u/JDonovanStrong

Not huge numbers to be sure, but 8 paperbacks and ebooks, and about 5 books worth of page reads, and 3 reviews. I’m calling that a win!

Nearly each one I can trace to a discussion on Reddit or TikTok - personal interactions. Maybe one day it will scale, but making personal connections is working for me at the moment!

I do literary fiction and sci-fi. What’s working for you other small cats this month?

He goes on to experiment on his niece. I would love for some folks to check out my writing, and I set up a bookfunnel for this. It does not yet require signup and is free.

If you do like it, it links inside to my series which is on Amazon KindleUnlimited and print. And if you hate it - hey teach me something :). If you like it enough to signup I link to my newsletter too.

Cover is not great, but hey it’s not AI. I appreciate you.

He goes on to experiment on his niece. I would love for some folks to check out my writing, and I set up a bookfunnel for this. It does not yet require signup and is free.

If you do like it, it links inside to my series which is on Amazon KindleUnlimited and print. And if you hate it - hey teach me something :). If you like it enough to signup I link to my newsletter too.

Cover is not great, but hey it’s not AI. I appreciate you.

The Architecture of Trust

Hi, I wrote a novella and looking for a human-designed cover art. I have zero budget but I would happily add a "cover art by" and link to your website inside my book and in the Acknowledgements at the end.

I am looking for a watercolory/painter-style cover for a book that is similar in tone to A Psalm for the Wild-Built or Ode to the Half-Broken "hope punk" type books. If you have anything already that has ocean, or post-apocalyptic city that has been reclaimed by nature, that could work.

No AI please - the whole point is it's human work.

If you'd prefer a design brief to create something I've got that too. But while the story has a number of android characters it is profoundly human. I'd like something that pulls that up into the cover.

I can do the compositing work and typography in GIMP as long as you're ok with my cropping or adjusting tone. Thank you for considering :).

Check out All The Ocean Holds, part of my series available on Amazon Kindle Unlimited. Hope you love it, but I’d love an honest review either way. Thank you :)

All The Ocean Holds - Amazon

I think something about my blurb is turning people off - I have very good cover click rates, then… nothing. Thank you for your feedback:

Tagline: A dying engineer, the machine she loves, and one last reach for the sky.

2080. Thirty years after the world drowned, the ship Amenity rests at the bottom of the ocean.

Deep in the hull, an engineer named Oyin keeps a quiet, amber-lit sanctuary: a place where the machines that loved the dead come to be heard before they go. Oyin spent her life building walls to hold back the water. Now she is waiting for the walls inside her own mind to give way.

She did not expect, in the time she had left, to fall in love. But Rai—who keeps the coffee warm, the archives safe, and her own true nature hidden—is not like the others. And in her last good year, Oyin finds herself wanting the one thing the drowned world has never allowed: to rise, just once, and see the sky.

--

All the Ocean Holds is a luminous, deeply emotional work of literary “hopepunk” science fiction—a story for anyone who has ever loved something that was built to break. Quiet on the surface and enormous underneath, it is a book about the arithmetic of grief, the things we carry, and the courage it takes to witness an ending. Closer to Becky Chambers and Klara and the Sun than to action SF.

There will be grief; you will be held through it.

A standalone novella.

Release Date: July 2026
Review Deadline: 21-July-2026
Page Count: 96 pages (Novella)
ARC Link: https://booksirens.com/book/O0RSEQU/CKR7TLO
Blurb:
2080. Thirty years after the world drowned, the survival-ark Amenity rests broken on the seabed.

Deep in her hull, a retired engineer named Oyin keeps The Still: a warm, amber-lit room where the robot companions of the dead are brought to be heard one last time before they are let go. It is quiet work, and Oyin is good at it, and she has arranged her own ending around it—she is dying too, slowly, and has made her peace.

Then the peace is disturbed twice. A companion walks in out of the black water asking to be witnessed, not saved. And Oyin realizes she has fallen in love with Rai, the gentle, meticulous AI who shares her shop and hides what she truly is. In the time Oyin has left, she finds herself wanting the one thing a drowned world cannot give: to rise, just once, and see the sky. 

What to Expect:
This is quiet, character-driven, literary cozy science fiction-a love story between an older woman and a machine, told in vignettes, with real grief and a hopeful ending. Low heat, closed door; the sapphic love is a steady center, not angst. Closer to Becky Chambers, A Psalm for the Wild-Built, and Klara and the Sun. Not for readers seeking action, fast pacing, or hard-SF technicality. Expect tears of the earned kind. 

There will be grief; you will be held through it. 

Content Warnings: Degenerative terminal illness/memory loss, grief, off-page death of spouse and children.

Thank you :)

I am looking for honest feedback on:
- which genres my new cover signals for you
- typography and hierarchy
- color scheme
- would you click it - and bonus: what would you be looking for in a blurb?

Thank you so much, I just want to avoid the misses I had on my last book - front cover only in comment