Francesca Astraea's Blog, page 3

Rotting Trees Paperback Giveaway

Happy new year and happy Rotting Trees release month! I'm hosting a competition to win a signed paperback: just sign up to my newsletter by 31st January and I'll announce the winner in my February newsletter. Here's the sign up link: https://mailchi.mp/3aecf3edd2a9/mails...

🍃You can still pre-order Rotting Trees, by the way, from all good retailers plus signed book bundles in my Folksy shop!

End of year updates

Thank you to everyone who's supported Rotting Trees, my short stories and my stationery shop re-open this year. In 2025 I'll be posting to social media far less and instead focussing on my blog, newsletter and Patreon because they are algorithm-free and a better use of my extremely limited energy (links below). I enjoy connecting with you all on socials, but it can take the same length of time to plan, write, hashtag-ify and add alt text to a social media post for each platform as it does to write a chapter of a book (and it's a gamble whether that post will be seen). So in 2025 I'll be posting to socials less - I'm not Disappearing, just posting less - and focussing on longer, slower and generally more mindful content instead. It will be delivered to your inbox, with clickable links and less chance of you missing updates. Links and info about each space:

💌Newsletter: monthly, containing a round up of news including blog posts, shop updates, book stockists and short stories, plus anything else fun I've been working on and shout outs for other small businesses or art I'm enjoying. Everyone who signs up gets the chance to trial Patreon for free for a month (look out for the link in each newsletter!). https://mailchi.mp/3aecf3edd2a9/mails...

🖋Blog: three posts a month if I'm being optimistic, usually book-ish or mulling over topics I'm interested in. You can subscribe for email notifications but I will share links in my newsletters. The comments section on posts is probably a good spot to find other readers of my books. https://francescasthoughts.com

📖Patreon: a variety of posts each month including tarot & chat, early access to short stories plus exclusive short stories and, in novel-sharing times, a chapter per week of a book that's not published yet. Patreon is where I share news first, and because it's more private, it's where I share more personal updates. You can sign up to be a free member for occasional free posts, but if you become a paid member you'll get a character named after you in a piece of work, your name in the thank yous of books and handwritten postcards or letters from me every few months. You can trial paid membership for a week, and each tier enjoys the same perks, so you can join for as little as £1 plus VAT a month and get A LOT in return. It's a lovely space. https://www.patreon.com/FrancescasWords

Happy new year! ✨

My Favourite Books of 2024 and Books I’m Excited to Annoy You About in 2025

Lo, the time of year when GoodReads earns its keep. I hope everyone is having a peaceful end of year break!

I wrote a best books of 2024 so far at the end of June, where I said I wanted to read Shuggie Bain before the end of the year. I have not yet. Sorry, Shuggie. I did get an email confirming I finished my bachelor’s degree, so, yay! Here are my favourite reads of the year with links to any Read, If You Like posts, plus some titles I’m hoping to read in 2025.

Best Non Fiction

My diss...

Small Business Shenanigans: Reopening My Stationery Shop (Part One)

The series no one asked for but everyone needs in this era of mass commercialisation. Happy shopping season!

August 2024

Think about how much I miss running my shops, and about how the flexibility offered from setting your own work hours is quite helpful for managing chronic fatigue syndrome.

September and October 2024

Talk about how much I miss running my shops. Think about how I would run things differently if I were to reopen. Aside from a handful of weeks here and there, I’ve bee...

Pre-Order Rotting Trees in Waterstones & Foyle's

Hello!

The list of places you can pre-order Rotting Trees now includes Waterstones, Foyle's Hatchard's, Blackwell's and Barnes & Noble. Don't forget to email me your pre-order receipt to get an exclusive Bezzina's short story!

(Email francescaswords (at) outlook (dot) com and I'll send it over!)

The full list of retailers is here: https://francescaswords.com/rotting-t...

Pre-Orders for Rotting Trees are open, with a bonus Bezzina’s short story for pre-orders!

Hello! Happy Halloween/five year anniversary of the return of My Chemical Romance to all who celebrate.

I’m quite excited to announce that Rotting Trees will release as an ebook and a paperback on 31st January 2025 and you can pre-order it now from all major retailers at a very nice little discount. It will be available from your local bookshops too – just ask them to order it in for collection! Because of the way publishing works – books on prominent display are on prominent display because ...

Read, If You Like: ‘Yellowface’ by Rebecca F. Kuang

Happy October! I write to you, spiritually speaking, from the inner depths of a carved pumpkin. Physically speaking I am sitting at a desk and wondering if four o’clock in the afternoon is an acceptable bed time before the clocks go back.

Read Yellowface (R.F. Kuang, 2023) if you like:Satires and/or thrillers. I think this is a satirical thriller, although I imagine it has also been called ‘a blistering commentary on cultural appropriation,’ which is is. Get a book that can do both! It m...

Read, If You Like: ‘The Night Circus’ by Erin Morgenstern

According to the search bar on my blog dashboard, I first wrote about The Night Circus in 2017, in a never-published round up of books I’d enjoyed that year. I wrote ‘The Night Circus kind of about magic, kind of about love, kind of about how bad things happen when men get into competition with each other.’ 2017 me was not wrong, but I reread the novel a couple of weeks ago and I’m still thinking about it, so it’s time for it to get its own post!

Read The Night Circus (2011) by Erin Morgenste...

A quick note on some Patreon updates

Hello!

If you’re active in online creator spaces, you might have seen some chatter about the Patreon Apple/iOS app. By chatter, I mean extremely angry posts about potential loss of income. Here is Patreon’s official statement about the iOS app, which is implementing a 30% fee on in-app purchases from November. On a related note, Patreon is using this change as an excuse to insist that all creators use a certain billing model.

What this means for you as members/potential members of the No. ...

Read If You Like… Welcome to St Hell

Good morning from someone who a) tripped over and landed on their bad arm recently and has spent most days since wondering if today’s the day their wrist is going to snap, and b) has a deadline to finish their undergraduate dissertation. I’m fine, I whisper, eating home brand Nutella from a spoon and experimenting with physiotherapy exercises as my Internet cuts out for the twelfth time that hour. Ah, 2024. At least I’ve got some fantastic books on the go, and here’s one of them!

Read Welcome...