Game Talk - Kayleigh Dobbs
- Feb 20
- 6 min read
My earliest memory of Kayleigh is some years ago at a FantasyCon in Scarbourough, if memory serves. Ever the fan of the lycanthrope, what stands out for me here is her tireless work ethic in Happy Goat Horror, which I thought was a tribe of goats, rather than just the Head Goat in Charge. A relentless champion and connoisseur of the genre's written word, we'd have to talk game.
1. For those who don't know, who are you?
I’m Kayleigh Dobbs, an indie author and the owner of Happy Goat Horror, a review website with a focus on indie horror fiction. I spend all of my free time reading when I should be writing, making book review videos, writing review posts, and thinking up dastardly, nihilistic plots of my own.
2. Game talk – how do you organise and manage your game? How has it evolved?
I actually really need to work a bit harder on my organisation! I work extremely well to other peoples’ deadlines, but not my own. For my Happy Goat Horror activities, I did set one goal to make sure I post at least one book review every single week on a Monday, and I’ve managed to be consistent with that. I aim to post two YT videos every week but the non-negotiable number is one video, which I do hit. I think having a first tier of non-negotiable targets that must be met as a fallback for my more optimistic “this is what I’d like to get done in an ideal world” target helps me not kick my own ass too much when life gets in the way and interferes with my goating.
It started with a website with just one book review per week, and in the three or so years it has evolved to several posts (including articles, press releases, announcements, etc) each week, and a YouTube channel, where I also love hosting author interviews. A great perk of the website performing quite well is that I now receive ARC’s from publishers and authors that I’m already obsessed with, and as a book reviewer and collector, I see that as a tremendous achievement. In terms of my “game”, I’d say that it’s evolved in a sort of circular way – the more responsive people are to what I put out, the more motivated I am to get out as much publicity for indie authors as possible.
3. Talk us through one of your biggest achievements in your game – give us the story behind it. How did it play out?
Ooh, what a question! Okay, in terms of my own writing (in which I am so slow and really need to prioritise more!), my little collection, ‘The End’ (Black Shuck Books) was an Imadjinn Award finalist a couple of years back, and last year, I had a story accepted in a Flame Tree Publishing anthology (one of my bucket list presses). I think both of those were the result of me grafting on those stories with the same determination that my cat has when he’s trying to claw his way into the drawer we keep his treats in.
In terms of Happy Goat Horror, these might seem like small milestones in terms of the expanse of the Internet in general, but I recently hit 100K visitors on the website, and 1K subscribers on YT. I’m excited about those numbers because what I talk about and promote is indie horror, so my big hope is that the authors I’m discussing will get more of the attention and sales that they deserve. The website milestone was funny actually, because I never looked at the analytics for fear of finding that actually, no one reads anything I post there. I was afraid that if I ever looked and became aware that I’m basically talking to myself, I might lose motivation to post. I only knew I’d hit 100K visitors because I logged on and it appeared on my screen as a congratulatory pop up with little animated fireworks.
4. You mentioned not looking at the analytics for fear of finding that no one is reading your posts. Given what you know now and how you've evolved, do you still have that fear in either your reviewing or writing?
What an interesting question! No, I don't have that particular fear anymore. My focus in reviewing was initially towards readers and sharing what I think are good, lesser-known indie works with them. My focus now that I know people are reading is still primarily on providing honest reviews for readers, but I've amped up publicity for authors that I don't have time to review (in offering release posts, interviews, cover reveals, etc). I'm hoping that Happy Goat Horror is a merged author/reader space, rather than just for one or the other.
In my writing, I just always wish to be better than I am, but the fear of showing people my work is gone now. Perhaps being on the reviewer side has taught me to get over that insecurity because even a negative review can be useful!
5. It's great if things go according to plan. Tell us about when it didn't; how did you handle it? What were/are those challenges?
Another great question! I don’t think I have a goat answer for this, so I’ll revert to my author stuff.
For the last 5 or so years, I have told myself “this is the year I get a novel out!”, and then at the end of each of those years, I’ve been super angry with myself because I haven’t done it. I’ve got lots of half-finished drafts and a few finished but not good enough to publish projects. My mindset has changed a bit in recent months though. I think what I’ve learned is that I need to develop my own writing routine that works with my schedule, rather than comparing myself to other authors and their routines. It’s simply not possible for me to write every day, and a lot of the time things go awry. I suffer with chronic back problems and migraines, which often throws out my plans to write because I already work at my computer all day for my job, and sometimes I just can’t tolerate any more screen time. I tend to plan to write, say, 1000 words per day for the week, and then on Tuesday, I get hit with a migraine and have to spend that writing time with an ice pack on my head in a dark room instead, and then my mind tells me I’ve ruined the entire week and then it all goes out of the window. My new approach is just to do what I can when I can do it, and not beat myself up to the point that I self-sabotage if things go awry.
6. Give a pep-talk to someone on game in your field.
Love for what you do is more important than anything, and it will get you where you want to go if you’re truly passionate and are willing to learn and put the work in. I can’t speak from the position of being a successful author, as I’m not one yet, but as someone that has had interviewed many full-time, professional writers, I can confidently tell you that the one (and often only) thing that they all have in common is that they’re excited about what they’re doing. Every single successful author I know had a different route into the industry, has a completely different story about how they got their agent, first publishing deal, etc, and has a different routine and approach to their work. A sincere love for their craft that comes above dreams of grandeur is, it seems to me, what drove them into being full-time creators. Everyone doubts their talent (even the full-timers!), but don’t let that stop you enjoying what you’re doing.
7. Promo for website / links:
As I mentioned, I am a very slow writer, so my most recent solo work is ‘The End’ from Black Shuck Books, which is a micro collection of apocalypse themed horror and horror comedy stories.
Please check out Happy Goat Horror at:
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