Blog - Sacha T. Y. Fortuné

“Hearing It Out Loud” – “Climbing The Walls” Saga interactive reading

I recently did an interactive reading of “Climbing The Walls“, Book 1 of my “Hart & Cole” series, with Saga’s co-founder Pranika Sharma on the segment “Hearing It Out Loud”.

This excerpt we chose is the introduction of Nicole’s boss Darren Hart — my favourite character. You’ll hate him in Book 1, but I promise you’ll love him eventually!

Check out the video! Read more

“Climbing The Walls” is LIVE on the Saga app!

Woohoo! Launch day! Yes, AGAIN!

As of October 1st, 2021, my first book “Climbing The Walls” is LIVE on the Saga appexclusively (e-version).

That’s right. I hit “Unpublish” on Amazon. That’s a HUGE step for any writer, but I did it.

I took a leap of faith in a new start-up company run by young book lovers. Saga Fiction is India’s foremost mobile fiction app, which handpicks the best of feel-good stories and contemporary fiction, bringing to you an undeniable reading experience with serialized fiction, mini novellas, and page-turning novels. Read more

Support & The Solitude of the Writer Life

Writing a book is like starting a business. (And I’ve done both.)

Particularly when it comes to support from your network.

Or who you “think” is your network, anyway.

You know… your friends, your family, your coworkers or colleagues, and the like.

Almost everyone who’s aware of your writing “hobby” (because that’s the box they’ve put it into, in their minds) will have genuine words of support while your work is in progress, and maybe even when it’s out there.

But for many… once the time is upon us to actually support beyond saying “Congrats”… it’s crickets.

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The Upcoming Saga: Hart & Cole is going mobile!

So, I now have a third — that’s right, THIRD — major re-edit of Book 1 of my series…

LOL. It feels like I’ll never stop working on that pesky first pancake!

“Hart & Cole” is going mobile…

I recently signed an exclusive contract with Saga, an Indian publishing company, for my entire series to be converted into an episodic format for their upcoming mobile fiction app. Read more

Website Security & The Cost of Your Writer Life

I got hacked. During my book tour. Yeah. It sucked.

I’m a web designer and I love dabbling in code, but I’m far from a developer. In the past, I’ve managed to avoid any serious web security issues… and then my last week hit me like a train.

It started on a website I recently rebuilt. I breathed life back into this passion project, so when I had to write a bio, I thought I’d link to it.

That was the first time I realised there was a malicious redirect on the domain.

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5 Useful Tips to Support Fellow Indie Authors

REVIEWS! Indies need REVIEWS!

I love reading and reviewing, and I’m happy to help others.

I’ve been terrible at it for the last couple of years (pregnancy, early mamahood, COVID!) but this year I am determined to DO BETTER!

So I’ve spent the last few weeks working on committing myself to doing Book Reviews for indies. I researched book bloggers’ websites and took notes.

Here are the 5 things I recently implemented myself.

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Your Significant Other & Your Book Babies: A Rant

I’ve seen it many times on writer groups, the wail: “My husband/wife has never even read my book!”

And almost everyone responds: “Ah well, that’s for the best, probably not your target reader anyway.”

…But is that even the point?

I myself have some author friends whose books I haven’t read, but I’m not talking about the regular friends/acquaintances. I’m not even talking about your “circle”, the adult people in your life directly around you, i.e. parents, siblings, best friends.

I’m talking about the person you share a bed and a life with, and with whom you’ve perhaps even meshed DNA in the form of offspring. That’s right: your significant other.

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Cookie-cutter Writing & Missing the Mystery

I’m a little ashamed to admit it… but… I barely read any books last year.

Literally, less than a handful. Off the top of my head, I can recollect maybe three or four. But that’s it.

Blame the pandemic, blame the baby and the newborn-newmama black hole of despair funk, blame just my utter laziness. The fact is: reading novels was nowhere near my priority list. (And, as a self-published writer, it should be!) Read more

Launch Day! Book 3 “Pandora’s Price” is LIVE!

We’re here. We’re at this point… yep, you’ve guessed it:

Today is the day BOOK 3 LAUNCHES!

Just a reminder — my first published book was released July 28-29, 2018. My second published book was released on January 22, 2019. So there was a good six-month window between Book 1 and Book 2, but only a couple of months until Book 3!

Yikes! So it’s been a helluva couple of months…

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The Freebie Flaw & The Fickle Reader

I now own 800+ free ebooks. (Yep. I counted.)

Which, in all fairness, isn’t even close to the limit. Amazon boasts its newer Kindles can hold up to 3500 books!

I need 20 more lifetimes to ever get around to half of these that I already have.

…And I get 20+ emails per day offering even more freebies. I don’t even remember signing up to half of these newsletter subscriber sites. So… yeah.

Honestly, I’m not surprised authors are complaining about “no/low sales”.

We’re not “part of” the problem. We ARE the problem.

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Bloggers – The Holy Grail of Reviewers

I’ve been fortunate enough to have snagged the attention of a couple of bloggers recently with my debut novel “Climbing The Walls“.

Mind you, to date I must’ve emailed over 100 bloggers, with about a .0000000001% response rate, and then after sending my book to the few who DID respond… ***crickets***!!!

So I’m eternally humbled and grateful, and so thrilled that these two bloggers took the time and attention to lovingly describe aspects of my book that I myself couldn’t have written better.
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Shock Value Writing and “Trigger Warnings”

I gave out ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies), and a user took both Books 1 & 2 — then sent me a message saying she preferred not to review.

…Not that she didn’t like my writing. She was explicit about this. But it seems she didn’t want the book on her record of having reviewed on her accounts, since it contains a particular scene that she wasn’t 100% comfortable with. Read more

Romantic Cliffhangers: Will my story survive the “Big Chop”?

Yeah, yeah, I know. The blog post title is misleading since I always make a big deal about the fact that “I don’t write romance. I write relationships. I write people.”

But for all intents and purposes, my Hart & Cole series is about love. It’s a lot MORE than romance, and it covers all KINDS of love, but the relationship is a driving force here.

And there is a huge aspect of ‘romance’ though I classify it more as a ‘Women’s Fiction’ genre since it doesn’t follow the usual trends of a romance. Read more

Pantser vs. Plotter – The Tipping Point

“I am not typically a fan of first person viewpoint writing but for this book, it works very well. The author managed to create two individual people within the story and tell a first person view from each of them and they did not get lost in each other, nor did one overpower the other.” (Red – see full review here.)

This is perhaps one of the best compliments I’ve gotten so far on my debut published novel Climbing The Walls (Hart & Cole Book 1) – one I didn’t even think of, when writing.

Because, of COURSE my characters don’t get lost in each other – to me, they never will; they never can. They are each so individual, so unique, to me… so I’m thrilled my readers are also able to GET that.

Because here’s the thing:

Kris and Nicole – they’re both fully (and individually!) formed in my head. I’ve only just barely edited them.

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“Do I Need an Author Website?”

When I saw the question, quite innocently posed on a Facebook Author group, my biggest surprise was that the responses were NOT a resounding “YES”!

To me, it was. I mean, of COURSE you need a website.

Granted, I make a living building and managing websites, so I may be a *wee* bit biased, but this one should be a no-brainer!

For any business — and, make no joke about it, being an author (particularly a self-published one) is a BUSINESS! — you need to have a website.

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Fear & Flight with Writing

I hate flying.

But if you’re a traveller, you have to bear with the means of transport to get there. Yep… airplanes.

I began writing this post while on an airplane kicking off my mega-vacation — Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, U.S.A. and my old stomping ground of London, England. 4 flights and 3 weeks later, I’m now back home — and yep, I’m still not a fan of flying!

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Writing Challenge Day 4: In The Zone

Day 4 of the #BAWritingLife challenge by Bethany Atazadeh is to say what rituals/habits get you “In The Zone” or the mood to write.

An important part of my journey to writing — especially in the end stages towards the PUBLISH button — was to set the lock screen & background on my phone to the book cover. I did it with Book 1 (left) and recently changed it to Book 2 (right)! So now I’ve got my book boyfriend to look at all day! ?

I look at my phone constantly — and every time I see it, I am reminded to WRITE! ?

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