New Name, New Book, New Covers, New Everything
News from Crowhill Cove
A summary for you on what to expect in this edition in case you want to scroll down to the interesting bits: progress on the rebrand; new book release; new covers and typsetting plans; this week on TikTok; and the progress report with an update on my week-on-week sales and writing progress.
Rebranding Progress
There is a lot going on right now, so let’s start with the progress on the rebrand!
Some of you (*cough**cough*) may have noticed a few things already:
We officially have a new name! This publication is now called I Dream in Books. It feels a lot more accurate to the type of content you’ll see around here going forwards, and it also stuck in my head and wouldn’t go away. After a lot of agonising over whether it was this enough or not too much that, I decided to just go ahead and do it. We can always change again later if it doesn’t work. Nothing is permanent, etc etc, and right now in this ephemeral moment of time, I like it
Colours have changed to yellow! As I noted, I will be keeping the rest of the branding on Wednesdays the same, but we now have a hint to the way Saturdays will look when I resume. I’ve always been drawn to yellow. It makes me feel bright and sunny, and what better choice for a new direction
The publication also has a new image, since the Hydropower cover image isn’t relevant while we’re on hiatus. It’s just a photo of my bookshelves. I like them. They’re yellow, too
I have added a new section called ‘Literature’ to the publication, you can unsubscribe from this section if me talking about literature ever annoys you
I have a couple more graphics to edit before I’m done, and also I want to write up my first post and have everything ready *before* the first Saturday I resume posting to avoid any false starts. I’m planning to kind of gradually work on Saturday posts every week, and publish one whenever it’s ready, aiming for at least one a month - these are going to be longer form than previously and so will take longer to produce
But it’s looking pretty close to done! I can’t wait to properly relaunch this and get started. Join me on the journey if you haven’t already signed up:
I have a new book out!
What’s Cooking, Good Looking? nearly didn’t make it out at all. The last few months, as I’ve frequently discussed, have been MANIC. But I got there, just in time: I submitted the final version on I think the 26th, with a deadline of the 28th. Now it’s out, I’m able to sit back and reflect a bit, and I actually quite like this one. (That may seem like a given, since I, you know, published it into the world - but I’m an author, and we tend to be extremely self-critical beings; but I do like this one)
I also have a lot of redesigning of covers going on. After a lot of trouble, I’ve finally released a fully new version of the Kiss the Cook cover, to try to kickstart some sales (you’ll be able to see the old cover in the “Want More Fiction?” banner below, which is one more thing I need to update). This will probably be my last update for at least a year, even if it doesn’t work, because I’m just so tired of looking at this.
It’s a lot more gritty and has less of that ‘fun’ vibe, which is good because my books do tend more towards the gritty than the fun. It took a lot of analysis but I finally realised that the vibe of the cover just wasn’t matching the vibe of the inside, and that people who liked the cover probably got put off by the serious blurb, and people who like my serious-er books probably got put off by the cover. Anyway. We live and we learn. This may not even be a fix, but I have my fingers crossed it WORKS at last. Although, I will say, I already sold an ebook copy the DAY after updating it following several weeks of no activity, so that’s promising.
In turn, I’ve also had to update the paperback cover, due to their complete mismatch. Since I was doing book 1, I figured I should do the others. Books 1 to 3 now have matching rainbow covers instead of the plainer original backgrounds (books 4 and 5 aren’t out in paperback yet)*.
Finally, a word on whether you should buy them now or not: I would say buy them now, because a) I want sales now, haha and b) I will be putting the prices up once Amazon’s new paperback royalty rules come in (10th June, so very imminent). HOWEVER. I am also planning to overhaul my typeset on all of the books to an even better version. The actual content of the novel won’t change at all, just the way it looks. After sitting staring at the books all day during that book fair I attended, I noticed some things I wanted to change, and I want to keep up consistency across the whole series.
This price raise and typesetting update actually applies to ALL of my books, not just Crowhill Kitchen - I’ll be making the price change from the 10th and then working through the typesetting book by book, and will update here as each series is complete, if you want to wait.
*Small caveat - Amazon is still working through processing the new covers, and therefore they may not be out when you read this, but probably are. Also, I have some suspicion book 2 won’t be accepted and I’ll have to redo it because of the placement of the title, so we’ll see.
Books
Okay, you've read the Substack posts (and maybe you're a little bit confused if that's where you started). Wondering who all of these characters are? Thinking you need a refresher on past books?
Each week, I share the one TikTok video that performed best out of the last seven days.
All of these videos are available on TikTok for free, but if you’re a) not a TikTok user or b) just want the best highlights, this is a convenient place to see it.
This week’s best is below, and it’s me being slightly unhinged about my TBR cart:
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Why is it always the stupidest posts that get the most attention? Ha…
Note: Changes are in bold, comments in italics.
TOTAL SALES:
Crowhill Cove series (Don’t Move Out, Don’t Go Outside, Don’t Fly Home, Don’t Leave Town, Don’t Check Out, the 1-5 boxset, and Don’t Move Your Desk): ebook - 1,171, paperback/hardback - 45, KU pages read - 822,775, free downloads - 6,304
Kiss The Cook - ebook - 20, paperback - 1, KU pages read - 6,706 (225 pages = 29 equivalent full-book reads)
Cook Up A Storm - ebook - 18, paperback - 1, KU pages read - 6,846 (212 pages = 32 equivalent full-book reads)
Too Many Cooks: ebook - 7, paperback - 1, KU pages read - 2,882 (218 pages = 13 equivalent full-book reads) - I added the WCGL preview chapter this week, so the number of pages has gone up and therefore the equivalent reads has relatively gone down
What’s Cooking, Good Looking?: ebook - 6, paperback - n/a, KU pages read - 1,086 (178 pages = 6 equivalent full-book reads)
Serial Investigations full series (Pre-Substack releases: books 1-12, 2 bonus novellas, 2 boxsets): ebook - 503, paperback/hardback - 104, KU pages read - 397,522, free downloads - 1,819
WRITING:
What’s Cooking, Good Looking?: paperback typesetting in process
Cooking on Gas: preorder up, plot done
Crowhill Club: all covers, themes, and titles done, characters created and romances/interpersonal relationships between books set up
Mystery project: cover design bought!!!, initial ideas on characters, plot, themes
Hydropower: Mid-season break/hiatus
Client status: One book in final edits, one book in writing phase/first edits
SUBSTACK:
Subscribers: free - 86, paid - 2 - hi, new friends!
Followers: 428
By the way, please like this post if you enjoyed it and would like to see more! This helps me decide what to do for future content.
XO Rhiannon
Love the new name, love the sunshiney new color (thinking about a little touch up on my own but I promise not to steal yellow ;)