Goodies: WordPress Newsletters for Authors, Plus the Opening to "Crimson Bride"

Normally on Mondays, I post a new chapter of my serialized novel, What Remains. (You can find the most recent chapter, posted last week, here if you're looking for something else to read after this blog post.) One of our authors from Moonlight and Margaritas expressed feeling a little lost and overwhelmed where it comes to putting together a newsletter for readers, and she asked me to build something with some templates. We have at least one more author, current to Midnight, Mischief, and Mistletoe, who is struggling with a website and newsletter, so as long as I was making a WordPress for an author, I thought I might as well take screenshots of the process and put together another explainer. Like all of my explainers and worksheets, it's free to you, lovely subscribers, but if you find it especially useful, do consider tipping me by enabling my caffeine habit here. Coffee helps power the madness!

Explainer Link: WordPress for Authors

So there it is---quite a quick turnaround, but necessary during this part of the publication cycle. We have a blog post here on Monday, and (swapping), we'll have more What Remains on Thursday. To make up for it, though, please enjoy the opening to "Crimson Bride" below!

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"Crimson Bride" by T.A. Leederman, appearing November 3rd in Midnight, Mischief, and Mistletoe! Heritage Town Fleet Street, London, December 2156

Kana Honbashi had been electrocuted by the pulse cannon console on a starship, nearly been buried under crumbling bulkhead, impaled by a Praezorian serrated bayonet and brought back to life with the Earth Republic's most horrific drugs. But by the third appointment, she'd concluded that wedding dress fittings were an exercise in torture.

“I have to take it in again.” The tailor had pins in her mouth, sounding sorry... but not that sorry.

“You just let it out.” Kana spoke between her teeth, controlling herself.

“Your measurements keep fluctuating. Maybe a wedding during a less stressful time, when your health is—”

The clerk came in from the front of the celebration-wear boutique, interrupting.

“Ma'am, I'm sorry, but the button and zipper delivery is here, and we have pickups in front. Can the courier bring his crates back here?”

The tailor straightened from Kana's hips, allowing the fabric to hang again, and met Kana's eyes in question. Kana shrugged.

“Show him in. I'm not exactly indecent, unless you consider a few centimeters of breathing room improper for a man's eyes.”

The tailor was too much of an old-world London professional to respond; she went right back to pinning fabric, and the clerk let the delivery in. Kana heard a brief grunt of greeting, a crate full of wrapped packages dropped onto a table with a thump.

Kana studied her dress in the mirror. Mom had insisted on a creamy off-white western-style dress, rented and tailored with a gifted luxury credit. They called the cut “mermaid”—tight around the hips, low dip at the cleavage, and tight again around the shins. Kana thought she might be too short for it; she would have preferred an A-line, but Mom loved the mermaid.

The delivery person deployed packages from their crate, so they could take it with them for another load. Kana saw only a brief, quick motion in the mirror, a flash of red, making her turn to meet it.

She wished she hadn't.

A small soft body struck her and exploded. A burst of thick, cold crimson liquid splattered across her front with such force that it drove her back a step. The smell immediately caught her up—earthy with iron, slightly septic, fatty and unctuous. Blood.

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I'm so delighted that I get to follow up on Zak and Kana's story in this next anthology, and I'm honored to be included again! Alongside "Crimson Bride," releasing in the anthology, I'll also be releasing a novelette here to my subscribers following Zak's brother Geras Vantage during the same story... and his own romance! That story, called "Star Groomsman," will become available as a present on launch day, November 3rd.

My writing group (formerly a NaNo regional group) will be doing our yearly Noveling November Camp (NoNo), and during that time, I will be working to finish the novel Crimson Tide as my project. I'm so excited to make a big push on it and show you more tidbits!