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...
8 days ago • 1 min read
I haven’t divulged my marketing failures in a while, so I thought I’d provide an update. I mentioned before that I’ve stopped using Brian Cohen‘s strategies. I’m convinced they’re complete hogwash. Throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks. I started using Matthew J. Holmes’s strategies. I began with Facebook ads, and more recently started doing Amazon ads. The strategies make a lot more sense, although I’ve still been unable to succeed with them. With Facebook, I moved from...
8 days ago • 1 min read
Due to a problem with internet magic failing, anyone who signed up for ARC of Secrets of Deara got lost. You should sign up again to be sure you're on the list. My apologies. Secrets of Deara is the third book in the Thaumatropic Roots series. May you get lost this week in another world. Follow me on Goodreads. Subscribe
21 days ago • 1 min read
Belated Happy Birthday to me! I'm 55 now, so 'bout time for a mid-life crisis, no? One-hundred and ten! From my youngest and my oldest… We have a lot of dark clouds hovering around us right now, so it was nice spending time with friends and relaxing a bit this weekend. Friday night, we played pool and listened to an 80s band with good friends. Saturday, my oldest had prom while my wife and I went to a fundraiser for a group that does surgeries for children born with congenital heart...
24 days ago • 1 min read
Treasure Falls in Colorado my daughters braving the slopes We took a family vacation to Colorado for the kids’ Spring Break. Probably the best story was that my wife, who tore her ACL on our last ski trip and only planned to ski one day, finished her practice run on the bunny slope and accidentally got on the lift that only leads to blue and black slopes. On the day with bitter winds and snow. She cried her way down, but made it in one piece, turning in her skis as soon as she reached the...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Crazy hectic. At the basketball banquet, my oldest daughter won a bball scholarship! I’m so proud of how hard she works. The coach shared an inspiring story of how, in my daughter’s sophomore year, the coach told my daughter she would be cut from the team in her junior year. My daughter buckled down and actually got pushed to varsity her junior year. Real fighting spirit. Meanwhile, I fought with a broken ice-maker, car repairs, and missing pieces to a bed we bought used from FB. 😭 I sent...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Whoa! March really snuck up on me. Not just because February is shorter, but rather life got busy. Starting a new role at a new company in the tech industry in your mid-fifties isn't a walk in the park. I'm on an emotional rollercoaster that goes from feeling like I know some specific thing better than most people, to dawning realizations that I have no idea how some other thing works and fear of when the new folks will realize how ignorant I am. Arrogance, fear, humility, once in a while...
2 months ago • 3 min read
Life has been a bit chaotic, between elder care, prepping my oldest for college, starting a new job this week, and then all the normal bedlam of housework and helping with homework, family virus-share programs, etc. Oh, and writing, which is simultaneously the easiest and hardest thing to hold onto. Hard, because it can't be rationally justified in terms of trying to live a less-hectic life with well-balanced priorities. Easy, because my passion for it pushes me toward finding or making time...
3 months ago • 2 min read
I can now confirm that I am exiting retirement. *sigh* I'm joining arm. I love writing that without context. I assume most of you are not part of the semiconductor industry, so it sounds like I'm either supplying weapons or artificial limbs. Either of which are way too cool for me. I really enjoyed spending more time on writing and marketing, and I’m going to miss it. Secrets of Deara is coming together. I sent an early pass to Libby James—I would highly recommend her to my writer friends. I...
3 months ago • 3 min read
This is an email I felt worth sharing from Matthew j Holmes. I'm not 100% sure how you would get on this email list, but here's a link to his general site, and you can navigate to what you want through your brilliance. Link to Matthew J Holmes site. Over the years, I’ve analyzed hundreds, if not thousands of Amazon Ads Campaigns across multiple genres, and with all this data emerge patterns and trends of what works and what doesn’t work. In today’s behind the scenes newsletter, I want to...
4 months ago • 2 min read