Finding a genuinely good book is becoming harder—not because great stories no longer exist, but because readers are being buried under rushed, low-quality content designed to game algorithms instead of move people. At Stories Rule Press, every book is still built the old-fashioned way: by real authors who care deeply about storytelling, characters, and giving readers an experience worth remembering.
Before NASA trusted electronic computers, they trusted Katherine Johnson. Hidden Figures introduced millions to the brilliant mathematician whose calculations helped send astronauts into orbit and eventually to the moon. But the real story is even more astonishing than the movie. From quietly defying segregation to becoming the woman John Glenn personally trusted with his life, Katherine Johnson’s career reveals how history often overlooks the people doing its most essential work.
Everyone says engagement matters more than email list size. I believed that once—and it cost me thousands of dollars. Fiction readers don’t behave like SaaS customers or productivity buyers. They hibernate, sometimes for years, then suddenly wake up and binge-buy an entire series. Here’s why aggressively scrubbing “inactive” subscribers may be one of the worst mistakes fiction authors can make, and how this realization became a core part of my Solar Sail Theory of indie publishing.
Daily sales are sinking. Organic reach has collapsed. AI-generated sludge is flooding storefronts while retailers tighten their grip on discoverability. Indie authors are being told to do more of everything — more books, more ads, more social media, more platforms — while the systems underneath us become increasingly unstable and hostile.
The Solar Sail Theory of Indie Publishing offers a different approach.
Instead of chasing endless “rocket launch” marketing spikes, authors can build long-term momentum by expanding their discoverable surface area across the internet and in real life, then channeling that attention into owned reader relationships through websites, email lists, and direct sales.
A solar sail doesn’t move through explosive force. It moves by capturing thousands of tiny forces over time.
So can an indie author career.
What happens when a ten-year anniversary edition becomes something more? While revisiting the Kiss Across Time series for a special collector release, Tracy Cooper-Posey found herself reflecting not just on the books, but on time itself, storytelling, survival, and the strange roads that lead writers to create the stories readers love. Kiss Across Memories is part memoir, part publishing notebook, and part behind-the-scenes look at one of Tracy’s longest-running series.
Your writing system probably won’t fail all at once—it’ll decay, one small glitch at a time, until the tool you rely on starts slowing you down instead of supporting you. When that happens, the real solution isn’t finding a replacement that works the same way—it’s rethinking how your system works entirely. Here’s what OneNote’s decline taught me about rebuilding a writing workflow that’s faster, more flexible, and far more resilient.
Something ambitious is taking shape behind the scenes at Stories Rule Press. Four authors. Four carefully chosen books. One extraordinary collector’s edition project designed for readers who love beautiful books as much as unforgettable stories. We’re not revealing everything just yet—but this is one announcement you won’t want to miss.
Vampires are supposed to be timeless—but what happens when fashion isn’t? From immortal bad hair days to the evolution of vampire fiction itself, this post revisits an old idea with fresh eyes…and proves that no matter what publishers say, readers will never fall out of love with a good vampire.
Barnes & Noble didn’t send a warning shot—they sent a deadline. Raise your paperback prices to $14.99 by May 14th, or your books are gone. For indie authors working in short fiction or maintaining deep backlists, that’s not a tweak. It’s a hard stop. And it’s only the latest move in a pattern that’s quietly reshaping who—and what—belongs on the platform. The question isn’t whether these changes are fair. It’s whether your publishing strategy can survive them.
Fantasy author Danielle L. Jensen recently pushed back against the “romantasy” label, arguing that it reduces complex fantasy novels to “there was kissing, therefore clearly dragons are optional.” She is not alone. Fantasy romance has always demanded that writers master two genres at once: not just the emotional arc of a romance, but also worldbuilding, magic, politics, danger and impossible choices. So why has a catchy nickname managed to make the genre sound smaller, sillier and less serious than it really is?
