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Book Shop Chats:
Welcome to Book Shop Chats, your go to podcast for indie authors and learning insight into what it takes to write a book (HINT: You can do it too!!)
Join authors as they share their personal journeys, successes, and challenges, providing you with unique insights into the writing process. The discussions explore into various aspects of storytelling, from character development to plot structuring, ensuring you have a well-rounded understanding of the craft.
Whether you're just starting out or have published multiple works, this podcast is your companion in the pursuit of storytelling excellence. Tune in, gather inspiration, and let your passion for writing flourish alongside a community that celebrates the art of the written word.
Book Shop Chats:
Paranormal Chronicles: Inside the Alex McKenna Series
Vicki Ann Bush returns to discuss her Alex McKenna paranormal YA series, exploring how she develops this gifted psychic protagonist through increasingly darker supernatural mysteries across multiple books.
Author Bio
Originally from New York, Vicki-Ann currently resides in the Pacific Northwest. Writing Young Adult paranormal, she finds inspiration from events that have been in her life for as long as she can remember. Inheriting the sensitivity to the supernatural from her family, they continue to be an endless source of vision.
Released in September 2023 by Creative James Media, the second edition of Alex McKenna & The Geranium Deaths. The first book in the YA, Paranormal, LGBTQ series, that features a seventeen- year-old, transgender boy with paranormal abilities.
Alex McKenna & The Academy of Souls, October 2024.
Alex McKenna & A Winter’s Night, February 2025.
Alex McKenna & Death Is Not The Beginning, Coming October 2025.
The first edition of Alex McKenna & The Geranium Deaths, received the Gold Medal in the Readers Favorite Book Awards for Young Adult, Paranormal in 2020.
In 2022 Vicki-Ann signed an additional two book publishing deal with CJM Publishing, which includes the YA Paranormal Romance, The Darkest Light, and the Sci-Fi, Liminal Space.
Vicki-Ann is also a produced short screenplay writer of Alex McKenna: Alex & Margaret’s Beginning, a mutli-award winning short film inspired by her supernatural, LGBTQ+ Alex McKenna novels. https://pro.imdb.com/name/nm13181597
Website and Social Media: https://vickiannbush.carrd.co/
Book Blurb:
One winter's night can change everything
With only a year left of high school, the love of his life, Margaret at his side, and the most supportive family anyone could want, Alex McKenna couldn't ask for anything more.
Alex was learning more about his family's abilities as Strega witches and his psychic powers were continuing to grow. Things were good.
Until one night when everything falls to pieces.
Margaret lay in the hospital after a serious car accident, her disembodied spirit searching for a way back to the living. Alex is desperate to save her and the victims of his next case. An ominous being is haunting the hospital and stealing the souls of infants and the elderly, sending them straight to hell.
Can Alex solve this case and save Margaret before it's too late?
About Victoria:
Hey there, I’m Victoria! As a writer and developmental editor, I specialize in helping busy writers bring their publishing dreams to life without the overwhelm. Editing doesn’t have to feel like pulling teeth—it's the magic that transforms your story from “meh” to masterpiece!
Here’s how I can help:
📖 FREE Manuscript Prep Workbook: Take the stress out of editing with simple steps to organize your revisions.
Grab it HERE
📝 Developmental Editing: Get expert feedback that elevates your manuscript, strengthens your story, and polishes your characters.
✍️ 1:1 monthly support: Revitalize your creativity, map out your novel, and unleash your authentic voice.
Your story deserves to shine, and I’m here to make it happen. Let’s turn your writing dreams into a reality!
📱 IG: @editsbyvictoria
🌐 LINKS: Victoria Jane Editorial
Oh hey, it's Victoria from Victoria Jane Editorial and your host of Bookshop Chats. This podcast is all about authors, writing and the magic that goes into storytelling. We cover all of the things that go into writing a book, from the creative process, from taking your idea to a first draft, creating and cultivating community within the author space, marketing all of the fun things. If you are a reader, a wannabe writer or an author, you will find tips and tricks that suit whatever level you are at. So I hope that you enjoy and you are unfortunately, or fortunately going to find many more books to add to your TBR, so I will invite you to sit back and listen to the episode. Welcome back to Bookshop Chats. In today's episode, I am chatting with Vicki Ann Bush. Welcome to the podcast, or I guess I should say welcome back.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the podcast. Yeah, I'm excited to be back.
Speaker 1:Yes, Yay, I'm so. I'm so pumped to hear all about book number number three and four Now, I feel like, are the ones that are coming out this year which I'm really really pumped to hear all about your character's journey Now moving forward. So I'd love for you to share, or maybe even just give us a little recap of kind of the first couple books leading up to where we are now.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, the Geranium Desk, which is the first book, and that's where we really just start discovering Alex and who Alex is and his family life and all of that. And he's from New York, he's from an Italian American family. But they're all gifted. They're gifted in a psychic way, but everybody has, like, their own specialty and Alex is extraordinarily gifted. So as he's getting older, he's getting new gifts, new abilities, and they're getting stronger and they're getting more manageable for him, where he's able to call on them and work them, as opposed to them just happening, you know. And in the first book, the Geranium Deaths, alex lives on Geranium Avenue and there's a series of murders in the neighborhood where people are finding victims with their heads frozen, encased in ice, and I mean they could be sitting at the kitchen table and they're dead and their head is encased in ice. So he starts down this path of trying to figure out what's going on with his girlfriend Margaret, who's always by his side, and he finds out that it actually originates in his house, but back in the early 1930s. This is where the journey and the curse and everything that's happening starts, and so they have to figure out. There's going to be one more victim, because they figure out when the murders are taking place. Every time it happens. And it's getting ready to wind up for that year and they have one more victim that could be murdered, and so they're trying to uncover who this person could be.
Speaker 2:In the second book it's less about the family. There's a little bit about his family in there, but him and Margaret go to an alternate realm called the Academy of Souls, and what it is is it's a high school for teens that have passed on but have not left, and so it's kind of like a safe place and it's in between worlds. So, um, there are different kind of like sections, you know, and you could be in one side, you know. You know what I'm talking. Like a multi, what do you want? To call it? A multiverse type thing? No, not, but yes and no, because they are different. They're not, it's not the same version of us, you know right?
Speaker 2:So, anyway, they go to the Academy of Souls because a little girl reaches out to Alex, a little ghost, and he's trying to figure out what she wants and he finally finds a way to communicate with her and he finds out that she's in trouble, finds out that she's in trouble, she's in danger and he then sees her sister who is searching for her.
Speaker 2:She connects through a portal and he goes through the portal with Margaret Well, margaret's not supposed to go, but she follows and they go to the Academy of Souls. So the whole thing is them looking for Haven, who is the little girl, to help Ophelia, who is the older sister, find her sister, so that then they could cross over together, because Ophelia won't leave without Haven, and he gets to meet her friends at the school and the headmaster, and it's just a series of meeting. You know, the bad kids, the bad guys and the curse not the curse, but the bad soul, the soul gatherer that steals children when they cross over. So that's the second one and then the third book, which just came out in February, last month.
Speaker 2:It's a little whoops, it's a little bit darker because Alex well, it's no mystery because it's on the cover Margaret gets into a car accident and it's a life or death situation and she's in a coma and Alex and his mom and his little brother go to the hospital and he goes and he sees her and you know, she is like her body's laying there, her spirit leaves her body. So now he sees her as a ghost, well, as a, as a, as an entity, we'll say, because she's not really a ghost, she's not really dead, and the whole time he's trying to connect her back right. There's also a demon that's haunting the hospital, that's stealing the souls of newborns and elderly who are sick and getting ready to cross over, and then he meets a whole bunch of different people there, a whole bunch of, uh, souls and people from the past and he, him and his family, because then he, his grandma, comes and his uncle and they go to battle. But then they also find out that the, the demon, is just kind of like the spokesperson, because the one really behind it is Lucifer, who's been trying to get one of their, their souls, him or his grandmothers, because they're so strong, for years.
Speaker 2:So it's a little bit darker, like I said, because it does deal with death of you know, um, even though they're they're technically not alive. You know, the souls of younger children and, um, and babies. So, um, it is a bit darker and then, like I said, lucifer's in there, but it is, um, it's different in, in a sense, that it's totally taking him out of the realm of the normal kind of interaction and bringing him into facing the biggest evil that he could possibly deal with right now. So, yeah, so that's book three, which is out now, which is out now, yeah, Amazing.
Speaker 1:That's so fascinating to me. I would love to hear a little bit about, like your, like how you map out the series. I feel like that's something I always find really interesting of authors that write like actual interconnected series that really do, like you kind of need to read each book in order for you to understand the full picture.
Speaker 2:Like how you create that in a way that feels different and fresh, um, while also kind of staying true to your, your character um, I think one of the things because the books are, yes, you know, they are a series, in a sense that Alex, margaret and the family are the constant, but they are standalones because once the case is done, yeah, that that book has ended, you know.
Speaker 2:But you're right, you, you get a fuller, richer experience if you do start with one, only because you get all of that family background. Now, of course, I have to piece it in a little bit for each book because of that, right, but I think it's easier when they're a standalone. However, you still have to be consistent. So, in answer to your question, I have a lot of post-it notes all over the place to remind me and then I have to reference back because I'm I'll be in the middle of writing one of them and then I'll look at it and go, hmm, did I? That doesn't seem right. So that has to go back to maybe the first book or the second book and and double check and reference my own work to be able to be, uh, to have continuity with the book I'm writing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like that's something that I 100% would be needed, because I know I would probably be putting like the wrong hair color or like putting something like the wrong street or things that are really obvious, and then you just are like once somebody sees that they can't unsee it, and then right.
Speaker 2:Right, I did catch it, cause I did do the wrong eye color for Alex in the second book. And then when we were editing, you know, when I was going through edits with my publisher, I went, wow, did is. Are his eyes that color? I thought I, are they green, so green? So I look back, no, they're not green, they're hazel with brown, not green. So I had to fix it, you know. So things like that.
Speaker 1:Hopefully you catch right yeah, 100, but it's hard. I imagine I'm just like there's so many moving pieces, um, even in like the same book. Sometimes I'll have to go back and be like, wait a minute, like where did I like this tattoo, where is this supposed to be? Like what's? Going on Right, Like you need to really like think of that and just because somebody will catch it and sometimes it takes so long for you to be like how did I miss this? It was so obvious.
Speaker 2:I know. I know One of them was there's a soul that, or a person that they're trying to save in book one, bridget. So my, my editor first round comes back to me and says so are we spelling this B-R-I-D-G-E? You know D-G-E-T, b R I, d, g E T, because you got it both ways throughout the whole book. I went oh, and my brain didn't even see it.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't either. It's just so weird. Sometimes you think in your head you know the right answer right when you're reading, so somehow that's what you see.
Speaker 1:yeah it's weird, 100%. I think that's such a good point too that you bring up, uh, just being like, as the writer, you are so close to the story and you know information that the reader wouldn't, so it's really easy for you to miss that stuff and just assume that it's either implied or it's there. So then having the editor to come in and be like, hey, like what's going on here, like I, it doesn't make sense. It's so important?
Speaker 2:because, like you just don't see it, because you know, you know the information Exactly so, yeah, so that's why it's really good to have good editors follow your edits.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, definitely super needed, Because I am 100% like like that of just missing. I'm like how do I miss this?
Speaker 2:It is so obvious, but you know, that's a good question that you get asked from self published authors, right? Yes, what? They'll say something like what is you know? What advice would you have? You know, and one of the things I always say is make sure you're getting professionally edited, because I understand that you know and this is not an insult, but I understand that maybe your mom is a retired school teacher, but a retired school teacher is going to edit a book very differently than a professional editor. That's what they do for their living, that's, that's, that's their job, and I saw the difference. I did because, years ago, I took a couple books back from the first publisher I had. They were, they were changing and, and you know, it was time for my contract to go up, and I was like't think so. So I took a couple books back and finally, some friends convinced me to go ahead and do it as them.
Speaker 2:As a self-published, which I was, I was really hesitant, because I was so used to having that other person in the in the group, you know, to be able to judge and everything, and uh, but I did and um, I went ahead, though, and did rewrites, and when I after I did the rewrites, of course I edited it. And and then a friend who wasn't ex-English teacher you, you know, retired looked through it. They edited it. But then after that I was like I don't know, something seems off to me. So I hired an editor, someone that another author recommended. Yeah, totally different, just two different worlds. And the one from the editor was saw things that the school teacher, the English teacher, did not see, you know, as far as world building and context. You know, I'm not talking grammar, I'm talking, you know, the big picture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. Yeah, that's huge. I think that's so true. Like like developmental editing obviously, like that's a very different thing than than like the line copy edits and you know when you are like an English teacher or whatever. Like you do have that, like that.
Speaker 2:That's a different skill set, I feel like, and it is something that like when you're reading it like that.
Speaker 1:That's a different skill set, I feel like, and it is something that like when you're reading it like that, like that's what I do with my clients. So just like reading it from that perspective of the reader of like, okay, like what's going on here, what's going to maybe pull them out of the story, what's working in your story as well, that is going to be like, okay, you really nailed the dialogue here and all of that sort of stuff. So I think that's a really important thing to have, like when you, when you're working with a professional, is to have them help you kind of like show you what's working and what is like okay, this doesn't quite fit here, this is not quite making sense.
Speaker 1:We need a little bit more sensory like stuff like that right they obviously can catch. That just makes the story. It's not even. I feel like. It's better Isn't quite the right word. It's like richer, like more immersive, like puts the reader in the story. That's really the intention, I feel like it completes it.
Speaker 2:It completes it. I had a habit in the very beginning, when I first started writing I love dialogue, love, love, love dialogue. I love writing it. But you had to pull the description out of me, you know, and if I did not have editors, it would have been totally different and it would not have been richer, it would not have been more complete. It's like you know it's. It's like drawing a circle and then just stopping halfway. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:I feel that for sure, and I think every writer. It's really interesting to see like everybody really does have their strengths and the areas that they're like. Help, help me help, I don't understand this um, and I think like having, yeah, feedback, um, obviously, like you know, editors are great and then having alpha readers and beta readers like all of those like people also are great help as well absolutely journey.
Speaker 1:But they, yeah, just having somebody to like read your story when they know nothing about the characters is a really important thing, because they're going to be able to give you that objective feedback that you just don't have, or maybe your mom won't give you, because it's your mom. They're like I, yeah, I don't want to give you mean feedback, and I think, yeah, I don't want to to give you mean feedback. And I think, yeah, reading it too from the perspective of a writer, like recognizing what sells to in the genre, like all of that stuff, is an important piece of the puzzle, I think too as well, cause you want to make sure that people are getting what is expected as well in the genre that you're writing, even though they say like you know you want to write what you love.
Speaker 1:But if you're writing a romance and the characters don't meet until chapter 25, like this, it might not be working right, like right, so I think that's something that's really important to to be mindful of and you just you don't know that, especially when you're kind of like just starting out the writing, like journey, I think.
Speaker 2:No, not at all, I don't think. I think. I think it's definitely a learning. You know, you learn as you go. I mean me today and me 20 years ago is very different 100%.
Speaker 1:I feel that, well, I'd love to hear a little bit more about like the marketing, like how marketing has been going for you. Obviously, this is like book three is out now Like how have you found that process has shifted for you? I know a lot of authors hate that side of things. They're like, oh my gosh, like marketing, all of that sort of stuff. You're obviously with an indie publisher, so there is maybe that like that might be a little bit different in terms of what is required of you. But yeah, I always find it fascinating just to hear kind of like what you enjoy, what works for you and how you kind of make that process more fun.
Speaker 2:For me, in-person engagement is what works best and it's more fun for me. I really enjoy when I do book signings, because then I get to talk to people. One-on-one signings because then I get to talk to people one-on-one, we get to exchange not only you know about the books, but you know, you get a little bit about them and, honestly, it's fantastic when you have more material, you know, because I'll remember certain people and certain things that they said and you know it winds up one day in a book because it's it's such a, it's such an engaging experience to be able to hear even though everybody is, you know, everybody's human, everybody has common things. You know that that we deal with. But yet we're so individual. You know, we're all individuals and it's really interesting to me to get to know them and hear who they are.
Speaker 2:When we're doing it online, such as, you know, like if we're doing an Instagram or we're doing a YouTube or you know whatever I feel disconnected, right, and I don't feel like I've got a grasp on that. I really don't. I try and I do it and I'm consistent, or at least as much as I can be, but I don't really feel like I've mastered that yet Now, because I do have a publisher, a small indie publisher. They do do certain things, but yes, you're right, it's in our contract. We are, we are expected to promote ourselves, our books, you know and and I do. But I don't think, if I'm going to answer this question honestly, I don't think I'm successful at marketing online. I think my success is in person.
Speaker 1:I think that's a that's a really great point of just the importance of diversifying, like how you're marketing. I think of really just creating like lots of places where people can connect with you, because, I mean, social media is a great thing but it is definitely saturated. It's also a rented space, so you don't necessarily like you know if they decided to get rid of it like they have with you know TikTok for however many hours that happened you are screwed right, like you you lose everything.
Speaker 1:So really making sure that you have things outside of that is a really important thing, I think for um, for others uh, especially like Indy, when you're like on your own and doing it all yourself. I think to really make sure that you have that, and I think also like in-person events, is such a great thing. I know that it can feel kind of uncomfortable if you're more of an introvert. Absolutely, it can be such a great thing for you, like you said, to connect with you know, fellow authors, like network, all of those things as well as get your hands in or get your book in hands of readers too.
Speaker 2:I know authors that back in Las Vegas, you know that they're, they're. They are introverted, much more so, and it is difficult for them when we're doing signings, you know, because they kind of have to force themselves because they are uncomfortable, and yet you get them online and they're, they're magicians. That's what I say because they can make it work. I, I still have yet and I've been doing this for a number of years I still have yet to figure out how to get my core group following online. I just, you know, I write YA, I write YA, paranormal, right, and I still cannot figure out how to get those people to see what I want them to see. And yet, put me at a book signing and I will find them. I will find them as they're walking in. You know, I don't know what it is, but we connect.
Speaker 1:I love that. I think that's just, that's just how it is. I really like play with your strengths. I think that's one thing that I really like stress to authors is just like do what works for you, even if you know you're. You say this is like people will say this is the best way to like whatever. If it doesn't work for you, like try it, but don't like stress about it. It is what it is and it's just and I think, too, also remembering that you're playing the long game right, like you're writing a series.
Speaker 1:It takes time for people to figure out who you are and all of that sort of stuff as an author. And you just look at some of even the traditionally published authors who I guess I mean the person that I draw on is Rebecca Yarros of like she is like having her moment right now in the world, but she has like at least 10 to 15 other books that were published like well before her fantasy series. So I think that's something to remember of yes, she did well, but like she didn't have that level of virality that she does now. So it's just, yeah, remembering that like just keep showing up, like just keep doing it, Keep keep telling the Keep telling the stories. That's what we got to do.
Speaker 2:Exactly, it's true. And today it's even harder than say it was, say, 30, 40 years ago, because now, with social media, you know there is like you were saying, it gets saturated with you know all of this and it's instantaneous to somebody you know. So it is more difficult, I think. I don't think it's easier, I think it's more difficult.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I definitely feel like it's it's. It can be challenging to, yeah, just figure out where you fit in the noise and really just create that connection and stuff and who the heck knows what the algorithm is doing because I don't think it even knows what it's doing and trying to figure out what exactly is impossible.
Speaker 1:So I've really honestly, I've just given up. I will post what I post and trust that it'll find the people that it needs to, um, even if it takes time. So that, yeah, I just taken the stress out of it because I don't have time for that in my life.
Speaker 2:I'm getting better at that too. I went through a period where I was really getting stressed out over it, right, and I went and this is before TikTok had its little blip, but I I went to my publisher and I said, you know, look, this is becoming like overwhelming. I'm getting very stressed out. I'm very fortunate I have a good publisher that was able to say hey, you know, you don't have to be on every platform. Do the platform that's comfortable for you, that you feel is going to be the most successful for you. You know, and that kind of gave me the okay to myself that I didn't have to, you know, be so all over the place, because that's what was happening, you know. I just I gotta get this, gotta get this, gotta do this, gotta this, gotta get that, you know, and it becomes, um, such a chore and then it takes the fun out of everything you know and it started pulling away from my actual writing so yeah, that's definitely what you want to avoid for sure of just like yeah, like I love that.
Speaker 1:it's really like find the one that works best for you, that feels the most natural, and just like roll with it and like build the connections that you can.
Speaker 1:And I think, yeah, balancing that out with in-person events is probably a great thing as well and just like creating that and it's yeah, it's one of those things where we just gotta just keep keep going, keep going, keep telling the story and make sure that, uh, um yeah, you're putting your best work out in the world, and I think that's something that's really uh important of, just like going back to the, to the writing aspect, um, because if you're not writing that, it's like stories aren't getting out exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2:Then you're just stagnant. You really have nowhere to grow, you know, because you're not producing anything new. Uh, a good friend of mine, another author, said to me um remember, I think you and I discussed the last time about the short film.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's correct, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I started looking for an agent because I wrote the feature now and I need someone to help me navigate. You know what I mean, like I don't know all of the particulars and all the legalities or any of that. And so I thought, ok, maybe it's time, you know, I start looking for an agent. Well, I have a manuscript. That's done as well. And I thought, well, okay, maybe I'll use the manuscript because there are some agents out there who handle both, right. And I started the query road, you know, and just a few months ago and well, no longer than a few months, about seven months ago, and you know, I got some rejections and I was starting to feel like down about it, you know, and my friend says to me listen, give yourself time, give yourself a year, do queries for a year, okay. And if you don't get it with this manuscript, she said, then maybe that's not the manuscript that's meant for you to get your agent with, you know, and in the meantime I'm writing another book now, right. So I started thinking about it and I'm like you know, another book now, right? So so I started thinking about it and I'm like you know, I'm trying so hard to focus on something that I really don't have control over, you know, and and so once she said that I kind of it kind of like was like a like a light bulb going off in my head. You know, what are you doing? Why are you making yourself so crazy over this? And so now I just I let it go.
Speaker 2:I have queries out there. If I hear from them, I hear from them. If I don't, I don't. As far as the manuscript goes, once, once my publisher is accepting new work again because they're closed for the year, I'll submit to them. They're good, I love them, you know, and I'll look for something different with the script, you know, I'll go a different avenue. So I think that's what happens with us as authors. We tend to get so worked up, overwhelmed and focused on always getting to the next rung on the ladder. You know, when, like you just said, you just kind of got to keep going, keep doing your thing right, and eventually I believe that if you do keep going, eventually something will pop. It may not be that you're the next Stephen King or the next, you know, anne Rice or Dean Kuntz these are my people that I love, but maybe it's the one that you're the most proud of and that's the one that gets out there. You know? You know what I'm saying. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's so important and that really ties back into I was chatting with another author on the podcast and she has she is traditionally published and she I think she has like hitting, like it's doing or things that are like it. It got picked up on like awards on Wattpad but no agent knew what to do with it, so it just became this and then five years later it got published Right. So it's really just and she basically explained it as like an eight, like your book is a puzzle, a puzzle piece and you are looking for the agent that is looking for that specific piece. So trying to remember that, I feel like, helps kind of separate from the fact that, like your, your manuscript, it might it's not bad, it might just not be the right one that they're looking for.
Speaker 1:And I think that can be such a really important reminder when you're when you're looking at like traditionally. I think that can be such a really important reminder when you're when you're looking at like traditionally publishing, because it is such a big business Like if they can't figure out where to put it, like then it's going to be really hard to get like picked up Right. So it's not about the story being bad. And then you never know when you know, in two years something might happen and suddenly that particular genre is like huge. And then here you are.
Speaker 1:It's getting. So I think that's such a great reminder of just like really just trusting in your process and knowing that you know if you're putting in and putting out the work that you feel proud of. I think that's, that's the key, and then just knowing that you know somehow it will get out. It may not be exactly how you think.
Speaker 2:That's true, it's true. And I worry well, I did, I'm not anymore, but with everything that's going on today here, um, you know, I worry with the feature because the feature, obviously it's Alex McKenna. Alex McKenna is a transgender boy, you know, and I was worried, thinking that people are going to be afraid to touch it because of such you know, um, what's going on with the transgender community, lgbtq plus community, and see, I get the opposite, I get worried, but then I get focused, I get my ire up and I'm like, okay, yeah, well, this is a touchy subject for you today. This is a hard subject for you today. Well, this is a touchy subject for you today. This is a hard subject for you today, but this is an important subject, especially today, you know. So it makes me push further and keep going. That fuels me because I know that this is important. I know this character is important. I know that we need more of this, you know, and just because our current administration disagrees doesn't make it right and doesn't make it so.
Speaker 1:Mm, hmm, 100%, I feel like just yeah, creating the art and getting it out there is so important having you know people that I feel like it just helps people feel less alone.
Speaker 1:I think that's a really important part of storytelling and, as you said, like, yes, we are like very individual, but there are a lot of common experiences that we all kind of go through. So I, yeah, I feel like, now more than ever, just like to me like continuing to write, continuing to write stories, just feels like an act of like courage and also like a bit of a F.
Speaker 1:You kind of like look at us like we keep doing it anyway, so I think that's, I think that that's a great thing about like, yes, indie publishers, stories are getting out that wouldn't have otherwise gotten out exactly it's not, that's not going to change. Uh, because people want to read them. So I think that's something that is. It's. It's cool to see that trend become more like a takeover and, and I feel like, will directly influence the traditionally publishing world as well as to like what is selling, what people want to read. So I think that's a great.
Speaker 1:that's a great thing, that's a great thing.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, I would love for you to share how people can get in touch with you and follow along on your your writing journey, and also grab your first three books and also yeah, you know, wait until the fourth book is also out as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that comes out in October.
Speaker 1:Amazing.
Speaker 2:Awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, alex has to deal with something that's really difficult.
Speaker 1:yeah yeah, I, I, yeah, I would love, yeah, I'd love for you to share um. Yeah, the best way for people to kind of find your books and follow along for you I know that, um, obviously, amazon KU is is having a bit of a a moment right now, and and so I always like to hear what the best way is to like directly support the author, um, and really make sure they're getting getting the most out of their book if they go to my web page, which is vickiambushcom, when they click on, any of the buttons, for that are next to the books, because we have a, we have a pay.
Speaker 2:I have a page for Alex and then I have a page for my other books, my standalone books that are not part of the series. It will take them to my what do you call it? Card, and there you, there, you can. There's Barnes and Noble, there's, I think, apple. I mean there's a whole slew of different places to access the books other than Amazon. I mean Amazon is on there, you know, on my landing page, but not the only thing. So this gives them more of a variety. So if they click on that, that's where it'll take them. And then, of course, they can follow and find me on Facebook, youtube and Instagram and blue sky.
Speaker 2:I kind of, you know I'm not closed on TikTok, but I can't get in it because because when they were going through, I did this goodbye video, right and, and I and I did, I didn't delete it, but I kind of I forgot what I did. I can't get back in, like, I can see it but I can't do anything on it, you know. And so every time. If I try to get in, it says that it's on some kind of. You can't get access to it until this whole thing is resolved, right. So it just sits there and that doesn't bother me at all, because I want it to be done with it anyway, you know. So, anyway, that's where they can reach me.
Speaker 1:Amazing, awesome. Well, I love that and I love chatting with you and hearing all about your books and Alex and his journey and I feel like it's such a fun, unique story. So thank you for sharing.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank you. Thank you for having me. I enjoy our conversations.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. I would love if you would leave a review and also if you loved the author that we chatted with, go find them on social media and hype them up, comment on their stuff, share their work. Even if you can't buy the book, these kinds of things are great ways of supporting indie authors and getting their book in front of new readers. And if you are a writer or author in need of a developmental editor, please reach out. I would love to chat. Everything is linked in the show notes and it would be an absolute honor to be able to get eyes on your novel. So thanks again and listen to the next episode.
