Lyssa Chiavari's Blog, page 11

Two short stories – for free!

If you follow me on social media, you may have seen me post that Wings of Renewal, the solarpunk dragon anthology that my short story “Seven Years Among Dragons” was published in, was going out of print. That means that the rights have reverted back to me, so I decided that I wanted to give back to my fans and give you all a chance to read “Seven Years Among Dragons” for FREE!

As of today, “Seven Years Among Dragons” is available on Amazon for $0.99, but for the next month, I am also giving...

Exciting news: The Iamos Trilogy has a new home!

I’ve been sitting on this secret for quite a while now, waiting until we were able to officially make an announcement. And the time is finally here: I am working with a publisher! *confetti*

I’ve mentioned before the reasons why I didn’t want to work with a traditional publisher for this series. But I’ve always been really interested in the co-op model of publishing, which combines the best of the indie and traditional worlds. So I was thrilled by the opportunity to work with Snowy Wings Pub...

#NationalComingOutDay reflections and a way to give back

Two years ago on National Coming Out Day, a friend of mine came out as ace. The courage he showed in doing so made me re-evaluate my own decision to stay in the closet, something I’d done since college, and is what ultimately inspired me to be public and vocal about my identity, and to work for ace representation in fiction.

Coming out isn’t a one-time thing, though. There are still people I know in real life that don’t know about my career and don’t see my online persona, and for each one of...

A little about Scylla

So, Different Worlds has been out for a few days and now seems like a good time to talk about something that isn’t really a spoiler butdidn’t really make sense to post about without the book being available for people to look at and understand what the heck I’m talking about, and that’s Scylla.

It’s been in the works since the get-go that Scylla is aro-ace, but it wasn’t something that was really going to get brought up until Actual Book Two, New World. (Not a spoiler! Not really!) Yes, I kno...

Release day: Different Worlds

Different Worlds is finally here! This tie-in novella (that, at 45,000 words, is practically a novel in itself…) is the sort-of-second-but-not-actually book in the Iamos Trilogy, and takes place during the events of Fourth World, telling the story of what happened to Henry, Tamara, Scylla, and the others left behind after Isaak disappeared.

I’m so excited that this book, which is so closeto my heart,is finally out in the world! I came up with this story pretty much simultaneously to Fourth Wo...

Indie behind-the-scenes: don’t take advantage

So, a few weeks ago I talkedabout not being taken advantage of when hiring freelancers for publishing your book. You shouldn’t need to run a Kickstarter in order to finance your book, and I stand by that. But there’s a flip side to that, too: don’t be so obsessed with getting a deal that you rip off another independent artist in the process.

Publishing is a weird business. There are some aspects of it that have a relatively low bar for entry. If you want to be a cover designer, for example, s...

Happy Book Birthday to Anthropoidea!

This week my friend K.L. Teal (also known as T. Damon) is celebrating the release of her new book, Anthropoidea, a fun YA urban fantasy, and I’m helping her celebrate with a guest post and giveaway!

When Garrett upsets a witch during an interview for a senior project with his best friend and secret crush, Stella, a simple assignment that should be a dream come true turns into a nightmare. Garrett awakens the next morning to find that he’s been cursed—turned into a monkey! As Garrett settles i...

Different Worlds: Meet the characters

Different Worlds is almost here! In just one month, it shall be unleashed upon you all.1)Have you preordered your copy yet? There’s still time! Don’t forget that paperbacks ordered through my online storecome with art postcards, a coupon for a free copy of the ebook and more! To celebrate, today I want to tell you a little bit more about my characters. Here are some fun facts about my two narrators, Henry and Tamara. Some of this is mentioned or alluded to in either Fourth World or Different...

Review policy reminder

Recently I’ve had a number of author friends and acquaintances ask me to read and blurb their books. I’m happy to do so (although please bear in mind that I’ve become a very slow reader, so it may take some time to get through my backlog), but I don’t use Goodreads or post reviews on Amazon. There are personal reasons for this that I’veposted about previously, and those still stand. There’s also the issue of it being against Amazon’s terms of service for you to post customer reviews if you kn...

Indie behind-the-scenes: ISBNs

Continuing with my theme from yesterday about authors on a budget and spending your money wisely, today I want to talk about ISBNs. For those of you who don’t know, ISBNs (International Standard Book Numbers)are the 10/13-digit identifier numbers on the barcode of a book. Every book has one, and they’re each an individual identifier. They are used by booksellers, libraries, publishers and moreto keep track of books; and because of complicated reasons, in the US they are exclusively available—...