I'm a day late, but here we are! I can finally share my news because it feels like LITERALLY everyone knows. I'm leaving my current job of 5 years! My last day is Friday! Which is good because this is how I felt today...
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I have an opportunity to work at my local public elementary school and I'm stepping back into more of a assistant role. I hope this means more time for writing and publishing new books. I'm excited, but it has certainly been a wild ride to get here.

Now for writing updates!

Amazon Ads were a dud
So it ended up not costing me very much, but 10,000 impressions....no sales. I went from being number 2 in my category to about 36. Which is still excellent, but the Facebook ads seemed to be the better hit. That being said, I may run multiple next month or one week promoting book 1 the other the entire series and see if I get more traction on all the books and not just the first. 

Still chugging along with Strange Sedition
17,000 words and change as of yesterday. I've got a lot of packing and last minute obligations between now and Friday so I'm not sure how much I'm going to get to this week. As stated earlier, I feel like Aaron's POV is a lot more bitter (especially all the drama with his ex-girlfriend). I'm loving writing new stuff, despite the stuff that's already happened (Conversations that he was in in Cassie's POV that need to stay the same, for example) feeling tedious.

Did nothing with Enshrine last week.
That's it. That's the update. 

Fighting Shiny Object Syndrome
My biggest problem lately has been committing to a project and seeing it through. I get to about 20,000 words and want to jump to something new. Or maybe I should rephrase it, I want to jump back. I want to outline and play with my Paranormal Demon idea that I did two NaNoWriMo's ago. Ugh, I blame my male protagonist...I'm telling myself maybe next year sometime!

Okay that's it for this update! See you on the other side of leaving my current job!

​Kay



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Seriously. Not sure if it's because I'm getting over being sick. I've got shiz happening in my "real" life or what, but all I want to do is nap or watch House of the Dragon. (I never got on the GOT train when it was on, but this show is making me a convert!) That being said, I do have a few things to update.

October is for trying different advertising
Seeing as how I used to do NOTHING for advertising, I'm definitely researching and trying out different avenues to see what works best. I just wrapped up two weeks of ads on Facebook with decent results. 2,700 views, almost 600 link clicks. 355 downloads which is great. The only problem is not many purchases of the rest of the series. Honestly, I think the sales I got came from TikTok and not the Facebook ads so...while I'm hoping that people are just reading book one and people will buy later...I'm curious to see if running ads on Amazon might go a little better. The ad I'm doing this week is for the entire series so I'm hoping maybe we'll see more sell through...honestly...I need to just publish something new.

I did actually write this week
I hit 12,000 words with Strange Sedition today! It's a little slow going because were in those early chapters where the action hasn't really started yet, though there is plenty of mystery (Don't want to spoil it if you haven't read Limited Truth. Go download it, it's free!). Also had some day job stuff that had to take top priority and you know...the disassociating lol.

I did a little more formatting too
7 chapters chapters formatted in Enshrine now. Not sure if anyone out there plays the Sims, but you know how they get tense doing certain things? That is literally how I feel when I work on this book. 

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​I feel like I need to be hypnotized or something to figure out why that is...(I have an earlier blog post about it, but I thought I was over it) I feel like there is an audience for this book that is different from my Squad Treble readers, one that would buy anything from that world. Heck, I need to write the final book still and the thought makes me want to scream! 

So pretty much 7 down...30 something to go...

See yah next week,

Kay

I'm back! October is shaping up to be an exciting and eventful month! I've got personal life news that I can't share just yet, but it certainly wasn't in my plans for the final quarter of the year. That being said, this development should allow me more time for writing so I'm really excited.

Writing wise...here's what I've been up to since last week's post:

Advertising...it's like it works or something?
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So it's only been a week of Facebook Ads and posting to TikTok almost everyday, but it's working...like more action than I've had in MONTHS. The whole analytics side of it is fascinating. The demographic who is downloading the book on FB at least is older than I expected, but that's okay! It's also been fun to slowly see people buy the rest of the series and I hope to see more of that in the coming weeks as well. Currently Limited Truth is sitting at number three in her Category on Amazon and I would love to see her hit number one by the end of the month! I took a picture for evidence!​

Aaron's First Book Has a Name
I've written a little over 8,000 words since last weeks post. It's a little slow going because there are parts of Limited Truth that I'm consulting for dialogue but the new stuff has been so fun to write. Aaron's POV has been a bit more...sassy than sweet innocent Cassie's was and I'm LOVING IT.

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The tile of his first book is Strange Sedition at the moment. I like it, but don't love it. It goes along with my theme of two word titles like the previous four books, so it stays for now.  The title for his his final book is *chefs kiss* so maybe I'll learn to love the others.

Reformatting Enshrine is a process...
So the original final draft of Enshrine was on a laptop that died two computers ago...I do have the pdf that I got back from my publisher when we split, but it needs some love and reformatting before I put it on multiple vendors. I thought I would read a paperback version and use speech to text to make a new manuscript, but HOLY CRAP that's been tedious. So, I may go back to using the PDF and making a new document that way. It's needs a few things tweaked and proofread anyway before I rerelease it. I've literally made this decision as I've typed this post so...stay turned I guess.

That's it for now. Until next week!

​Kay

Hey there!
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Part of my goals for the final few months of 2022 is to post to this blog weekly. So here's what I've been up to and some of my plans for the next thirteen weeks.

I'm on TikTok
I never ever thought I would do it...but it's actually quite addicting. I'm getting a decent amount of views (not viral or anything), but not sure if it's translating to more sales yet. I'm @kaybennsonauthor if you want to look me up.

Got new covers for Enshrine and Eminence
I am ADAMENT that Enshrine will reformatted by the end of December. Currently it is only available on Amazon, but I want to get her cleaned up so she can be available on all the vendors like my Squad Treble series is. Eminence needs to be proofread but I got both covers done at the same time! I will always love the original covers that were so soft and elegant, but I really wanted to capture Sage's transformation from a meek village girl to *Redacted because spoilers*, especially since it had been so long since the first book came out. Here's a sneak peak below.
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Doing Some Advertising for Squad Treble
Going to try both Facebook and Amazon advertising this quarter to see if I get some more sales. Since Limited Truth is the only thing that's ready I thought I would start with them. That being said, I wanted to make sure the books were ready to have tons of eyes on them so I went through and read the paperback versions. WOO there were some typos, but I fixed them and they are ready for the campaigns, I'm so glad I did because...

Squad Treble isn't over!
Well not exactly. Going through the four books and listening to my story playlists (I have one for Cassie, Aaron, Brayden, and Jared) summoned the muse and after struggling with a project to work on for a while, I've think I've finally figured it out. I will be attempting to write 4 more Squad Treble books from Aaron's POV. While there were several scenes that were written this way, the OG Squad Treble Series was 90% Cassie and I am really looking forward to diving into what Aaron was feeling and experiencing.  I've got working titles and a general outline for book one so that will be another thing I hope to update you on weekly! So far I've only got about a thousand words, but now that I'm done reading the original books, I should be able to add to that word count quickly.

See you next week!

Kay