Evergreen Newsletters

Stranger Things, Kate Bush, and wine for the holidays

Hi Everyone,

I can’t believe it’s been another month. This newsletter snuck up on me (I was definitely reminded to send it out this morning by my calendar. Glad that’s in place!) It has been a busy month and it will only get busier as we are officially in the holiday season. And, if I’m being honest, I’m tired. I see a break posting in my future (and lots of extra sleep).

I’ve been doing a lot of reading and listening about newsletters this past month and I’m going to shift around the formatting of these monthly updates, whether I’m ready to or not (I’m not). I want to make my newsletters more evergreen and I also want to share a bit more behind-the-scenes of writing (I find it fascinating, my hope is you will too).

Evergreen Writing

Image from Tubefilter

When an author publishes a book, that book becomes passive income. It is now out in the world. A reader can discover it the week the book launches or thirty-seven years in the future. I didn’t pick that number at random. It was thirty-seven years after Kate Bush’s song, “Running up that Hill”, was released that it “re-emerged into the cultural zeitgeist” (quote from Capital article). It was featured in Netflix’s Stranger Things (as you may already know) and is being streamed and played on the radio decades after its original release. Bush broke records, including being the oldest female artist to hit no. 1 on UK’s singles chart. Now, this is not to say that the song hadn’t been a hit when it was originally released in 1985. It reached top 40 on pop music charts in the UK, Ireland, United States, and Australia and hit number 3 on UK charts. It’s a great song. Listeners knew it when it was released in the 80s and today listeners have re-discovered it thanks to Stranger Things.

Image from Alamy

I could keep on going. The music industry runs parallel (in a way, don’t quote me here) to the publishing industry, just three to five years ahead (ie. the subscription model of Spotify prequeled the population of subscription models for publishers and writers now). What’s really impressive with Kate Bush’s story is that she maintained the rights to “Running up that Hill” through her company, Noble & Brite. This means that thirty-seven years after creating the song, additional royalties began pouring in (137 million streams over three weeks in June, calculated at around $500,000 in royalties, an artist’s jackpot!)

Now, I’m not anticipating that kind of resurgence of my work decades in the future. That would be like expecting to win the lottery (or something even more outrageous). My point is that Bush’s song had been written, produced, and released. No additional work had to be done for it to be featured on Stranger Things and gain new popularity. The royalties are passive income. Authors’ royalties can be passive income too. While I’m preparing my new Marredbury series, Daughter of Isis and Son of Horus can be discovered and purchased by readers with no additional work put in on my end. I did that work already and so the income is passive. I could quit writing entirely but keep my finished books published and still earn a dollar or two here and there from readers that happen upon the books and are interested enough to read it.

Joanna Penn has talked on length about this and other ways you can utilize that one manuscript, but I won’t get into that right now. Overall, it’s a cool perk of the industry. It has encouraged me to keep moving forward, to keep writing and publishing, because the more I have out there (this is called the backlist), the more passive income is coming in.

I’d like my newsletters to be working in a similar way. I am calling them evergreen newsletters, not because I expect them to remain ageless (impossible really with the speed technology and life moves), but because they can be read weeks or months after I publish and still be relevant enough to interest readers (at least those that want to read about the writing industry).

These evergreen newsletters will still keep you up to date with the latest in my writing life, but the topics will become more select so I can dig deeper into them.

I hope I haven’t lost you. That’s the one piece I’m worried about going deeper. Previously, I intentionally kept my updates short and sweet, but I felt that something was missing. I know I have skimmed emails and newsletters sent to me because life is busy or I get bored. I’m sure my own newsletters will have that effect on some. I’ll keep experimenting and trying out new things and would be honored if you choose to stick around.

Publishing Update

I hope you are enjoying “The Lake House” Part 1 and 2. Part 3 will be out in a couple weeks and the whole series will be complete by the end of the year (a kind of farewell to 2022).

Son of Horus is almost a month old! Thank you for your understanding when I postponed the launch party. It was a frustrating call to make and the books arrived the day after the original party… The new date is TBD right now (though I hope to solidify that date with the wonderful bookstore that is hosting today 🤞) It will be in December and I will let you know as soon as I know.

In the meantime, if you enjoyed the book and want to help this indie author out, tell a friend about it. Maybe there is a lull of conversation at the dinner table over the holidays. Let your aunt know, and find out if she enjoys paranormal thrillers. You can also leave a review on Amazon or any other platform you buy books on. Word of mouth and reviews are so valuable to authors. Every little bit helps.

Thank you to my readers who have reached out about my book release. It’s so much fun to hear from you!

Indie Highlight

Today I have a couple recs for you from indie authors. The first is a bit more on the fantasy side than I normally read. My anthology project with the fantastical island of New Albion has gotten me into the land of the Fae a bit more. October K. Santerelli’s Glimmers in the Night was a fun one.

The wind howled and knocked the naked tree branches together, rattling them like bones in a basket. Jeth would know - he’d seen his mother at work. She was dead now, dead and burned in a pyre... Jeth knows only three things - his mother is dead, his home will be taken from him, and his best chance for survival is to find an apprenticeship as a witch. His only mistake was stealing his mother's crystal ball, when he wasn't allowed to take anything. Fleeing the only home he's ever known, Jeth evades his neighbors, struggles with his magical powers, and accidentally makes a bargain with a faerie. Jeth isn't sure he can trust the faerie Aneirin, but all he has to do is travel with the creature to the next town over -- and then he would be free to start a new life, a different life. Or was his future already set in stone?

I also had a wonderful chat with Marc Layton. We discussed our work and projects we’ve been working on. If you enjoy my work, you will enjoy Marc Layton’s dark worlds. For those that enjoy wine over the holidays, I recommend The Taster. This novella (under 100 pages) is like Sherlock Holmes meets horror.

A labyrinthian cellar. A priceless wine collection. And a vengeful spirit who guards it for eternity. If you love thrilling supernatural and occult stories packed with hair-raising suspense and tension which will keep you on the edge of your seat, then you won’t want to miss The Taster.

That is all I have for you this time. For those of you in the United States, Happy Thanksgiving!
I know I’m thankful for my family and having some extra downtime to get reading done. What are you reading over the holiday (or if you don’t celebrate, perhaps what are you reading over the weekend?)

Let me know in the comments below