Sticky: Cozy the Day Away Sale

StickySales

Next sale date: April 26! More info here at Promise Press, the organizers of the sale, and/or check out their Discord server.

The organizers want to make sure everyone is getting a good deal on all the books, so here’s the full breakdown of my prices. The Healers’ Road is officially part of the sale, but all three Healers books will be on sale at the same prices for the week beginning on April 25. (Some of the prices are calculated by Amazon based on exchange rates and such)

Breakdown by Amazon storefront:
US: $3.99 -> $0.99 ebook / $10.99 -> $8.99 print
UK: £3.14 -> £0.99 ebook / £8.83 -> £7.22 print
Euro-based storefronts (DE, FR, ES, IT & NL): 3.75€ -> 2.69€ ebook / 10.30€ -> 8.43€ print
JP: 599¥ -> 99¥ ebook / 1696¥ -> 1388¥ print
CA: $5.25 -> $2.99 ebook / $15.14 -> $12.38 print
AU: $5.99 -> $3.99 ebook / $17.07 -> $14.59 print
There are a few ebook-only and print-only storefronts which will follow the same general trend as above.

The main Cozy the Day Away sale is one day only, so the week-long price drop is just a me thing.

As a reader, I’m sure I’ll post about my haul as well. I plan to break my one-in one-out policy for this, so you know I’m taking it seriously. 😉

Sticky post: Starting points

StickyIseTher (Light-ish Novellas), The Healers' Road (Book 1)

Hello!

If you’re new here, here’s where to start! (The opposite of the other sticky post!)

The Healers book 1 of 3: The Healers’ Road

by S.E. Robertson

Genre/keywords: slice-of-life fantasy, shouting-distance-from-cozy fantasy but check the content warnings first please, character-driven, road trip from hell, enemies to friends

Second chances and unexpected friends

Agna Despana has studied magical healing for nearly half her life, and now she finally gets to prove herself. Ambitious, opinionated, and out of her depth, she will plan her way out of any situation. Except the presence of the dismissive doomsayer she’s been matched up with.

Keifon the Medic has nearly given up. Having lost his family, his old life, and his revolutionary ex-boyfriend, he puts himself at the gods’ mercy to give him a new purpose. Maybe helping people as a medic will suffice. If only he weren’t saddled with this pompous young heathen.

Assigned as partners, the two travel the back roads with a merchants’ caravan, providing medical aid. They each have all the answers, but it will take a long journey, some chance encounters, and a deep look inside to reach the truth.

The Healers’ Road is an enemies-to-friends low-stakes fantasy road trip with warm campfires, good books, and the power of healing yourself as well as others.

Amazon US / UK / CA / AU – print and ebook, and on Kindle Unlimited where available
On Goodreads – rate and review

Content Notes / Trivia

How I Became a Therapist in Another World , novella 1 of 6

by C.A. Moss [also me]

Genre/keywords: fantasy isekai but make it tired, millennial, and gay; let’s throw all the tropes in a blender with a giant pile of feelings and see what we get; fish out of water; empathy as a superpower; humor and heart

Not the Chosen One, just doing my best 

After an unexpected accident, Cat wakes up in a new body in a world full of magic. If this is the afterlife, it’s a lot more cottagecore than she expected — even though it’s also haunted by demons that prey on people’s emotions.

Good thing this world summoned the right vintage-loving queer girl, because Cat — now Lavender — was a therapist on Earth. Wielding magic that gives others space to face their literal demons, she sets out to make a new life for herself. 

A world of new friends, territorial Earthlings, rampaging dragons, high society balls, and rollicking nights at the tavern is just down the country road. But so is the reckoning of what she’s lost…

How I Became a Therapist in Another World is a light fantasy heartwarming isekai novella with emotional moments and a wlw human/orc romance side plot. Lavender’s story continues in parts 2-4.

Amazon US / UK / CA / AU – ebook and Kindle Unlimited where available
Books 1-4 are also available as an omnibus in ebook and print.
Goodreads

Content Notes / Trivia

Sticky post: Most Recent Releases

StickyIseTher (Light-ish Novellas), The Healers' Purpose (Book 3)

Welcome! Here are the newest releases. (I’m trying to be concise for once. Can you tell?)

Healers / Balance Academy Series Book 3: The Healers’ Purpose

Amazon US / UK / CA / AU – print and ebook; Kindle Unlimited where available
On Goodreads – rate and review

Content Notes / Trivia

Released mid-August 2022

The Salty Mageknight and the Sweet Dark Lord (How I Became a Therapist in Another World book 7)

Amazon US / UK / CA / AU – ebook and Kindle Unlimited where available

Content notes / Trivia

Released mid-April 2024

Beta reading status: I don’t have anything even close to ready for beta reading currently. However, if you’re interested in beta reading any time in the future (for either series) or have a trade I might be able to help with, feel free to contact me. wheel.of.a.different.color@gmail.com or u/ofthecageandaquarium on Reddit. Let me know which series you’re up for. I’m going to try to continue both. (RIP my spare time.)

When, eventually, I get to the point where I have something ready, there’s no obligation whatsoever. This is more of an “open to being asked” list.

Trades: I don’t always have time or energy to properly devote to beta reading for other people, and I’m trying to be more honest with myself about that. But when the stars align, I love to beta read. However, my genre lane is: not grimdark (though I am fine with some stress, and actually really love a mix of happiness and sadness), not super-hard science fiction. It doesn’t even have to be specfic, but let’s be honest, that’s what I know best.

So if you have one of those, especially if it’s in that zone of maybe quirky, maybe sad, maybe uplifiting specfic, I’d love to pay it forward.

Thanks!

Happy-crying while bowling is the new smiling while eating salad

website news

So I’ve been having a meh kind of week, especially with regard to my writing projects. Full of optimism and ambition for once, I asked for help on a writing forum that’s known for its very knowledgeable user base. I said my stuff is a little off the beaten path, but I know it appeals to some people, and I’d like to figure out the best way to give it a shot at finding people who might like it. In other words, now that the thing exists, how do I wrap it up and send it out there so that it reaches its audience? Covers, descriptions, that kind of meta thing.

The knowledgeable user base said LOL no, you’re wasting your time writing your own work, and there’s no point fretting over its packaging. What you need to do is sit down and copy a more successful book, scene by scene. Change some things up so it isn’t exactly the same, we don’t want a lawsuit here, but you basically want a near-copy of something that’s making bank so you can ride its coattails. Think Hunger Games spawning Divergent, to pick an ancient example. Not exactly the same, but not not the same, you dig? People want more of what they like. Give it to them. Anything else is a waste.

And you know, on so many levels, they’re right. It’s efficient, it gives readers more of what they love, and plenty of people have done it and succeeded enormously. I respect the hell out of that hustle.

But I don’t have it in me. I have to have a personal stake in what I’m writing; I don’t have the discipline to put in the work otherwise. I barely have the discipline to write my own work, when I have full creative control. I could no sooner write a market-optimized book than I could grow wings and fly.

So I plummeted into the grumps, read every 1- and 2-star review my first book got on Goodreads (I normally try to avoid reading reviews because it’s a) bad for me and b) not the point of reviews), and submerged neck deep in Talentless Hack Wallowing. Other good things have happened — I released my seventh novella / tenth work overall amidst all this, and had an encouraging talk with my spouse about improving my old covers in spite of the experts’ advice. But going back to the documents and trying to continue has been like pulling teeth. I had to stop working on my two current projects and went back to an older one, hoping that maybe it had a chance of escaping the talentless-hack miasma.

Monday evening after the day job, I fired up a game of Switch Sports bowling. If you remember the smash hit Wii Sports, it’s… a flawed copy that is still reasonably fun to play. (HEY LOOK, A PARALLEL) And while waiting for the other players to connect, I found out that my spouse had sent in a shout-out for my work on an awesome podcast. Because from day one, he has believed in me and my work. Always.

Turns out you can throw a strike on Switch Sports while happy crying. In my defense, the game dings you for quitting in the middle of a match. I can do two things.

If you got here from the Daily Beans, HELLO! Omigod. The where-to-start post is stickied above. Or hey, thanks for just giving it a click.

A meandering thrill ride for fans of Other Blog Post

The Process

(And guess who forgot to enroll book 7 in Kindle Unlimited? This very-much-not-a-pro. Biting my nails until I can add it)

I’ve overhauled all but the last few blurbs in both series (Therapist 5 and 6 seem close-enough, and 7 is new). Writing blurbs might be getting slightly easier with practice, but it’s really difficult for me.

The current wisdom is to mostly ignore specifics and focus on emotional resonance: things that the reader will find relatable, intriguing and/or addictive. This is not how I engage with fiction — I don’t insert myself into the story; I live vicariously, even (especially?) through characters who are different from me* — so it’s been a struggle.

It’s also recommended to stuff as many (accurate) tropes and keywords as you can in there, because that’s what people look for. Both of these insights — the “the story is all about you, reader” and the frontloading of tropes — are fascinating to me, even (especially) if my brain doesn’t work that way. The trope lists in particular remind me so much of fanfiction. AO3’s tag system is truly amazing as a work of crowdsourcing and categorization, and it’s fascinating to see it suffuse out into the rest of the reading world.

I’ll be honest, too — there’s a trace of envy in there, too. People all seem to have Their One Thing: the trope or dynamic or specific niche that fits them perfectly, where every single book is written to make them exquisitely happy, and more are written every day. Wandering through this landscape, I feel like someone who has just realized that they don’t have a favorite flavor of ice cream. That they have a few things that they like, and try different things for the sake of trying different things sometimes. People don’t do that. It’s not normal.

But hey. Story of my life.

* This is why none of my characters are singularly “me”, I think. I’m spread between Agna and Keifon and Berry and Solan and Hazel and Morel and Agna’s work friend Fulvia, who is probably the closest depiction in that she is awkward, offputting, and usually says the wrong thing at the wrong time. <3

Look, spellcheck, I know “fuckup-itude” is not a word

IseTher (Light-ish Novellas)

…so yeah, I went and wrote a gay romcom, because it had devoured my brain and would turn me into a lifeless husk if I didn’t. It features a character set up as an antagonist 6 books ago and the drama-llama speechifyer he seemingly summoned to this world to be his nemesis. Choice scenes include “Dark Lord goes shopping for porn”, “the edgelord finally gets his ass to therapy”, and “a bunch of isekai’d humans play D&D in an actual fantasy world.” It is fluffy, angsty, silly, and sappy. It’s uploading now.

I have been having a lot of complicated feelings about this series lately. I always knew it was a niche of a niche of a niche of a niche; nobody writes queer isekai about mental health because no one wants it. But I did, and so I wrote it. And I still love it. Every single one of my unasked-for, stupidly-small-niche, screen-door-on-a-submarine story-children.

Even with all of that angst, I haven’t given up on the series. I don’t have any more in the pipeline I made for myself, ready to roll within a month, but I have started on one and have ideas for a couple more. I still don’t regret the time I spent on it. Not a minute. No matter how it does on the charts. It meant something to me, and so I put my heart into it. Because that’s what I do.

Judging books — well, you know

games nerd corner, IseTher (Light-ish Novellas), The Healers' Road (Book 1)

It seems like the artist I’d hired for most of the Therapist covers isn’t available right now (no offense, they’ve been great), so I figured — it’s a story where it would be nice to have two characters on the cover, why not go a bit further with it?

One chaotic “hiring” post later and I found a fantastic option; I am so, so pumped. They’ve even worked on light novels before, so they know the style; I loved their portfolio; y’all, I am PUMPED. This also means that I should be able to release Therapist 7 within the next couple of months, if all goes well. Fingers crossed.

As usual, I also heard from a bunch of other great artists who I’d also be happy to hire, and I’m thinking again about having some illustrated covers made for Healers. All three of them. In my head it’s for the 10th anniversary of The Healers’ Road this fall, but I would like all of them to match, so it’s a big undertaking.

We’ll see; I’ll put together the reference documents and stew about it for a while. (Related: We recently finished the anime The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent, and my husband commented that its lead character looks like Agna. And now I can’t unsee it, haha.)

This also reminds me of the “trilogy” thing: I swear I actually am, slowly, working on more Healers books. I consider the story soft-closed/resolved-ish but not closed-forever. Like, if I got hit by a bus tomorrow, I want the end of book 3 to feel satisfying. But I also hope that if I write a book 4, it won’t be annoying to readers, like “I thought this was done.”

This may be an impossibility, asking for both of those things. I hope not.

Just a brief games note: I started The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on Christmas Day and finished it the day before Easter, three months and a couple of days. Logged 190something hours. Completed all the shrines (which I didn’t think I would, but here we are). Found all the lightroots and wells. Did not find all the bubbulfrogs; I stopped about 30 short. Completed all of the sidequests except two (the last mine cart one – meh – and the one where you need to find Gleeok guts – are you kidding me). Collected all the armor that didn’t require defeating a) a King Gleeok (are you kidding me) or b) several waves of Lynels (ditto). And one of the glide challenges. Which is to say, I got almost all of the armor. Did not upgrade all of it, which would require more grinding than all of the rest of the game put together.

Fought one (1), count ’em, one Lynel, and I was pretty annoyed about it. I did enough of that in BOTW. You can’t make me. Except that one time.

The ending makes no sense. But they could not have done the ending that would make sense; people would spontaneously combust. Not spoiling, so I can’t say more than that. (I did get the “true ending” after the credits; I liked that one fine.)

It got me through the winter. I probably could have kept playing for another 50 hours, just meandering around. I don’t even consider myself a giant Zelda fan, but these are both beautifully realized open-world games. Not perfect, sure! But they were hyped for a reason.

So that’s that. I’m thinking I’ll try to ease off, play Switch Sports and Ring Fit Adventure, and actually practice the guitar like I keep meaning to do (oops) for a while. We’re heading into spring.

And… …done.

IseTher (Light-ish Novellas)

Therapist book 6, Starting Over in Another World With My Level 99 Self-Doubt, is on its way. As soon as the links are live, I’ll update the sticky post above.

I say this a lot, and I say it because it’s true: I really liked this one. It’s actually low-key apart from some references to past stress; it has some of the same elements as the first four books through a very different narrator POV; it brings us back to a fun setting (the tavern) and gives it more room to breathe.

Also, let’s be honest, plant nerdery.

So that’s exciting. Still looking forward to the sale at the end of April. Personal life is still in limbo. That’s all for now.

Neat sales news

Sales

Just a quick post to confirm/celebrate that The Healers’ Road will be part of the Cozy the Day Away Sale on April 26. This should be a lot of fun; it’s a group promotion for cozy (and *cough* cozy-adjacent) fantasy with an emphasis on diversity in both story and authorship. For more on the sale generally, check out Promise Press. (I know I’m going to fill out my “books I’ve been meaning to get eventually” list.)

Specifically, all three Healers ebooks will be 0.99 in the US and UK from April 25-30. I apologize to all the other parts of the world; Amazon’s sales tools are pretty limited.

I’m working on getting a book-newsletter type ad in the same timeframe. Fingers crossed.

On the topic of diversity, something I care a lot about, let’s not get this twisted: I listed THR’s diversity categories (Kei is the patron saint of damaged bisexual cinnamon rolls and I am not taking any questions at this time or ever), but did not list myself as a diverse author. This isn’t out of any kind of shame or secrecy, but more because I’m uncomfortable justifying/defending/proving my own categories. I have a whole history of grappling with the Not Nonbinary Enough demons and the How Can You Possibly Be Bi and Ace at the Same Time firing squad, as well as acknowledging the touchy optics of being a female-passing person in a long-term relationship with a cis man. I don’t want to take up space in the queer universe, even as I promote it constantly. It’s complicated.

So there’s that. But. I am excited to be a part of this event.

Back and forth, once again

Checking In

Honestly, this is not really a surprise at this point: I gain and lose motivation over time. I’ve gotten better at consistency in spite of it, but the underlying oomph still very much goes in waves.

It’s been a rough year in a death-by-a-thousand-cuts sort of way, though of course, that’s all relative to one’s frame of reference. We’re still alive and we have a home, but life is stressful right now. In particular, a long-running, background health concern turned into a foreground concern, as a body part I don’t actually need decided to riot / melt down / freak out. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, although it will take a string of tests running up to the procedure and some recuperation afterward. In the meantime, I’m tired, stressed, and holding on until the next round of tests. Because there is a chance it’s something even more scary than a rogue body part, and until I get that all-clear, I’m going to worry. It’s what I do. [edit from the future: I got the all-clear. Not Cancer(tm)! Woohoo!]

Lately I have been pushing myself to write The Serious Fiction, because those readers have had to wait long enough, and there are more of them than for The Silly Fiction. But while it’s going (slowly), I don’t think I can spare the energy to pour into pushing myself. As long as something (anything) gets written, that might have to be good enough.

All of which is to say that I’ve started writing Therapist again, specifically the Bard College story featuring Greta, Henry, and Burleigh from book 3. Will it end up being finished as quickly as the others? Heck if I know. But it’s something. And I’m deciding that “something” is good enough.

Amazon has started a beta trial of AI-voiced audiobooks. First, fuck you, pay narrators; second, I care about my readership enough not to charge them for bullshit robot voices when you can use bullshit robot Read Aloud features for free. Third, fuck you, pay narrators. 🙂

The screening process has pointed out that some of the table of contents in my catalog are effed up, so I will use it to troubleshoot that. And then not take the greed-bait.

Therapist book 6 (Berry’s, Starting Over in Another World with My Level 99 Self-Doubt) is still in cover limbo. 🙂 Hey, the title designer is doing me a favor here.

Book 7 came back from the beta readers (thank you!!!), so it’s in the pipeline. After an evening hammering away at a thesaurus, the working title has morphed into The Salty Mageknight and the Sweet Dark Lord. For a minute it was The Spicy Courtship of the Salty Mageknight and the Sweet Dark Lord, but I don’t need agita from the type of reader who would take “spicy” literally. It’s not spicy even by TikTok standards.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Both are still coming. Eventually. Fate willing, so is Healers 4, someday. I will do my goddamn utmost, because this is what I love to do.