As An Author, The Algorithm Controls Your Fate (And It Determines Your Success)

There is this belief among most people that if a creator is talented, and they produce high-quality work, then they will be rewarded for the work they've done. After all, the cream floats to the top, and if your work is really good then of course people are going to find out about it, and buy copies.

All right, real talk. Can quality work that creates a lot of buzz and gets word-of-mouth build an audience and get more and more people to check out the book? Yes, it absolutely can. However, it's the buzz that's important. Because people are absolutely more than willing to check out and buy bad books, see bad movies, and so on, as long as there's some kind of buzz about them.

And if you're a creator in the modern day, then one of the major deciding factors in how much buzz you generate, and the visibility of your work, is the almighty algorithm. And it hates you.

Because it is what determines so much of your success in the modern world.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more! And, of course, check me out on Blue Sky, since that's what we're talking about today!

Some Examples of Algorithm Impact

As most regular readers know, in addition to being a novelist, I'm also a tabletop RPG writer. In fact, I recently finished the 200th published piece of mine (more on that over on my sister blog, with the entry I've Got Over 200 TTRPG Credits Now!), and there are two, distinct incidents I've experienced over recent history that shows exactly how much impact the algorithm can have on your work's visibility, and thus your sales potential.

All right, let's break this down, shall we?

So readers have context, I've been writing TTRPG content for going on 12 years or so now. About 2-3 years ago, my monthly earnings from the website Drive Thru RPG (which is where all my supplements and books are available for sale) was between $350 and $400, with occasional boosts pushing my earnings up to as much as $500 in a single month. That was, overall, pretty good for me in terms of earnings, and I was making some real progress toward building up my savings and keeping all my creditors happy.

Then Drive Thru RPG launched a new website... and everything got shafted.

Myself, and every fellow creator and indie publisher I talked to, had their organic discovery (the ability for people to find your titles through the search function or just be browsing the site) absolutely cratered! Incomes were cut in half for most people, so I went from getting close to an average of $400 to $500 a month for the 2-3 months before the release, to just barely managing to scrape $250 on a good month. My titles didn't change, there weren't huge upsets in the industry, and everything else was holding steady... but the way the site's algorithm shifted meant people couldn't find my work, and the work of countless others.

Our money was tied directly to the algorithm, and whether or not it let people find our titles. It didn't matter if they were good or bad, well-written or drek, if people can't find a book, they can't very well buy or read that book. Period.

But that isn't the only recent horror story regarding the capriciousness of the algorithm, and how it can literally make or break you as a creator.

And even when it doesn't, it will nickel and dime you.

You see, several months ago DTRPG experienced a problem with Reddit. Normally you could just leave a link to a supplement on Reddit, and it would display the cover image, and give you a title... well, something went wrong, and it became impossible to share links that didn't look broken. This meant that if you wanted a proper title and preview image you had to either share the link through an interim site (like Pinterest), or you had to upload the cover image, and then in the cover image's description you needed to leave a link to the book in question.

Do you know why they put all the candy bars, cigarette lighters, and other junk right up by the cash register? Well, it's because people are WAY more likely to buy stuff like that if it's right in front of them, they're forced to look at it while they're in line, and it's easy to access. And while there were some people who were interested enough in a cover image or a title to check out the supplement in question, it was a LOT fewer people. I was seeing my earnings dropping further from that $250-ish level down to $180, and barely scraping $200 some months.

And you know what happened recently? Well, DTRPG got the glitch solved, and now it's right back to showing direct links like it used to. And the sales I'm making? Also shooting right back up to where they were before.

Because it was never about the quality of the books I wrote, good or bad. It was never about picking the right art, or being engaging enough. It was about whether people could click a single link, and get to the sales page right away. More than one click? Not worth it to most folks in the audience. But back to 1 click? Well, consider them interested again!

Your Actions Affect The Algorithm (And Us)

The algorithm is, in many ways, a mysterious, god-like force. Most people don't understand how it works, and we just try to interpret its will as best we can, and to try to stay on its good side by avoiding behaviors we know it doesn't like. However, something that is important to keep in mind is that the algorithm exists to serve you, the audience. Its entire goal is to give you the kind of content that will keep you on the site, and to make sure you keep engaging with it.

Facebook's algorithm wants you to keep scrolling. Amazon's wants you to keep shopping. YouTube's wants you to keep watching. And so on, and so forth.

They cheer for this one? He shall live another day!

Because the algorithm bows to the will of the audience, it requires the audience to invoke it. The algorithm doesn't care about creators, because we are individuals. But if hundreds, or thousands, of people all signaled that the thing this creator makes is something they like? Well, that is going to put the algorithm in gear, and swing its all-seeing eye toward the creator in question to shine a spotlight on them.

This happens when a book hits 50+ reviews on Amazon; the algorithm decides it's worthy of notice, and starts sharing it with other people. It's why high-selling supplements on Drive Thru RPG are given metal awards ranging from Copper to Adamantine, each of which gives it an advantage over smaller sellers. It's also why videos on YouTube that get lots of comments and upvotes are shared to a wider audience, and why the posts made by creators with large subscriber counts are pushed out to more accounts on every social media platform out there.

Your interaction is what generates buzz, and like I said above, that buzz is what gets our books seen, and being seen is what allows us to make sales so we can keep doing this.

So even though it feels like I say this every other article I write on business matters, I feel it is imperative to drive this point home... especially because not everyone makes it to the end every time, so I have to repeat myself a lot. If you want to help push your favorite creators up, boost their signals, and get them noticed by the algorithm, do the following:

- Leave Ratings and Reviews: This directly gets the algorithm's attention, and it can take as little as 50 folks doing it. It's an important start, but still just a start!

- Subscribe and Be An Active Member of Their Audience: Subscribe to your favorite creators on YouTube, Facebook, Blue Sky, and whatever other platforms they use, and then interact with what they post! Leave hearts, reacts, comments of 7+ words, and share things... it all makes a difference!

- Tell People About Them: Whether you're making posts on a forum, giving shout outs in your podcast, or just talking about someone in a discord chat, big-up people whose work you like to others and spread the word. We can only do so much, and people believe you over us when it comes to our work.

It is absolutely helpful to support the creators you love in financial ways, as well, but since this blog entry is about the algorithm, I wanted to focus on that first. So remember to buy your favored creator's stuff, leave them tips if you can, and support them on whatever crowdfunding platform you can.

We're depending on you, because we need your help to force the wheels of the algorithm to move so we can actually get onto the platform where people can see and hear us. So join the good fight... the creators you love will be appreciative.

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My Blue Sky

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list.

Use Your Social Media With Purpose (If You Want To See Results)

These days social media can seem like it's nothing but doom and gloom, scammers and grifters, AI slop and apocalyptic predictors. It's constant, and it can be overwhelming. However, while I see a lot of folks say they want to get off social media entirely, I would like to propose an alternative solution that I think would fix a lot of problems for folks who are sick of being overwhelmed by their pocket boxes.

In short, take control of your social media so that you are plugged-in for the things you want to be plugged into. Focus your attention on the things that serve your needs, and that you enjoy, instead of just letting everything overwhelm you all the time. Curate your feed, and start pulling the reins.

Trust me, it's better for you, but it's also better for the creators out there that you're trying to stay connected to.

There is a speed you can have between 0 and 60.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more! And, of course, check me out on Blue Sky, since that's what we're talking about today!

You Are In Control (And Creators Need You To Use That Control)

I've said this before, but I'm going to keep saying it because it's important. Creators of all stripes (artists, authors, filmmakers, and so on) need an active, engaged audience in order for us to keep making things, and to earn enough money at the end of the month to pay our bills. And for smaller creators who don't have the backing of massive corporations, or huge budgets to jet set to big cons, or buy up advertising space, social media is our lifeline to our audience. The deck is thoroughly stacked against us as it is, and we need your help to pull us up out of the muck and mire.

It's our job to make art, tell stories, and offer you things you enjoy... but we are down at the base of the wall, stuck in quicksand, reaching up to you. We cannot grab the wall and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. We need you at the top of the wall to reach down to us, or offer us a rope, so that we have some way to get traction and move forward.

But a lot of folks out there mistake just clapping their hands and cheering with actually throwing out a lifeline... they aren't the same thing.

Let's see if I can make it clearer...

Let me belabor this metaphor a bit, because it is imperative that folks understand this setup.

So, you have your creators who are slowly being swallowed by quicksand at the base of a wall. They're scrabbling at the wall, trying to find a handhold to at least keep their heads above water, even if it isn't possible to haul themselves out of the quicksand entirely. At the top of the wall we have everyone in our potential audience. They're looking down at us. Some of the folks on top of that wall are cheering us on, trying to encourage us to keep going, and not to give up. They're sure we're going to make it! The problem is that for all that shouting, we literally cannot get out of this quicksand on our own.

Worse, there are some people on top of the wall with long poles that are actively trying to smack our hands, to poke us in the eye, and to shove us back down into the mire. Some of them just don't want us to get out. Some of them dislike us personally. Some of them just do it because they're in a bad mood, or they want to lash out. But unless there are people on top of that wall who put in the effort to lower a rope so we can grab on, we're going to drown sooner or later.

For the purposes of this metaphor, the stick-wielders are all the trolls that creatives have to deal with on a daily basis. They're the people who report our posts because they don't like them, the people who try to get YouTube to take down our videos, and the people who pirate our work. They're the people who, instead of trying to help, or just being neutral, put in their efforts to actively hinder us and make what we're doing even harder.

Authors who have advertising budgets and big corporations? They have a powered winch at the top of the wall to haul them up. Yes, they still have to write the book, draw the comic, make the video, etc., but they are being buoyed up by a force that is far stronger than the average trolls and naysayers can do anything to really hinder. A few slings and arrows might hit home, but the creators are going to climb enough that they aren't in any danger of falling back down into the quicksand as long as they have that financial backing.

The rest of us? Well, we need you all on the top of the wall to help pull us up. And the more of you we have helping, the less effort any of you need to put in individually.

But the key part of this is that you need to be purposeful and deliberate with your actions online. Just wanting us to succeed and sending good vibes isn't enough... we need actions to move the needle.

Moving With Purpose

A lot of folks use social media passively. They doomscroll, throw out a like when they see something that catches their eye, watch a video that looks interesting, but they skim along the surface. Put another way, if you were riding a horse you're in the saddle, and you're holding the reins, but you're mostly just letting the horse go wherever the hell it feels like going.

The more deliberate the actions you take, the more that horse is going to go where you want it to go.

Tweak the parameters, and you get far better stuff.

The algorithm pays attention to the things you interact with, and the rules you set. So if you don't want to see posts from certain individuals, you block them (I am telling you this now, leaving people, pages, etc., you don't want to see unblocked just invites them back into your feed... block them, and get yourself peace of mind). The more things you block off, the less clutter you'll see in your recommendations on Facebook, YouTube, etc. If you enjoy the content you find on a particular page, though, then join that group, follow the page, subscribe to that creator. Don't just tell yourself you'll remember, because you won't. More importantly, though, subscribing to something helps that group, that creator, that page get noticed by more people.

Taking action is the currency of social media, both positive and negative. If you see a video, a post, etc. that you like, sure, you can leave a like on it... but taking an extra step can have a much bigger impact. For example, if you leave a comment of at least 7 words, that boost the signal, making it more likely to be seen by more people. If you share from the original creator, that does far more to boost the post than if you just re-shared the original link on your own timeline, because shares are one of the metrics that the algorithm counts toward how much attention it should give a specific post.

Put another way, 25 people sharing a post about an author's new book from that author's page is weighed much more heavily than 25 people copying the link to the book, and making individual posts about it on their own pages.

And if you actually bought a book, or another piece of merch from a creator you like? Go the extra mile! Leave a rating and review on the platform you bought it from, because the products with the biggest numbers of ratings and reviews are the ones the algorithm pushes out, and advertises to other people.

Deliberate effort from an engaged audience is the fuel that makes an artist's career go forward.

With all of that said, if you need to take a break from social media, you should do that. However, take a moment to ask what it is you're taking a break from... because it's possible that just cleaning up the mess and replacing the things you don't like with things you do like will do wonders for how you engage with these information engines.

And if you have creators you want to succeed (again, whether it's me or someone else) we all need you to be active, engaged, and deliberate if you want to help us. The problem is that a lot of people think that cheering from the top of the wall is helping, while in reality you're just letting creators drown.

Toss us a line. Even if it's small, and you aren't strong enough to pull us up all by your lonesome, the more lines a creator has, the more people will notice, and the more people will throw out their own lines in order to help us keep breathing so we can keep creating.

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My Blue Sky

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list.

Authors Could Write So Much More If We Weren't Always Promoting

One of the most common things people say when they look at my body of work is, "Wow... you write a lot of stuff!" And they're not wrong. I run two blogs, I have an archive on vocal.media that I'm regularly expanding, I write between 1 and 2 TTRPG supplements every month, I put out 1 video per week for the Azukail Games YouTube channel, I've got half a dozen novels to my name, and in between those things I write short stories that wind up on channels like Altered State Adventures or A Vox in The Void.

However, do you know what I spend the majority of my day doing so I can put a roof over my head, and keep food on my table? Promotion.

And I hate it. But this is the reality that so many people don't realize about being a writer... a majority of what you do in a day isn't actually writing.

It's the part of the job no one wants to talk about...

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more! And, of course, check me out on Blue Sky, since that's what we're talking about today!

Getting Back Up On The Soap Box

This topic has been on my mind recently because for some reason I was having trouble sharing anything of mine on Facebook for the past week. I could post just fine to my personal and author pages, but anything else the site was basically blocking me from sharing, claiming that I was posting too often. So I basically haven't been doing much on Facebook for a week or so... and I was doing nothing on at least a few of those days.

Now, on an average day, I'll post in between 30 and 50 Facebook groups. Sometimes it's more, and sometimes it's less, but that's an average spread. Not only that, but in addition to FB I need to make posts on Reddit, Blue Sky. Tumblr, and several other places... and this takes hours of my day. By having FB no longer something I could use, I freed up probably 1-2 hours... especially because the site requires you to stagger out your posts throughout the day.

And what did I lose in visibility? It's hard to say, but generally speaking FB isn't worth much to me. A few dozen blog reads here, maybe 15 views on a video there... I can't remember the last time I actually sold something based on a FB post.

And what did I do with the time I got back? Well, it allowed me to focus on other tasks that I could then clear off my desk. The total amount of time I spend using that site was probably the equivalent energy and time it takes me to write a blog post just like this.

So what if I spent an entire day just writing instead of posting on half a dozen social media sites to promote my work... what could I get done then?

Glad you asked. Because on days where the Internet has gone down and I can't post, I basically finish all of my usual writing tasks by lunchtime. At that point I'll often record some scripts to get ahead on my audio dramas, I'll start a short story I didn't otherwise have time for, or push ahead into the next RPG supplement that I didn't have the energy for with a day full of promotional posts.

Because it's not just the time that promoting your work takes. It also sucks up energy, focus, and creative juice that you then don't have to work on other things. Just like how going to a day job can suck out your desire to write, promoting the things all day can leave your battery empty, and your soul exhausted.

So Why The Hell Do I Do It?

I probably made promotion sound like a constant uphill grind with little to no chance of reward that leaves you feeling empty and exhausted, wondering why you even bother. Unfortunately, that's just how promotion works when you don't have a fat stack of cash to buy ads, or a slick PR team to handle the job for you.

However, I write things professionally... which means I have to at least try to reach my customers. And though my way is often barred by the capriciousness of search terms and shadow banning, and every social media platform is decaying at an accelerated rate, I have to do what I can to try to reach folks.

Because like I've said before, it does not matter how much stuff I write. I have over a hundred videos on YouTube, over 300 articles in my Vocal archive, nearly 200 TTRPG supplements available on DTRPG, half a dozen books for sale... but if no one reads them, watches, them, or buys them, I don't make any money.

Authors don't get paid for what we produce. We get paid for what we sell... period.

Let's say that I kept writing novels, TTRPG supplements, and making audio dramas for the rest of my life. If no one actually reads them, listens to them, or buys them, then I make no money. No ad revenue from online traffic, and no royalties from sales. Conversely, say that I stopped writing tomorrow, but for some reason my hardboiled cat novels Marked Territory and Painted Cats became a huge phenomenon. They sell tens of thousands of copies a year, and two seasons of a smash animated TV show are commissioned based on these books. If that happened, I could kick my feet up, cash my checks, and do whatever the hell I wanted.

That's why I (and so many other creators) have to spend so much time promoting, and why you see us making post after post about our work... because we don't have enough readers, subscribers, and supporters for us to not do that.

Trust me, we would love to not spend half our work day trying to tell everyone out there about the things we've made... but that's not an option.

Unless, of course, you help us spread the word! Because while I've said this before if I had 1,000 fans (or, hell, even 500 of them) who actively spread the word every time a new release of mine dropped, I could basically just make a post or two on my professional pages, or send out a newsletter, and just let my audience spread the word on my behalf.

So please... if you want the writers you follow to be able to create more and promote less, take a few moments to subscribe, comment, and share the things we make... it really is a massive help, and it weights the odds of finally making the algorithm work in our favor for once.

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My Blue Sky

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list.

Writing Isn't What Makes Writers Succeed

Generally speaking, if you're a writer, you would assume that writing is what determines the success of your career. Dedication to your art form, clever execution, quality storytelling, and even the rate at which you can churn out new work, though... none of this is really what makes you successful as a writer.

No... instead it appears to be how famous you can make yourself as an influencer, YouTuber, or TikTok channel, as Matt Wallace points out.

Yeah... it's like that.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more!

Writers Don't Get Famous For Writing Anymore

When you think of famous writers, chances are they're famous to you for their books. Whether it's Poe, Lovecraft, King, Gaiman, or dozens upon dozens of others, you know these people's names because of the books they wrote. Period. But even back in the relatively recent days of the 1980s and 1990s, things worked differently than they do now... and the things you need to do to be successful in today's market are getting further and further away from actually writing books.

I talked about this a few years back in I Just Want To Write... but Mr. Wallace really lays it out for all of us. Because 40 or 50 years ago the best advice you could give a writer was, "The best way to move copies of this book is to start working on your next book."

Sadly, that advice is for a world that no longer exists.

Now you have people trying to get seen on TikTok, to start podcasts, to run YouTube channels, and to do anything to get noticed in this media-saturated landscape we find ourselves in... and even when doing that works, and gets you attention, that doesn't mean it's going to actually get you closer to your goal of being a successful author.

Take the above story as an example. I wrote The Final Lamentation as a stand-alone piece of fan fiction set in the Warhammer 40K universe. My text version of the story, no matter how hard I tried to push it, or how many Facebook groups, subreddits, etc., I shared it on barely went anywhere. A few folks read it here and there, but generally speaking it probably hasn't amassed more than a few hundred reads at time of writing.

The audio drama version, though? That has 157,376 views, over 500 comments, and over 7,000 upvotes! Enough people have seen this version of the story that I've had folks recommend it to me, without knowing I'm the guy who wrote it in the first place.

Now, to be clear, I adore this adaptation of my work. I love how it helped more people come across my story, and how it helped boost the signal. I am remarkably touched by some of the very kind things folks said about this story, and how much they enjoyed it. However, making something like this production is both not writing, and it's something that is a far larger undertaking than just putting words on a page. It takes voice talent, recording equipment, sound effects, the right music, and so much more to turn a piece of fiction into an audio drama.

But, even worse, there's no guarantee that the popularity of a piece of media like this will turn into something profitable. Because even if someone enjoys an audio drama, or a video you made, they're not all that likely to go check out your website, or to follow the links you left in the production. They probably aren't going to type your name into a search engine to find more of your work, either. People consume what's in front of them, and then move on to the next thing more often than not.

Which leaves you making more and more content to try to pull in the audience, to let people know about your work, which rarely does anything to sell the books you've already written, but which also eats up all the time you would spend writing new books which you now aren't.

So What Can You Do To Help?

As with all my other diatribes on this subject, it really does come down to you as the audience. I've said this before, but authors are like gladiators in the arena; we could put on the finest show of weapons skill possible, and defeat three dozen opponents, but unless you all make some noise for us we aren't going to get any kind of reward at the end of the day.

We need you to elevate our signal, and make people aware of us. We need you to share links to our books on your social media pages, tell your friends and family, leave reviews, share our posts, follow our pages and our channels... in short, we need you all to raise your voices loudly enoug that the algorithm cannot ignore you, and it becomes impossible to throttle our signal because so many people are talking about what we're making.

And, of course, it always helps if you can donate to help us keep producing more work. Because the further we can keep the wolf from the door, the easier it becomes to put words on the page.

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!