JANUARY 2024

Looking Back on 2023

In this, my 16th newsletter, I’m going to do what I did in the January 2023 issue, which is to speak directly to you. Because, whether you know it (or like it), you are my subscribers, a critical part of something called an author platform, which I’ll describe in a minute. There are just about 300 of you, down from the 600 or so recipients of my very first newsletter, which means that about half of my original e-mail list has decided to click the Unsubscribe button and opt out. And you, if you’re reading this, are one of the brave 300 who have decided to stick with me. (Or, let’s be real, you might just be one of the busy few who hasn’t taken the time to make me go away.) Getting into that a little deeper, my last newsletter in November got 74% of you to open it, and 28% of you to actually click one of the links inside. Either way, whether you’re an active recipient or a passive one, I’m glad you’re still here.

The Author Platform

At this point, some of you may be wondering, How the hell did I get on this e-mail list anyway? I’m going to tell you, but let me explain how all this works first. This newsletter is part of my author platform, the mechanism, the experts say, for establishing my brand and connecting with readers. It all started as a way to promote my debut novel and ultimately to sell books, but now I want to take a left turn and make it more than that. (Read on.)

Other elements of the author platform, my social media pages and my personal website, are in the little box at the bottom of this e-mail. Within those elements, you’ll find the rest of the platform in the form of my live and online appearances, articles I’ve written, and fiction I’ve published. And if you actually read this newsletter as opposed to just allowing it to land in your inbox, you’ll know that I mention every single one of those things in here, which is how I establish my brand and connect with my readers. (Is there an echo in here?)

But how did you get on this e-mail list? Well, when I set about creating the author newsletter all the experts were telling me I needed to have, I took a pretty simple approach: I just went through my e-mail archives and extracted virtually every e-mail address I had from anyone. If you worked with me at Cisco, or attended Queens University of Charlotte or the Stanford Writers’ Studio with me, there was a pretty good chance I had your e-mail address. And, of course, if you’re a friend or family member, yep, I got you, too. I recognize that this might not have been an entirely cool thing to do, but I needed to start somewhere. I made it easy to unsubscribe, and the fact that half of my original list have done so doesn’t surprise me at all. In fact, after reading this, some of you might decide to unsubscribe right now, and that’s totally fair. But if you’re still reading and planning to stick around, let me tell you about some changes I’m planning for 2024.

My Author Platform and Me

Maintaining an author platform is a lot of work, but if I’m being honest, it’s not all work to me. Social media operates on a very reliable attribute of human behavior, which is that short-term dopamine spikes (likes, smileys, and little hearts) will keep users coming back for more, and more, and more, or, ideally—from the social media gods point of view—lead them to never leave. I’m acutely aware of all this, so I’m able to control myself to some degree, but I also fall prey to those dopamine hits just like anyone, which means, ironically, that social media is fun for me. I also love to design and produce posts, reels, stories, web pages, and videos, so, more fun! Still, given how extensive my platform is and how much time I spend maintaining it, I realize that all I’m doing at this point is just entertaining myself. There’s nothing wrong with that—I’m retired and I have the time—but I’m also kind of old now, so my time is getting more and more precious. End result: I’m ready to make a change, and this year, I’m doing it.

Why Change?

As it happens, there’s a rising consensus among people who know about this stuff that social media is actually the least effective and least important element of the author platform. Elon Musk’s complete obliteration of the Twitter has brought this reality home to many, but the reality is more widespread than that. Because of the dopamine pollution and workload described above, and because the social media platforms exist to sell ads, and not—despite their persistent sloganeering—to help people connect, it turns out they’re not the best tool for actually selling books. For every author who has become a viral sensation for some innocuous reason, there are thousands who toil away every day with virtually no impact on their sales. So I’ve decided to make a left turn, and (spoiler alert) kind of forget about sales.

The Left Turn

Everything I’ve described here is leading many people in the biz to deprioritize social media and instead put their time and energy into…wait for it…their personal websites and…drum roll…their newsletters. And that’s what I’m going to do. But more than that, I’m at a stage now where I’m going to rethink how and what I communicate. The popularity window for The Cyclone Release is now closing. Sales are waning, author appearances have dried up, and consignment agreements, under which local bookstores agree to place the book on their shelves for a limited time, are starting to expire. I still get the occasional sale, of course, often followed by an excellent review like the one I got a few weeks ago, and I look forward to seeing those continue. But that part of my story won’t be my focus in the coming year. Instead, you can look forward to these changes:

• Newsletters on a wider range of topics. I’ve written a lot, over 15 newsletters, about The Cyclone Release, about being an author—correction, a published author—and about writing in general. But I have thoughts to share on a lot of things, as anyone reading my blog posts and Medium articles has seen: politics, social media and the internet, sports, food and cooking, and life in general. In 2024 and beyond, you can look forward to more on topics like those.

• Audience-specific newsletters. I’ve used the cool-ass tagging feature in Squarespace to designate which of you are fellow writers, friends, family, and fellow denizens of Silicon Valley tech. I plan to use those to create newsletters of specific interest to those audiences, and perhaps others.

• A whole new website. Once I click Send on this newsletter, I’ll set about revamping my website to de-emphasize The Cyclone Release and reflect the many other interests I mention above. The site will continue to be an author’s website, meaning it’ll continue to provide content to writers in all stages of their endeavors, but it’ll also contain some surprises every now and then.

• More about what I’m working on now. I’m a novelist, and I wouldn’t be a very good novelist if I weren’t working on a novel. (Duh.) In future newsletters—and, in fact, in this one (see below)—I’ll talk more about that novel, and about other pieces I’m working on, including the aforementioned Medium articles. (Click the links, man! They’re actually not bad!)

I’m hoping these changes will keep this newsletter fresh and entertaining, and if not increase the number of subscribers, at least keep you all in what I’ve now decided to call The Loyal 300. Yes, you are special now! You have been labeled! Your life has meaning!

Seriously, though, making this decision has made me feel free, and I hope that freedom comes through for any subscriber who chooses to read.

What’s This About a New Novel?

To me, writing novels is a little bit like having babies, in one particular respect. (Oh, man, I’m going to catch hell for this one.) And that respect is, you don’t want to tell anyone about it until you’re pretty far along. (Still going to catch hell? Yeah, probably.) Anyway, I’m still working on the first draft of my new novel, but I have just one more chapter to draft, so I think I’m ready to share this: It’s a political novel, something of a thriller, in which the protagonist is running for President of the United States in the current, 2024, presidential election. He is a former Silicon Valley executive, a victim of post-pandemic layoffs, and he makes the decision to run for president for less than honorable reasons. Once on the trail, though, he surprises not just those around him, but himself as well. As promised, I’ll say more in future newsletters, but suffice to say, I’m having a blast with this one, and I hope someone in this crazy business of publishing will give you a chance to enjoy it as well.

Goodies for You!

As I did last year, I’ll once again offer you these three published short stories to download and read in ebook format at your leisure. It’s just the tiniest token of my appreciation.

“Bookmarks” — From the Green Mountains Review, Spring 2009, winner of First Prize in the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition, in which an aging tech worker struggles with his addiction in the wake of his sister's death.

“Bull’s Eye” — From the anthology Home of the Brave - Stories in Uniform, 2009, in which a soldier on leave from the Iraq War after being injured in an IUD attack makes a startling discovery about his younger brother.

“Fruit Stands” — From the Evening Street Review, Summer 2022, in which a father takes his seven children on a Saturday outing even as he considers leaving his wife.

And in case you missed them, previous editions of the Bruce Overby | Author newsletter can be viewed online here.