Introducing Spiral! [or a non-Amazon way to buy my books direct]

Here is Spiral, the beetle a writer friend crocheted for me recently! I've been playing around with different ways to photograph them, so watch for more images floating around social media, my newsletter, and more!

For now, Spiral is inviting you to check out my new store on itch.io, https://danielausema.itch.io/. What is it? Well, the main goal of the page is to give people a way to buy ebooks directly from me, skipping Amazon and other vendors. I have some of my Spire City stories up there now for people to buy and will be adding more over the coming few weeks.

Episode 0 is one of the stories that's already available, so if you haven't bought it from Amazon or the other sites, consider buying it direct, and you'll learn how it began--before the infections, before the found family of the Weave, an urchin alone, "On the Streets."

But that's not all! ("But wait, there's more"...) Spire City itself is worth your time, worth playing around in and experiencing for yourself, with your own imagination. To give you a chance to try out some role-playing in Spire City, I put a 2-page one-shot TTRPG for you to try out. "Spire Songs & Steam Gears" is based on the very simple-to-use Lasers & Feelings system.

And it's free! Check it out--and if you try the game with your role-playing friends, let me know! I'd love to hear how it went and what could be better!