Amanda Hocking

This is the second week of my Writing on Wednesday posts where I share the transcript of a recent writing vlog. You can check out the full video series: here, You can read previous posts in my transcript series:

• WoW #1: Writing Advice

This week’s video was first posted February 17, 2022, and it’s titled: Release Dates, Bookplates, & Yellowjackets. You can watch the video below or read the lightly edited transcript beneath.

Hello, I’m Amanda Hocking, and I’m finally recording a video for my weekly writing advice series. I have not been able to record in my office for a little while, because we had a water heater leakage. The utility room is right across from my office, and we had storage in there. But with the water, all the stuff from the utility room was moved into my office.

The water heater was fixed, and now I’m moving everything back into storage. I’m also cleaning up and reorganizing my office, so it’s not in a filmable state right now.

I tried filming in the living room, and the dogs think they need to be in the center of everything, and the cat does, too. So I’m here, filming in my bathroom.

In my last video, I said I hoped to have more information about the Seven Fallen Hearts, and I don’t have much yet. I’m still working on Book #2, and it’s going well, but it’s not ready for release date and pre-order info quite yet.

I’m also hoping to open up a shop on my website soon. It’s taking me awhile because I’m so apprehensive, and I want to make sure that I’m doing it right. I just want to make sure that I’m not signing up for more than I can deliver, and so I am being very cautious and moving very slowly.

When the shop does open, I will be selling signed bookplates. As we get closer, I’ll show you what they look like and explain more about them. The idea behind that is that I think it will be easier having stickers on hand selling autographed books, because this way I don’t have to keep an inventory of my books in stock. A bookplate can go in any book. This way you won’t have to rebuy a copy of a book that you already have, either.

Assuming this all goes well, in the future, I may have limited signed copies of new releases and maybe other books on special occasions. But I want to see how it goes with bookplates before I start adding stuff on.

Eventually, I would like to add things like bookmarks and artworks, but again, I’m starting very slowly, so it may be a while.

I am hopeful that the shop will open sometime this Spring, and that the second book in the Seven Fallen Hearts will be out by the end of Spring 2022.

I am really excited about Seven Fallen Hearts series. This this world is so fun, and I am really excited for you guys to see what’s coming. You can read more about the first book: here.

I’ve just been working on all that and taking care of my animals and my family. That’s basically what it keeps me busy. I have a big TBR pile that I am going through way too slowly.

Also, I just wanted to do a quick mention for the Yellowjackets. I watched Yellowjackets on Showtime. It’s this really cool, gritty series. I absolutely love it. I can talk about it forever if you guys are interested.

I loved it so much, and I could tell it is it is there are similar themes that it touches on as Bestow the Darkness. Which is my gothic romance folk horror novel that I released in 2021. It’s different, but there’s a lot of similar themes and topics. I could tell that we’re inspired by a lot of the same things, and so I very much love Yellowjackets.

I think it’s going to be an exciting spring, and I think there’s a lot of good stuff coming. I’m very optimistic about 2022 even though I was really optimistic about 2020.

I am getting back into writing advice on Wednesdays, so please leave a comment or question about anything you’d like to hear me talk about it, and I will likely address it in a future video. I am always open to suggestions, and I want to know what you all think.

That is it for today. As always says, stay safe, be kind, and happy reading.

Read on in next week’s post WoW #3: Return to Writing.