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Oddly enough, the twice-a-month cadence for newsletters won out over once-a-month, by one vote. So twice a month is borderline. Maybe I'll skip a newsletter once in a while. And more people liked seeing the indie book options than didn't, so I'll keep them, but I set up ways to opt out of both the non-writing updates AND the indie book showcase. So you should be able to click on your choices in an email, set your preferences, and future emails will be tailed to you. (I can't change the one already in your inbox). Hmm, maybe I could do the same with the frequency of emails too. The mid-month has less critical writing updates, perhaps, and one could opt out? Still, I have a first pass at the first chapter of Shepherds of Truth. Typically, it takes a few chapters to get the ball rolling, and then the story flows for a while, and then I have to circle back and adjust--that's my process. But because I keep switching to marketing topics, I'm not getting a rhythm going for my writing. That's okay though... I'll come back to the writing with more energy. I have an embarrassing mistake to tell you about. I had to go back and revise Book 2, Bones, because I had a mistake in dragon genealogy. I think you all know that there was a mistake caught in Book 3 just as it was released—same issue. Well, when I started Book 4, I needed to refer to something from Bones, and it looked fishy. So I went to my character database (yes, I have a literal database, on my phone), and finally figured out the problem. I had a circular reference for the genealogy of the white dragons. In other words, depending on which dragon you picked, you would see a different set of parent/daughter relationships. I don't know how I punched it in wrong in the first place, but I did. SPOILER ALERT below. I'll leave a little gap so that people can look away. This is the correct genealogy for the whites: Kryhryzar - she was the last white dragon alive during the Breaking. Jenat, First of the Lost - daughter of Kryhryzar - those who have read all three books should know why she is the First of the Lost. Arsyli (Flurry) - Jenat's daughter. The bit that was hugely messed up in Bones was the info recited by the magical statue in Fael Themar. It referred to Jenat, when it should have referred to Kryhryzar. It's all fixed now, and to my understanding, anyone with an ebook will automatically get the change. I don't have the magic to change printed versions. Hopefully some day I sell enough copies that those with the errors become collectors editions. All books by Steven J. Morris Indie Author Showcase
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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.
Hey Reader, I was ~sixteen when I first read Mordant's Need by Stephen R. Donaldson. A woman gets pulled through a magic mirror into a medieval kingdom that desperately needs a hero—except she isn't one. No power, no destiny, no idea what she's walked into. What Donaldson does with her arc stuck with me, particularly the moment she finally understands the game being played around her, finds her place on the board, and chooses to step into it. I try to replicate that in my storytelling. That...
Well... this isn't the newsletter I expected to be writing. A couple of weeks ago I accidentally wandered into a blockchain hackathon. As one does. The timing was terrible. I was busy, traveling, and already had more on my plate than I should have. Naturally, I signed up anyway. And I created a... something. It's called Eigenthrope. It's an interactive mystery where the community votes and influences what happens next. Every week the story branches based on those votes. It runs on the XRP...
Hey Reader, I don't send a lot of these "here's what's going on behind the curtain" emails, but I've been heads-down on some things this year that I think are worth sharing — especially if you're navigating the same chaos the rest of us are. The short version: the books are selling steadily, the Shepherds of Truth launch cost me more than I made, TikTok taught me an expensive lesson, I've built some automation infrastructure that's genuinely changing how I work — and I have a marketing...