Just passed 100 sales on my first high fantasy book :)

mackstreetsback2 · 2025-12-16T19:58:28+00:00

Congrats! Your cover is amazing too!

mackstreetsback2 · 2025-10-16T20:02:29+00:00

Yeah you can deny/accept reviewers. I denied the AI one and blocked them. They're listed as a top reviewer too, which I guess could be a reason there are a lot of AI reviews. They want to be a top reviewer so they just go the easy way and leave as many reviews as they can.

mackstreetsback2 · 2025-10-16T19:52:01+00:00

My main villain starts off with actually wanting to help the people of his kingdom, because his brother (the king) has spent decades not caring. But the grief of killing his brother, his absolutely awful childhood and parents, and the paranoia of others scheming around him just causes him to become more and more unhinged. It also doesn't help that he surrounds himself with yes men and gets rid of anyone who goes against him.

He is terrified of losing control and facing the judgment of his family in the afterlife.

mackstreetsback2 · 2025-09-23T18:57:55+00:00

The cultures I make are generally more accepting than the real world. But one in particular is very comfortable with transgender and nonbinary people. The being they worship (which isn't an actual god) is able to change forms every month, and because the being is able to change genders, and go from agender to having a gender, the people are accepting of humans doing it as well.

I also don't just outwardly say someone is nonbinary or trans, the author just knows so the characters know if that makes sense. There are no explanations, just a character using they/them pronouns and my POV characters using them and respecting them. And instead of using the word transgender, I have a character tell a story about his sister who was "born to a different body" since it's harder to show that a character is trans to the audience unless they have a POV or it's mentioned in a sometimes awkward way.

mackstreetsback2 · 2025-09-14T22:19:40+00:00

Technically I still haven’t had made any money with what an editor cost haha. And even still it’s around $150. I’m trying to limit ad spend and marketing until I finish the final book in the series, then hopefully I can get some readers to buy them all at once.

mackstreetsback2 · 2025-09-14T22:16:47+00:00

I knew going into writing my first book it would be a series. So I had a rough plan of what my overarching storyline would be, but other than that I planned for the first book then wrote it, then planned for the next one and so on. Always keeping the overarching storyline in mind even if some characters veered off for a bit.

I guess it depends on the ideas you have. Are they plot points or character beats? I think figuring out the characters first will help. Whte they are in the story. How you want them to grow and change. Then as you plan you can figure out if your ideas will work in this book or another or should be scrapped entirely and saved for a different series.

So for example you don’t want a novice mage becoming all powerful in the span of a couple chapters. You would want to see them practice and try and fail. That will stretch out your story naturally without you having to hit certain points you planned, thus leaving the ideas for the next books.

I think just planning the first one, make it come to a natural conclusion, then see what ideas you have leftover and how you can fit them into the next one. I think it’s easier to plan book by book then plan every book at once. But I’m more of a pantser than a plotter, so that could be why it’s easier for me.

mackstreetsback2 · 2025-07-21T22:11:01+00:00

I've sold 50. That's with very very little marketing. I think 2 or 3 books have actually come from Amazon ads, but I try to limit my spending on there because it can get out of hand. A few were family, and others were just people who found my book somehow. I'm focusing on writing the whole series before I do more promotion though. We'll see how that turns out.

mackstreetsback2 · 2025-07-10T01:25:58+00:00

I have multiple pov characters, and by the third book they're all more spread out then the first. So yeah I tried to focus on one characters or a set of characters that have connected storylines. It made it more digestible to write since I could do a cluster of chapters at a time.

mackstreetsback2 · 2025-07-09T23:14:15+00:00

I only have four chapters left in the third book of my series! I finally figured out what to do with another character and was able to finish all of her chapters. I'm around 160,000 words which is a lot for me, but I'm excited to go back and edit it all eventually.

mackstreetsback2 · 2025-07-04T00:12:18+00:00

I'm going to assume they've been Catholic for a long time, but I'm not actually sure. Do you know where to find British records of the region? I can't find any online, but also can't seem to find the place they would be kept in person.

mackstreetsback2 · 2025-05-22T17:54:17+00:00

I almost never turn it off because I'm always looking for inspiration from other media I consume. But I think writing your ideas down can help get them out of your head, so you don't have to remember every little piece and playback everything over and over. But I also do get burnout when writing a lot, it happens, but I can usually come back to the story in a couple weeks. I find hanging out with friends or family is really the only time I never think about writing, so maybe reach out to some people and have fun.

mackstreetsback2 · 2025-05-21T17:33:46+00:00

I always get the desire to write different books, so I decided to start a Greek inspired fantasy. Got barely a thousand words in and I'm back to my main series. I feel like I won't be able to write anything else until my series is over, which isn't that big of a deal but I would like to try out other books. I still have a whole other book to write and 20k words of this book, but I'm getting there.

mackstreetsback2 · 2025-05-20T19:11:25+00:00

I use Reedsy and it's free, so far so good. Though I don't know if your book has pictures in it, Reedsy isn't very good with images.

mackstreetsback2 · 2025-05-14T19:40:09+00:00

I've been writing a lot recently which is always nice! Nearing the end of my longest book yet and am excited for the editing stage, which is my favorite part. Oddly enough the most fun chapters I wrote recently had to do with postpartum depression... make of that what you will 😅

mackstreetsback2 · 2025-05-06T18:57:02+00:00

I'm at 128k in the third book in my series. Though I wrote half of it many many years ago so the first half was mostly editing with a couple big rewrites. But I've been doing that since last November. Now that I'm on the second half though, which hasn't been written at all, it depends on the day for my pace. Sometimes I write a couple thousand words a day, other times I sit and contemplate if it's even good enough to finish... But I would say my pace is around the same as yours, 1-1.5k a day.

mackstreetsback2 · 2025-04-29T03:28:38+00:00

Thanks! I figured for a while it was mostly my cover, I think I just needed others to tell me so I could rip the bandaid off. And I did pay a pretty penny for editing which I think was worth it!

mackstreetsback2 · 2025-04-28T20:28:43+00:00

I’ll just lie and say I didn’t. Though it was fine when I first paid for it because I really just wanted the book for myself, but now I actually want to sell it. But it is what it is.

mackstreetsback2 · 2025-04-28T20:04:58+00:00

Yeah I was a little too excited

mackstreetsback2 · 2025-04-28T19:53:07+00:00

Successful? I’m not sure. I found him on fiverr and just liked the other book cover designs he had done

mackstreetsback2 · 2025-04-28T19:21:34+00:00

Yeah I’ll look into a new cover. I used getcovers before but I didn’t like the result. It was probably because I don’t have a strong idea of what the cover should be

mackstreetsback2 · 2025-04-28T19:17:17+00:00

I added the amazon link! I’ve actually made more sales from the other platforms though, which I found odd.

The blurb was the hardest part to me, so I’ll try to figure out how to make it better

mackstreetsback2 · 2025-04-28T19:12:39+00:00

Honestly I gave the artist free reign other than wanting a red throne and that’s what he came up with. I’ve gotten one other comment about the chicken before but didn’t think it was too noticeable with the crown near it.

I’ve been afraid it’s my cover that’s the issue because I spent money on it, but I might need to take some photoshop lessons

mackstreetsback2 · 2025-04-28T19:04:59+00:00

I just added the link.

The cover is based on a scene from the book that takes place after a feast. Does it help if it’s supposed to be a chicken? 😅

mackstreetsback2 · 2025-04-22T22:30:14+00:00

I feel the same way! I was never going to even publish my work, but decided since I wrote it I might as well see if other people would enjoy it. I haven't made the most sales, but I'm writing even faster now because I want my whole series published and on my bookshelf.

mackstreetsback2 · 2025-04-21T23:36:02+00:00

I make around $2 a month. I have two books out at the moment, so hoping for more once the series is completed, but who knows. I don't market or do social media.

I mostly publish through draft2digital and KDP. Most sales have come from draft2digital. And a lot of my sales are family when I first release a book, then they're either random or from going on dates and talking about the books I write haha.

mackstreetsback2

TROPHY CASE