On February 28, 2025, I released my first self-published novel on Amazon. The culmination of 3 1/2 years of steady, constant writing, rewriting, revising, and editing. In short, a metric crap-ton of hard work.
Writing Tales of a Stranger Sister has been one of the most fulfilling & satisfying experiences I’ve ever undertaken, and I will always be proud of both the effort exerted and the results it produced.
What I didn’t know at the time was that only after teh book went live, then began the real, much more thankless work — Promotion and Marketing.
That has been much less fulfilling and satisfying undertaking. Frankly, it’s been mostly aggravating and frustrating. It’s not enough to simply say you have a thing that you’ve poured your time and love into, and it might be worth spending a few bucks to see it for yourself. Rather it feels like you need to become an online Personality™, creating a constantly stream of Content™, usually at the expense of trying to actually create more of that thing you actually want to make (i.e. more books).
After a year of attempting that, (while simultaneously dealing with various offline trials), I think I’ve come to the realization that I’m not particularly good at it. I mean, I’m not gonna stop trying to promote or sell this 400+ pages of words and feelings, but I’m going to stop worrying about trying to create a set amount non-book, non-story content for both this site and my social media accounts and focus more on creating the next novel (which I think has finally, truly gotten rolling), and post Content™ when I need a break from the writing grind or have something I’m genuinely excited to talk about.
That said, I did want to take a moment to reflect on my first full year as a self-published author. Truly, none of this would even be possible without the help and support of my amazing editor, self-publishing guru, sounding board, best friend, and, oh yeah, spouse — S.E. Robertson/C.A. Moss.
I will be eternally grateful to everyone who took a chance on my book, whether they bought it at the full price, during the periods when it was discounted, or even for free. I’m especially grateful to the handful who felt it was worth the time and effort to share their feelings about it in the form of reviews. Each one was truly and genuinely appreciated.
In the last year, I went from being exclusively on Amazon to selling on dozens of platforms and I think that was a positive move and am looking forward to taking advantage of the expanded availability in 2026 and beyond for both Tales and future books.
Lastly, while the results haven’t always been what I hoped so far, I’m glad that I was able to participate in multiple group promotions during 2025. The opportunity to put my book alongside other indie and self-published authors has been a unique experience and one I’m looking forward to replicating in 2026.
Which leads me to the next bit of business: Upcoming group promotions!
In a bit of Book Birthday Serendipity™, Tales of a Stranger Sister will be 50% off from March 1st through 7th exclusively on Smashwords as part of their Read An Ebook Week sale!
I have also submitted to two other promotions this spring and once I hear word if I’ve been accepted to either or both, I’ll be sure to give the specifics here as well as on Bluesky.
Lastly, some news for the semi-distant, yet still-rapidly-approaching future. Both S.E. Robertson and I will be attending Confluence 2026 in late July and will be selling and signing our books in the dealers’ room. More details will follow as we get closer to it, but if you happen to be in the Pittsburgh area then and appreciate sci-fi, fantasy, & horror books and art, then we hope you’ll check it out (and perhaps swing by the dealers’ room to say “Hi!”)
Now, let’s blow out these candles and cut this cake already! I call dibs on a frosting flower.
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