Author Journey (August 25, 2025)
I’ve had a busy couple of weeks with the kids still on their summer vacation. I missed a couple of planned posts, but otherwise, it’s actually gone very well. I’m pretty optimistic about how things might pan out going forward!
Author Journey (August 25, 2025)
What happened?
The usual approach to the summer vacation has involved getting the kids in camps. However, it’s often a bit of a nightmare since lots of camps book up incredibly early and we would end up doing a bunch of different camps each week. That meant new routines, new carers, and new friends… every week. Honestly, it ended up being too much for the kids who came away from the break feeling exhausted. So, this year, we decided to reduce the number of camps significantly. In fact, the last four weeks of the vacation have been camp free. That does mean that they’ve been with me the entire time. The only downtime I get is late in the evening… if I’m lucky.
Regardless, the kids have done much better with this format, and thanks to online gaming and video chat, they’ve been playing with friends and cousins a lot. Of course, we do lots of other things too, but the online gaming has given me the chance to catch up on a lot of my to-do-list items. That’s taking the pressure off going forward and if it continues, will allow me to recover a lot of time to do things for me. And, I’m already seeing a little of that. I managed to watch 19 episodes of anime and three episodes of Alien: Earth. Part of me wants to throw up some reviews for it as there’s a lot to talk about, but I’m not there yet. I will likely add more depth to the stories I look at in 2026, especially as I’d like to incorporate movie reviews. Anyhow, it’s been productive in some areas, and harder in others, hence the three missed posts.
When is a story too weird?
Every now and then, a story pops up on the radar that has the most ridiculous premise. Recently, these have been focused on Isekai stories. We’ve seen people reincarnated as slimes, spiders, swords, goblins, and most recently a vending machine… I’ll admit that I saw the teaser image for the last one – Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon and couldn’t bring myself to watch it. Was that too weird? Surprisingly, the answer is no. Last week, I started watching the first season on a whim and was pleasantly surprised.
Now, there’s obviously a lot of tongue in cheek humour with a guy being reborn as a vending machine, but as the story progressed, it developed a lot of heart and revealed some incredible details about the characters. For the record, I am planning on reviewing this show soon, but I don’t think it hurts too much to talk about it now. The most interesting thing for me was that Boxxo, the human reborn as a vending machine, found himself in a position where he started to worry whether anyone would still like him if he wasn’t a vending machine. He had the option to gain the ability of telepathy but decided against it, afraid that he wouldn’t like what he heard.
The author, Itsuwa Katou has taken a bizarre concept and given it reason. We understand why Boxxo is a vending machine. It’s a way to protect himself. He doesn’t have to worry about saying the wrong thing since he can only say a number of set phrases. The story then becomes whether he can learn to love himself enough that he’s not worried about whether he will be useful if he became a human again. Of course, the more successful he is as a vending machine, the harder that will become. Even saying that sounds like it’s too weird to succeed, but I promise you, it’s not.
So, what can we learn from this and take to the indie author world? One concept that has been prevalent in the indie community for quite a while is the idea of writing to market. I believe it was Chris Fox who coined the phrase, and if it wasn’t him, he definitely brought it to the forefront. The idea is that you study the market and produce a story that will satisfy it. That involves researching what is selling, what tropes are popular, what markets are underserved, and much more. Of course, once you’re done the research, you then have to write the book, and most likely the sequels, and get them out there.
That then took advantage of the rapid release model and left a lot of authors struggling to keep up. Take too long and the underserved market will have been flooded by faster writers. Even then, if you did get there in time, the process doesn’t stop. You find the next niche and start all over again. That was the main approach for a long time. Sadly, that approach wouldn’t result in stories about people reincarnated as vending machines. That’s too niche for writing to market.
Recently, I backed a Kickstarter by Johnny B. Truant which gets me the audiobook, paperback, and eBook for his new book, The Artisan Author: Escape the Self-Publishing Rat Race. He also had a tier for a series of lectures, but I don’t have the time to be able to commit to something like that. Anyhow, I’ll be sure to report back on the book once I have it. I love the idea behind it. I listened to Johnny on his numerous podcasts over the year and have seen how keeping up with the write to market drive burned him out and almost drove him away from the industry entirely.
I’m excited to see what he’s suggesting, although I have a good idea based on his emails and more recent podcasts. This approach seems to be where stories like Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon can become a reality. It’s also worth noting that there were only three volumes of the light novel, which went on to become a manga series that is still going and eventually an anime with two seasons so far. Embrace weird. Write whatever you want.
What are you planning?
After binge-watching season one of Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon I dived into Gachiakuta and watched the six available episodes in one night. My plan to try and keep up that sort of effort. I’m going to pick random shows and devour them. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do for the year, so that’s one thing I’m going to focus on. I’ve also got a lot of manga to read too, and I just started a new series that had a promising first volume.
I have another full week with the kids and then school starts. Obviously, that’s going to be an interesting time of transition, but I’m hopeful that things will go well. Then, I can get back to working on my projects. I still want to finish writing one novel by the end of the year and there’s lots of work to do for this site as well. I’m feeling a lot better about things after the summer vacation, even if I haven’t had much downtime. Anyhow, thanks for reading.
“Recently, I backed a Kickstarter by Johnny Truant ” Okay, it’s a little scary that I did exactly the same thing at the same tier! Just filled out the questionnaire last week after the Kickstarted finished funding.
Rapid release might work for some folks, but I’ve know many who burned out. I think that’s the value the Mr. Truant’s efforts might help. I’m also hoping to better understand alternatives without burning months or years of personal experimentation!
Though I have to say that recent changes Amazon has made to the algorithms seem hopeful. They reward stead growth instead of huge peaks. Their work reminds me of Google’s around SEO — the idea is to connect readers with writers who should interest them. The fewer ways to game the system, the better, and I think Amazon’s recent efforts might level the playing field a bit.
Or maybe I’m a closet optimist!
Great minds think alike! I was considering the course, but there was no way I could commit to the times. I’d end up just watching the repeats, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I already have plenty to do, and I’m sure most of it will be covered in the books. I’m looking forward to diving into them.
That makes sense. If people lose trust in the algorithm then Amazon loses. It’ll be interesting to see if that’s how it works. I know a lot of people are switching to selling from their own stores, but then that will require even more work to get the visibility that Amazon can provide. That said, I don’t think I’m going to step away from Amazon any time soon. They are just too big to ignore.
I agree. Let’s try to be optimistic about things.