Welcome to “so said victoria lee,” a newsletter by me, Victoria Lee, dark academic author of the feverwake series, a lesson in vengeance, and other dark and devious books.

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So…I’ve started a substack!

Many of you might have been subscribed to my newsletter already; that is essentially defunct now. I’m completely transitioning to substack. I want to have a platform that enables me to have free content available to readers—but in this time of coronavirus and uncertainty, I also need to have the option to launch paid subscriptions in the future. I also want to be able to build real community with my readers, and this seems like a good way to do that.

Here’s my plan right now:

For the foreseeable future, all my content is free.

At some point, I’ll transition to a mixed model—one free post a week, and a couple subscriber-only posts a week. Subscribers will also be able to engage in private discussion forums where we can talk about books (my books + others!), I can give personalized industry and writing advice, and we can just…shoot the shit, to be honest. 

I want this community to be an intimate one. I want us to be able to build real relationships and friendships, and have honest conversations—which is part of what I like about the mixed model. I’ll be able to share stuff with everyone, but I’ll also be able to have conversations with subscribers that I wouldn’t be able to have in “public.” Like…y’all want to hear the Real Shit about publishing? About life as a professional writer? Secret spoilers for future books? Headcanons and excerpts and author-created fanfiction? This is gonna be the place.

And we’ll talk. We’ll actually get to talk, in relative privacy, with a small group of likeminded people. I can tell you that for me, it’s been getting difficult to have the kinds of conversations with other authors + readers that I want to have on twitter, for example. It’s very…visible, and public, and as my platform grows I am finding that I have less time to engage 1:1 with readers as I’d like to.

This will change all that.

But anyway…still free for now! All this comes later. Right now I just want to start sharing content with people. 

My plan is to treat the free posts on this substack as a kind of hybrid diary and advice portal. Some of my posts will be me musing about writing and publishing—not Official Takes, just my unedited thoughts. Some posts will be formalized advice about the industry, querying, submission, etc. (I even kept a Very Honest Diary during the editing and submission process for A Lesson in Vengeance, which will be one of my paid posts eventually!) I’ll also occasionally solicit questions from subscribers and answer them on the paid posts (plus having the open discussion posts for subscribers, free excerpts, fanfiction, etc.).

Anyway, I hope you’re down to join me! I think it’ll be fun. :)

My first post is already up. It’s a diary-style one: “The strange guilt of promoting a book during a pandemic.”