Part of the Read-Through System — Phase 2: Capture

You don’t need to be “good with tech” to get BookFunnel working for your author business.

You just need one thing: a willingness to click a few buttons while I talk you through what they mean.

In this episode, we’re going to:

• Choose your starting plan

• Open your account

• Add your author profile

• Upload one book or reader magnet

• Create a simple landing page you can actually use

By the end, you’ll have one live BookFunnel link you can send to readers or build on in later episodes.

Before we dive in: your “test book”

Before you log in, decide what you’re going to work with:

• One finished book (ebook file + cover), or

• A reader magnet (prequel, bonus epilogue, novella — whatever you plan to give away)

You’ll need:

• An EPUB or PDF file

• A cover image (JPEG/PNG is fine. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just recognizably “your book”)

If you’re sitting on six books like my dinner‑date companion, resist the temptation to upload everything today. We’re going to practice on one.

What you get if you read the full episode

The rest of this episode is a click‑by‑click walkthrough with:

• Guidance on which plan to pick for an indie romance author

• Screenshots of the dashboard and forms, so you’re never guessing where to go

• Sample wording for your landing page that speaks directly to romance readers

• A simple testing checklist so you know your link actually works

By the end of the paid section, you will have:

• A BookFunnel account on a plan that fits your goals

• Your author/pen name set up

• One book or magnet uploaded

• One landing page created

• One live link you’ve tested as a reader

And if you get stuck on any step, you can ask me questions in the comments on this episode — this is where you get my eyes on your setup, not just generic instructions.

Read more

, that’s me happy dancing over your awesome news! I couldn’t be happier for you. I know I don’t spend a lot of time engaging online, but every so often something crosses my path that’s worth setting the manuscript down for. Your engagement is one of those somethings. I wish you could see me happy dancing.

So consider this me, coming out of the quiet, because you (and hence Roland) are dear enough to me that silence felt wrong.

Congratulations, and a Confession

I’ve been a “some form of public figure” too, in my own smaller corners, and I know exactly what you meant about the window versus the door. So I’m not going to peer through yours. I’m going to hand you something through the door instead — something I’ve been carrying for 48 years, and something I think you and Roland are about to start building whether you know it yet or not.

It’s called a Good Will Hunting list. And I think every marriage should have one.

What a Good Will Hunting List Actually Is

Hubster and I started ours without naming it — it just accumulated, the way inside jokes do when two people pay real attention to each other for decades. His snoring, timed like a metronome I could set my sleep schedule by. My snort-laugh, which apparently arrived at exactly the wrong moment in every serious conversation we ever tried to have. A running bit about the produce aisle at Walmart that I will not explain here, except to say it made us both useless for a solid ten minutes every single time, for years.

We named it properly near the end, in hospice, when we pulled the whole list out and went through it together. There was a lot of laughing. There was also a lot of crying. Both, at the same time, in the same breath — which is, it turns out, exactly what wholehearted love feels like when you get to the far end of it.

That list wasn’t nostalgia. It was evidence. Proof, collected in real time, that we’d actually seen each other — not the highlight reel, the whole absurd, specific, unglamorous truth of another person, kept and treasured on purpose.

What 48 Years Actually Taught Me

Here’s what I want to hand you, Becca, underneath the fun of it:

We trusted the truth more than we trusted comfort. That’s not the same as always being nice to each other. It meant that when something was hard to say, we said it anyway, and we stayed to hear the answer even when we didn’t love it … although sometimes that came after a break in our respective “corners.”

We gave each other room without losing the thread. Neither of us disappeared into the other. We thought things through side by side, not one leading and one following — and the space between us wasn’t distance. It was what made the closeness sustainable for half a century instead of five years.

We chose each other, repeatedly, on purpose. Not because leaving felt dangerous. Because staying felt wanted. There’s a world of difference between a marriage that holds because neither person can imagine an exit, and one that holds because both people keep walking back through the same door on purpose.

And when things were painful, we didn’t always rush to fix them. Sometimes the kindest thing one person can do for another is just witness the hard thing without trying to solve it on the spot. Not everything that hurts needs an answer. Some things only need to be held.

The Part I Almost Didn’t Write

Hubster isn’t here anymore. You know that, so I’m not breaking news by saying it. But here’s what I’ve come to believe, three years and a lot of quiet mornings later: loving someone wholeheartedly is a risk you take with your eyes open, and if you’re lucky enough to actually do the work — the honest, unglamorous, show-up-anyway work — you don’t just lose access to that person when they go. A piece of their soul joins yours. Permanently. That’s not a metaphor I reach for lightly. It’s the most literal thing I know how to say about what’s left of us now.

That’s the gift wholehearted love hands you, if you’re brave enough to take the risk. Not a guarantee of forever. A guarantee that “forever” becomes something you carry, not something you lose.

What I Want for You and Roland

Start your list now, Becca. Not someday, not once things settle after #TheWeddingTour2027 — now, in the middle of the cake decorators and the dress you found and the venue that’s finally locked in. Write down the ridiculous stuff. The way he says your name when he’s half asleep. Whatever your version of the Walmart produce aisle turns out to be. Keep it somewhere you’ll actually find again.

Because someday, whether that day is fifty years off or heaven forbid sooner, that list is going to be the thing that makes you laugh and cry in the same breath. And that particular kind of wholehearted, both-at-once feeling? That’s the whole point. That’s the marriage working exactly as it should.

Congratulations to you and Roland. I’m so glad you closed the window on the strangers and opened the door for the people who actually love you.

With everything … walk in light and love,

Lilith 💋

Knowing Hub in the beginning was like trying to steer a motorboat through turbulent ocean waves.

There was no single disaster I can point to and say, That was the storm. The weather was more constant than that: a push and pull between extraordinary closeness and sudden retreat. We spent much of our spare time together. We talked intensely about life, music, other people’s behaviour, sex, stories, and whatever else caught our minds. We took every subject apart, turned it over, examined it, debated it, and returned to it from another angle.

Then, often after we had been especially close or had a particularly good time, Hub would pull away.

Sometimes it arrived as a rude remark that felt designed to put distance between us. Sometimes he vanished into silence for days. Sometimes he became unreachable while sitting in the same room. And sometimes, after he had opened a little too much or I had gotten a little too close, he retreated so completely that I began to think of it as his Gollum cave: a private place where he hid his light until he was ready to let me peek in again.

Much later, I understood more about the trauma behind those retreats. In the early years, I only knew that they hurt.

When silence felt personal

At first, of course, I took it personally.

I was young, carrying my own history, and it was hard not to make his withdrawal mean that I had done something wrong, said something wrong, wanted too much, or mattered too little. When I challenged him, we would debate it intensely—because we debated everything. He would insist, sometimes at great length, that not everything was about me and that I needed not to take things personally.

That was not always easy to hear. But over time, experience taught me it was true. It was one of the first of a shitload of life lessons I learned from Hub—lessons that helped me find my best self. He always said we helped each other become better people. We did.

His silences often seemed to arrive from nowhere, though I later recognized certain periods of anxiety: the week before returning to work after summer break, for instance, could be especially hard. Still, a great deal of it had nothing to do with me. His system was managing something that had begun long before I entered his life.

Years later, when I discovered one of the core beliefs from The Four Agreements, “Don’t take anything personally,” the idea finally cemented itself in me. It became a lifesaver for us.

Not because I learned to accept hurtful behaviour without question. I did not. And not because I became smaller or quieter, something those who know me will tell you is virtually impossible. Hub and I loved being together in comfortable silence. But if my silence had an edge to it—if I was upset and disappearing into my own thoughts—he could not leave it alone. He would badger me until I told him what was going on. That rarely took much effort on his part.

What I learned was the difference between seeing the impact of his behaviour and assuming I was the cause of every storm inside him.

Truth was our glue

One saving grace was that we both believed a person needed to know themselves before they could truly share space with someone else.

The irony is that we were already sharing space. We were roommates, friends, lovers, and relentless conversational sparring partners years before Hub could call us a committed couple. That arrangement gave us room to grow, to explore who we were, and to keep choosing connection without pretending we had arrived at certainty.

We made a practice of truth. It was rarely gentle or tidy. We picked apart every subject and explored every hard edge. Hub wanted to know everything about my past, every detail I could give him. He was one of the few people who seemed genuinely interested in my experience, and I needed to be seen. Even when we disagreed, I felt seen and not judged.

The exchange was not symmetrical. I could tell him almost anything, while he could share little of his own past. He often said there was not much to know, sometimes with a small smile. As time passed, I believe he truly tried to remember and tell me what he could, but there seemed to be a wall he could not get beyond. I learned that truth is not always a complete account. Sometimes it is the most honest thing a person can say: I do not remember. I cannot get there yet.

We could never hide to keep the relationship going. Hub would not allow it. Neither, ultimately, would I.

When we married, one of our vows gave formal language to something we had already been practicing for years:

I take you to be my wife/husband from this time onward. To join with you and to share all that is to come, to give and receive, to speak and to listen, to inspire and to respond, and in all circumstances of our life together to be loyal to you with my whole life, and with all of my being, to offer you the freedom and the resources to find your own being.

That last promise mattered immensely: to offer each other the freedom and resources to find our own being.

For us, love was never supposed to mean possession. It was meant to make room.

Patience was not passivity

I accommodated many of Hub’s needs. I learned how to let him go quiet without chasing him into every cave. I learned patient waiting. I learned that sometimes the most loving thing I could do was let him be until he was ready to come back out.

But patience was not passivity.

When something hurt me, I spoke. At times, I spoke loudly. Oddly enough, Hub respected my boundaries when I threw a hissy fit. If I drew a line and meant it, he listened. I was never required to make myself agreeable to be loved, and he never asked me to stop having a mind of my own. On the contrary, he made no bones about appreciating how my mind worked.

I left twice in those early years. The first time, I returned because he was in crisis and needed to talk. I found him shattered, sitting on the floor. I sat down beside him. When he asked why I had gone and what I wanted, I told him the truth: I did not want to be treated as though my body and my affection were available only when it suited him. I did not feel respected.

His answer was not a grand declaration. It was the truth he had available at the time.

He did not know how he felt. He knew only that he had to figure himself out before he could figure anything else out.

I believed him.

Years later, someone asked what he had said to bring me back. My answer was simple: “He told me his truth.”

The second time, I left for law school in another city. But I could not settle. Somewhere beneath all the difficulty, I had the deep, insistent feeling that he was the one. So I returned.

I do not tell that story to romanticize pain or suggest that anyone should endure a relationship that harms them. I tell it because it is true to mine: I stayed only when I could remain myself, speak my truth, and make my own choice. Each step that brought me back was mine to take.

The ways he returned

Hub was either on or off. But when he was on, he was my irresistible radiant sun blowing away the storm.

We were intensely compatible. We shared music, laughter, curiosity, argument, and the pleasure of thinking together. He shared everything he could. And when words could not carry what he felt, there were other ways he returned to connection.

In those early years, he would find his way into my bed. For us, sex was never merely sex. It could be contact, reassurance, a wordless way of saying that the bond still existed when neither of us knew how to say it aloud. That is part of why the emotional lives of my romance characters are so deeply entwined with their physical lives: I learned that desire can carry fear, longing, trust, repair, and the wish to be known.

It took five years of living together before Hub told me he loved me.

But the relationship was changing all along. Every hard truth we survived, every boundary we respected, and every return after silence added another strand to the trust between us. Slowly, he opened more. Slowly, I learned that I could love his trauma-shaped protectors without surrendering myself to them.

Wholehearted love

About twenty-five years into our life together, I told Hub that I could finally say, without reservation, that for me it was until death do us part.

Something shifted in him after that. It was as if a switch had been thrown. The man who had once hidden so much became open, generous, and affectionate in ways I had never known from him. At first, I joked that he must be dying, because the change was so dramatic. We laughed about that for years. I got over the fear quickly when I realized he was much too happy to be dying.

Love did not make the old weather disappear. It did not erase trauma, turn every silence into ease, or make either of us perfect. What it did was give us a way to navigate with honesty, trust, agency, and the repeated choice to come back to the table as ourselves.

That is the lesson I carry now.

Love is worth the work — but it must be wholehearted love. It asks us to be honest with ourselves and each other. It asks us to respect another person’s freedom without abandoning our own. It asks us to recognize the difference between loving someone’s protectors and losing ourselves to them.

I do not regret one moment of the life Hub and I built, no matter how challenging it was. That love helped carry me from surviving childhood abuse to thriving — to becoming a woman who walks through the world with light and love.

I move forward without him beside me, but not without him. Part of him rests within me now: not as a burden to carry, but as proof that a guarded heart can learn to open, that truth can make room for freedom, and that love can survive the weather.

Keep walking in light and love!

Lilith 💖

You know how it goes.

You sit down with another author over dinner, hear “I’ve got six books ready to go,” and your coach brain lights up like a Christmas tree … right before you remember that the tech pieces—BookFunnel, swaps, promos—are exactly where most people stall out.

That’s the spark for this new series.

Why BookFunnel, why now?

If you’re sitting on a finished book (or three … or six) and you don’t have a smooth way to deliver it, build your list, and join targeted promos, you’re making things way harder than they need to be.

BookFunnel can:

• Deliver ebooks cleanly to pretty much any device

• Run reader magnets and build your newsletter list

• Let you join genre‑specific promos and swaps so you’re not shouting into the void

But none of that matters if every time you log in, you feel like you’re trying to fly a spaceship without an instruction manual.

That’s where I come in.

What this series will do for you

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to walk you through BookFunnel the way I walk my coaching clients through it—step by step, no jargon, and always with a dark‑romance author’s brain turned on.

Here’s what you can expect:

Episode 1 – Getting set up without wanting to scream

Choosing a plan, creating your account, adding your author profile, uploading your first book/reader magnet, and creating a simple landing page you can actually use.

Episode 2 — Building reader magnets and email‑collection pages

What makes a good magnet for romance readers, how to set up an opt‑in page that feels on‑brand, and how to connect those subscribers to your email list.

Episode 3 — Newsletter swaps that don’t wreck your list

What swaps are, how to vet partners, how often to swap, and how to keep your list healthy while still growing it.

Episode 4 — Joining the right group promos

How to find promos that match your genre and heat level, what to look for in a host, and how to use promos to attract future superfans—not just freebie collectors.

Part 5 (bonus) – ARCs and direct sales once you’re ready

Using BookFunnel for review copies and integrating it with direct‑sales platforms when you want to keep more money and more control.

The deep, click‑here‑then‑click‑there walkthroughs and the “here’s how this plays with romance reader psychology” pieces will live behind the paywall. That’s where I’ll be getting into screenshots, exact settings, and the nitty‑gritty strategy I usually reserve for coaching clients.

Your first homework: get ready to play along

Before Episode 1 lands, here’s what I’d love you to do:

• Decide which book (or reader magnet) you want to use as your “test case.”

• Make sure you have a clean EPUB or PDF file and a simple cover image for it.

• If you don’t already have a BookFunnel account, go take a look at their plans and open one that fits where you are in your author journey.

You don’t need to have everything perfect. You just need one book file and the willingness to click a few buttons with me looking over your shoulder.

Why this is behind the paywall

This series is designed for authors who are serious about treating their writing like a business: you want a growing, engaged list, you want to be discoverable in your genre, and you’re done letting tech be the bottleneck.

Putting it behind the paywall lets me:

• Go in-depth with real settings and workflows

• Share more nuanced list‑health and promo strategy

• Keep the focus on authors who are genuinely ready to implement

If you want me in your corner while you set up BookFunnel and start using swaps and promos in a way that serves your readers, make sure you’re a paid subscriber before Episode 1 drops.

Ask me questions, in real time

All the deep‑dive tutorials for this series will live behind the paywall, and that’s also where you’ll be able to ask me questions as you go. If you get stuck on a setting, wonder whether a promo is right for your genre, or need feedback on your reader magnet strategy, you can comment on each installment, and I’ll answer you there. Think of it as having a BookFunnel coach on call while you build out your system.

Keep writing and feeding our fantasies!

Lilith 💋

Every week I sit down here and dissect human behaviour as if it’s a body on a table — motives, patterns, and the quiet architecture of why we do what we do. This week, I’d like to set the scalpel down and pay tribute to something that actually matters: my purse.

I know. Bear with me.

I was at the pain clinic getting my weekly shots — routine, unglamorous, the kind of appointment where you’d expect nothing more dramatic than a good vein day. Except my blood pressure decided to audition for a soap opera. Uncharacteristically high. The nurse looked concerned. I looked inward, and found the culprit immediately.

The saga of the new purse! 😵‍💫

Here’s the thing about me and bags: I do not “replace” a purse. I retire one, the way you retire a ship — reluctantly, and usually after it’s taking on massive amounts of water. I wear a purse until it is on the brink of structural failure, until the lining has surrendered, and the general public starts giving me the specific, concerned once-over reserved for women who might be one bad week from living out of that bag. That look is what finally moves me. Not the holes. The look.

So there I was, blood pressure climbing, quietly grieving a bag that had served me faithfully and was no longer fit for public wear, and the nurse — bless her — decided this was the moment to reveal that she changes purses with every outfit. Every outfit. She listed her non-negotiables with the crisp efficiency of someone packing for a hostage negotiation: keys, lipstick, phone. That’s it. That’s the whole manifest.

I asked, not unkindly, if she was one of those people who “travels light.” She said yes. Cheerfully. As if it was a badge, not a betrayal of everything I stand for.

Meanwhile, I am a woman who transports roughly 40% of my household inventory at all times. It never starts that way. It starts with keys, wallet, phone — same as her — and then somewhere between the front door and the car I collect snacks, mints, receipts I’m emotionally unprepared to throw away, a phone charger just in case, and at least one item that could, in an emergency, MacGyver its way into a tourniquet.

The pain doctor, who has apparently been taking notes on my life choices in addition to my nerve pathways, delivered the final blow. She travels light, she said, because her shoulder makes her. Pain rearranges your priorities fast. And then she looked at me — the same look, doctor-flavoured this time — and reminded me that I knew this. And she’s absolutely correct; I’ve known this for years. I explain that I always start the new purse light, virtuously and determined to live light. And then, she said, watching the latest trial haul itself onto my shoulder like a filing cabinet with a strap, “we arrive right back here,” before heaving out a huge sigh.

So no trope breakdown today, no dissecting the emotional architecture of forced proximity or morally grey love interests. Today there’s just a woman, a doctor, a nurse who travels like a Navy SEAL, and the eternal, unsolvable mystery of why some of us simply cannot leave the spare sunglasses at home.

Tell me I’m not alone in this. Are you a “keys, lipstick, phone” person, or are you hauling your entire personality around in a bag that’s held together by spite and hope?

. . . tell me I’m not alone! 😂

Keep reading and feeding your fantasies!

Lilith 💋

Years ago, I was one of those Pinterest people. Boards for everything. Aesthetic moodboards for books I hadn’t even outlined yet. And then, one by one, I started reading articles from other writers saying the same thing: Pinterest is dead for authors. Nobody’s buying books there. It’s all recipe blogs and wedding boards now. Don’t waste your time.

So suffering from major social media fatigue, I stopped. Quietly. The way folks these days stop texting someone back — not a breakup they tell me, just a slow fade until one day you realize it’s been two years.

Here’s the humbling part: I was wrong to listen, and so, probably, are you.

Pinterest Didn’t Die. It Just Stopped Being Instagram’s Little Sibling

The thing nobody explained to me back then is that Pinterest was never really a social network pretending to be a search engine. It’s a search engine that happens to be visual. According to Pinterest’s own audience data, people go there to plan and discover, not to scroll and be entertained. Almost all of that searching is unbranded — people looking for ideas, not names they already know — which, if you think about it, describes exactly how a reader finds a new book boyfriend they didn’t know they needed.

And it’s bigger than it’s ever been. Sprout Social’s 2026 analysis puts Pinterest at roughly 620–630 million monthly active users worldwide, still growing double digits year over year.

Why This Particular Platform Is Suspiciously Perfect for Us

Here’s the part that made me feel a little ridiculous for walking away. Pinterest’s core audience skews heavily female, mostly 25–44, with unusually high household income and purchase intent, per Sprout Social. Romance-industry consumer research has named Pinterest and Instagram as the two platforms where romance readers concentrate most heavily … and that Pinterest demographic overlaps almost perfectly with the romance-buyer profile, as indie-author marketing research on the topic lays out in detail.

And the timing genuinely couldn’t be better. Romance sales are up 24% year over year in the US, with 51 million print units sold in the past twelve months alone, per that same research roundup.

But here’s the detail that actually got me to log back in: romance readers on Pinterest don’t search by author or title the way you’d expect. They search by trope. “Enemies to lovers.” “Why choose.” “Books like Fourth Wing.” “Fallen angel romance.” That’s documented search behavior, and it’s exactly the language we already use to talk about our own books.

And unlike everything else on our plates — the Reels, the TikToks, the stories that vanish in 24 hours if they don’t go viral — a well-tagged Pinterest pin gets indexed like a webpage and can keep quietly working for months or years, whether or not you ever open the app again, as one author wrote for Jane Friedman’s blog after tracking a single pin still selling books two years after she stopped posting.

So no, Pinterest didn’t die. It just stopped rewarding pretty pictures with no strategy behind them, which, in fairness, was most of what I was posting.

How I’m Rebuilding My Boards This Month

Here’s exactly what I’m doing to bring my own dormant account back to life.

Step 1: Fix the Foundation Before You Pin Anything

• Convert (or confirm) that you have a Pinterest Business account. It unlocks analytics and claims your website, which matters for tracking what’s actually working.

• Claim your website so pins link back cleanly and Pinterest attributes traffic to you.

• Rewrite your bio the way a reader would search, not the way a bio “should” sound. Skip “USA Today bestselling author of dark romance” and go with something closer to “Dark romance & fallen angel romance | forced proximity, morally gray heroes, why-choose.”

Step 2: Build Boards Around Tropes, Not “My Books”

Ditch the single “My Books” board. Readers don’t search that way — they search by fantasy. For my own catalog, that means boards like:

• Fallen Angel Romance & Dark PNR (home for Marked by Angels and Branded by Wrath)

• Sexy Sins Afterlife Retreat Romance — Forced Proximity & Morally Gray Heroes (home for Tate’s Angel)

• Why Choose / RH Romance Recs

• Torture Survivor Heroines & Enemies to Lovers

• Books Like [comp title] — a board specifically for comp-title searches, which are some of the highest-volume searches on the platform

Each board title should read like something a reader would type into the search bar, not a clever pun.

Step 3: The Pin Title/Description Formula

For every pin — book covers, quote graphics, character art, everything — swap the pretty line for the search line.

Then in the description underneath, stack in the extra search terms you didn’t fit in the title: genre, trope, heat level, comp titles, and mood. Aim for a natural sentence that still reads as if a person wrote it .. and for the love of all that’s romance holy, do NOT do a keyword dump. Just don’t be shy about using the specific words readers actually search.

Step 4: Refresh, Don’t Reinvent

The good news for anyone coming back after a long absence like me: your old pins aren’t dead weight; they’re raw material.

• Re-save your existing book cover pins into the new trope boards. Use the same image with a new title and description.

• Batch-schedule a handful of pins per week using Pinterest’s native scheduler rather than trying to post daily. This isn’t a platform that punishes quiet weeks.

• Give it 60–90 days before judging results. Pinterest rewards accumulated relevance signals over time, not immediate spikes.

That’s it. No dancing, no trending sounds, and best yet … no daily pressure — just the same trope language we already use everywhere else, finally working somewhere that keeps paying off long after we hit publish.

Keep writing and feeding our fantasies!

Lilith 💋

Okay, let’s set the scene, because I know you can picture it.

A reader just finished your book at 2 a.m. She’s flushed, she’s feral, she’s already composing the five-star review in her head. She flips to the last page, heart still doing that thing, ready to hand you her money for whatever comes next.

And there’s ... nothing.

No next book. No preorder link. No “coming soon” with an actual date attached. Just the sound of one woman’s crush dying in real time.

She doesn’t wait around and pine. She doesn’t write you a strongly worded letter. She just quietly and efficiently (or in my case, grumpily muttering a few expletives 😂) moves on to the next author whose backlist is ready and waiting. Romance readers are not patient people, and I say that with love, because I am one too. We are voracious. We are feral. We will absolutely cheat on you with someone else’s grumpy sunshine standalone if you leave us hanging too long.

This is the part nobody warns you about when you’re deep in edits on book one, dreaming about your launch day. The birth of your first baby isn’t the finish line. It’s the starting gun for something readers care about way more than your release day Instagram post: will there be a next one, and when.

The Metric That Actually Runs Your Business

There’s a number that savvy series authors track called read-through rate — basically, that’s what percentage of people who bought book one also buy book two. In romance, readers binge, so a healthy read-through rate often lands somewhere between 70% and 80%. That’s not a “nice to have.” That’s the difference between a $500 hobby and a $5,000 business, because you already paid to acquire that reader once. Losing her before book two means you’re back to square one, cold-launching to strangers instead of selling to people who already love you.

Translation: the sexiest marketing asset you’ll ever have isn’t a Facebook ad. It’s a reader who just finished loving your book and is standing there, wallet open, waiting for you to hand her the next one.

Don’t make her wait in an empty room.

So Where’s Book Two, Writer?

I hear you moaning it from here. “The next book isn’t ready yet!” I know, babe. Mine usually isn’t either. Books don’t finish baking just because a reader is hungry now. But here’s the good news: the book doesn’t have to be done to be for sale.

This is where preorders become your best friend, your emotional support intern, and your one-click safety net, all rolled into one. A preorder page tells your freshly obsessed reader: relax, I’ve got you, this is happening, here’s your spot in line. She can pay you now and simmer in anticipation instead of spiraling into “guess I’ll go read someone else’s dragon-shifter mafia romance instead.”

For every one of the authors I coach, I know for a fact there’s already a book two simmering on the back burner somewhere — a draft, an outline, a Pinterest board full of moodboard chaos … something. That’s exactly the stage where you put it up for preorder. You don’t need a finished manuscript. You need a title, a placeholder cover if the real one isn’t ready, a blurb, and a release date you can actually hit.

From Kate’s Desk: Why This Isn’t Optional Anymore

Kate (my awesome marketing assistant, and the reason I still have a business) would tell you preorders do double duty. First, they signal commitment — readers trust a series more when they can see you’re already building the next installment, not just hoping lightning strikes twice, especially these days. Second, your biggest fans preorder first, which means they read and review the second it launches, which means your book has social proof waiting the moment it goes live instead of limping out the gate with zero reviews.

And the collateral benefit nobody talks about enough: every book you already have published should be doing marketing for the one that isn’t out yet. That means your back matter — the pages after “The End” — needs a direct link to the preorder, every single time, in every single book. If a reader has to go hunting for how to get your next book, you’ve already lost her to a shinier notification somewhere else.

Audiobook listeners are the most literal about it — they’ll physically tap stop the second they hear it — but readers do the same thing with their eyes. The moment “The End” registers, most brains flip into “done” mode, whether that’s an audio file or a Kindle screen. So wherever your reader meets those words, your ask needs to already be behind them.

Here’s the part most “back matter tips” posts skip entirely: they’ll tell you to add a link, and call it a day. Cute. Useless. A link with no pitch behind it is just a business card nobody asked for.

What actually converts is copy — specific, voicey, slightly unhinged copy that makes a reader who just finished sobbing over your book feel like you’re personally inviting her back for more. I’m going to show you exactly what that looks like, word for word, straight from my own back matter — both the version I use when book two is ready to preorder, and the version I use when it isn’t even close.

Paid subscribers, this is where it gets good.

Read more

You finally have subscribers. Your email home is set up, your reader magnet is ready, and Kit (or whatever platform you’re using) fires off a welcome email the second someone signs up.

So why do so many welcome emails still fail flat?

It’s not because they’re badly written. Most indie author welcome emails are warm, funny, and completely on brand. The problem is structural: the thing your new subscriber actually clicked for — the free book, the fantasy, the promise that hooked them in the first place — gets buried under three paragraphs of introduction before they ever see it. This holds true whether you write dark romance, contemporary rom-com, romantasy, or sweet small-town love stories.

Let’s take a refresh on the first letter in my email automation (lightly adapted) of my welcome email and critique what’s right (a lot 😉) and one thing wrong:

• It nails voice: playful, warm, a little cheeky. ✅

• It sets clear expectations for frequency (”one or two short notes a month”). ✅

• But the actual book — the reason someone subscribed in the first place — doesn’t show up until several paragraphs in. ❌

• The call-to-action is there, but it’s not framed as the main event. ❌

• The tropes that make the world irresistible are mentioned in passing instead of used as the hook. ❌

That’s a fixable problem, and it’s one nearly every romance author makes at some point, regardless of subgenre. Below, I’m breaking down the six beats every welcome email needs, plus a quick-reference table so you can adapt the approach whether you write dark romance, romantasy, rom-com, or sweet contemporary — and a full plug-and-play template to get you started.

Here’s what’s waiting for you below:

• The six-beat framework every converting welcome email follows

• A quick-reference chart matching hook lines, tropes, and voice to your specific romance subgenre

• A full welcome email template you can copy, paste, and customize today

• A real, polished example pulling double duty as a reader magnet swipe file

• A one-hour audit checklist to fix your current welcome sequence

Read more

I just spent 90 minutes on a call talking through cover design with a new author — and honestly, that’s not unusual. This is probably the conversation I have most often. Some version of it comes up nearly every week.

The pattern’s always the same. It’s a gorgeous cover. Genuinely — the kind you’d stop and stare at in a gallery.

And it’s not selling a single book.

I want to save you the heartbreak of finding that out the expensive way, because — full disclosure — I have found it out the expensive way myself. More than once. So let’s talk about it.

Here’s the mistake, stripped bare: designing a cover for yourself instead of for your reader.

I get it. You spend eighteen months inside a book, bleeding into it and losing sleep over it, and by the time it’s done, of course you want a cover that feels like the book to you. That captures the mood you lived in while writing it.

But that’s not what a cover is for.

A cover is a three-second billboard aimed at a genre reader scrolling a feed at 11pm, thumb already moving to the next thing. It’s not art. It’s a signal flare. And if the flare’s pointed the wrong direction, the right readers never even see it go up.

What almost always gets skipped — and what I’m begging you not to skip:

• Pull 10-15 current bestselling covers in your specific subgenre before you brief anyone. Not “romance.” Not “fantasy.” Dark PNR. Monster romance. RH. Whatever your actual shelf is. Genre readers have a visual language, and it’s more specific than you think.

• Hand your designer real signal language: trope cues, heat-level cues, the color palette and typography that whisper dark romance instead of cozy fantasy or romantasy. Those aren’t interchangeable. A reader’s eye knows the difference before their brain catches up.

• Get a genre-fluent gut check using beta readers, a street team, or a Facebook group full of people who read exactly what you wrote before you finalize payment. Not after. After is too late; after is just data about a mistake you already made.

• Ask for a portfolio in your subgenre specifically. A designer who’s brilliant at sweet romance covers is not automatically brilliant at dark PNR. Different readers, different visual grammar, same skill set doesn’t always translate.

And can we talk about the money for a second? Because that’s usually where it actually breaks people.

Lock in your revision rounds before you pay anything. In writing. How many passes are included? What happens after that? Know this going in, not when you’re already three rounds deep, and the invoice keeps growing.

Also — and I say this with love — sometimes a well-chosen premade from a designer who lives in your genre will outperform a custom piece that missed the mark. That’s not settling … that’s strategy. Stop apologizing for it. A premade isn’t a lesser choice — it’s a smart one, especially if you’re newer and working with a real budget instead of a fantasy one.

Here’s the quiet, ugly truth underneath all of this: a mismatched cover doesn’t just feel disappointing. It tanks your click-through and your read-through, because it’s out there promising the wrong book to the wrong reader. And that reader — the one who would have loved it — never even clicks.

If you’re recognizing your own cover in this post — you’re not behind, and you’re not the only one. This is close to a universal newer-author rite of passage. Almost every one of us learns it the expensive way exactly once.

I’ll do a deeper dive on cover strategy for romance specifically — soon. This was just the flag going up.

For now, here’s your one actionable thing — do it today, before this tab closes and the intention fades: go pull your comp covers. Ten, fifteen — 25 from Amazon’s best seller list is my magic number — whatever you can find. Look at what’s actually selling in your lane. Start there.

Keep writing and feeding our fantasies!

Lilith 💋

Let’s get one thing straight before we go any further: sending newsletters to a few people is not a strategy. It’s a hobby. And there’s nothing wrong with hobbies — except you’re not here for a hobby. You’re here to sell books.

So if you’ve been putting off “the email thing” because it feels like a whole second career you didn’t sign up for — I see you. I was you. And the good news is that the hardest part isn’t the strategy. It’s just picking a place to stand.

That’s what today is about. Not magnets, not funnels, not growth hacks. Just: where does your list actually live, and how do you get the lights on.

In the rest of this lesson, I’ll walk you through how to pick an email service that won’t punish you for starting small, why I switched to Kit’s free‑to‑10K plan, and the exact 7‑day checklist I’d follow to get your list out of “hobby” territory and into “launchable asset” territory. If you want those steps in your back pocket, this is one of the Indie Marketing Magic posts worth subscribing for.

Read more

If you’re an indie fiction author sending newsletters to three or five or fifty people and wondering why you’re bothering, this series is for you.

List‑Building for Working Indie Authors is a paid Indie Marketing Magic mini‑series that walks you—step by step—from “I have zero clue how to grow my email list” to “I have a real, growing audience I can launch books to.”

No jargon, no 27‑step funnels, and no pressure to become a full‑time marketer. Just tiny, repeatable moves that fit a working author’s life and small budget.

Over this series, we’ll cover:

• How to pick a simple email platform and set it up without crying

• How to create one strong reader magnet that fits your genre and brand

• How to use tools like BookFunnel to deliver that magnet and join smart promos

• How to find quality readers instead of random freebie‑collectors

• What to send new subscribers so they don’t forget you exist

• How to grow from “3 people on my list” to “a launch list that actually matters”

Every paid installment gives you:

• One specific problem (e.g., “I’m stuck at 25 subscribers”)

• A clear framework for fixing it

• A short, practical checklist you can implement in under an hour

This series is designed for indie romance and genre authors with $0 – $100/month to spend, who want email marketing that feels doable and sustainable—not like a second job.

If you’re ready to stop guessing at list‑building and start following a path that respects your time, budget, and brain, this is your place at the table.

Keep writing and feeding our fantasies!

Lilith 💋

It took me nearly twenty years to understand that what I had been living beside was not just personality.

By then, Hub and I had already built most of a life together. We had years of daily intimacy behind us, years of learning each other’s rhythms, years of loving each other with a kind of ferocious loyalty that people around us noticed even when they couldn’t name what made us different. I had accepted, long before I understood, that he came with silences, with shutdowns, with privacy so fierce it bordered on sacred law. He had told me, early and often, that this was just who he was and that he could not bear to be judged for it. I was young, carrying my own trauma, and I believed him.

One day, an old bandmate who had introduced us all those years ago said something that changed the frame around everything.

He told me I had saved Hub’s life.

I remember staring at him and saying, with all the subtlety I could muster, What the hell are you talking about?

He told me Hub suffered from severe depression.

The drive home took three minutes.

When I walked in the door, Hub was waiting. That was us. We had always had a kind of intuition with each other that made ordinary conversations feel almost unnecessary. He looked at me and asked what Rick had had to say.

So I told him.

He went quiet for the longest time. Then he asked, “And what do you think?”

My answer came in the practical, no-nonsense way that has always been mine.

“Now that that bandage is ripped off, we’d better get you to the doctor for some meds.”

He thought about it and then said, “If you’d said that ten years ago, I might have agreed. But don’t you see? I don’t need meds anymore. You’re my meds.”

At the time, I heard that as love.

Looking back, I still hear love in it. But I also hear something else: the truth about what my nervous system had been doing for his for a very long time.

Before I had language for any of it

I did not understand PTSD back then—not in him, and not really in myself either.

I was young. I was naive. I was responding to my own trauma in a completely different way, so I had no framework for what I was seeing in him. When he told me his behaviours were just part of his personality and that he needed me to accept him for who he truly was, I did. I loved that he was honest with me.

When he told me he couldn’t tell me how he felt because he didn’t know, and that he had to figure out who he was before he could think about being in a relationship with someone else, I respected that too. It felt self-aware. It felt truthful. It felt, in its own battered way, honourable.

At first, of course, I took his episodes personally. We had many discussions in those years about his silences, his withdrawal, the way he could seem to disappear while still sitting right there in the room. But over time, I stopped trying to argue him out of being himself. I accepted the terms as they were given to me.

I told myself this was simply who he was.

And because I loved him, I learned how to love him there.

What it looked like in daily life

In the early years, his shutdowns could be almost catatonic.

He would sit in silence and refuse to respond to outside stimuli. He could stay like that for hours and sometimes for days. He still ate. He still kept himself clean. But if it went on for days, he slept very little. His body would remain present while something in him went far, far away.

Living beside that required a particular kind of attentiveness.

I learned not to rush him physically. I couldn’t just throw myself at him in an enthusiastic hug the way some people can do with the person they love. Even affection needed to arrive without overwhelming his system. I had to approach him with the kind of bodily respect most people never have to think about.

He also lived behind an external mask of what society expected of him. That mask was polished, competent, and often persuasive. The private reality was much more complicated. It took five years of daily interaction and living together as friends with benefits before he could tell me he loved me. He struggled deeply with the commitment to marry. He wanted love, but he also wanted complete agency. He needed to know that being loved would not become being judged.

Privacy was another non-negotiable. No one, especially his mother, was to know his business. That boundary was absolute.

Over time, as trust grew between us, the way his distress showed up changed. The catatonia gave way more often to irritability, bitchiness, or verbal explosions. Oddly enough, that was progress. He trusted me enough to bring more of his internal weather into the room.

It did not always feel like progress in the moment. But it was.

The kind of love we built

Wholehearted love, for me, was not dramatic. It was daily.

It was sticky notes, exchanged for at least thirty years, the kind of small ritual that becomes a private architecture of devotion. It was the seven Double Diaries where we poured out our love and our desire and the complicated, intimate language of a bond that knew sex not as performance but as a way of speaking truth. It was tattoos that still carry him now, including the stencil of the note I found after he died: Miss Me, My Love—signed, in effect, by the man who called me his black rose.

We made a pact to share all feelings. Trust was paramount. We built on it deliberately, fiercely, and over time. We were soulmates, yes, but not in the flimsy, glittered sense of the word. We were soulmates because we were willing to keep telling the truth.

People noticed. They still talk about how close we were, how unmistakable the difference was in our relationship.

What they were seeing, I think, was not perfection. It was the fact that we co-created a bond in which neither of us had to disappear for the other to stay.

That mattered more than romance ever does in the abstract.

What my system was doing without my knowing it

I have language for it now.

Long before I knew the words, one part of me had learned to read rooms, notice shifts, and sense what was not being said. That part knew how to approach him without flooding him. It knew how to respect silence without mistaking it for emptiness.

Another part of me needed to make meaning. If understanding created safety, then understanding him—his rhythms, his rules, his refusals—became one of the ways I stayed grounded. I did not need him to be fixed to be loved. I needed the relationship to make emotional sense, even if that sense was incomplete.

And then there was the part of me that knows love as something you do, not just something you feel. The part that stays. The part that builds emotional homes. The part that can say, without fanfare: I am here, and I am still myself, and I am not leaving just because this is hard.

Those parts made me exquisitely suited to loving Hub.

They also made it possible for him to feel safer with me than he had ever felt with anyone else.

So when he said, “You’re my meds,” he wasn’t being poetic.

He was naming, as best he could, that my presence had become regulating for him. My steadiness had become part of how he lived. My nervous system had become a place his could rest.

That is a beautiful thing to be for someone.

It is also a serious thing.

What I understand now

I don’t hear that sentence now as a burden, but I don’t hear it as pure romance either.

I hear the love in it. I hear the trust. I hear the improbable grace of being able to soothe someone who had spent much of his life braced against the world.

I also hear the cost.

To love someone whose nervous system never got to rest is to learn a thousand things most people never have to think about. How to enter a room gently. How to read silence. How not to confuse withdrawal with rejection. How to keep your own centre when the person you love has disappeared behind a wall you cannot climb. How to stay honest without becoming invasive. How to remain present without becoming responsible for someone else’s entire internal life.

I did not know, in those early years, how much of this I was learning.

I only knew that I loved him. I knew it was worth it. I knew that whatever we were building felt rare enough that both of us recognized it, even if in different ways. I recognized the fit. He often responded to it with a kind of awed disbelief, as if he could not quite trust our luck.

Maybe that was part of his trauma too. When you have lived inside survival for a long time, joy can feel suspicious.

But we had it anyway.

Why I’m writing this series

I’m writing this because loving someone with severe trauma is not the same as loving someone uncomplicated by history.

It can be beautiful. It can be exhausting. It can teach you the difference between witness and rescue, between presence and enmeshment, between devotion and self-erasure. It can also leave you, years later, trying to explain that what looked from the outside like intensity or difficulty or privacy was often the visible edge of a nervous system doing its best to survive.

I’m also writing it because this kind of love changed me.

It educated parts of me that had first formed in childhood. It taught me that steadiness can heal, that trust can be built across long silences, and that real intimacy does not require either person to shrink. It also taught me that being someone’s refuge is sacred, but it cannot be the only story you tell about love.

Hub was not broken. I was not his cure.

But for a long time, we were medicine for each other.

And that, I think, is where this story begins.

───❤️‍🔥───

If you are living with PTSD—your own or someone else’s—and any part of this story brushes against your life, you are welcome to share whatever feels safe in the comments, or simply let this story sit beside yours in silence. Both are honoured here.

Keep reading and feeding your fantasies,

Lilith ❤️‍🔥

Some of you might have been expecting the next Brad chapter to drop, but this week, the universe had other plans. Smoke migraines, a grown-but-still-my-baby kid who needed mom, and the whole mess of new AI policies lighting up my phone with panicked author DMs … let’s say my brain was not in “seduce the widow” mode.

Instead of forcing new words, I did what a lot of working writers actually do: I turned my editor brain loose on Chapter 1.

Because this project is about sharing the messy first draft and the process, it feels only fair to tell you what I discovered—and what I’m going to tweak before we push forward.

───❤️‍🔥───

What the market reminded me about Chapter 1

I ran Chapter 1 through an AI lens to pressure‑test it against what’s hot in dark paranormal romance and dark romance right now, and honestly? The feedback lined up with the little gremlins already living in my head.

Here’s the quick version of what I learned:

❧ The hook is strong.

Brad’s prosopagnosia—he literally can’t see faces except Seren’s—is catnip for paranormal readers. It screams “fated connection,” whether he wants it or not.

❧ The vibe is fresh.

A self‑punishing angel playing a tortured Hollywood star for eternity, tangled up with gods, tribunals, and a Fame Demon past? That’s a fun twist on my usual quirky romance books.

❧ But I was front‑loading lore over lust.

The draft spent a lot of energy naming gods, outlining the hierarchy, and explaining the mechanics of the afterlife—while the dark‑romance piece (danger, obsession, taboo) stayed a bit too polite in the background.

In other words, my brain was writing high‑octane urban fantasy … and my heart is trying to deliver dark paranormal romance.

───❤️‍🔥───

What I’m tweaking in Chapter 1

Here’s how I’m nudging the chapter closer to what dark‑romance readers actually show up for:

❧ More “Fame Demon” corruption up front.

Instead of a quick nod to Brad’s scandal and how he misused his charisma, I’m sharpening a moment where we see that darkness at work—how cold he can be, how empty it feels, and how that makes Seren stand out even more.

❧ Making Seren-the-script‑doctor a real gut punch.

The original draft drops the fact that she’s the upstart script doctor in the shower, almost as an aside. I’m shifting that so his frustration with this mystery writer builds first, and the reveal lands like a slap: the woman who can ruin his comeback is also the only face he can see.

❧ Streamlining the mythology.

Zeus, Hera, the archangel, the Tribunal, the Fame Demon backstory, the Bardo … it’s a lot to digest on page one. I’m trimming some name‑dropping and focusing harder on Brad’s physical agony, his lost wings, and his immediate reaction to being ordered back into the Masquerade’s inner circle to hunt down whatever is feeding on mortal desire there. The divine politics can unfold later, once readers are firmly hooked by the pain he’s in and the dangerous assignment he can’t refuse.

❧ Leaning into the dead‑husband taboo.

Seren’s husband is a sex angel who’s going to act as Brad’s vessel and guide while Brad investigates what’s feeding on mortal desire at the Masquerade. That is gloriously messy. I’m giving Brad a bit more dark irony and wariness around that setup so the psychological tension is clear from the start.

These are all surgical changes, not a full rewrite—but they tilt the spotlight where it belongs: on Brad’s obsession, his corruption, and the twisted setup with Seren.

───❤️‍🔥───

Why I’m sharing this with you

Part of the promise of this project is that you’re not just getting the “ta‑da, finished book!” moment. You’re walking through the muck and mire with me.

Some weeks that means brand‑new chapters.

Some weeks it means looking at what’s already on the page and asking:

• Is this delivering the fantasy I’ve promised?

• Is this matching what dark‑romance readers are actually hungry for right now?

• Where can I push the tension, the taboo, and the obsession just a little harder?

This week has been a “process” week. Next week, Brad will be back on the page, hopefully darker, sharper, and more dangerously fixated than ever.

If you enjoy these behind‑the‑scenes breakdowns as much as the chapters themselves, let me know in the comments—I can keep bringing you along for the craft and market‑nerd side of things, too.

Keep walking in light and love,

Lilith 🧑🏽‍💻

Today’s resource is one of those “this changed everything” moments for me.

I want to introduce you to my coach, Becca Syme, and a specific episode of her Quitcast that has become a cornerstone of how I think about demand:

“The #1 Thing Authors Can Do To Increase Demand For Their Books (The Quitcast 8.13).”

You’ll find it as a video on YouTube and in audio on her Quitcast feed, and it’s well worth your time.

───❤️‍🔥───

Why this episode matters

There’s a lot of noise in indie publishing about “writing better books” or “fixing your marketing,” but very little about how to tell, in a practical way, whether your story is holding a reader’s attention.

In this episode, Becca digs into what demand actually looks like from the reader’s side: not just that they buy the book once, but that they feel compelled to keep going, keep turning pages, and come back for more.

She challenges some of the easy assumptions about “the market being saturated” and instead asks us to look at what readers re‑consume—books they reread, worlds they stay in, authors they auto‑buy. That lens alone is worth the listen.

But the real game changer for me came down to one deceptively simple, incredibly useful question.

───❤️‍🔥───

The one question that changed my revisions

My biggest learning from this episode was not a fancy craft trick or a clever marketing hack. It was a question:

Not when the writing is “bad.”

Not when she’s bored in a general sense.

Specifically: the moment her attention slips, and she wants to skim instead of fully engaging.

That tiny distinction has been a complete mindset shift.

Instead of assuming that “it’s fine” if the prose is competent, I now treat every potential skimming moment as a demand issue. If someone who is literally paid to pay attention wants to skim, what will a tired, distracted reader do when they hit the same spot?

───❤️‍🔥───

How I’m using it in my own work

Here’s how I’ve started applying this in my process:

• I invite my editor to mark any spot where she notices the urge to skim, even if she keeps reading.

• I treat those marks as bright red flags for pacing, tension, or clarity problems, not just sentence‑level polish.

• I revise with one key question in mind: “What would make this engaging for my ideal reader?”

This change has made my revisions more targeted, more honest, and—crucially—more aligned with the real goal: keeping readers in the story long enough to fall in love with it, the characters, and the series.

That’s what increases demand. Not vague “write better,” but specific “remove the skim zones.”

───❤️‍🔥───

Why I’m sharing it in Indie Marketing Magic

Indie Marketing Magic is all about author‑centric marketing: strategies that respect your strengths, your bandwidth, and your actual readers. A huge part of marketing happens before you ever buy an ad or write a blurb—on the page.

If we can make our stories more re‑readable, more bingeable, more “I stayed up too late for this,” then every other piece of marketing we do has a much better chance of working.

This article and that one editorial question line up perfectly with that mission:

It gives you a clear, practical way to test your story’s grip on a reader.

It ties the idea of “demand” directly to craft and revision, not just to algorithms and ad spend.

It’s something you can implement immediately, with the editor or trusted reader you already have.

───❤️‍🔥───

If this post resonates with you, I highly recommend diving into all things Becca. Her Write Better Faster course was my gateway drug—because it isn’t about turning you into some generic “ideal author,” it’s about making you your best writer and learning to love who that writer is. From her courses to her Dear Writer books and the wider Quitcast backlist, Becca’s work is a treasure chest for indie authors who want sustainable success rooted in their own strengths, not someone else’s template.

───❤️‍🔥───

Keep writing and feeding your fantasies!

Lilith 🧑🏽‍💻

When I first started writing romance, my traditional publisher told me I’d need to handle most of the marketing myself.

I’d already spent years in textbook sales and marketing, so I did what any overachiever would do: I trotted off to romance promo conferences, convinced I could just transfer my “well‑earned textbook marketing success” straight into the romance market.

At one of those conferences, Donald Maass joined me for lunch and kindly let me pick his brain. I fired off questions like bullets:

• How much should I invest in advertising?

• Where’s the best place to promote genre fiction?

• Which conference should I go to next?

He gave me a sad little smile and asked, “How many books do you have published?”

“One,” I said proudly. “But I have a three‑book contract, so soon one will be three.”

That’s when he dropped the truth bomb that’s stayed with me ever since.

Most newbie authors, he said, focus on the wrong thing: promoting without enough product. They pour their limited time and money into marketing a tiny backlist instead of doing the one thing that matters most in the early years—building a list and writing more books.

Then he added, “Come back and chat when you’ve got ten books published.”

All these years later, I agree with Donald—but I also think there are a few core things worth focusing on as soon as you hit that monumental decision to publish your first story.

You don’t need a full‑time marketing job to start smart. You need a foundation.

If you want more smart, small‑budget strategies for indie fiction authors, you can subscribe to Indie Marketing Magic and get the next lessons straight in your inbox.

Top Five Starter Priorities for New Authors on a Budget

If you’re a new or early‑career author, the smartest setup is simple:

• Build a basic home base

• Start collecting reader emails

• Choose one social platform

• Claim key discovery profiles

• Follow a lightweight weekly routine that protects your writing time

This is about minimum‑viable marketing—enough structure to support you, not smother you.

1. Build a simple author website

You need one place you control.

That’s why every serious publishing and author‑platform guide still recommends having a website as your central hub for links, book information, and reader contact.

For a first setup, a single‑page site is enough. No endless tabs, no fifty blog posts. Just a clean, clear home base.

Include:

• Your author name and a clear genre/promise (“Dark paranormal romance,” “Small‑town cozy mystery,” etc.).

• A short bio and author photo.

• A book or “coming soon” section, even if it’s just your debut.

• An email signup form.

• A contact page or professional email address.

Low‑cost website options that play nicely with a beginner budget:

• Carrd for a fast, inexpensive one‑page site.

• WordPress.com for a flexible starter site.

• Wix for drag‑and‑drop design.

• Squarespace for polished templates.

You’re not building the Louvre here. You’re putting up a well‑lit front door.

2. Start an email list early

If Donald Maass’s advice was “come back when you’ve got ten books,” my addition is: start your email list before you hit publish.

Email is still one of the most valuable long‑term tools for authors. It gives you direct access to readers without depending on social‑media algorithms, and it’s one of the most budget‑friendly ways to stay visible before and after launch.

A simple email list setup looks like this:

• Choose a free or low‑cost service such as MailerLite, Mailchimp, Substack—or in my case, The Kit (ConvertKit). I’m using The Kit because it’s free up to 10K subscribers and has all the functionality I need at this point in my romance writing career. I tried fancy automations on MailerLite, but the new price increase has me trotting back to The Kit.

• Offer a basic signup incentive: a bonus scene, short story, prequel, character guide, or deleted chapter.

• Put the signup link on your website, social bio, and later in the back of your book.

You don’t need a 15‑email funnel. You need a simple way for interested readers to raise their hands and say, “I’d like more from you.”

3. Pick one social platform: TikTok or Instagram

The fastest way to burn out as a new author? Trying to be everywhere.

For genre fiction authors, it’s usually more effective to focus on one primary platform instead of chasing every new app. Right now, TikTok and Instagram are strong starting options because book communities are very active there, especially around visual, trope‑based, and mood‑driven content.

A simple starter plan:

• Post 2–3 times per week.

• Share tropes, aesthetics, teaser lines, writing updates, or cover/process content.

• Spend 10–15 minutes a day engaging with readers, reviewers, and other authors.

Think of it as a living moodboard for your books, not a second job. Once you’ve got more backlist and a clearer sense of what works for you, you can expand—or consciously choose to stay lean.

4. Claim your discovery profiles

Before you worry about ads, claim the free real estate.

Author profiles on major reader and retailer platforms help you look established and make it easier for readers to follow your future releases. These pages are quick to set up and worth doing before launch or as soon as your book listing exists.

Priority profiles:

• Amazon Author Central

• Goodreads Author Program

• BookBub Author Profile

BookBub is especially useful as a free profile because readers can follow you there and receive alerts about new releases or deals. Think of these profiles as your “library cards” in the places readers are already browsing.

5. Use a minimum‑viable marketing routine

Here’s where we protect your actual job: writing the next book.

Consistent, low‑effort visibility works better for most debut authors than elaborate marketing schemes that steal your writing time. The goal is to stay present without turning marketing into a second full‑time job.

A suggested weekly routine:

• One short newsletter (or a newsletter draft you can send later).

• Two social posts.

• A few meaningful comments in reader or genre communities.

• A quick website update only when there is real news (cover reveal, preorder, new release).

Total time: maybe a couple of hours spread across the week. Enough to stay visible. Not enough to devour your creative brain.

I’ll be digging deeper into each of these pieces—email incentives, launch routines, ads, and more—in upcoming issues. If that sounds useful, tap subscribe now so you don’t miss the next step.

The best use of your limited time

The best marketing plan for a new author is the one that supports finishing and publishing more books.

Marketing magic isn’t about doing everything; it’s about doing the right few things on repeat.

As Indie Marketing Magic continues, we’ll dig deeper into each of these pieces—how to choose your email incentive, what to post on your chosen platform, how to think about ads when you’re ready, and when it actually makes sense to push hard on promotion.

But if you’re standing at the edge of your first publication decision, wondering what to do next?

Start here. . .

This is the foundation. If you’d like ongoing, behind‑the‑curtain support as you grow—from launches to backlist strategies and mindset—hit Subscribe to keep getting Indie Marketing Magic in your inbox.

Lilith 🧑🏽‍💻

I recently joined Angelique Fawns on her podcast Writing and Selling Stories with Angelique Fawns for an episode called “Master Your Marketing with Lilith Darville.” We dug into practical, no‑BS marketing for working authors: what to focus on first, how to think about series, and why your newsletter and backlist matter more than any shiny tactic.

Angelique is a powerhouse for short story and speculative fiction marketing advice—she’s constantly scouting paying markets and sharing what’s actually working for short fiction writers. If you’re juggling novels, shorts, or both, her show is a gem.

If you enjoy our chat, go subscribe to Angelique’s Substack, Writing and Selling Stories with Angelique Fawns, and her podcast feed so you don’t miss her future episodes.

───❤️‍🔥───

Keep walking in light and love,

Lilith 🧑🏽‍💻

So you wrote the book. Now what?

Indie Marketing Magic is my behind-the-curtain space for indie fiction authors who want to actually sell their stories — without turning into full-time marketers or sacrificing every last spa day to the algorithm gods.

I’m bringing two decades of hard-won experience to the table: five years in sales and marketing for Pearson/Penguin, and over ten years in the indie trenches as a USA Today bestselling author. I’ve tested the shiny tactics, burned money on the wrong things, and learned exactly what moves the needle for working authors on real-world budgets.

Everything here runs through one framework I call The Read-Through System — because the real money in this business was never the first sale. It’s whether that reader ever buys from you again. We’ll build it one piece at a time:

• Attract — get discovered by the right reader (Pinterest, covers, blurbs)

• Capture — turn a stranger into a subscriber (email setup, reader magnets)

• Onboard — make her first email from you actually convert

• Keep Her Reading — the part most authors skip: turning one book into a habit

• Scale — grow your reach without wrecking what’s already working

• Foundations — the unglamorous stuff (copyright, mindset, staying sane) holding the rest up

We’ll focus on small and medium investment strategies — the ones that fit “that last spa treatment” money and still give you a measurable return. I’ll nudge you (gently ... mostly 😉) to channel some of those self-care splurges into smart marketing bets that keep your books in readers’ hands for years.

Along the way, I’ll also shout out tools, services, and resources I’ve personally vetted throughout my romance-writing career, so you’re not throwing cash at every shiny new thing that wanders across your feed.

No gatekeeping, no fluff, no “just build your brand” vagueness — just clear steps through the System, my quirky humour, and frameworks you can adapt to your books, your budget, and your energy.

If you’re ready to stop guessing at marketing and start using strategies that actually fit a working author’s life, welcome to class.

───❤️‍🔥───

Keep walking in light and love,

Lilith 🧑🏽‍💻

Lilith’s Intro

This is Brad Stone – Chapter 4, Seren’s first night in The Celestial Room—and the first chapter that slips partly behind the paywall. Up here, you’ll get the emotional heart of her reunion with Hub. Below the paywall, I go deeper into their intimacy and the emotional fallout in scenes I’m only sharing in this raw, first‑draft form for Substack readers.

If this chapter hits you in the chest, consider coming behind the curtain with me as a paid subscriber so you can read the whole long night—and help me shape where Seren goes next.

───❤️‍🔥───

Chapter 4 — Seren

The door opens, and thought vaporizes.

Gray-blue eyes stare down at me—distinctive, unmistakable. I studied them first as a casual fan, then with forensic intensity for two and a half years, after grief turned a crush into something consuming. Those same eyes belong to the man whose team ignored seventeen of my calls about his disastrous script. The real Brad.

“Hello, Seren.” The voice spilling from that Brad-like face could only be his. For a split second I’m convinced—it’s him. I shake it off. Too far-fetched, even for this bizarre, fantastical mess I’ve landed in. I pull on my professional armor and stride forward, hand extended.

“Hello, pleased to meet—” His skin touches mine and a violent crackle rips through me. My pulse hammers; my skin prickles like red ants under the surface. Desire, terror, and hope snarl into one brutal spark that echoes what I felt when I met Hubbell.

“You’re the real Brad.” Panic seizes—career obliteration, public annihilation, my life ending in real time. He’s here to ruin me. Then reason kicks in. The real Brad would send an entourage of lawyers.

My mind spins faster than one of his Formula One cars. He found out. Somehow he learned I’ve been hounding his team, leaving desperate voicemails about Velocity: Redline, a script that could wreck his comeback. I’ve tried to warn his team for months. This is how legends become sad cautionary tales about action stars who don’t know when to quit.

And now he’s here, in a private sex club, more breathtaking than any fantasy. My eyes betray me, tracing every line of him. He’s three inches taller than Hub, but otherwise his body mirrors Hubbell’s. Both men are gorgeous, yet Hub’s brown eyes glow with a warmth Brad’s calculated charm can’t touch.

Even standing motionless, Brad commands the room. His blond hair is effortlessly tousled—probably pricier than my last cruise—and his black button-down fits like sin. But his gaze undoes me. Sharp, calculating, with an actor’s practiced warmth that never reaches the depths.

“Good, that means I’m convincing. It’s Blake, actually,” he says, wrapping his other hand around mine with what’s no doubt meant to be a casual smile. “Nice to meet you.”

Blake. Right. Because Brad Stone would never use his real name here. The performance is so practiced I almost believe it—except I’ve studied this man’s face, voice, and tells for years.

I yank my hand back, adrenaline surging. This is too much at once. Warm grit presses the place in my heart where Hub’s spirit nested when he died. He’s near. Right here. I feel him … and I want him. But not as Brad Stone. Dizziness blindsides me. I collapse into a chair, clutching my head.

“Hub, I know you can hear me. We need to talk.” I shake my head violently. No. Not happening. “I’m not doing this with Brad Stone. You know this. I want you, but you need to find someone else.” What the hell is wrong with my dearly departed husband? He knows exactly how complicated this makes my comeback. He could ruin me.

My inner strategist pushes back, voice crisp and annoyingly calm inside my head: You would give anything to spend more time with Hub, and you’ve never been able to say no to him before, so what makes you think you’re going to start now? Her words land in the center of my chest, heavy as a sandbag. I drag in a breath anyway and keep talking, one stubborn sentence at a time.

“I refuse to be a notch on Brad’s bedpost, Hubster.” The real issue blurts out. Hub’s truth compulsion grips me even from the afterlife—just like always.

A strangled sound yanks me out of panic. Brad doubles over. The air thickens, pressing down until it’s hard to inhale. My ears pop, pressure crushing as if I’m in very deep water. Then he straightens, and his beautiful brown eyes shine out at me, and I’m looking at Hubbell’s face, not Brad’s.

“Easy, my Siren. Breathe.” My Hubbell gathers me into his arms as he takes my place in the armchair. I can only stare. It’s him. It’s really him. Something inside me snaps.

“You fucking asshole.” Rage and grief knot together as my fists rain down on his torso, each strike a sob I’ve held back for two and a half years. My body betrays me—drawn to his warmth and scent even as I want to hate him for leaving. I need to unload the pain I’ve bottled for two and a half years.

“That’s my Siren. Let it out.” He catches my fists, stopping them cold. Then cups my cheek—the gesture that always meant absolute intimacy. I break. I wouldn’t allow it while he was ill—and I haven’t since. I shatter. Finally. Sobs wrack my body as he cradles me, and in the raw edges of sorrow comes recognition—his warmth, his scent, the way my body remembers what my mind tried to immortalize during those final weeks.

“I’ve got you,” he whispers against my hair. “I’ve got you, love. Let it all out.”

I can’t resist him, never could. His voice strips away every defense. Huge sobs seize my abdomen.

When the worst passes, when I can breathe again, I pull back just enough to look at his beautiful face. He is stunning, whether he can bear to hear it or not. The only man on Earth more beautiful than Brad.

“You should have told me,” I manage through tears.

He studies me with his usual intensity. “I know.”

“Why didn’t you? Why wait until…”

“You know why.” His thumb strokes my cheek, catching tears. “I was afraid. Afraid you’d see me differently. Afraid you’d leave.”

The deathbed confession floods back—his anguish, his whispered words about being raped as a teenager, his desperate apologies for not being strong enough, how he tried so hard to be what I needed despite carrying that trauma for decades.

“I should have figured it out,” I whisper. “I should have known something—”

“No.” His voice has that firm edge of intensity that makes heat rush through me. “I was very good at hiding it. Too good. Even from myself sometimes.”

“But if I had known, I never would have pushed you into things like that time with the flogger. I never would have—”

“Seren.” He frames my face with both hands, forcing me to meet his eyes. “You couldn’t have been more perfect. It’s not possible. You brought me joy. You’re the only one who ever did.”

Fresh tears spill. “But—”

“No buts. Do you remember what you see every night when you look at my photos?”

I blink at the shift. The frame by my bed cycles our memories; I talk to his pictures before sleep.

“Your smile,” I whisper.

“My real smile. The one I only ever had with you and our girl. That’s what you gave me, Siren. Pure joy. The kind I’d never experienced before you and never thought I deserved.”

He’s right. In every photo, his smile is radiant and unguarded, nothing like the careful expressions he wore for everyone else.

“You saved me long before you held me while I jumped through those Pearly Gates,” he continues. “You loved me into being real, into being whole. Even carrying what I carried, you made me feel worthy of love.”

“You were always worthy.” Determination makes my tone harsher than I intend.

“I know that now.” His smile is soft. “Being with you taught me that. And watching you mourn for me ... Seren, no one has ever been loved the way you loved me. The way you still love me.”

I lean into his touch, savoring the familiar weight of his hands. “I miss you so much it feels like losing myself.”

“I know, love. I know.” He kisses my forehead, then my eyelids, then the corner of my mouth. “But you’re not dying. You’re living. And tonight, you’re here with me.”

“How long do we have?”

“The night.” His expression grows cautious. “But Seren, there’s something you need to understand about Brad—”

“Later.” I press my fingers to his lips. “We’ll deal with it later. Right now, I just want to be with my husband.”

Hub stares for a long moment, then nods. “Later.”

As if on cue, the opening strains of Jennifer Hudson’s One Night Only play.

“Dance with me, babe.” Hub touches his forehead to mine, one of our many Good Will Hunting moments.

I rise from his lap and hold out my hand. He takes it, rising with fluid grace and pulling me close. The world narrows to just us as muscle memory guides us through one of our sensual slow dances. Hub uses every trick he knows—his hand branding heat into the small of my back, his thigh pressing between mine until my knees tremble. Each shift of his hips teases a memory of him inside me, and my body clenches in response. His breath against my ear sends heat spiraling. When his nose traces my neck, I melt. His large hand cups my ass, pulling me closer, and I inhale that gorgeous scent that’s uniquely him.

The song ends too soon, but there’s only one thing I want.

“Tuck me in, Hubster.” Our code for the combination of love-making and raw fucking that defined us.

Read more

The entrance to the Masquerade Club could finance a small indie film. The marble flooring likely costs more per square foot than most people’s annual salaries, and the security systems make my Beverly Hills home resemble a convenience store. The architecture captivates me: Gothic Revival stonework that seems more fitting for a 12th-century abbey than a 21st-century Toronto establishment. Clearly, someone has invested significant resources in importing this level of craftsmanship.

“Blake Rivers reporting for duty.” I use the name from the Tribunal’s detailed file.

“Blake Rivers.” The hostess checks her tablet without looking up, treating me as just another contractor. There’s no recognition, no deference—only professional efficiency. For someone used to being the most recognized face in any room, this anonymity feels jarring. “Your client assignment is ready.”

Client assignment. Such a bland term for what I’m about to endure. I’ve played many roles, but I have never been someone else’s literal puppet.

She leads me through corridors that feel more like a luxury hotel than the BDSM club I anticipated. Rich burgundy wallpaper [does this sound tacky or speak subtle wealth?] and tasteful artwork surround me. Yet beneath the opulence, an undercurrent hum hints at something familiar, making the phantom tissue where my wings should be itch with recognition.

As we delve deeper into the club, the ache between my shoulder blades intensifies from a phantom sensation to a persistent throbbing. There’s an energy here that I recognize but can’t quite place—something feeding off sources that shouldn’t be accessible. The Tribunal’s suspicions about Syrael using a conduit to harvest mortal sexual energy suddenly feel very real.

We pass other staff members, all moving with the polished efficiency of those accustomed to serving the ultra-wealthy. But something feels different. There’s no subtle kowtowing, no eager-to-please energy typical of service staff who recognize my net worth. They nod professionally but without the deference money usually commands. Either they’re exceptionally well-trained, or there’s more to them than standard hospitality workers; a few carry themselves with the controlled alertness I associate with security or law enforcement.

“Your suite.” She stops before mahogany doors that could grace any Four Seasons hotel. “The client file is inside. The Tribunal’s representative will brief you shortly.”

Inside, the suite is exquisitely furnished in a classic style that combines comfort and quality rarely found in today’s commercial world. A king bed topped with Egyptian cotton sheets that cost more than some cars. Art that belongs in museums. [Too much detail or just right?]

But it’s the manila folder on the bedside table that stops me cold.

Seren Baptiste. Age 49. Widow. Script consultant.

I flip it open with professional detachment, but I freeze when I see her photograph. Not just see it—I can read it. Even after expecting it, seeing her face in sharp detail unsettles me, especially after the Tribunal’s hologram. Every feature is etched with perfect clarity, while the rest of the world remains a blur of unrecognizable faces. The photograph captures something the hologram missed—the vulnerability in her eyes and the subtle lines of grief around her mouth.

The stubborn line of her jaw says she’s survived worse than me. Her eyes reveal intelligence and something deeper—perhaps pain or the wisdom that comes from surviving loss. Her mixed-race heritage is evident in her features, beautiful in a way that transcends the artificial perfection prevalent in Hollywood.

My hands start trembling.

The folder wavers in my grip, and I have to set it down carefully. When was the last time I felt this stripped bare? This isn’t calculated anxiety about box office numbers or strategic concerns about public image; it’s something deeper—being fundamentally, completely exposed.

The Tribunal says she’ll see me just as clearly. No performance, no mystique, no supernatural advantage. Just ... me.

The realization hits me like the ice water baths I’ve been subjecting myself to: I’ve forgotten how to be real. How many decades has it been since I’ve felt anything without calculating its effect on my image? When did performing become so automatic that I can’t find the off switch? The thought of Seren seeing through every practiced gesture and every rehearsed expression makes my chest tighten. What if there’s nothing underneath? What if the performance is all that’s left?

But that won’t matter tonight, will it? I’ll be a passenger in my own body.

“You’re here.” Hub’s presence fills the room with quiet authority. “I know the Tribunal didn’t give you much choice in this, but I want you to know how much it matters to me.”

I whip around at the voice behind me, but the suite appears empty until a shimmer near the window coalesces into solid form: Hubbell Baptiste. It has to be him—the legendary fallen angel who chose redemption over fame, absorbing trauma from abused kids until it killed him. Standing in front of him now, every story I heard feels inadequate. Authentic power rolls off him, nothing like the manufactured charisma I’ve spent decades perfecting. Next to him, I’m all spotlight and no substance.

“Hubbell.” I aim for casual and hit resentment instead. The scars where my wings used to anchor pull tight, as if gravity around him has its own agenda.

“I am.” His presence fills the room with a peaceful authority. “I know this isn’t easy for you, Brad. What you’re giving me tonight—the chance to hold my wife again—means everything.”

“It’s not like I have a choice.” The pitch skews childish, and my jaw tightens in instant regret.

“No. You don’t.” He claims the armchair, the leather creaking as if it remembers his body from another lifetime. “When the Tribunal speaks, the floor moves and you move with it. We like to pretend we’re in control. We’re not.”

The casual way he says it makes my skin crawl. “This is what redemption looks like? Spiritual possession?”

“This is what love looks like.” His voice shifts to something kinder, but no less implacable. “My wife still dreams of shadows she can’t escape. The Tribunal hungers for answers only she can give. And you … you are starved for something real, though you’d never admit it.”

“Except I lose control of my own body.”

“For one night.” Hubbell leans forward. “One night where you’ll experience what it’s like to love someone utterly—without supernatural manipulation, without performance, without anything but pure devotion. Consider it an education.”

“She’ll see everything, won’t she?” I manage to keep my voice level, but ice settles in my stomach. “Without the supernatural charm that usually attracts women to me?”

“She will.” Hubbell’s voice carries gentle understanding. “I feel your terror, my friend, and yes, she’s a scary little thing, but oh so worth it. The first time she really sees you? It may feel like drowning, being stripped of all masks, but I promise you … what you experience with her will transform you in ways you can’t imagine. Ways I’m still discovering myself, honestly.”

Hubbell begins to shimmer. “I died, Brad. This is the only way I can touch her again, hold her again, make love to her again. The Tribunal granted me this one night as a reward.”

“And what happens to me during this reunion?”

“You watch. You learn. You understand what you’ve never had.” His brown eyes lock onto mine. “You experience what it means to worship someone with your entire being.”

“That’s not consent. That’s a violation.” The words tear out of me sharper than I intend. “You hijack my body, screw your wife through my skin, and somehow that’s supposed to be redemption? Sounds a hell of a lot like what I did to those kids, just with better PR.”

Hubbell’s expression sobers completely. “You’re right to call it a violation. And you’re right that it mirrors your own sins.” His voice carries no judgment, only truth. “The difference? You used your power to take what you wanted. I’m using mine to give what’s needed. Your victims had no choice and gained nothing. You have no choice, but you will gain everything.”

His words land heavier than I want to admit. “When was the last time you touched anyone without angling for something?” he asks.

The question lodges in my throat because I can’t answer it. I can’t remember the last time I touched anyone without an angle, a benefit, or a transaction in mind.

I sift through my memory, recalling decades of calculated seductions, strategic displays of affection, and transactional intimacy. Then something surfaces—my first wife’s hand in mine during her father’s funeral, no cameras, no agenda, just being there. That was before the demon found me. Before she twisted everything I thought I understood about love into a weapon. Before I forgot what authentic felt like.

Shame burns low in my stomach like hot acid. “So she gets you,” I say, bitterness roughening the words, “and I get to be the special‑effects rig.”

“Part of my spirit has been nestled in her heart since I died—we’re connected in ways that transcend physical form.” Hubbell’s expression softens. “She’ll finally be able to touch me again through you. But afterward…”

“Afterward, what?”

“When she realizes it’s really you beneath the surface, she’ll likely reject you initially. The shock, the sense of betrayal—it will be overwhelming for her.” Hubbell holds my gaze steady with compassion. “That’s why you’ll need me to help complete your assignment. I’ll work to convince her to help you, both with your script work and with understanding what you’re experiencing.”

“You’re saying she’ll hate me.”

“I’m saying she has very strong opinions about child abuse, movie stars, and fucking around,” Hubbell says. “You’re a walking trifecta of her triggers.” Hub’s expression grows serious. “She’ll assume you’re performing, that nothing you show her is real. Her defenses will go up immediately.”

“So I’m doomed.”

“Not necessarily. In this place, every mask dissolves. You’ll open your mouth, hoping for a lie, but only truth will emerge. As the Tribunal no doubt told you, she’s immune to your angelic power. Only your authentic self will shine through,” Hubbell says. “I’ll help her understand that what she’s seeing is the real you—the angel beneath the celebrity facade, compelled to speak only truth.”

“And you think that will be enough?”

“Seren taught me about forgiveness and about seeing light in damaged souls. If you’ll let her see yours, truly see it, without the masks you’ve worn for centuries, she’ll recognize what you truly are.” Hubbell’s warmth fills the space between them. “And we’re too much alike for her to resist you. She’ll be drawn to that connection. You’re exactly what she needs, at least for now. You both need to find what you’re searching for.”

“I’m not searching for anything.”

“Aren’t you?” He stands, approaching me. The temperature drops another ten degrees. “Why do you think the Tribunal chose you for this assignment? Because you’re expendable? Convenient? Or because you need to witness what genuine love looks like before you can recognize it in yourself?”

Before I can respond, spiritual pressure fills the room. Not Hubbell’s presence—something vast. Ancient. The Tribunal’s authority presses down like atmospheric weight.

This is what divine mandate feels like: inescapable as gravity, absolute as death.

“It’s time,” Hub says quietly. “She’s ready.”

“Wait.” The word tears from my throat. “What if I can’t ... what if this breaks something in me?”

Hubbell looks at me with genuine compassion. “Then you’ll finally understand what being human feels like. The risk of breaking is the price of connection, Brad. Without that vulnerability, love is just performance.”

“And if I refuse?”

“You can’t.” Hubbell begins to fade around the edges. “The Tribunal’s command compels you. But more than that, you won’t want to refuse once you understand what you’re about to witness.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s our soulmate.” Hub’s voice grows distant as he begins to fade. “You’ll connect with her the moment I touch her through your hands. Everything you’ve been searching for in centuries of empty connections—it’s her. And afterward, you’ll have to win her heart with nothing but authenticity.”

My blood runs cold. “My what?”

But Hub is already gone, leaving only the lingering scent of cedar and sage, and a chilling certainty: in a few minutes, I’ll be trapped in my own body while my supposed soulmate makes love to someone else through my flesh.

I’m on the verge of losing control of everything—my body, my heart, my carefully constructed defenses, and any illusion that I understand what unconditional love means.

The phantom tissue where my wings connect throbs with agonizing intensity as footsteps approach. My pulse hammers inside my throat. Every instinct screams to run, but there’s nowhere to go.

The footsteps stop outside the door. Three soft knocks. She’s completely unaware that she’s about to destroy me.

“It’s time, Blake.” Miranda’s voice carries from the hallway.

I close my eyes and prepare to disappear.

───❤️‍🔥───

Lilith’s Note

This is the last fully free chapter of Brad Stone before we switch to the “big free preview + paid full chapter” model, so if you’re reading this far, you’re already part of the inner circle.

In this chapter, Brad finally walks into The Masquerade Club, reads Seren’s file, and meets Hub in the flesh—then has to sit with the idea that a dead man is going to use his body to make love to his wife while he watches. That tension between violation vs. devotion is one of the core engines of the whole book, so I’d really love your take on a few things:

Brad vs. Hub:

After this chapter, whose side are you more emotionally on—Brad’s (“this is a violation”) or Hub’s (“this is the only way I can touch her again”)? What tipped you that way?

The possession setup:

Does the Tribunal / Masquerade / “one night in Brad’s body” setup feel clear and believable enough for you to roll with, or is there anything in this scene that still feels muddy or under‑explained?

Brad’s terror of being seen:

When Brad realizes Seren will see him without his powers and wonders if there’s “nothing underneath the performance,” does that land for you emotionally? Do you feel his panic, or would you like that pushed even harder?

If you have a spare minute, take this poll—it genuinely helps me shape where to lean in future chapters.

If you’re feeling like giving a bit extra, I’d love a line or two in the comments about why.

Keep reading and feeding your fantasies!

I grew up in a world where large family gatherings were not optional.

High holidays meant full tables, crowded rooms, and more chairs dragged in from the basement than any dining room could reasonably hold. Extended family arrived in waves. Chosen family—those who would otherwise be alone—were folded in as naturally as passing the mashed potatoes. You didn’t ask if someone “had plans.” You were the plans.

Chosen family, back then, meant something very specific.

It meant we noticed who would be alone.

It meant we made room.

Over the last fifty years, I’ve watched that world shrink.

From overflowing tables to “just us”

Slowly, imperceptibly, the big gatherings faded. Cousins scattered. Reunions died off. Holiday dinners that once required elaborate logistics dwindled down to nuclear-family-only events.

Few families hold annual reunions now. Fewer still seem to have “everyone comes home” embedded as a given. The default has become something closer to: we’ll see what we feel like doing, just the four of us.

For a long time, I still believed in the old definition of chosen family. I believed we would make room for those outside the immediate circle, especially in times of grief.

When my husband died, that faith felt justified at first. The phrase “chosen family” was bandied around a lot. Friends and relatives talked about circles of support, about how they would surround our special-needs daughter and me. Those words were a balm. I clung to them.

I had comfort that she, especially, would be drawn into the embrace of the people she’d grown up with.

Then the holidays came.

The holidays where the invites didn’t come

Easter came and went. No invitations.

Thanksgiving arrived. I finally reached out to a relative and asked if we could visit. It felt less like being included and more like knocking on a door that used to open on its own.

Christmas came and went with friends sharing their lovely family gatherings—stories, photos, traditions, warmth. When they asked what my daughter and I were doing and I said, honestly, “nothing planned,” the most common reply was some version of:

Well, you have each other.

On the surface, that sounds kind. It’s true in a way; we do have each other. But underneath, it landed like a gentle dismissal. As if two people do not need community. As if being a mother and daughter unit somehow makes the absence of a wider circle irrelevant.

We were learning something I hadn’t wanted to learn.

Chosen family, in practice, seemed to mean:

We will surround you in the days immediately after the celebration of life.

After that, you’re expected to settle into your smaller life.

The insularity stung. For our daughter, whose world had already narrowed, it hurt in ways she couldn’t always name. For me, it was a disorienting silence where the bustle of shared holidays used to be.

And then, an unexpected table

Last year, something unexpected happened.

A family of an old roommate from my early twenties—a husband and his adult children whose wife and mother had died—insisted that my daughter and I join them for Thanksgiving dinner.

I hesitated. I thought it might be awkward. We hadn’t been close over the years, and grief can make any gathering feel uncertain before it begins. I wasn’t sure how it would be to step into the middle of someone else’s family holiday when we were still carrying so much of our own loss.

But they were clear: they wanted us there.

So I said yes.

It was not awkward. It was warm, loving, and comfortable. There was an ease at that table that surprised me, a sense that everyone understood what it meant to be without someone, and that part of how they wanted to honour their own loss was by refusing to let others be alone.

At one point, one of the adult daughters quietly cornered me and asked if I would join them for Christmas too. They’d already thought it through. They managed their private family time earlier in the day, and then expanded the circle for the larger gathering.

I arrived for dinner. I left soon after, conscious of their need for more family-only space. But again, I was profoundly grateful.

That table reminded me that chosen family can still exist—not as a slogan, but as a practice.

A culture that has shrunk, and a loneliness that’s grown

It’s not just my story.

We’re living in a time when loneliness and social isolation have become so widespread that major health bodies now describe them as a public health issue. The World Health Organization has formed a Commission on Social Connection and estimates that roughly one in six people worldwide are affected by loneliness at any given time. Loneliness is being linked to higher risks of heart disease, dementia, depression, and early death.

In less clinical terms, the shrinking of our circles has consequences. Social connection is increasingly understood as a significant factor in mental and physical health, while isolation and loneliness are associated with poorer well-being and higher health risks.

We work more. We move more. We scatter geographically. Our lives feel busier and more precarious. Holidays become logistics to manage rather than rituals to protect. The cultural story has quietly shifted from:

Of course we’ll make room.

to

Everyone does their own thing.

The result is a strange dissonance.

On one hand, we see overflowing tables on social media—family photos, elaborate spreads, and traditions proudly shared. On the other hand, an increasing number of people sit alone, or with one other person, telling themselves not to mind, because they have each other.

We have become, in many ways, profoundly insular.

What happened to chosen family?

I don’t think care has disappeared. I think capacity, courage, and imagination have thinned.

Inviting someone into a family gathering can feel complicated:

• Will it change the dynamic?

• Will it be awkward?

• Will we have enough food, space, or emotional bandwidth?

When life already feels stretched, the simplest answer is often: let’s keep it just us.

Chosen family, as a concept, still gets trotted out—especially around the end of life and crises. But the older meaning, the one I grew up with, required something more sustained:

• Noticing who would otherwise be alone.

• Reaching out and making room.

• Accepting a certain amount of imperfection and emotional complexity for the sake of connection.

That takes effort. It takes willingness. It takes a kind of love that is practical, not just sentimental.

I miss that kind of love.

So does my daughter.

Learning to live with insularity without embracing it

I’m learning to live in this more insular culture. I’m not sure I’ll ever fully embrace it.

I miss being part of a social circle—the casual inclusion, the taken-for-granted “of course you’ll be there.” I miss the feeling of belonging that doesn’t have to be negotiated every time.

Our daughter misses it too. Her world is already narrowed by circumstance. The loss of those wider rings has landed heavily.

I don’t have a neat solution. I do have a few things that help.

Small ways to live with more light and love

If chosen family isn’t showing up the way it used to, how do we help ourselves through loneliness? How do we resist the pull toward isolation without pretending we can single-handedly change the culture?

Here are some gentle possibilities.

1. Name loneliness without shame

Loneliness is not a personal failing. It’s a human response to an environment where connection has thinned.

Wanting company does not make you needy. Wanting to be invited does not make you childish. It makes you human.

Simply admitting, even to yourself, that we are lonely; we miss being part of a circle, is an act of truth-telling that matters.

2. Practice micro-hospitality

If grand gatherings feel beyond reach, start smaller.

Invite one person, one couple, or one parent and child to join you for something simple—a holiday buffet, a walk, tea or coffee, or even a handwritten postcard that says, I am thinking of you.

It doesn’t have to be elaborate to be real.

And yes, I’ve started trying this too. One thing I’ve done is invite a couple I know—people who are fairly insular themselves—to join us at a large holiday buffet. I don’t imagine that solves loneliness for anyone forever, but it does create a table where more than two people can sit.

3. Be the inviter, even when you’ve longed to be the invited

There is a quiet grief in always being the one who reaches out. You’re allowed to feel that.

And sometimes, despite the ache, choosing to initiate anyway is one way to keep your own heart from hardening. Not with people who repeatedly disregard you—that boundary matters—but with those who seem equally adrift.

It might be a neighbour. A colleague. A friend of a friend. Widowers. Adult children who have lost a parent. People you suspect are hearing “you have each other” as their default answer too.

4. Create or join alternative circles

If family isn’t offering the web you need, look for other forms:

• Writing communities and retreats.

• Book clubs and creative groups.

• Spiritual circles or support groups.

• Local classes, volunteering, and special-interest meetups.

They may not replace the feeling of everyone coming home for the holidays, but they can create new rings of familiarity and care—new versions of chosen family, even if you don’t call them that.

5. Say the quiet thing out loud, when it feels safe

Sometimes, when trust is present, it can help to say:

• We miss being part of a bigger gathering.

• If you ever invite people who’d otherwise be alone, please keep us in mind.

Not as pressure, nor as accusation, but as gentle truth. People who have never been on the outside often genuinely don’t realize how much those invitations mean.

6. Hold on to your own definition of family

You don’t have to adopt the insular norm as your own. Even if others use chosen family loosely, you can continue to live by the older meaning:

Family includes those who’d otherwise be alone.

Family makes room.

Family extends the table.

Sometimes that will mean inviting others into your circle. Sometimes it will mean accepting invitations with gratitude, even when they come from unexpected places—like the family of an old roommate from your early twenties.

Those gatherings weren’t about perfection. They were about intention.

They were about refusing to let grief and insularity have the final say.

A quiet hope

I don’t know if our broader culture will swing back toward larger gatherings and more inclusive circles. I do know that every time someone decides, in their own small way, to notice who is alone and make room, something shifts.

Chosen family is not a trend. It’s a practice.

It lives in:

• the extra chair pushed up to the table,

• the text that says, “We’d love to have you join us,”

• the couple invited to a buffet instead of eating alone,

• the daughter pulled into a circle that understands loss.

I’m learning to live with the insularity around me. But I’m also learning that I don’t have to live from it.

I can live from light and love instead—messy, practical, and imperfect love that keeps asking:

Who might be alone right now?

And is there room, however small, for one more at our table?

─ ·❦· ─

Take what resonates. Leave the rest.

Walk in light and love.

Lilith ❤️‍🔥