Sent 05/31/2025
Happy reading, readers,
Updates
Progress on Luna is going even better than expected, thank the Lord. Very nearly halfway
— Current Progress: 46% (70k words) —
Not sure how many have seen it yet, but I got a Goodreads page up for Luna recently, which you can check out here. Since it’s publicly visible not only there but on my Facebook Page, I might as well officially reveal the cover in this newsletter. Tada! What do you think?
I recently splurged on a piece of software called Publisher Rocket, made by Dave Chesson. It comes highly recommended with an array of useful features for research, visibility optimization and advertising on Amazon. I’m no affiliate or spokesman, only mentioning it because I’ve been doing a lot of research using it. So far, I’ve attempted some edits to keywords, categories and book descriptions for Mani and Gaea on Kindle, IngramSpark and other places whence my book metadata may be pulled—with . . . mixed results. I had some slight description conflicts, but now I have even more due to Goodreads’ strange taboo on authors editing their own book data and smidge of HTML wonkiness on other sites, so it’ll certainly take some fine-tuning. Regardless, I’ve already noticed a small difference in visibility for certain keywords on Amazon. You have to really optimize those things to get any eyes on your books, at least if you’re a little guy like me.
I’m still uploading a chapter per week of Tales from the Earthen Sky on Royal Road. It does take a chunk out of my weekly writing time, just as it does to write up these newsletters and monthly book reviews, but it’s a good challenge, and I am excited to get Act 1 finished up. Garnering a following on the platform has definitely proven to be . . . more of a challenge than many make it out to be. I’ve had very little feedback and engagement, so it’s hard to really know what I could be improving, but oh well—ain’t gonna stop me!
My wife is also a writer, though family life and other hobbies have largely kept her from it for a while. However, we’ve been discussing an old story we wanted to write together, which we may start soon. If I have any more updates on that front, I’ll put them in a newsletter later this year.
Here’s to good weather and good reading this summer!
— Jacob Gamber