This is my Insecure Writers Support Group post for September 2025.
Alex's awesome co-hosts this month are:
Please stop by their blogs and say thank you.
💻💻💻💻💻
The scare Amazon gave me in July was a huge motivator. I've been a very busy bee. 🐝
There's a progress report after this month's question. I've included pictures for your enjoyment, but it's long. Feel free to read on the diagonal. LOL
I'm still deciding how I feel about AI and where the boundaries should be. I might use it in the planning stages (ex: to brainstorm or turn my synopsis into outline form), but sinking into fictional worlds and crafting stories is my therapy. I won't give that over to a computer.
I don't hesitate to use AI for research (though I don't automatically trust the summary). I used to pore over pages and pages of scholarly articles, and still not find what I needed. Now, with AI-assisted search engines, what used to take days and sometimes weeks only takes minutes. It's a real boon for authors who write historical fiction.
P.S. I recently read a comment from someone who's been following the Anthropic lawsuit. He brought up something I hadn't considered. AI is here to stay whether we like it or not, and many big powerful companies have invested heavily in the new technology.
Taking part in the class action suit could have repercussions, such as for those in the IT field, limiting their future employment opportunities. He didn't think it would affect indie authors' current publications, but it could possibly come into play if retailers, such as Amazon, start a new imprint.
Bottom line: It might be a bad career move to be loudly and publicly anti-AI.
Now that I've laid that giant egg...
On to my progress report. Over the past few weeks, I:
- Put book 1 in the new series up for preorder
- Finalized book 1 after sending it through critique, beta, and the proofreader
- Registered a copyright for book 1 (Should've used 'single title,' not 'standard.' Oof)
- Plotted book 2, wrote the back cover blurb, and put it up for preorder, so I could have a retail link for the back matter of book 1
- And thank goodness I did, because The Zon brain-farted again and changed the link for the series page! I thought it had just glitched and gone down while they were adding book 2, but nooo. I hope they don't change the link every time I add a book. 😕
- Strategically adjusted my foreign prices instead of letting KDP auto-figure them
- Combed Depositphotos for scene break images, etc.
- Read Wide for the Win and Killing it on Kobo
- Joined Draft2Digital
- Assigned ISBNs for Sagebrush Springs books 1 & 2 and the ePub versions of The Sweetwater Duet, including the omnibus, so I can go wide with those (I'm going wide with my other pen name.)
- Took all my paperbacks off expanded distribution in KDP so I can go wide with them via Ingram (eventually), and so I could charge a lower price for them on Amazon.
- Practiced formatting books on Atticus & D2D. Atticus wins, hands down. But D2D is free, so there's that.
- Started a new newsletter for my Scarlet Knight pen name, because my old one was inactive for so long it got shut down. (Double-oof. The upside was I only had 20 followers, and half of those were friends and family. LOL)
- Gave The Sweetwater Duet a glow-up - reformatted them with new interior images, revised the back matter, and added QR codes to the paperbacks
My interior files were 2 pages longer than the originals, but the wrap still fit.
Old is on the left and new is on the right.
I wrote this post early and prescheduled it, so by the time you read this, I will have:
- Formatted In the Wake of Honor
- Dropped the price for a preorder sale*
- Moved up the launch date
- Uploaded the ePub and created a paperback version
- Created an Amazon ad for it
- Created a Facebook ad for it (Thank you, Craig Martelle!)
- Shouted it from the rooftops
- And hopefully started drafting book 2
*If you preordered book 1 when it was at full price, don't worry. You should have been charged the lower price on release day.
Last-minute update: I didn't start drafting book 2 yet, but I did prepare Come Back to reformat, so I can update the back matter. My debut still sells after all these years, but the read-through could be better. I hope adding a link to the series page will help.
🎂🥳
I took a break and surprised my mom with a celebration of her 90th birthday this past weekend. I keep telling her she's going to outlive us all. LOL
And, yes. I made her wear the tiara. 😁
💿
Still on the to-do list is 'update Microsoft Office 2019 before support ends in October.'
This is going to take some thought. I'm not sure I want to spend money for Office 2024 and install it on an eight-year-old desktop....might get 2021 for it and put 2024 on my laptop. I don't care if they aren't the same, as long as they play well with each other.
Techy people, chime in!
That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.
What have you been up to lately?
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IWSG is the brainchild of Alex J. Cavanaugh. It's a monthly bloghop that offers a safe haven for writers to express their feelings and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. It's also a venue for offering support, both in the form of comments and positive posts. Writers of all kinds are welcome.
We 'meet' the first Wednesday of every month. If you're interested in learning more, click on the link above. And don't be intimidated by the size of the group. We're not expected to visit everyone on the list.
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