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Having listened to the promotional strategy advice of a wide variety of people, I'm planning to accomplish two things this weekend. One will be to set up Hootsuite (or some equivalent social media manager, but that's the one people seem to prefer) to handle automated promotional reminders that I rarely have the emotional energy to do manually. The other will be to set up an opt-in (of course!) newsletter for fans and readers to provide both a direct way to communicate announcements and other information, and to provide special content in exchange for access to attention. I figure to aim for absolutely not more often than once a month except for things like unexpected special sales (which I never know about in advance). Maybe less often than once a month, we'll see. I have a hard time planning these things because I'm not a newsletter reader myself, so I have to figure out what works for people who are.

So what sort of content will the newsletter provide? A lot of it will be just basic information:

• Upcoming/New publication information


• Upcoming appearances


• Current projects

But I'll also be offering some special content not available to people who don't subscribe to the newsletter. And that's where you come in. Here are some ideas of my own, plus suggestions people have made online. Which of these would entice you to sign up for and read a newsletter? What other content would entice you?

• Worldbuilding information (Alpennian language, geography, history, etc.)


• Snippets of work in progress (no spoilers!)


• Exclusive previews of Alpennian short fiction (stories that will eventually be released either free or as a collection, but that I'm not trying to sell individually)


• Discussions of my writing process (for example, I kept a diary of how the plot of Daughter of Mystery developed as I was drafting it)


• Alpennia fan art (with the artists' permissions, of course!)


• Access to Alpennia swag (there is none yet, but I have some ideas percolating -- what would you be interested in?)

Let me know what you think. I'm still trying to get my mind around the psychological aspects of doing a newsletter and how it would differ from my blog, other than providing me with a list of people who have expressed a particular level of commitment and interest to following my writing.

(Grumble, grumble, losing track of how many different places to link blogs to...)

Storytelling is an art of concealing as well as revealing. One of the reasons I enjoy using a very tight point of view is how it enables me to control what I show to the reader by means of what my viewpoint character does and doesn't know. Bits of reader feedback have suggested that some people disagree with my choice to conceal the events that immediately preceded the scene below, revealing them only by means of Barbara's fever-muddled memories. I can understand where they're coming from; we've been trained up to expect a very visual, active mode of storytelling and if there are exciting deeds, we want to see them vividly in front of us.

And for those who had that reaction: it's perfectly valid and I can only hope I'll give you scenes of more satisfying action in the future. (See last week's discussion on that point!) But I did have a specific reason for presenting the events as I did. Trauma often isn't experienced in real time. And major trauma often erases the real-time memory of the events and leaves us desperately trying to reconstruct them. All of my continuing characters either have been or will be completely knocked off their metaphorical feet at some point. The events of this chapter are the start of a major change in how Barbara understands her life, her purpose, and her sense of self. One of the biggest things she will experience is a feeling a complete loss of competency and (eventually) a greater acceptance of not being able to control her surroundings. Have you noticed that  Barbara has MAJOR control issues?

Having her reconstruct the "missing scene" from a place of confusion, (temporary) amnesia, and physical helplessness is a key symbol of the challenges she's about to tackle in books to come.

As a reader, it can be easy to forget just how much power readers have to make or break the success of a book--particularly of a book that doesn't have the resources of a major publisher's promotion department. I always feel hesitant about asking my readers to serve as my publicists, but the simple fact is that when an author tells people about how wonderful her books are, it gets discounted as meaningless. When a third-party reader tells people how wonderful a book is, they're more inclined to believe it. So while I never expect my readers to promote my books, I will occasionally point out that the success of my current books has a major influence on whether you'll be given the opportunity to enjoy future ones. If that matters to you as a reader, it's important not to treat my work as some sort of guilty pleasure--to be admitted to only when pressed--but to shout out to the rest of the world what a wonderful experience they'll miss out on if they don't read these books. With that in mind, here are a few observations on the process.

There is no such thing as "over the top" when promoting a book. No one has ever been convinced to read a new author by being told, "The writing is kind of interesting," or "She's never going to be the next Ursula K. LeGuin or Brandon Sanderson, but the books are ok, I guess." People expect book recommendations to be full of intensity and passion. A luke-warm recommendation is heard as a polite way of warning readers away.

When you recommend a book, don't hand people reasons to decide to avoid it. Reviews need to include critical assessment, but when you're being an advocate for a book, focus on the things you like, on what you consider the book's strengths. Honestly, I cringe when fans of my books write things like, "Even though it's a lesbian romance, other readers might enjoy this," or "I don't usually like historic settings but this one worked for me," or "it isn't really much of a romance but I didn't mind that," or "I enjoyed this book but I wouldn't recommend it to most people because they wouldn't appreciate it properly." Talk about the specific aspects that you honestly and genuinely loved. "The worldbuilding is intricate and immersive," or "the characters are all richly individual," or "the plot went in delightfully unexpected places."

Don't pre-reject the book when people are asking for recommendations. The most important part of recommending a book is remembering to actually recommend it. I'm not saying you should act like a rec-bot and insert the recommendation randomly into every conversation. But look for connections where it matches part of what people are looking for, even if it isn't a "central case". Books like mine aren't ever going to be a "central case." They intersect too many themes for that. But most of all, I beg you, simply remember that my books exist and that you liked them. Once upon a time, there was a recommendation thread in a lesbian fiction group where a reader was specifically looking for historic/fantasy stories. After I waited patiently for a day to see if anyone would recommend the Alpennia books, I finally suggested them myself. Several posters who had previously made suggestion comments jumped in and said, "Oh yeah, I really liked Heather's books." But not one of them had thought to recommend the series themselves. Don't make Alpennia the Colonel Brandon [*] of the book world, the books everyone thinks well of but nobody remembers to talk about.

[*] Sense and Sensibility reference

At the very least, post a review-like-object somewhere online. Not everyone does Amazon reviews; not everyone does Goodreads reviews; not everyone has a review blog. But pretty much everyone who is reading this has some context online where they can say, "Hey, I just read this great book [title] by [author]. Here's what I liked about it." Make sure the title and author's name will show up correctly on searches. That sort of thing matters.

That's probably enough of a pep talk for one day. Let's have another excerpt from Mother of Souls. It's the first term of Margerit's new college for women and Serafina has been tapped to help out with the thaumaturgy lectures...

* * *

Chapter 22 - Serafina

“Mais— Serafina, I don’t understand.” The question came hesitantly from Valeir Perneld.

The hesitation in her voice was not from what they studied, for Valeir was one of Margerit’s most promising thaumaturgical finds: an auditor who heard the fluctus as choirs of angels. No, they all still stumbled over how to address each other. Margerit had declared that there would be no distinction of rank among the students. No constant reminder from mesnera to mefro of the distance between them outside these walls. And there, too, she held an awkward place. Not a teacher to be given the respect of a surname, and yet one who stood on familiar grounds with most of those who were. If the other students stumbled over addressing her as Serafina, she too stumbled to remember to address Akezze as Maisetra Mainus in their hearing.

“Yes, Valeir?” she said. “What is it?”

“How will it work to try to…to describe fluctus in pictures when I don’t see it?”

Serafina paused in laying out the drawings to answer. “Visio is the most common way of perceiving phasmata, if the word ‘common’ can be used at all. But even for visions it isn’t a simple question.”

From the corner of her eye, Serafina saw two figures slip quietly into the room. Not tardy students, but Margerit herself and a stranger in the dark clothing of a priest. It wasn’t at all uncommon for guests to observe the classes: parents who wanted to see what their daughters would be studying or simply the curious. And not surprising, perhaps, that a priest might be sent to examine what was being taught in the way of thaumaturgy. Margerit made a silent gesture to continue, so Serafina turned back to her topic.

“The depictio isn’t a true image. None of these are, any more than letters written on a page are the sound of a word.” She caught the eye of a plump, dark-haired girl at the far side of the table. “Helen, write your name on the board.” She nodded encouragingly to indicate that this was not intended as punishment.

The girl traced the letters crisply and precisely.

“Now in Greek,” she instructed.

With only the slightest hesitation, Helen wrote Ἑλένη.

“Now in Latin.”

Back to the more familiar letters: Helena.

“Now,” Serafina asked, “are those the same name?”

The students looked confused and uncertain.

“They’re not the same…” Valeir began.

Serafina returned to the dark-haired girl. “Who is your name-saint?”

“Sain-Helen,” she replied promptly.

“And if you read her life and miracles in Bartholomeus, what do you read on the page?”

Her eyes brightened in understanding and she said, “Sancta Helena.”

“Is that two saints or one?” Serafina asked. This time she directed the question to the whole cluster of girls.

“One,” they chorused.

Serafina nodded to indicate they’d done well. “So here you have a depictio that Maisetra Sovitre made during the Mystery of Saint Mauriz.” She returned to the images they’d been studying. “If I had represented that same moment of the ceremony—” She cast her mind back, though it hardly mattered in detail. “—I would have called the currents here more of a reddish-pink where she has green. I would have said it pulsed slightly, which she hasn’t indicated. And these lines here at the side are meant to indicate the aural part, but I rarely hear things during mysteries. Someone else who is a tactile sensitive might describe the same thing as a breath of warm air followed by a prickling as if an insect were walking on their skin.”

Two of the girls shuddered at that description.

“And yet the mystery is the same. The grace of God through Saint Mauriz is the same.” Serafina chose those words for the unknown priestly observer. Margerit was usually the one who insisted on the language of charis and miracles.

This is it: release week! And I...I'm floundering. It doesn't feel right to act as if the world is normal. To treat promoting a book as the most important thing to be doing. Yet when I look through the themes in Mother of Souls, I think perhaps it does have some resonances for these times. Here's something I posted on Twitter. Is it just me justifying myself?

Why in the world would my book be worth talking about at a time like this? Well, here are a few reasons I can think of. It's a story about queer women supporting each other in times of trouble. It's about finding common cause across differences. Mother of Souls is about facing a disaster bigger than you are, and deciding it's still worth the risk to tackle it. Mother of Souls is a story about how not all your allies are friendly and not all your friends are allies. And you move forward anyway. It's a story about recognizing the potential and the strengths of people unlike yourself and making your best effort to reach out. Mother of Souls recognizes both the power and the failings of love and family. It's a story that embraces diverse characters across religious, class, and racial barriers, wihtout ignoring those historic forces. That is why I can still bring myself to think it's worth offering my books to the world. Even in these times.

Or, as Serafina says to Luzie when they realize the potential her music holds: “Tanfrit has just gone into the waters. Nothing will ever be simple after that.” It isn't simple. It never was simple. No way out but forward. And the opening of the next chapter scheduled for a teaser echoes how I feel.

* * *

Chapter 20 - Jeanne

The sky cracked open with a blaze of lightning as they crossed the border into the low, forested hills of Helviz. The coachman called down that he’d try to make Pont-Sain-Pol before dark. Jeanne relaxed into the cushions. The fury of the storm was nothing to the tense suspicions of the soldiers in the past week on the road. Travel papers that should have seen them safely through the morass of jurisdictions between Bayreuth and Strasbourg had been questioned at every turn and they had only once made the mistake of mentioning the nature of their visit to Prague. The closer they came to Alpennia the sharper the looks. What would Antuniet have done without her to coax and cajole? But Antuniet had done this before, and very much alone. Jeanne glanced over and saw her staring pensively out the window where rain lashed the glass into impenetrability.

“Are you thinking of the last time?” Jeanne asked.

Antuniet’s head turned from the window. “The last time?”

“That you traveled this way,” Jeanne said. “The last time you returned home.”

“No,” Antuniet said. And then, “Yes, I suppose. It’s different this time, but there’s still that uncertainty. Will my project succeed? What will the reception be?” She looked back toward the window. “That’s no natural storm. No wonder the people back in Les Bains were frightened. What have we come back to?”

Jeanne took her hand. That much, and no more. Toneke hated to be fussed over, and yet she longed to fuss. Throughout the whole journey she’d wanted to offer comfort when it might not be wanted, or even needed. And, of course, Marien was perched on the forward seat, studiously not seeing anything she wasn’t meant to see.

Not all of Antuniet’s outward calm was for show. When it came to the central purpose of this journey, she had made her calculations, weighed her choices, and set out with eyes open. Perhaps it was enough to be here, beside her, accepting those choices.