M. Dee

He’s the sole heir to a banking empire, but all he wants is to work on art. They say it’s a mistake. Then he meets Sara in a café. No social media. No phone numbers. No last names. Just Sara & Heck, talking about music, movies, and life in between. tr.ee/WrLtUM

@DKemeridou Done

Author friends, this one's for you! My very first newsletter is going out in a few hours, and it comes with an honest breakdown of free & paid platforms to find ARC readers and some tools to manage them. If you're not subscribed yet, now's the time! 👇

Breaking Rules Here is another book by an author who received a perfect score and recommendation, but there’s a qualifier. Jenny broke a few rules in this novel, from intentionally imperfect sentence structure to misspelled words (e.g. winder instead of window); she managed to replicate a specific dialect which resulted in a more immersive read. It’s a harsh tale, there’s no debate about that, but it is also a good example of literary fiction with a strong female MC and how an author differentiated a lack of proper education from intelligence and wisdom. “The truth? It don't fit clean. Life don't work like no sermon or a newspaper headline. It's messy. It bleeds.” Life does these things and more, and messy can be an understatement as The Bible Of Blackwater County, a novel by Jenny Cafaro, clearly illustrates. Set in Depression-era Appalachia, the story follows young Bessie Winters, a girl from a destitute family. But poverty is only half of it. Bessie lives in a society that crushes dreams and is populated by small-minded individuals who judge others without ever having walked in their shoes. Under those circumstances, many people would succumb to despair, but Bessie is no ordinary person; she is the rare exception who manages to avoid being driven into the mud despite the tragedy life throws her way. Unforgiving at times, but masterfully composed and resonant, The Bible of Blackwater County by Jenny Cafaro is a perfect example of modern literature at its finest. The plot centers on a young girl living through harsh times as she navigates an unforgiving era marked by poverty and stigma. Yet while the plot itself is very strong, the thematic depth is outstanding, as despair, manipulation, hope, and the struggle for survival make this book difficult to put down. Character development is also good, and the cast are all well-crafted individuals who are believable and relatable. A moderate pace combined with a deliberately accented writing style works well in recreating an era and atmosphere long gone. Overall, The Bible of Blackwater County is an exemplary tale that will delight fans of multiple genres. I easily recommend it. Review on Readers Favorite >>> tr.ee/PbWfGy #ReadersFavorite #ByGaiusKonstantine

@GaiusKonstantin @justcastellon Don’t know how to tell Justine to put cookies in the design without her ripping my head off.

@mdee_writes @justcastellon What? I thought it was recipes for lattes?

@justcastellon But that fvck Tiago and AI fake reviewer Lakewood said it's a cookbook.

@Plotwist_ing @justcastellon Cool guy.

@mdee_writes @justcastellon You remind me of my dad. 😁

Why the fck am I getting nicotine products ads? Isn't it banned? 💀

@Plotwist_ing @justcastellon Nah.

@justcastellon @mdee_writes I knew it! 😅 He should definitely quit, though. 😌

BRANDING COLORS Your #bookcover is influenced by your story and characters. It's the visual artform of your synopsis, the central image that represents everything within. Color, on the other hand, signals something deeper. It imprints on the subconscious while you're writing your story. In my novel Gnight Sara / ‘Night Heck (with @mdee_writes), I wrote the second part in Paris, where Sara had moved. Every day at my favorite spot, Café Bohème, I wrote with rows of rental bikes almost directly in front of me. Sometimes I'd just stare at them while processing a dialogue or scene. If Tiffany has Tiffany Blue, I have Sara's Teal. Your #branding elements aren't random. They're rooted in your story. These are the things you need to tell your book designer when you commission them to design yours.

Loved working on this one! Mitchell Hadley's 'The Book of Revelations' launches June 16, and every piece we worked on had one job; make you *feel* the book before you read a single word. The color palette used is showcased below. The mood and aesthetic is dark and cinematic, designed to match the weight of the story. Idea stolen from the great @justcastellon. 🫶🏻

Them: I like the bright orange. Them: Is that Mandarin Orange? Me: It's Konstantine Orange. COLOR PALETTE 🟠🧡🍊 Every visual designer knows this: not all colors are created equal. The right one doesn't come off a swatch. It takes days, sometimes weeks, to formulate a color that belongs to the work and nothing else. #brandingcolors

'Of Darkness and Light' has a new cover!!! ✨🖤 The original was beautiful, and the designer who made it did exactly what I asked for. But after years of promoting it, a cover can start to blend into the noise. Sometimes a change isn't about what was wrong... it's about what's next. This new one feels quieter. More like the poems inside it. Which one do you prefer? Vote below!

@GaiusKonstantin @justcastellon Congratulations on the new edition. You're in good hands. I will check it out. The old cover is still in transit.

@mdee_writes @justcastellon I can't answer that in general. She took my case on as its unique due to multiple factors. I also think she was hell-bent on proving her point, I don't know.

Testing the waters There’s a drawback to being a literary critic, and that is partial tunnel vision. What I mean by that is that I focus exclusively on the book itself, sometimes selecting a title without a cover to look at. If there is a cover, that doesn’t sway my overall rating. Great, but that doesn’t work for Gaius the author so changes are coming. There’s a big bonus here for us though as I wrote and released Fading Away with zero marketing and no concern about the cover. Both of these things will now change and I’ll be able to see the impact. Regardless what happens, I’ll share the results

@GaiusKonstantin @justcastellon Is she accepting private clients now?

@mdee_writes It's all @justcastellon and the feedback should be valuable to her as well. I started with a baseline of zero, so the impact will be easier to identify.

Free on Kindle Unlimited: #GnightSaraNightHeck. Sara. Heck. Two voices. A little messy. Very real. Co-written with @justcastellon in a true he said/she said on love, sex, friendship, and his side of it too. 👇 👇 👇 👇 👇 #KindleUnlimited #BookTok #booktwt

I'm melting. Buy my books before they melt too? 😅

@KyleOwe02309720 Ice cream belongs to the dairy section of the supermarket. That's under breakfast food. Mine is a newly lighted cig and a left over beer from last night.

I forgot to get Cheerios yesterday, so I ate an ice cream sandwich for breakfast. Don't tell Mom. 😂 I also found a pair of black socks. Most of my socks have cartoons on them. I now feel and act like a gentleman. Providing you overlook the ice cream sandwich. 😂Enjoy your day.

@CollingsMaccrae Thank you for buying our book and it's sequel. It was a privilege to co-write it with Justine. It’s probably my first and last book, so I’m very proud of this one. I think she’s releasing a new one. The Runaway Prince focus on Heck n his brother, partly a parallel story to Book 2

@mdee_writes I love this book.

In music, they call it a one-hit wonder. In writing, that’s me. I did it once and never again.

@ZsaffrynTerra @justcastellon Thank you very much Zsaffryn.

@mdee_writes @justcastellon Welcome to X’s writing community 🪶

I think I need to introduce myself to this #writingcommunity. I’m Mike, the other writer behind Heck in Gnight Sara / 'Night Heck, co-written with @justcastellon. My co-author said she is stepping away from X, and I was tasked to get the noise running for our book.