Welcome to yet another segment of #AskWatson.
The only time of the week I invite my horde of loyal Legionnaires to share the questions keeping them up at night.
It could be about my books…
The wicked ways I choose to publish…
Questions about my personal life, beliefs, values… or the copious nights I drank myself into oblivion and ended up in the hospital as a foolish 20-something-year-old. Nothing is off-limits, which I can’t imagine too many other author newsletters boast about.
Anyway, today’s question (admittedly) got my back up.
I’m sure the reader who wrote in meant well, but clearly, they are still new to our customs.
A quick gander in my email software confirmed this.
They have been a budding Legionnaire for all of 9 days.
Nine. Whole. Days.
That said, props to him. Few have the gall to write in for the weekly segment, but the real question is… has he got the spine to take the scolding I am about to serve him?
Let’s find out.
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Hi Dan,
You don’t talk much about your books here. Just personal life stuff. Is that something legionaires enjoy or do you get complaints? I’ve never joined a newsletter like this before.
A new fan of yours,
[NAME REDACTED]
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Oh no, my dear boy.
You didn’t just address me as…
Dan.
That’s a nickname reserved only for friends, family, and the most loyal of Patrons and Legionnaires… not 9-day-old Liegelings. It’s Daniel, DJJ, Mr Watson, or Overlord to you. And to add Himalayan salt to this superficial wound, he even dares to misspell Legionnaire.
Disgraceful.
Such offences would usually be met with the pointed end of my boot, but I can already hear Lady Laura’s calm voice telling me to relax.
He’s just a Liegeling.
“You don’t talk much about your books here. Just personal life stuff.”
That’s my design, young whipper-snapper.
The reason I don’t rabbit on about my books every day is that, for starters, I’m not just an author. I am a father, present partner, and above all else, the most handsome and humble scribe you’ll ever meet.
To exclusively yap about my books would be doing a disservice to all the other things I’ve got going on in my life.
Secondly, I want to build bonds with my readers, not just royalty cheques.
How can I do that if I’m not willing to peel back the curtain into my life and reveal the goods, the bads, and the downright weird (which, there have been plenty)?
Again, Liegeling.
Design. It’s all intentional.
This is my game, and I am its master.
“Is that something legionaires enjoy or do you get complaints?”
Wait there. Let me just tidy that for you:
“Is that something *Legionnaires enjoy or do you get complaints?”
Ah, that’s better. 😉
YES, THEY DO ENJOY MY MUSINGS.
I haven’t got the biggest of email lists as some authors in the industry (not by a long shot — yet), but I’d be willing to bet my pearly whites that the Legion trumps theirs in terms of engagement.
Not a week goes by without someone writing in or responding to an email, which almost always contains warm words.
So, yes, readers do enjoy my ramblings. Even the strange ones.
“I’ve never joined a newsletter like this before.”
I wasn’t whistling Dixie when I said on the landing page that this is the world’s most active author newsletter.
I have yet to subscribe to another author’s newsletter that’s even 10% of what the Legion is. At best, I’ll get a monthly update on a WIP (work in progress). Weekly newsletters? Hardly a thing.
Daily?
Might as well be a unicorn.
Will I hold this crown forever?
My preaching of the gospel only goes so far in writer circles. Until more and more authors wake up from their hibernation in Yawnville and pull their finger out of their ink pot to email more often, I assume not.
What’s more interesting:
My newsletter isn’t the only thing to break a few rules.
My books also commit a multitude of sins.
Take The Divided Region, for example.
Not only do the books violate genre page counts and the ruthless inclusion of dragons, but they also fuse two prominent, yet somewhat opposing, sub-genres:
Epic Fantasy and Sword & Sorcery.
The way I describe TDR is that it has the open world and high stakes of an Epic, but the speed and focus of S&S.
Again, both seem somewhat juxtaposed, yet somehow…
IT WORKS.
It’s not only the type of fantasy I love to consume, but I am under good authority that my Patrons love it, too.
Who knows, perhaps you will, too.
To learn more about The Divided Region, or watch its book trailer, go here:
https://djjwatsonstore.com/products/TDR-Bundle
And remember:
If you have any questions you’d like me to answer next week, just reply to any one of my emails with your question.
But for the love of the Legion…
Do not call me Dan.
DJJW