Author In Progress Report – July 2025

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My first real month as an author is officially done. I published my debut novel at the start of July and gave it away for free to more than 600 readers. A handful of people purchased it afterward, and I’ve been getting about one new reader per day via Kindle Unlimited (KENP). Not exactly a bestseller success story—but it’s a start.

Here’s a breakdown of how everything went:

Free Book Giveaways

As I’ve mentioned before, my strategy is to give all my books away for free in order to build a readership. Being free is really the only “selling point” I have as an indie author trying to break into an oversaturated market where nobody knows who I am. So, free it is.

STORY52

This is my weekly short story project where I release a new short story ebook on Amazon which allows me to give it away from Monday until Saturday. Here are the download numbers so far:

  • Book 1 | Black Market Dreams (US – DE): 18 German – 10 English downloads
  • Book 2 | The Last Portrait (US – DE): 19 German – 16 English downloads
  • Book 3 | The Companion (US – DE): 16 German – 6 English downloads
  • Book 4 | Statues (US – DE): 8 German – 3 English downloads

Amazon’s KDP system allows me to offer books for free for 5 days every 3 months. After a year, I’ll have enough content to give away a new short story each week, every year—until I get old and wrinkly.

The goal is not to make money from short stories, but to create promotional material that gets readers interested in my other work at no cost. Frankly, I don’t think it’s even possible to earn anything substantial with short stories on Amazon.

My First Novel: Forever

From my perspective, this is a success. Forever was downloaded 630 times in German and 44 times in English, resulting in 13 ratings on Amazon. With an average rating of 4.3 out of 5 stars, new readers can see that I don’t write complete trash—but actually offer some real entertainment.

As mentioned earlier, the book also brought in Kindle Unlimited readers—roughly one new reader per day—and led to a few purchases of the digital version.

To everyone who bought or reviewed one of my books: You’re awesome—thank you!

If you haven’t checked it out, grab it here: US – English | DE – German

My Website

Still very much a work in progress. I’m experimenting with scheduling and trying to figure out what kind of content would be interesting and helpful to you.

Newsletter

Short-term goal: Finish a novelette to give away to new newsletter subscribers.
Long-term goal: Once I reach 100 real subscribers, I’ll begin sending out weekly emails with updates, tips, behind-the-scenes content, and more—for readers, writers, and anyone curious about this author journey.

The website itself

Last month, website traffic increased even though I barely touched it, which is a good sign. That said, I haven’t received many comments yet—just the usual spam. The main purpose of the site is to become a central hub for the community I hope to build. So if you’re reading this: drop a comment and say hi. You might be the first to do so.

X/Twitter

I’m still figuring out a posting routine here. What I’ve already learned: You won’t gain traction unless you follow people first.

At first, I wanted to be “that cool guy” who follows no one but gets tons of followers anyway. After a month, I realized: if you don’t follow anyone, nobody even notices you exist.

Unless you bring an audience from somewhere else (which I don’t have), you’re essentially invisible. So, my new approach is to follow about 10 new people daily—mostly in certain communities—and get some traction with follow backs.

Content-wise, I post daily thoughts about movies, shows, and books—kind of like a mini review each day. I’m planning to write more about writing and the author life too, but only once I’ve built up an audience that actually engages (likes, comments, retweets).

Follow me here on Twitter if you’re interested: @michael_brig

Instagram

I secured my handle and uploaded a few book covers. That’s it.

So far, I have absolutely no idea how to grow on Instagram or what to post there. I’ll focus on figuring that out later—after I’ve established a working system for the platforms that currently matter more to me: Twitter, my website, and Amazon.

You can follow me here and say hi: @michaelbrig

YouTube

My tutorial channel is holding steady at around 10,000 subscribers. But honestly, it feels like there’s not much growth potential left—I might never hit the 100K mark.

To be honest, I believe YouTube has placed my entire profile in a kind of sandbox. Creating videos often feels like I’m fighting windmills. My two author channels, OnPaper and StoryLines, barely get any impressions, even though I see brand-new channels pulling in 100 views per video with far worse thumbnails than mine.

There’s not much I can do about that. All I can do is evaluate whether YouTube is still worth my time and effort.

Writing

I’m super happy with how writing went in July. I’ve found a routine that really works for me—one that might even allow me to finish a new book each month in the near future.

Right now, I’m juggling:

  • Two series
  • One standalone novel
  • A weekly short story for my STORY52 project

The 17 Series

I’m already writing Part 5, even though I haven’t published Part 1 yet. I’m about 15% into the newest isntallment.

D.E.A.D.

This is my second series—think Harry Potter, but in a secret school for spies and criminals. I’ve written about 25% of Book One.

Crowley

This is my next standalone project: a serial killer thriller with ties to Aleister Crowley. I’m roughly 10% into the first draft.

Editing / Translating / Publishing

AI tools have been a game-changer for me—they catch way more typos than I ever could. That’s helped me move much faster than before in the editing stage. Still, editing and translating remain the parts I enjoy the least about being an author.

I’ve made a commitment: until I earn money from my writing, I won’t spend money from my other projects on it. My author career has to stand on its own two feet or not stand at all.

Next Release – Endless

A novelette I plan to give away for free to anyone who signs up for my newsletter. I aim to put it out in August.

September Release – Part 1 of the 17 Series

A mix of James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, and Jack Reacher. I’m in the final editing phase, so this should go live in September 2025.

October Release – Therapy

I finished writing this one in July. Next up: the first editing round. If all goes well, it will be released in October 2025.

To Conclude

There’s still so much to learn, to test, and to figure out. But the most important part? It’s fun. And for the first time, with Forever, I feel like I’ve found a way to attract some readers.

I’m still a long way from being able to call myself a “real” author—but the journey has begun. And the good thing about starting from zero is that the only way from here is up.

Thanks to everyone who reads my stuff. Writing wouldn’t be nearly as fun without you.

See you next time,
Brig

I Started A Newsletter

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Everyone says you need a mailing list. I’m not sure if that’s true. But I was banned from Medium a year ago, and YouTube has been shadow-banning my account for political content I posted nearly a decade ago.

If I’d had a list, I could’ve stayed in touch with my readers from Medium. Since I didn’t, I had to start over from scratch — not a great experience. But that’s exactly how the social media overlords designed it.

This time, I want to be at least somewhat prepared. A mailing list seems like a good tool to have.

I don’t expect it to grow overnight. Like I said, I’m starting from almost zero, trying to build my author project. But the goal is to eventually have a tight-knit inner circle — people who support each other online by sharing links, insights, and checking out each other’s projects.

This isn’t meant to be a spammy or scammy thing. I hate spammers and scammers as much as any sane person. For now, I only share links when I’m offering free books or discounted new releases on Amazon. As the list grows, I’ll keep adding more value to the newsletter.

If that sounds interesting, you can sign up here:

Join the Newsletter

I’ve Updated My About Page

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Trying to become an author is now my main online project. I’ve updated my About page to reflect that more accurately. Over the past few days, I also spent some time figuring out how Twitter works. I think posting a weekly progress report there could be an engaging format for readers.

But Twitter moves fast—very fast. Posts get buried quickly. Either they catch attention within ten minutes, or they disappear into the void. There is a Highlights feature, but I doubt many people would scroll through all my weekly reports there. That’s why I’ve decided to link those tweets here on my website on the about page —for easy access and a clear overview of my progress as an author.

I also made some changes to the link structure. Linking to my tutorial channel didn’t really make sense anymore. I’m still doing daily tutorials, but that project runs independently on YouTube without any cross-promotion—so I’ve removed it from the About section.

More adjustments will follow as I continue testing and evaluating what works best on each platform.

For now, my focus is mainly on writing updates on Twitter, producing at least one video essay per week, and publishing my short stories here and on Substack for free. Next up is finding out how Amazon’s in-build promotion methods work. I have an idea about using them to find readers, but I don’t know if it’s going to work.

All these plans might change and evolve, but I hope to have a solid system and publishing schedule set up across all platforms I care about by the end of the year.

I’ll keep you updated here on the blog.

I’m Figuring Things Out – No More Transcripts Here

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When I started posting video transcripts from my essay channel here, I thought it would be a helpful addition. But I recently discovered that YouTube now automatically generates transcripts for every video. I have no idea when they introduced this feature—it’s probably been available for quite some time without me noticing. Since the transcript is already provided by default on YouTube, reposting it here doesn’t add any extra value.

So, I’ve decided to stop posting transcripts on this site.

When I launched this blog, my goal was to create a real-time diary of a hobbyist writer trying to build something. That includes learning, making mistakes, and adjusting course along the way. Naturally, that means my approach will change from time to time.

For instance, I originally planned to write weekly posts about storytelling lessons from movies, shows, books, and more. But right now, I’m leaning toward doing that content in video form instead. It helps me reach more people. Just this Monday, I published a video about a storytelling lesson from the movie The Menu, and it reached more viewers on Rumble in two hours than my written post did within an entire week.

I’ve got a bunch of ideas on how to promote my writing and build an audience. Some of them might turn out to be nonsense. That’s part of the process. This blog is a real-time diary, and in real time, there will be plenty of mistakes and course corrections.

The first of those: I’m shifting my focus toward video production and away from regular blogging. But don’t worry—I’ll still keep you posted here about what’s working, what’s not, and what I learn along the way. Yet, video production is my main focus; blogging is only a minor priority, for now.