Strappy Hanukkah and a Raunchy Christmas! 🎄

Many authors choose to celebrate the Solstice holidays with Christmas cards, Christmas-light-strewn graphics, and a cozy, wholesome team holiday gathering with eggnog and fruitcake.

Not me.

I opt to take my team to BurIesque renditions of A Christmas Carol, where Tiny Tim gyrates suggest!vely around a walking cane and the Ghost of Christmas Future grinds it out on stilts to the tunes of The Reaper by the Blue Öyster Cult. 💀🎶

Many of last night's photos aren't appropriate for a public newsletter, but here's a fun photo dump of the ones that made the cut. (That stunning, scantily-clad individual in the bottom-middle square, BTW? Scrooge. 🤣

This year, I am grateful for a number of things:

• My readers.
• My team.
• My loved ones.
• My continued ability to write and share the stories I love.
• And not having to answer to an HR Department.

Merry ChristmaHanuKwanzakkah, everyone! 🎄❄🕎🕯

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An ACTUAL Alternative to Amazon?!?!? 🤯

Some of you might have seen my crash-out last week lamenting about how difficult life can be for indie and hybrid-published authors forced to deal with Amazon. Our books get removed, accounts shut down, royalties continually reduced - all without warning or a path to rectify. I've literally seen careers ruined over some customer service bot thinking an author's own book has been pirated because that same was stolen and listed on an ACTUAL pirate site.

And don't even get me started on how they treat readers, consumers, and reviewers.

That's why I am personally throwing my weight and resources behind a brand-new romantic fantasy platform launching next year called Yearn. It's woman-owned, backed by industry titans (like previous HBO, Meta, and - yup - 'Zon execs), and will give authors a platform to safely and fairly champion their books. It's also got the best of so many bookish worlds: the diverse ebook platform of KU (without all the bots and unfair practices); the robust TBR/review space of Goodreads; and the joy and community of Booktok. It's also got a transparent royalty structure for authors, a matched-income guarantee for those coming from KU, and - honestly? - it's just FUN. Readers will be able to have special badges, awards, and a whole bunch of other stuff I'm not able to talk about... yet. 😉

📗READERS: For those of you who were asking for more info, you can click here to be among the first to be notified when Yearn launches!

🖊AUTHORS: We're being picky about the books we select, but if your titles have magic, kissing, and are high-quality and HUMAN-written, let me know by emailing me at rachel@rachelrener.com. Yearn is hosting a group info call this Thursday and if your books qualify, I'll pass along the meeting information.

For a LONG time, we have all been saying, "If only there were another option..." Well, I think that option has arrived. But it'll only work if we make it work.

So... anyone else out there want to come help us give Mr. Bezos a run for his yacht money? 🙋♀️

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Pink Book Babies!

Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who joined my Ask Me Anything with Heather Renee today!! Heather and I had a BLAST doing an XL (90-minute!!) AMA, are offering the chance to w!n TWO special edition books to anyone who asked a question live or on the form, and might have, uh, spilled the beans about some TOP SECRET projects (that even my own team didn't know about yet - whoops)!

That recording will be posted to my Patreon this week, and all current members will be able to view it.

Speaking of Patreon, the team and I are looking to overhaul my offerings in the coming year. So if you're a Patreon supporter, on the fence, or haven't heard about it until now, please keep an eye out for Ian's communications in the Renergades FB/Discord groups this week, where he'll be asking for your input and ideas for how we can make my Patreon even more exciting in 2026! If you have strong feelings about me rewriting the Gilded Blood series from Zayn's POV, PLEASE make sure you are a current Patreon supporter so I can have all the data I need to make the decision on whether or not to continue the Silver Blood series.

(In case you missed it, the special edition of Inked: Retold has been sent off to the printer!! And yes, there's still time to preorder!)

Lastly, we have a FEW Gilded Blood blackout scratch and dent sets leftover from our holiday sale ($25 off!)! If you have been eyeing this once-in-a-lifetime collector's set, these are the final weeks you'll be able to get it before it's gone!

To those of you waiting on Biscuit and your KS rewards, those are shipping out NOW! Don't forget, you can find all the current updates about that here on Kickstarter.

(Everyone else, you can still preorder Biscuit here! He'll likely start shipping in January :))

HAPPY HOLIDAYS, FRIENDS!!!!

Cheers! 💖

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