RANTWICK LOVES the USA

Hey. I suspect that with my long absence, nobody will see this. Nonetheless, I feel the need to make an unequivocal, blanket statement: I love the USA. I love the millions of reliable good neighbours Canadians have counted on and worked with forever. I love the people I've forged online relationships with. They, however, are not the focus of this writing. Your friends already know they're friends.

This goes out to every American who might listen: You have had a trustworthy neighbour and ally for decades who only wants to keep it going. You have a leader who seems bent on chaos and your own destruction. Much of that stuff is beyond your short-term control. Do what you can. I will continue to love my neighbour regardless.

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

My Fun New Hobby

I've been attempting to promote my new kids picture book on all the socials. I created a new profile on most of them (pcnugnugs) so I could shamelessly plug my book without bothering my friends.

Thanks to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and AI tools, the world is AWASH in kids picture books and people trying to sell them. Makes it very difficult get noticed, so I'll just have to wait and see if kids and parents enjoy it enough to get more copies or tell friends.

On my promotion Facebook account I've joined a bunch of kid lit author groups hoping, like everyone else, to get noticed. This environment of naive first time authors is like fish in a barrel for schemy types. Some like to direct message you, praise your book cover and eventually try to sell you promotion services. So long as they're upfront about it, that's okay. Others, however, are impersonating the authors of very successful books. They send you a link to their bestselling title and eventually offer to get those some kind of numbers on Amazon for YOU!

My fun new hobby is to engage on facebook messenger and see if I can confirm for myself what they're up to. Then I tweet the legit author on X directing them to the likely hoax facebook profile's link. It is very satisfying, and who knows, it might result in a little goodwill among the legit authors. Even if not, it is pretty fun. That is all for now, be well and enjoy Spring.

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K