Promotional image for the Stuff Your Kindle: Faerie Land Event

Great things are here *and* around the corner…👀

I know I typically send my newsletters out on Mondays, but this week has been FULL of amazing updates rolling in—so much that I needed to wait for a lull! Ithandryll is only $0.99 on Kindle! As part of the Stuff Your Kindle: Faerie Land event this week, I’ve made the first book in the Song of the Sidhe series available on Kindle for only $0.99 (regularly $4.99)! And I’ve made a bet with everyone in the ARC Discord: if Ithandryll reaches 100 ebooks sold, I’m going out to the local pub for a…

How has your week been going so far?

It’s been…a week. Monday: Microsoft 365 experienced a massive blackout, cutting off email access to anyone who uses it (like my mother and her business). Simultaneously, I discovered my own Gmail wasn’t working for unrelated reasons—and it didn’t get fixed for another day. Fun! đŸ«  Tuesday: Found out my author email STILL wasn’t working, the issues with my proof copy had still yet to be fixed (but hey, more stock? 😅), an order from a bookstore to stock Ithandryll was never alerted in the…

Cover image for How To Write A Good Book Review

How To Write A Good Book Review

After talking to some avid readers, however, one of the biggest issues became clear: no one really knows how to leave a review. Not the tech side of it (platforms make that easy, phew!) but rather the questions of “will this even help”, “will I piss off the author”, etc. tend to freeze the fingers and block readers from leaving their honest opinions…

Snippet from Sinners & Starlight

Shiny Object Syndrome is “great” 🙄

If you follow me on Threads (@nikkiauberkett), you may have noticed a super quick blip of me saying, “I’m moving my newsletter to Substack.” TRANSLATION: “I’m experiencing Shiny Object Syndrome and have no idea what I’m actually talking about so please ignore this announcement until I have receipts!” Did I go to Substack, set up my account, and play around with the features? Yes. Did I quickly discover it doesn’t do what I want/need it to do? Also, yes. “So…is anything changing?” Not…

5 Reasons Why I Switched to Scrivener (and you should, too)

If you’re an aspiring—or even experienced—author who wants the best recommendations for writing software, you, my friend, are in the right place. Because I’m a stubborn loyalist who hates change. I’m also an author who needs to become way better at organizing my world-builds for the series I keep growing. My writing career began at…

Hwaet! Grendel

Examining Neanderthal Humanity and Spirituality Through Archaeology and Oral Tradition This paper was originally written for and presented at the 2016 Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology Conference (University of Northern Iowa). After several attempts to submit it to anthropological publications and being told it “wasn’t anthropological enough”, I’ve decided to self-publish it here. Enjoy! Defining religion…

The Dos and Don’ts of Book Awards

It’s been almost a year, and I keep forgetting to tell people: I’ve been, and will continue to be, a book awards judge. Not that it comes up in conversation on a regular basis. And, to be honest, I always viewed it as voluntary service — a way to further support self-publishing authors in their…