Welcome to my indie publishing journey!

Hello! 

Welcome to my indie¹ publishing journey! 

I'm heading into a huge relaunch of my books in The Eversfield Academy Vampire Hunters series² and Eversfield Academy: Vampire Origins³, so I thought now was the perfect time to "show my work.”⁴

But first, I want to reintroduce myself.⁵

I'm author Betsy Flak. I love writing fantasy tales of magic, danger, good versus evil, and epic first love (though I sometimes stray into second or third love and sometimes there's no romance at all #IDoWhatIWant). 

I'm an Enneagram Type 1, a.k.a. the Reformer (probably why I love writing those good vs evil battles, where good always wins...eventually). This is also known as "the Perfectionist," which fits me to a T.

And will come into play a whole lot in later posts. Stay tuned!

I'm also a Grasslands or a Forest in terms of Author Ecosystems⁶. Like a Grasslands author, I love to dive deep into a topic of my choosing, and I'm enjoying having a single series in a single genre and writing, writing, writing in it. And this is what the Author Ecosystems quiz assigned me as.

But like a Forest, I love putting an epic, bloodsucking⁷ ton of myself into my books. On occasion, I also like to play in different worlds like a Forest does. (Though, like a Grasslands, I keep this to one main genre, fantasy, and honestly, the farthest I can ever see myself straying from fantasy is going into dystopian or maybe sci-fi, though I'm much more likely to do sci-fantasy rather than hard sci-fi. But I digress.)

Then again, I also looooove to write my way out of problems, which is a Grasslands thing. I have (multiple) entire journals talking my way out of potential plot holes, debating how to amp up the tension in a given scene, making pro-con lists for various marketing and publishing strategies, etc.

So, I'm either a Grasslands-y Forest or a Forest-y Grasslands. I'm not sure if it really matters which, lol. (And side note: I'm not the expert on this author archetyping system, so it's totally possible I've misunderstood one or both types and I'm very obviously one or the other. But again, I'm not sure it matters. I gravitate toward both and so I will use the strategies that appeal to me from either one. But again, digression!)

Lastly, here are my strongest personality traits as I see them, probably in approximate order of strength (again, I promise this will all come into play in later posts!):

1. I'm determined. One might even say stubborn. 😂🫏
2. I'm disciplined. One might even say that I'm too disciplined/controlled at times, which coincidentally is a theme I explore with Lila in The Eversfield Academy Vampire Hunters series. Gee, I wonder why my muse picked that? lol
3. I love learning new things. If I could have stayed a student all my life, I would have.
4. I enjoy figuring things out for myself.⁸
5. I love a good experiment. Just because something fails doesn't mean we can't learn something from it!

So, that's who I am as a person.

Next time: the goals of this blog. Or perhaps I should call it a journal? Or is that spoilers? 😂

Happy reading as always,

Betsy

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The epic list of side notes and digressions:

1. I prefer the term "indie publishing" rather than “self-publishing." In my opinion (so, your mileage may vary), "self-publishing" has the connotation that an author only did it because he/she/they couldn't get published through a traditional publishing house. In contrast, "indie publishing" has the connotation that an author wanted to remain independent and chose that route on purpose, not because he/she/they had no other options. Which is very much the case for me, but more on that another time.
2. Formerly known as The Vampire Hunters of Eversfield Academy and before that as The Clan-Vampire Clash.
3. Formerly known as The Vampires of Eversfield Academy and before that as The Clan-Vampire Clash Stand-Alone Prequels.
4. An idea from Show Your Work by Austin Kleon, a book that has been recommended to me but I've never actually read but somehow pulled inspiration from it anyway. #IDoWhatIWant 😂 (Update a few hours after writing this: Annnnd now I've read it, lol.)
5. Although, if you're on my website, do I really need to reintroduce myself? lololol
6. I love following Monica Leonelle's and Russell Nohelty's work on the business of indie publishing, but I often find their work better suited for authors already making a full-time living off their books or, at the very least, for someone like me who's been doing this a while and knows a lot about the author business already, even if he/she/they have never seen a huge amount of financial success. As I'm in the latter group, I often have to go "not yet" to their advice, since I'm not there yet in my author career. But as always, your mileage may vary, so if you're interested, the best places to start following them are: Author Ecosystems; Monica Leonelle's Substack, The World Needs Your Passion; and Russell Nohelty's Substack, The Author Stack.
7. IRL (in real life), I'm fine with pretty much any swear words. (Though I do have a young child, so I have to be able to turn it on and off at will.) Since I write predominantly young adult (and of the kind that you can share with your twelve-year-old), I'm not going to swear in this blog. But I will feel free to use my epic list of swear words from The Eversfield Academy Vampire Hunters series. Because again, I do what I want.
8. This means that I'm not very good at taking advice. Well, this combined with my determination/stubbornness above. At least until my brain goes, "Wait I'm pretty sure that sage advice is our idea now," similar to Billy Joel's (from song "She's Always a Woman" on album The Stranger, Columbia Records, 1977): "Oh, and she never gives out and she never gives in; She just changes her mind." Oops, it's me. And I'm pretty sure that's not a compliment, lol.