketing options. . .

My new paperback copies arrived in the mail! I’ve been looking forward to this! The first thing I did was check for errors as I unpacked them. I found a few dinged corners, but that’s minor (and probably because the box looks like someone tried to make it into an accordion). The second thing I did was set up to make some promo images.

Right off the bat, the photo space was cat approved:

Here’s a sampling of some of the images I took:

(I know photo quality isn’t great on my site right now. I still haven’t figured out how to fix that.)

Overall, I really like how the new cover designs turned out. They also transferred very well from ebook to paperback and you can still see the spine stripe in the new format. The living flower doodle I made on the spine also transferred well (and made the final cut). I was a bit apprehensive about the bleed zone around the spine, but the colors are complimentary enough that it works pretty well.

I  am still a bit unsettled about which images I should use. I have already uploaded a new banner image for my site (you can see it above). It is bittersweet since the old one is from Into the Unknown’s original cover, but the change is long overdue. I suppose I could say the same things about the new covers. I designed the old ones, but I needed to let them go. A part of me really wanted to do the old covers next to the new ones in a promo image, but I decided against it. I’ll always have a couple of the old ones around (honestly probably in a box under my bed, but they’re there).

Anyways, thanks for reading. I am glad that the new covers turned out as well as they did.

Effective June 1st, 2022. I may resume it someday, but that doesn’t look likely.

Why am I canceling it? Low engagement. I have decided to focus my efforts elsewhere. Everyone involved has already been informed. The website plugin has just been removed.

Thank you.