Wyrmrot's Blurb and A Sneak Peek of When Kingdoms Fall
The March Newsletter
Happy Spring (or Autumn, depending on where you are)! It’s time for the March update.
I took a vacation in March to Monterey, California, so I thought I would share some photos before we get to the writing stuff.
It was rainy almost the entire time, but it was still lovely.
Wyrmrot Update (The Self-Publishing Update)
While I still don’t have a cover to share with you this month, I can share the back of the book blurb. I went through many, many versions before landing on this one:
FIRST CAME THE DRAGONS
When scientists brought everyone’s favorite fairytale creature to life, people flocked to see them, including 17-year-old Zelda Rissland.
THEN CAME THE PARASITE
But scientists created more than just dragons—they created a deadly parasite. Wyrmrot, they later called it. First, it ate your brain and then it made you eat other people’s brains.
NOW ZELDA MUST SURVIVE THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE
Separated from her family, the only person Zelda has left from her former life is her childhood friend turned boyfriend, Cooper Marotta. Together they’ve carved out a safe place for themselves in a world turned upside down, but when a zombie horde decimates their survivor group, they face a choice: attempt to rebuild or follow the mysterious coordinates that appeared on a construction sign.
Zelda still hopes her family is out there somewhere and believes the coordinates might lead her to them. Cooper, however, thinks the coordinates will only bring trouble. When the remaining survivors vote to undertake the perilous cross-country journey, he attempts to deter them every step of the way. What Zelda discovers at their destination will test her loyalties and change everything she thought she knew about the apocalypse.
Since the cover isn’t done yet, I still have time to change my mind, so feedback is welcome.
And if this sounds like your kind of book, stay tuned for ARC1 news. As soon as the cover is done (one day), I’ll be opening sign-ups.
The Lost Queen Update (The Serial Fiction Update)
Last month The Lost Queen was nominated for Favorite Community Novel in the Tapas Inkies awards, and while we didn’t win it was still really nice to be nominated. It was the first time any of my work had been nominated for a platform award contest, and I am grateful for the experience. Tapas did end up reaching out about joining their Premium Novel program, but I ultimately turned the offer down since I plan to publish this series, and it would also require taking it off all of my other platforms.
Speaking of other platforms, let’s take a look at those reading numbers. I thought this month we could do a comparison between the number of reads gained in March 2024 and the reads gained in March 2025.2
It’s interesting to see that even though there is more content (and therefore, more chances to gain reads) Inkitt was still about the same as it was last year.
And for those curious, here are the reads for each month of 2025 so far:
I would have expected all of the platforms to be more like Inkitt where reads are lower in January and then increase as the months go on. I feel like January is usually a slow month because holidays/time off are over, but I don’t see that reflected in the numbers for this year. If you also write serial fiction, what kind of numbers are you seeing? Same pattern I have or is yours different?
I’ve also been working on When Kingdoms Fall, which will start posting the same day May Shadows Reign is set to end. If you’ve ever wanted to know what the previous version of When Kingdoms Fall looks like in post-it notes, here it is: (the colors are the different POVs)
Unfortunately, progress on the rewrite has been very slow. I can’t tell you the number of times I wrote a chapter, deleted it, wrote it again, and then deleted it again. I just can’t seem to figure out what I want to do for the opening, but I’ve only got about a month left, so fingers crossed I work it out soon.
Here’s a little sneak peek at the current opening line (TBD if this ends up actually being the first line or not):
Kai studied the human girl he’d fallen in love with as she stood to one side of the large fireplace, preparing to speak.
Reading/Listening/Watching Update
Reading
Over the first three months of the year, I’ve read 12 books. This didn’t sound like a lot to me, but then I looked at the page numbers, and at least half of them are 500+ pages (it also doesn’t take into account all the manga I’ve consumed).
Here’s the list (favorites marked with *):
Spectacular by Stephanie Garber
The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty*
Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros
The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sara Raasch
The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang*
What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher*
Deep End by Ali Hazelwood
The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo*
The Empire of Gold by S.A. Chakraborty*
Dance of Thieves by Mary E. Pearson
Black Tide Son by H.M. Long*
Pacifica by Kristen Simmons
And my current read is Vow of Thieves by Mary E. Pearson
Listening
I’ve been listening to Sleep Token’s latest song that released this month on repeat basically non-stop (and counting down the days until the full album comes out). You can listen to it on YouTube here.
Before that song came out I was listening to this Spotify playlist of gentle waves because I live in the desert but yearn for the ocean.
Watching
I thought I might have something new to tell you about this month since I did go on a vacation that required a plane ride, but alas, I didn’t actually watch anything besides the clouds outside the window.
And that’s all for this month. See you in April.
ARC = Advanced Reader Copy. These are free copies of a book given out prior to publication for the purpose of gathering honest reviews.
Of course, March 2025 isn’t quite over yet, but I don’t think there will be any significant changes over the next four days or so.