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Early Happy Birthday, to my little Craft Queen! Just for kicks, I thought I'd try throwing a video in the email, to see how well (or badly) it works. Since the video is almost pitch dark, I must explain - I was carting fifteen elevenish-year-old girls in the back of a truck, to look at neighborhood Halloween lights, celebrating my youngest daughter's birthday, and they broke out in Christmas carols. I enjoyed the insanity (as, I hope, my neighbors did).

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Writing Updates

While a lot went on this week, I don't feel like I have much to report out. I added the pics to Book 1, the ones ya'll have been providing feedback on. I think the end results looks good, though I'm starting to think my print formatting is slightly off (1/4 inch), so I'm thinking of one more revisit to the format. The Barnes and Noble upload restricted the file size on print! So I had to downgrade the image quality. I thought that odd, since the Nook version lets you do whatever you want. So we can have massive downloads, but a one-time upload for good print quality is too much? 🤷‍♂️

I also watched a webinar on best uses of GoodReads, and I'm going to attempt to apply what I learned with the release of Book 3. Soooo, I set the release date of Book 3 to Dec 25th. The sketchiest part of that is, ironically, the sketches. They're falling behind. "Final" edit of Book 3 is underway (and don't worry, for those who haven't sent feedback on the early read yet, spot-check re-editing after I munge things is fine). Anywho, my point was that I set a release date on Amazon, and I'll start a GoodReads Giveaway about a month before, so roughly the end of Nov. Not sure if it'll be kindle or paperback or a little of both... trying to understand the tradeoff. Here's my vague plan:

1. Start GoodReads Giveaway around Nov 25th (30 day Giveaway)
2. Do "all the things" (as kids say today) - Notes on FB, IG, the Tweety thing... to advertise.
3. Have a book tour through ByTheBook VBP. I'll have to cut some ARC copies of the book and send them out. But I hope those reviews will land during the GoodReads Giveaway, so that I can use them for more publicity.
4. The Audiobook release of Book 1 should finish in that window. Exciting in its own right for me, but hopefully the timing of its release compounds the advertising effect.

o To-Do list for writing last week:

• Email updates
• Work with editor on Book 3
• Submit 2/2 remaining pictures for Book 3. It probably won't happen this week - work has piled up on the artist's side, and they're just not ready. Good problem for them!
• Incorporate Book 3 feedback as it comes in
• Put pics in Book 1 and re-release - lots of button-clicking and staring at details. Oh, and this is stupid - I didn't realize that the kindle version actually allows you to click on links. 🤦‍♂️ I need to go back and update the end of Book 1 to point to Book 2. Does the narrator read that aloud? 😬 I've never noticed. "Aiche Tee Tee Pee Colon Backslash Backslash ... "

o To-Do list for writing this week:

• Email updates
• Continued work with editor on Book 3
• Still submit the 2/2 remaining pictures for Book 3. Again, waiting on the artist now, not me.
• Incorporate Book 3 feedback as it comes in
• Check on formatting of print copies of Books (1/4" off?)
• Write Blurb for Book 3 (and rewrite the Blurb for Book 2)
• Looks like the back cover for Book 1 is wrong on B&N - has an old version. Fix that.

Previous Newsletters

• ​Losing Faith, a Calyx Twins Story - 10/26/2021 📜 Losing Faith, a Calyx Twins Story.pdf​
• ​New pics for Book 1 - 10/19/2021
• ​Happy Birthday, Middle Egg - 10/12/2021
• ​Age Before Duty -10/05/2021 📜​ Age-Before-Duty.pdf​
• ​Grundle's Hope - 9/28/2021 📜 Grundle's-Hope.pdf​​​

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