Newsletter - May 1, 2025

Published 10 months ago • 1 min read

I showed my daughter and her friends how to use a miter saw and drill and set them loose for their school project. There’s still thirty fingers amongst them, so I’m declaring it a victory, whether they get an A or not

I sent out the ARC ebook versions of Secrets. The paperback will take more time. Right now, only 11 people are signed up. That's the lowest I've ever had, which perhaps I should take as a sign. But this book is my favorite so far, and I think it is pretty solid with the rounds of edits I did with Libby & Marla. Also, there's more pre-orders than ARC readers, which is a good sign (but not by much... way less pre-orders than Bones... /sigh).

You can still sign up: https://pages.sjmorriswrites.com/sodarc
The process is automated, so it'll send you through a couple of email chains, but one of the immediate ones will include the epub. It would be great if someone already on the ARC could confirm they were able to grab the epub.
Part of the point of ARC reading is to get those early ratings/reviews, and I still need that. The other part is to catch glaring errors, which I hope I've eliminated.

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Market lessons

After the discussion in the library, I thought I would write up some of the things we discussed and provide you all links. To quickly reset context: I do indie publishing (self-publishing) not trad. Never tried trad. I have a day job, which means (1) I have money to invest in writing and (2) I have little time for writing/marketing Advertising For advertising, I historically used (1) Amazon, (2) Facebook/Instagram (FB/IG), and (3) Bookbub. To start with some helpful guidance. I have used...

1 day ago • 7 min read

Local Appearance at Library

The Dripping Springs Community Library invited me to be featured in their Author Spotlight. Date: Wednesday, Feb. 11thTime: 5:45-6:45 PMWebsiteInstagramFacebook Okay, admittedly, it was because they had a sudden cancellation, and they were clearly desperate, but I'll take it! I know most of you are not local to Austin, but a few are, so I wanted to send this out. I thought I might talk about what I included in my last email: learnings about marketing from being hacked and losing FB Ads. At...

12 days ago • 3 min read

A Strange Win: FB Ads, Profit, and Progress

Kids are back at school and I’m back at work. Had to cancel a vacation to Venezuela. Then I took that money and almost bought Greenland, but the price jumped up. Weird, right? Maybe I’ll head to Iran. Busy month. My last email was a pretty dismal writing update: FB account hacked, no story progress. This newsletter gets to smack that one around a bit. 🥊 FB Hack Update No, I don’t have my Facebook account back. But I learned something genuinely valuable when my ads shut down—something I...