This one is courtesy of AI for Beginners Create a photo of a huge ancient spellbook lying open on a wooden desk by candlelight. The left page is a hand drawn ink illustration of the person in the reference photo as a friendly witch or wizard, you decide the outfit. The right page is a spell written for them: study the photo and invent a funny, useful spell that suits their personality, like a spell for finding your keys or a charm for answering emails, with a title, three odd ingredients and a tiny diagram. Aged paper, a ribbon bookmark, a quill, dried flowers, a sleeping cat nearby. Choose a colour palette that suits their personality, or their brand colours if they have shown you a logo. Keep my face exactly as the reference photo. Photorealistic, high detail, 4:5 portrait format, no watermark." That's it. Nothing to fill in. The AI reads your photo and decides the details, so everyone gets something different. Want to steer it? Add one line at the end, like "use my brand colours, red and gold" or "make it pink". Otherwise let it surprise you. 𝗥𝗲𝗯𝗲𝗹 𝗲𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 (𝘀𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗽𝘀, 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘃𝗶𝗯𝗲): "Create a photo of a huge black spellbook, chained shut until a moment ago, now lying open in the forbidden section of a library. The left page is a red and black ink illustration of the person in the reference photo, drawn like the witch or wizard the textbook warned about. The right page is a spell written by them: study the photo and invent a cheeky curse on something that deserves it, like slow wifi or meetings that could have been an email, with a title, three questionable ingredients and a warning in the margin. Red ink paw prints walk right across the page, and Baby Rebel, a fluffy white tiger cub with bright blue eyes is sitting on the corner of the book with red paws, looking innocent. The page header reads REBEL SPELLS. Keep my face exactly as the reference photo. Cinematic, high detail, 4:5 portrait format, no watermark."

The October Invite‑a‑thon — Day 5: Press Send We made it. It's Friday. And I'm going to ask you to do one final thing before the weekend. I want you to send your first newsletter. Not plan it. Not draft it and "sleep on it." Not perfect it until it's a tiny gem of prose that nobody will ever read because you never actually mailed it. I want you to write something simple, short, and honest — and then press the button. If your list right now has three people on it — your best friend, your mom, and a stranger who found your back‑matter link on Wednesday — that's enough. This moment is not about numbers. It's about crossing the threshold between "I'm thinking about starting a newsletter" and "I have a newsletter." That gap is a mile wide and most people never cross it. You're about to. Why Pressing Send Matters (More Than You Think) Here's the secret nobody tells you about email marketing: the first email doesn't sell anything. It doesn't even really build your brand. What it does is something more important — it proves to you, in a way no amount of planning ever could, that this machine actually works. You set up an account. You built a sign‑up form. You put it in the world. People actually signed up. And now you're about to type words into a box, press a button, and have those words land in their inboxes. Once you've done it once, the spell is broken. You're not waiting to be ready anymore. You are a person with a newsletter. Everything else — the bigger list, the better template, the welcome sequence you'll tweak later — is just improvement on a machine that already runs. So for today, lower the bar to the floor. Your only goal is to send one short email to the people who opted in. That's it. What to Write (150 Words. You Can Do This.) If you're staring at a blank screen right now, use this template: Subject line: I did a thing (and you're part of it) Body: Hey everyone — This is a quick note to say hello and welcome you to the very first edition of my newsletter.

( @Michael Culp: If this isn't appropriate for this group, I'll take it down.) For many of us, we have a KDP Account where we work with our books. Every so often, Amazon will ask you to verify your identity. This usually takes only a minute or two, and is quite painless. (They don't even draw any blood!) The consequences of NOT doing this, however, can be dire. Failure to verify will cause Amazon to cancel your account. Without recourse for recovery, as I understand it. For me, that would be quite painful. I have 22 items up on the Amazon Marketplace. Finding another place to list and sell these would be nigh onto impossible. (I can move them, yes; I have ISBNs for all my items. But still.) What's involved? First, check the information shown on their page. Name, address, etc. Then they want you to capture a photo of a government ID. There's a very nice "Continue on Another Device" option to take the photo; I used my smart phone, as my desk camera's bad at photos. You scan a QR code, take the photo, then take a photo of your (smiling!) face. The phone sends everything and you are returned to the computer page. After about 30 seconds, a "Verified" response comes onto the page, and you're done. I made sure my bank account and other info were all correct. Check your email for a new email from Amazon (usually in your Updates, if you use that tab). It will say "Your identity was successfully verified." Done! Easy Peasy. So if you get a request for verification from KDP, do this! Only: Check the URL first. It must come from https://account.kdp.amazon.com/identity. Otherwise, it's dodgy... Enjoy!

I'm going to pin this to the beginning of the page and would like it see if everyone wanted to post their books that they've written on here. You can post as many links as you want as often as you want. I'd like to celebrate wins for everyone!

I’m working on becoming a better and more consistent writer, and one of the reasons I joined this community was to connect with other authors who are figuring things out too. I’m interested in sharing ideas, talking about what’s working, being honest about the parts that are difficult, and learning from each other along the way. I just enjoy conversations about writing and the process behind it. What’s something you’ve been struggling with in your writing lately?