Newsletter - April 15, 2024


Happy Tax Day in USA!

It wasn't happy for me. Apparently, now that my oldest daughter is 17, and we're paying MORE for her to get through life, she is worth less as a deduction. Plus we had to dip into our retirement savings, which has a tax penalty--I hear a lot of people saying they had a tough year, and I'm simply able to empathize.

Wedding

I got to celebrate the wedding of my best friend's oldest daughter. I've been to other weddings, even for his kids, but maybe because my own daughters are getting older, it hit home more that mine aren't far from that stage of life.

Eclipse

Both these pics are from other folks I work with. My family got a little unlucky and the cloudcover was too heavy (as seen in the time-lapse below, which caused the totality to be missed from where we sat).

Birthday

My birthday was April 13th, but this year got a little hectic and it more or less snuck by. Had fun though!

I didn't do much writing the last couple weeks. Too many things. I did get a little reading done--the "Death Before Dragons" series by Lindsay Buroker. I stumbled onto her books by looking at "Also Bought" books from people who'd read my books. Funny, right? Using my books to find what else I might like to read. It worked though--good books for me.

Giveaway^2 Contest

I've got the bones of the "Giveaway^2" contest set up. The contest will run from April 21 through the 25th, and the contestant who garners the most clicks leading people to my Amazon giveaways (one for Mother of Trees, one for The Guardian of the Palace) will get a signed hardback copy of one of my books (you get to pick which). I'm afraid I have to limit that prize to folks in the USA (where mailing is cheaper), but if you want to participate outside the USA, I can figure out something--probably an unsigned copy sent directly from the closest Amazon print country. Why is it called Giveaway^2? That's math shorthand for Giveaway-squared, meaning I am giving away books to the winner for helping me give away ebooks.

Right now, we've got five contestants:

  • Unholy Priestess
  • Angel
  • Trollin4Books
  • DragonBait
  • AccioBugs

It's not too late to join in - you could win a free book for helping me give away books. Not to mention braggin' rights! Just shoot me an email and pick a name for the contest. I love you all for helping me grow my audience, for being willing to reach out to your peeps for me.

(And yes, for the authors who read my newsletter, I can write up instructions.)

More details here <-- I pushed the instructions onto my web site.

Indie Author Showcase

I'm trying something different this newsletter - curated sets of books to appeal to different audiences. If you want to help indie authors grow reviews, the first link is a great one. Then I've got a cheap, genre-specific bundle, a couple of options for freebies to get to know new (to you) authors, and a group of KU books.


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​​May you get lost this week in another world.

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Steven J Morris

If you read fantasy for the magic, the world-building, and the occasional moment of dark humor—I write that. One urban fantasy series, one epic fantasy series, both set in the Fractured Arcana universe, with more coming. My newsletter takes you deeper into the worlds, the characters, and what's next.

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