 What's shakin' Booktube, my name's Cam. Welcome back to another video. Thanks for taking a break from Animal Crossing to watch my face. You're still playing it right now, aren't you? Well, I finally did it. I finished writing my psychological horror book. They said it would never happen. Who's laughing now? I've finished a first draft and a second draft. So as far as I'm concerned, the hardest part's done. As of right now, it's at just over 70,000 words, which I think translates to about like a bit over 300 pages. And what I want to do in the video today is tell you about the particular challenges I had finishing this book. I want to tell you about what my plans are as far as publishing and marketing it. But before that, first, really quickly, I just want to talk to you about beta readers. It's finally time where I, the Chad, must search for my betas. In the next two weeks, I'm probably looking for around five people, I think, to beta read Descend 7, which isn't going to be the actual title of the book in the end, but I need them to beta read it and provide me some feedback. Purely just feedback based on the story and the characters, the plot, the pacing, all that kind of stuff. Letting me know if there's any loopholes, etc. They won't be correcting grammar or anything technical like that. None of that. Purely just letting me know what works and what doesn't with the story. So I've actually made an online form for you to fill out if you're interested in doing that. I'll obviously link it in the description below. All the information is there, but hey, whoa there, chief. First, really quickly, I'm going to dot point it for you, okay, before you jump right in and apply for that. Before you apply to be a beta reader, it's important that you know exactly what my expectations are. That way, you know, you're not wasting your time. I don't want you to waste your time. I sure as hell don't want to waste mine. At the moment, the restrictions to be a beta reader for this book are that, first of all, you're a horror fan, obviously. Don't nominate yourself to be a beta reader for a horror book. If at the first, you know, mention of a stab wound, you're going to be like, oh my, you'll need to be a relatively quick reader for this one. I'm going to give three weeks to read this for like a 70,000 word manuscript, which I think is quite a lot of time. But for a lot of people, it's not. So in that case, it might not be the best option for you. And finally, my last requirement, which is a bit of a reluctant one, is that you have to be over 18. What? Hey, hey, hey, what the fuck? You're not going to have to be 18 to buy or read the final product, okay? This is just for right now. Until it's finished, I have to be a bit careful, you know? I have to play it safe, protect the younglings and all that. It is what it is. So the five people I approve, they're going to be credited in the final in the final copy of the book if they want to be. They'll get a whole page dedicated to the beta readers. So if you want to be a beta reader, get in quick. That's all I'm saying. You've got two weeks. The deadline for it is the 17th of April. I think it's been like a bit over a year now, since I came up with the idea for this story. I can't, I can't remember how I did, but I do know there were a lot of like notable inspirations. 1408, the Silent Hill franchise, the Divine Comedy in itself, which I'm sure has been an inspiration for just a ton of modern horror. Even my own time living in an apartment. You know, when I first started my booktube channel, you'll notice I lived in an apartment. Even living there with some creepy neighbors was a big inspiration for the story. And if you don't know, the story is about a middle-aged man named Joseph Ridley. Joseph is pulled into a fight for his life and his sanity. When you meet Joe, he's at rock bottom and he's hella bitter about it. Truth be told, he's not the type of dude you would want to share a beer with. All we know at the start is that he used to have an amazing life, but now he drives a limo for a living and he lives in a crappy apartment. There's a storm rolling into the city where Joseph lives. And very quickly, Joseph finds out that the storm isn't just rain and lightning. He outran his past for a long time, but now his past is caught up with him. That's the gist of it as it stands right now. And some of the troubles I had writing this I think might actually surprise you. I know a lot of people say that after their first draft, they end up with too many words. And when they go through and do their second draft, they end up cutting a lot of it out. I'm actually the complete opposite and I kind of always have been. At the end, I ended up with too small of a word count. And when I went through with my revision, I found I was actually adding a lot more meat to the story. I still changed and cut and polished a lot of aspects of what I'd already written. But the word count was going up, not down, which is good. Like I said, I felt like it was too short. It's a problem I've always had with my writing. I would always end up with a small word count no matter what. And I didn't really know why. Like I didn't know what I was doing wrong. And in retrospect, I think my problem was that I guess the pacing was too quick. I was jumping from major event in the story to major event. And I wasn't really taking much of a breather in between those events. And you know, to be honest, I think character development always kind of suffered for that reason. That basically is what I think is my weakest point as a writer doing like the more relationship and character arc and dialogue parts of the story. I'm very much like an action sequence writer. I love doing the events and the major actions that drive the plot forward. And you know, that's what my second draft was, adding a lot more dialogue and personal intimate moments to the story. I've no idea if I've got it right now, but well, that's what the beta readers are for. Another issue I found, a unique one, I guess to this genre was balancing the psychological and the horror elements of the story. Because I didn't want this just to be a purely psychological horror without any action. But I also didn't want it to be a slasher. I wanted it to be both and that can be really tricky. The psychological part is obviously and ultimately the more important part. So that's what I had the focus on. And it even got to the point where I ended up cutting out like a whole action sequence I'd done a pretty decent one and replaced it with a more mental torment or mental trial, I should say. I feel like there's a ton of like hidden meaning and symbolism in the story. And I'm super excited, first of all, to see if and how many people pick up on that or how much of it they pick up on. That was another tricky thing to deal with trying to do, you know, symbolism without it being like tacky or on the nose. When it comes to like psychological horror, there's a lot you need to say without saying it. And that was a pretty tricky thing to balance as well. Another problem I noticed that I have with my writing. Holy fuck, I can drag a sentence out. Oh my god. In the first draft, there were more run on sentences than there are Ozzy Bogans at Bali. What can I say? I love to travel. I'm pretty set on self publishing. And don't get me wrong, that's not me saying I could totally be traditionally published if I wanted to, bro. It just genuinely seems like a better option for me right now. I'm lucky enough to be in a place where I have access to or I can do it all myself. I can retain full creative control of this book. And again, I'm lucky enough to be in a position where I can pretty much market it myself as well. Don't get me wrong, I don't plan on like blasting you. I don't want to turkey slap you with my book. If every time you click on one of my videos, I'm not going to do that. But I'm blessed enough to know that there are people who are willing to tune in and listen to me talk about my book. Assuming I do self publish, I think I'm going to go with Ingram Spock. I know last time I went with Create Space. Create Space is KDP now. Create Space is probably only remembered by the oldies. Create this space, bitch. I want to go with Ingram Spock because I want to have the option of doing hard covers, which weirdly enough, KDP doesn't do. I don't know why. That seems like a pretty big selling point. And it's not like Amazon short on money or anything. I don't get why KDP doesn't do hard covers. Doesn't make any sense to me. But also, Ingram Spock has a warehouse in Australia, which is fantastic. Plus, I've heard the quality of Ingram Spock is just objectively better than KDP, which again is weird to me. But I'll do a video on that when I cross that bridge. What's exciting is that I already have the concept art kind of ready for the book cover. So I'm really excited to have that professionally done. That'll be a fun video as well, the old cover reveal. I don't have many plans as of yet as far as marketing goes. I haven't got like a big marketing campaign planned. I'm thinking I might ask some of my booktuber friends to like just show the book in a video. Like not read it and review it. Just quite literally say, hey, this exists. I definitely want to send some copies to bookstagrammers if they're willing for the promotion and also so that I can use the photos with their permission obviously for promotional stuff because bookstagrammers just take the dopest pictures when it comes to books. And as for advertising the books on my videos here, like I said, I'm not going to stuff it down your throat. I might mention my books in a video every now and then just to remind you that they're there. And obviously I'll mention them when I'm talking about my own writing or when I'm talking about writing in general every now and then. I'm sure I'll probably have a card at the end of my videos just showing you the book. But I don't plan on like taking time in an actual video to do a full on ad for it and say, hey, go buy my book right now. Disclaimer, I'll probably do that a little bit when it very first comes out, but it's not going to be like a thing. At this point, if all goes to plan, I'm hoping to publish it before the end of the year, probably between October and December. That's basically it. You know, pretty much everything that I do now about what's happening with this book. Thanks so much for watching, guys. And honestly, thanks for the support. You guys truly don't know just how much it means to me. Honestly, it really means a lot. Don't forget to check the link in the description if you want to apply to be a beta reader. Catch ya.