Lara's Wanderings is now on Substack!
Introducing: The Gryphon's Inner Dale
Change. It’s Part of the Adventure!
I am moving most of my online presence to Substack, but why? When my family moved to Wyoming for my husband’s job, I discovered that my old way of doing business no longer worked. I needed to make a change:
1. Why now?
In October 2016, I published my first novel, Gryphendale. I had worked all of my adult life as a graphic designer, so I expected immediate success. Oh! I learned so much since then. One of those things is that books don’t sell themselves. Even though I had a log since 2011, I had to go out and meet readers. I had tried to do most of my sales online, but most of my books still sold to people I met in person. In 2021, I started to do book signings, Comic-Cons, and school fairs. I discovered a hungry audience who wanted good books, but were not motivated to dig around the internet. Now that I am in Wyoming, the least populous state in the US, those opportunities to meet people have disappeared. I am now having to go back online. This time, I want to do things differently.
2. Why here?
With all my in-person events, I have had many people sign up for my quarterly newsletter. At first, I tried email, but that quickly got blocked for too many addresses. Then I moved to MailChimp, but they started charging money once I reached a certain number of subscribers. I don’t make any money off my emails. So, I moved to Mailerlite, but they also limit the growth of subscribers. What I wanted was a place to have both my website and my newsletter without unreasonable fees. I know everyone thinks that a person becomes a millionaire as soon as they publish a book, but that is very untrue. I write because I love it, not because it pays bills.
3. What’s the plan?
Currently, I am just moving my free quarterly newsletter to Substack and meeting some like-minded people. I got off social media years ago, so I am not looking to replace that here.
In the near future, I am going to create a serialized publication called “The Gryphon’s Inner Dale” for my Gryphendale stories. Every Tuesday, I plan on emailing 2000-word chapters starting with the oldest stories of the Gryphendale timeline through to the most modern. New writing will be mixed with short stories and my published novels to create a smooth narrative of the world with separate adventures for various characters. Each email will end with a short commentary about the history of inspiration for aspects of the story. I hope to make it easy for people to join at any point. All old posts will be freely available to subscribers to enjoy if they missed anything.
I have the stories behind a paywall because I do not want to break my promises to those who subscribed to my free quarterly newsletter and start flooding their email with things they did not sign up for. I have also sent out a survey of what everyone wanted to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of Gryphendale’s publication. I think this might be the best solution. Also, having the small monthly support will allow me to focus more time on writing rather than just marketing books. Writing has been my dream since childhood, not internet algorithms.
4. When will the weekly stories start?
The email stories, starting with an introduction to the world of Gryphendale, will begin on October 6, 2026. Currently, I am starting to write, format, and illustrate the stories to get ahead. I am also learning Substack and still making decisions on whether I will move my non-fiction (book reviews and devotionals) website here, too. Whatever you decide to do, I hope you will join me on my journey!
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