To Stack or Not to Stack?

As you may have guessed from my sporadic newsletters, I am NOT great at social media. I hate fighting algorithms, I hate how many ads are on my feeds, I struggle with “well I don’t want to bother people,” and making reels is a lot of effort. Did I spend over an hour fighting canva the other night for a “cute, little reel” that I thought would be “super quick?” Yes. Still not sure if it was worth it. Please go watch it, I beg you.

Unfortunately, in this digital age, marketing yourself on socials is a huge part of authordom. Ugh.

And now there’s SubStack. I have one. Technically. Have I really used it? No. Do I want to? Yes. Will it require even more time out of my week to post things of substance that don’t make me cringe? Yeah. I’ll get there, eventually. Even if my more social-media savvy friends have to drag me kicking and screaming.

Benefits of SubStack: it’s kind of the author-place-to-go these days. It seems user friendly on all ends. People can preview my writing! It’ll give me more writing practice in short form.

Downsides of SubStack: learning curves. Feeling like it will make this newsletter obsolete or yet Another Thing to track etc. Having to write more in short form, consistently?

All screaming into the void aside, my lovely readers, there is some good this week:

FIREWORKS AND FLIRTATION IS OUT NOW!

My story “Bonds and Settlements” features Josh from my reader magnet, finally getting to date the dhamphir girl of his dreams, and all the lovely drama that ensues. It also features stories from two other SoCal authors (yes, I’m biased, they’re my friends, but their stuff is also good): T.A. Leederman, who writes military sci-fi, and Miranda Tamrakar, her debut story *sniffles* so proud.

I’m in another anthology coming out soon (I can’t yap about it YET, but trust me, soon). I’m submitting to another this week, which is letting me play in my high-fantasy-writing-roots once again. West Coast Wyrd is not abandoned, but sometimes ya girl wants to write about fairies and elves and magic and stuff wait, that IS WCW, hold on in Ye Made Up Olden Days. One of the things I’m hoping to do with SubStack is feature little snippets of a story I came up with eons ago that fits in *chef’s kiss* so perfectly to West Coast Wyrd.

To answer my own question: I think SubStack has a lot of benefits compared to other socials (looking at you Metaverse), it’s just one this elder millenial has to quit dragging her heels and get moving on. Do you follow any authors on SubStack? Or just interesting people in general? What’s one of your favorites and WHY?

• Reading: The Princess Knight by Cait Jacobs. This was described to me as “Legally Blonde, make it fantasy, and some of the best characters are queer.” Say less. It’s such fun and makes me want my own giant murder otter.
• Drinking: I got hit with one of the worst colds ever recently, so there was a LOT of tea and a LOT of water happening. I struggle with drinking water, but finally found a nerdy bottle that makes me want to use it. Neurospicy hacks for the win!
• Playing: I played an NPC during Strategicon for one of Starship Valkyrie’s LARP events! It was really fascinating seeing how the gameplay works from the sidelines. If you like cooperative gaming and LARP, definitely check them out.
• Watching: High Potential. Socials peddled this procedural crime drama staring Dee from It’s Always Sunny to me, and finding out it’s based on a French novel series made it even more fun. Kind of Sherlock Holmes meets Bones. I’m already on Season 2!
• Listening: Colm R. McGuinness released a bunch of fun Dungeons & Dragons inspired songs, which made for perfect background music while writing my recent submissions.