Progress Report 2025 Week 49

Real Life Family Events (RLFEs) were back on the agenda this week. One of them was pretty big, too. And that’s not counting the whole Thanksgiving thing! In addition, I may have found a good use for generative AI — a use that doesn’t take work away from human folk. At least, that’s how it looks to me. It’ll be interesting to see what you think. Also, I may or may not have written some new words this week. Let’s take a look at the key performance indicators before we get into any of that!

Last Week’s Progress By the Numbers

Finally I get to report some positive motion on Wayland Hammer Book 3: Lines of Operation!

Between Thanksgiving and a RLFE (quite a big one, in fact), I didn’t get quite as much done as I wanted to. Also, when I started to write Owen Payne’s hook chapter, I realized it was too generic. So I let myself take a day to cast a new character and build a minor bit of intrigue that accomplished my original vision for his hook, plus made it more interesting for the readers. I ended up doing the same thing for Gerhard Wimmer’s first chapter.

Taking that extra time to write a more interesting intro felt like the right thing to do. Which sounds really obvious when I write it down! After all, it’ll set the tone for the rest of the book. It was also a lot of fun! Assuming it’s more interesting to the readers, it looks like everyone wins!

I received the beta read for Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Point of Departure this week. Looks like the fixes that the alpha readers unanimously suggested hit the spot! I just shipped the book off to my proof reader. Unlike Dreams of Deucalion, I’m going to wrap up each book as it’s ready. That should make release time less hectic (and therefore less prone to error).

So, Wayland’s Hammer Book 3: Lines of Operation is now underway, after taking a break starting on August 16, 2025. It had to sit for more than three months because of a mental error on my part. And dang it, I said I was going to stop harping on that!

So. Good news. I’m writing again! Let’s hope I can build momentum now!

Advertising and Generative AI

I’ve talked before about how I considered using Amazon Virtual Voice to narrate Dreams of Deucalion. My reasoning was that I can’t afford a human, so using AI would not deprive any human of income. In the end, I decided to hold off, because I don’t like the experience AI narrative gives a reader. But I’m not dogmatically against it. I just want to see it augment humans, not replace them.

I need to revitalize my Facebook ads for Dreams of Deucalion this week. The old ad has stopped performing (which is routine), and I want to experiment with the new Facebook ad features. It used to be that writers could easily target lookalike audiences that enjoy other authors. Facebook is retiring that functionality (no idea why) in favor of their new, AI-based methods. Smarter people than me have talked about that at length; I’m just interested in the net effect it’ll have on my ads.

Some of that larger discussion helped me understand that giving the algorithm more creative content to work with — more images and videos — helps it tailor what it shows to whom for better effect. So, I’m working on providing just that. I bought a hundred images on DepositPhotos and was able to find several images of modern North Korea that would be perfect if I could age them and hit them with a nuclear fireball.

Guess what generative AI can do?

Consider this picture of what looks like exactly the subway station from Dreams of Deucalion Book 1: Special Recon:

This subway station looks clean and well maintained, doesn’t it?

I uploaded this image to ChatGPT and gave it this prompt:

Consider the image I just uploaded. This is a view from the north east looking southwest. Consider that west is on the right. Can you simulate the effects of decades of decay after fire damage on the west side?

This is the image it gave to me:

I have to say that I was impressed.

The effect was exactly what I was looking for! I paid for the image from DepositPhotos, so a human got their commission. And I got an image that fit perfectly with the setting in my novel. I intend to use this image and others like it in short videos I’ll create in Apple iMovie to use in my Facebook ads.

My plan is to have a series of three or four shots for Trent Raven, Atticus Porter, and Jadwiga Janczak to give readers a sense of what’s in the book. Then I’ll display a dynamic image of the cover. That way, when (if?) they click the link, what they see on Amazon will be exactly what they expect.

I have no idea if this is going to work. But I really want to move more copies of this ebook! I have the Sci-Fi Discovery promotion starting December 3, so it’ll be interesting to see how all of this impact sales.

Progress Against Last Week’s Goals

Here’s how how much I completed last week:

1. Write Owen Payne’s hook: Done!
2. Write Gerhard Wimmer’s hook: Done! I had forgotten how hard it is to write from Wimmer’s perspective. The poor guy has it rough!
3. Write Mortiz Lehner’s hook: Not started! The RLFEs took too much time. Also, I found I wanted to spend a little extra effort making sure I had something more interesting to say for the hooks.
4. Review the beta feedback for Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Point of Departure: Done!
5. Continue working on the Sirius colonial guide: Ongoing! I finished the OmniGraffle representations of all the colonial star systems.

Goals for the Week in Progress Report 2025 Week 49

Here’s what I hope to get done this week:

1. Finish the December Facebook ad campaign for Dreams of Deucalion
2. Monitor the Sci-Fi Discovery promotion for Dreams of Deucalion
3. Finish writing Moritz Lehner’s hook
4. Write Owen Payne’s plot turn 1
5. Write Gerhard Wimmer’s plot turn 1
6. Continue working on the Sirius colonial guide

What Do You Think?

Do you think it’s okay to use generative AI to augment stock images for marketing purposes? Why or why not? I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments!