Weekly Newsletter
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The principal and vice principal were both concerned. One of their fifth grade teachers had been standing by the school fence all morning. After an intense game of rock-paper-scissors, the vice principal had to go over and ask her what she was doing while the principal waited and watched from a safe distance on the playground. Finally, the vice principal came back to give his report. “Everything is okay; it’s just a post test.”
I should’ve saved the email. You would have probably gotten a kick out of it. Of course I deleted it. The lady was super nice, though. And she was quite complimentary of one of my books. Her silent book club (yes, that’s totally a thing nowadays) laughed so much that they started talking to each other about the jokes and the social commentary. It’s just too bad that it was a scam. Whomever the owner of the email address was had used AI to write a particularly glowing message to me in hopes of getting my (mostly useless) information. This is happening to authors all the time.
So what does all this have to do with you, the reader? Well, it affects how authors communicate with you. First off, unless we know you personally, we’re probably not going to answer your emails, which is a shame. But that’s the world we’re living in. Direct Messages on social media are pretty much a no-go as well. So are authors just going to sit in their ivory towers beyond the reach of mere mortals? Far from it! Most writers, even the well-known ones, couldn’t afford to rent a bathroom in one of those mythical abodes. Also, and this is important, we want to talk with our readers. That’s why platforms like Substack exist in the first place. Basically, everything has to be above board. For me and many writers, that just means to talk to us in the comments. Personally, I love to see a comment notification pop up. Even the random like means that we’re not just calling into the proverbial void. So yes, we want to, and are usually even thrilled to hear from you.
Commercial time. Sort of.
Last Friday was launch day for my latest book, MOONDOM FIVE. Yesterday I uploaded it to this here Substack. If you are a free subscriber or even just a shy visitor, please take a look at it. Anyone can read the introduction and chapter one for Free. See if you like it or if it’s right for your kids to enjoy. The audiobook is available here as well. It’s about 3 hours long, so it may be a good distraction on a Spring Break road trip. If you haven’t claimed your FREE POST yet, I humbly recommend this one. If you prefer Spotify, the audiobook is there too (MG Fantasy Adventures), along with plenty of free content. Of course, you can purchase the book in all formats by clicking the links in the subtitle above. Just trying to give you some options. Either way, I’m glad to have you here.
On the writing front, we’re approaching the bottom of page 28 in the latest Jokes for Kids project. I usually come up with 4-5 jokes per week and share two of them with you on the weekends. That averages to a little under half a page. This discussion is ending now because it’s starting to turn into a math problem. I’ve got enough problems as it is.
Until Next Time, God Bless!
