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Halloween season hit full stride here—first with “Scare for a Cure,” our annual messy adventure (this year: mind crawlers!), then a “Trunk or Treat” at my mother-in-law’s nursing home, where the residents—one of them 101!—handed out candy to the little ones. Never fear on that mind crawler issue, our group saved the world. Missed you this year, Sienna! Click here to be removed from family content. It’s been a whirlwind few weeks—edits, algorithms, and endless coffee. But progress is progress, and each chapter feels like another stone laid in the bridge toward the finale. Shepherds sits at about 33k words, and the skeleton of the story is almost complete. I’m polishing what I think will be the last “waypoint” chapter—one that stitches multiple threads together—before sending it to my structural editor. I might clean a bit first; even structural editors struggle when the typos swarm. Of course, 33k is just the skeleton—there’s still plenty of flesh to add. Even if the bones hold, some of it hasn’t learned to move yet. (A lot!) But it helps to know whether I’m missing a rib or three before I build on it. Meanwhile, the publishing gods are tinkering again—Meta rolled out a new AI ad system called Andromeda, while Amazon changed its book-promotion algorithm. The result? Indie authors like me are battling twin dragons: visibility and discoverability. At least they make good sparring partners while I wait for my editor to strike. Indie Author Showcase Previous Newsletters
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Just a quick follow-up after my last email. I notified GoodReads of the odd reviews. They jumped on it and ran it through some checker and said it raised all their red flags, so they took down the reviews and removed the accounts of those folks entirely (so they said). I have a couple of marketing thoughts/questions for my fellow writers. 1) The first book of my epic fantasy series, Mother of Trees, almost constantly has a better ranking on Amazon than Guardian of The Palace, even when sales...
Resending (sorry, can't seem to work out the family updates section) My oldest came back from college (Univ of Arkansas) for the weekend, my middle daughter turned 18, and my youngest just about has her standing back-flip nailed. I haven't tried adding a video in a while... let me know how this goes. Busy (but very good) family time, and busy with work, so my writing got the short end of the stick for a bit. But lets face it, that's the right call.Click here to be removed from family content....
My oldest came back from college (Univ of Arkansas) for the weekend, my middle daughter turned 18, and my youngest just about has her standing back-flip nailed. I haven't tried adding a video in a while... let me know how this goes. Busy (but very good) family time, and busy with work, so my writing got the short end of the stick for a bit. But lets face it, that's the right call.Click here to be removed from family content. Shepherds of Truth — the last two weeksTwo fresh chapters landed....