Author: Marissa DeCuir

A former award-winning journalist with national exposure, Marissa now oversees the day-to-day operation of the Books Forward author branding and book marketing firm, along with our indie publishing support sister company Books Fluent. Born and bred in Louisiana, currently living in New Orleans, she has lived and developed a strong base for our company and authors in Chicago and Nashville. Her journalism work has appeared in USA Today, National Geographic and other major publications. She is now interviewed by media on best practices for book marketing.

So you got a book review — now what?

Posted on | by Marissa DeCuir | Leave a Comment on So you got a book review — now what?

Ah, the coveted book review. Every author wants them, and everyone in the industry talks about how important they are.

But have you ever stopped to think about why that might be and how exactly you can use a review to benefit your book and author brand?

First thing’s first, let’s talk about ways you can secure book reviews:

  • Be sure you are ready to start soliciting reviews. ARCs are perfectly fine, but create these after the copy editing and proofread process.
  • Consider your goal of why you want reviews and how you plan to utilize them, and this will help you decide between consumer and professional reviews (a mix of reader buzz and premiere publications is best!)
  • If you’re a new publisher, start a blurb program with authors you have published. If you’re an author, reach out personally to fellow authors on similar publishing journeys who write in your genre.
  • Reach out to authors of comparable books, as well as the reviewers, influencers and media outlets that have covered them.
  • Submit the book for free and/or paid review programs with industry publications (Foreword, BookLife, BookPage, Kirkus, School Library Journal, etc.)
  • Consider other options with media if the book is not accepted for review (reading list, excerpt, guest article from the author, etc.)
  • List the book on NetGalley and Edelweiss.
  • Coordinate a Goodreads giveaway, as well as a giveaway with LibraryThing.
  • Think outside the box: Does the author have any bookseller or librarian supporters who may provide a blurb?
  • Pull reader reviews from retail listings.
  • Follow submission guidelines closely: Be mindful of deadlines, editorial calendars and specific information requested – whether for a trade publication or book blogger.

Now that you’ve built up reviews, blurbs and other accolades, what in the world do you do with them? There are plenty of ways you can maximize the impact of your reviews:

  • Add the most compelling review quotes and premiere endorsements to the book’s front and/or back cover, and use additional quotes on an inside praise page.
  • Also highlight the catchiest and most compelling quotes at the start of the book description on online retail pages, as well as others in the Editorial Reviews section on Amazon and metadata with Ingram to help populate things like the Overview section on Barnes & Noble.
  • Add reviews to the press kit and any other marketing materials.
  • Mention the earliest reviews and blurbs garnered when reaching out to secure other potential reviews.
  • Include quotes on NetGalley and Edelweiss listings.
  • Have the author add reviews and other media coverage to their author website.
  • Use them in advertising copy.

These effective book marketing tactics will help you take your book to the next level!

Originally published May 4, 2022.

Books paired with Djo songs to celebrate the release of The Crux

Posted on | by Marissa DeCuir

Following his viral hit “End of Beginning”,  Djo, aka Joe Keery (yes, that Joe Keery), is finally back with his third album and I could not be more excited. His two singles “Basic Being Basic” and “Delete Ya” have only been out for a few weeks and they have already made their way to my top streamed songs in the past six months. To prepare for The Crux’s release on April 4th, we’ve put together a book list that features the vibes and themes of his first two albums.

“On and On” paired with “No One Is Talking About This” by Patricia Lockwood

“Scrolling on and on and on /

Feed the algorithm some”

A woman recently elevated to prominence for her social media posts travels around the world to meet her adoring fans. She is overwhelmed by navigating the new language and etiquette of what she terms “the portal,” where she grapples with an unshakable conviction that a vast chorus of voices is now dictating her thoughts. When existential threats–from climate change and economic precariousness to the rise of an unnamed dictator and an epidemic of loneliness–begin to loom, she posts her way deeper into the portal’s void. 

“Delete Ya” paired with “Tell Me An Ending” by Jo Harkin

“Oh God, I wish I could delete ya /

Cause nothin can compete with ya” “Wind it back and never be with ya /

Then I’d be happy just to meet ya” 

Thousands of people across the world are shocked by a notification that they chose to have a memory removed. They are now being given an opportunity to get that memory back. Four individuals are filled with new doubts, grappling with the unexpected question of whether to remember unknown events, or to leave them buried forever. Noor, a psychologist working at the memory removal clinic, begins to reinstate patients’ memories, and the moral foundations of her world are shaken. As she delves deeper into how the program works, she will have to risk everything to uncover the cost of this miraculous technology.

“Half Life” paired with “Y/N” by Esther Yi 

“You think these people really care for you? /

You think they will be there for you? /

Plugged in, that’s a half life”

It’s as if her life only began once Moon appeared in it. The desultory copywriting work, the boyfriend, and the want of anything not-Moon quickly fall away when she beholds the idol in concert, where Moon dances as if his movements are creating their own gravitational field; on livestreams, as fans from around the world comment in dozens of languages; even on skincare products endorsed by the wildly popular Korean boyband, of which Moon is the youngest, most luminous member. Seized by ineffable desire, our unnamed narrator begins writing Y/N fanfic—in which you, the reader, insert [Your/Name] and play out an intimate relationship with the unattainable star.

“Chateau (Feel Alright)” paired with “Happy Place” by Emily Henry 

“ I turn back the time /

I’m at the Chateau and I feel alright”

Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college. But they broke up five months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends. Which is how they find themselves sharing a bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade. And this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends’ hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. How hard can it be to fake it for one week…in front of those who know you best?

“Just Along for the Ride” paired with “Followers” by Megan Angelo

“It’s stranger than I thought /

My anonymity is gone”

Orla Cadden is a budding novelist stuck in a dead-end job, writing clickbait about movie-star hookups and influencer yoga moves. Floss–a striving, wannabe A-lister–who comes up with a plan for launching them both into the high-profile lives they dream about. Thirty-five years later, in a closed California village where government-appointed celebrities live every moment of the day on camera, a woman named Marlow discovers a shattering secret about her past. Despite her massive popularity–twelve million loyal followers–Marlow finally summons the courage to run in search of the truth. Followers traces the paths of Orla, Floss and Marlow as they wind through time toward each other, and toward a cataclysmic event that sends America into lasting upheaval.

“BNBG” paired with “The Right Swipe” by Alisha Rai 

“I met somebody in a different way /

I just to think it was wrong /

Try licking letters in a virtual way” 

Rhiannon Hunter may have revolutionized romance in the digital world, but in real life she only swipes right on her career—and the occasional hookup. Former pro-football player Samson Lima woos her one magical night but then he disappears.  Rhi thought she’d buried her hurt over Samson ghosting her, until he suddenly surfaces months later, still big, still beautiful—and in league with a business rival. He says he won’t fumble their second chance, but she’s wary. A temporary physical partnership is one thing, but a merger of hearts? 

“Gloom” paired with “Swing Time” by Zadie Smith

“I told you that our friendship couldn’t handle much more /

But then you went behind my back to settle the score” 

Two brown girls dream of being dancers—but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, about black bodies and black music, what constitutes a tribe, or makes a person truly free. It’s a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten, either.

“Climax” paired with “Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World” by Naomi Klein

“I know you, I swear I’ve seen your face before /

Must be true /

I saw it through the open door /

Something new, an older me I met before /

Deja vu”

What if you woke up one morning and found you’d acquired another self—a double who was almost you and yet not you at all? What if that double shared many of your preoccupations but, in a twisted, upside-down way, furthered the very causes you’d devoted your life to fighting against? Not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein had just such an experience—she was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and public persona were sufficiently similar to her own that many people got confused about who was who. Destabilized, she lost her bearings, until she began to understand the experience as one manifestation of a strangeness many of us have come to know but struggle to define: AI-generated text is blurring the line between genuine and spurious communication; New Age wellness entrepreneurs turned anti-vaxxers are scrambling familiar political allegiances of left and right; and liberal democracies are teetering on the edge of absurdist authoritarianism, even as the oceans rise. Under such conditions, reality itself seems to have become unmoored. Is there a cure for our moment of collective vertigo?

“End of Beginning” paired with “Never Let Me Go” by Kazuo Ishiguro

“Another version of me, I was in it /

Oh, I wave goodbye to the end of beginning” 

As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were.

Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life. And for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special—and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together.

Bonus: “Truly, Madly, Deeply” by Alexandria Bellefleur

I don’t have a song to pair with this book. But Bellefleur clearly picked Joe Keery as her fancast for the male lead. I will admit, I did purchase a copy of this book because of that. Marketing works! 

Award winning journalist Maura Casey’s memoir of hope amid tumult

Posted on | by Marissa DeCuir

NYT opinion writer Maura Casey tells of her family’s journey from chaos to grace

In her debut memoir, “Saving Ellen: A Memoir of Hope and Recovery” (Skyhorse Publishing, April 1, 2025), journalist Maura Casey crafts a vivid and poignant narrative of a working-class family’s resilience in the face of a terminal diagnosis.

Financial privation and her father’s drunken scenes formed the backdrop to Casey’s childhood, but her sister Ellen’s years-long struggle with kidney disease consumed her whole family. Determined to see Ellen live to adulthood, her mother fought medical advice to donate a kidney at a time when organ transplants were  medical miracles. She concealed the true impact of that decision, which would affect their large Irish family for years to come.

Set in Buffalo amidst the tumult of the 1960s and 70s, “Saving Ellen” traces the author’s recovery from alcoholism and sexual assault and tells of her irrepressible older sister Ellen, who fought to claim her dream of becoming an athlete; her smart, feminist mother, whose World War II Army service prepared her to manage her own platoon of six children; and her adulterous, alcoholic father who, at the end, was haunted by his shortcomings and  regrets. Despite hard truths, “Saving Ellen” is ultimately a story of humor at unexpected moments as well as the grace of reconciliation and gratitude.

“Saving Ellen: A Memoir of Hope and Recovery”

Maura Casey | April 1, 2025 | Skyhorse Publishing | Memoir 

Hardcover | ISBN: 978-1-5107-8077-4 | $32.99 

Maura Casey grew up in an Irish-American family in Buffalo, New York, the youngest of six children. For more than 30 years, Casey was an opinion writer for three New England newspapers and The New York Times, where she had a seat on the exalted Times editorial board. Over the course of her career, Casey won 45 state, regional and national awards for her writing. She and her husband Pete have two adult children and two grandchildren. They live on a small Connecticut farm with their two dogs and a barn cat. Casey writes a weekly column, Casey’s Catch, (https://maurac.substack.com), and when the breeze is right, she coasts on Long Island Sound in her sailboat, Second Wind. “Saving Ellen” (Skyhorse Publishing, April 1, 2025) is her first book. Find out more about her at www.caseyink.com.

Follow Maura Casey on Instagram @author.maura.casey and Substack @maurac

Praise for “Saving Ellen”

“I loved this book: it gives a fascinating insight into an Irish Catholic family in Buffalo in the very early days of renal transplants. As one of Ellen’s doctors, I knew something about the limitations of treatment for kidney failure at the time, and the difficult choices that her family – and Ellen – faced. I was fascinated to hear the whole story, with the domestic turmoil, told with biting humor – and the final reconciliation.” 

– Dr. Mary Hawking, sister of theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking

“Saving Ellen broke my heart and renewed my belief in the triumph of the human spirit—sometimes in the same chapter!  The Casey family story is one I’ll fondly recall long after other memoirs will have faded from memory.” 

– Wally Lamb, author of “She’s Come Undone”

“Saving Ellen is a shimmering memoir of childhood, tender and honest, full of tumult and complicated love. It’s a stunning portrait of an Irish Catholic family, but the heart of the story, and the beauty of how the Caseys love each other through it all, is universal. It’s a brilliant book.” 

– Luanne Rice, author of “Last Day” and “The Shadow Box”

“I love this brilliant, stunning, shattering memoir about a complicated, tight-knit family. While reading it, I laughed out loud and I wept. Maura Casey writes masterfully about a mother’s devotion, and a daughter’s evolution into becoming a woman and a writer. Unforgettable.”

–  J.Courtney Sullivan, author of “Maine” and “The Cliffs” 

“This is a story for anyone who has refused to give up on someone, including themselves. With her skills as a veteran journalist, Casey takes us on a journey through the nooks and crannies of working-class life, which is always hard but full of people who insist on joy, too. With her ever-expanding heart, she helps us find the words for unspeakable grief and the map to forgiveness.” 

– Connie Schultz, Pulitzer prize winner and author of “Daughters of Erietown” 

An Interview with Maura Casey

“Saving Ellen” explores deeply personal family dynamics, including illness, addiction and recovery. Why did you want to share these intimate details of your family and childhood? 

First, I wanted to tell a story. After I read all my diaries from that period I realized they contained a distinct narrative arc, and alcoholism – which affected my family for generations – was part of it. Addiction is a universal disease and struggles with it are nothing new. But through the journals, I could trace the beginning of my own love affair with alcohol starting when I was a teenager. As I wrote, I realized that booze was a character in the book just as much as any member of the family. Without discussing those details, the story would be incomplete. 

What was it like growing up in Buffalo, New York, during the 1960s and ‘70s?

When I was growing up, women simply did not have the choices that they have today. Women could not be altar servers or even sing in our church choir. Virtually all sports were closed to women. Jobs women obtained paid little and were sharply segregated by gender. Want ads had skimpy columns of “jobs for women” and far more full columns of “jobs for men.” My sister’s desire to row like our brothers at the West Side Rowing Club, which was closed to women for decades, became a sub-plot of the book. 

In your book, you describe your father as deeply flawed but capable of redemption. Did your perspective on him change as you wrote this book?

My father was deeply Catholic, and he knew he screwed up. He never stopped feeling guilty about how he mistreated the family in the throes of his alcoholism. It literally kept him awake many nights. And he was honest with us later, and apologetic. My view of him changed over the years.  As I grew older, I became more forgiving. I never envied him or the hell he experienced in the years of remorse he felt.  

What do you hope readers will take away from your mother’s story of courage and sacrifice in donating her kidney to your sister, Ellen?

Kidney transplants are now ordinary, but kidney disease is still debilitating. I appreciate  all that patients and their donors go through. Like my own mom, women everywhere are far more likely to donate than men. (Source: “When Death becomes Life: Notes from a Transplant Surgeon” by Joshua Mezrich, MD, page 297) 

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Mary Magdalene is pissed. After two millennia, she’s ready to set the record straight.

Posted on | by Marissa DeCuir

Jesus’s ‘favorite disciple’ reclaims the narrative in new historical fiction

Washington D.C. – What would Jesus do? Or, more importantly, what will Magda do? “Magda Revealed” (She Writes Press, April 8th, 2025) is a wry, irreverent, fictionalized account of his life and ministry—told from the perspective of disciple Mary Magdalene—that will implode everything you thought you knew. 

Jesus Christ—Yeshua, to his friends—is not happy. Two thousand years after his death, he sees Earth heading toward oblivion. Ever eager to save humanity, he asks Mary Magdalene (Magda) for help. Still angry that she’s been called a whore for almost two millennia, Magda resists—but ultimately, out of love for Yeshua, agrees.

Magda’s evocative story revisits Yeshua’s life, depicting him as a man of flesh and blood, one wholly devoted to spreading his message of radical equality. Magda recounts her travels with Yeshua and his followers around Galilee, where they are menaced at every turn by Roman rulers. She weaves tales of miracles and murder, jealousy and acceptance, misogyny and female empowerment. She uncovers her relationship with Yeshua, clarifying centuries of speculation about whether or not they were in love. And, painfully, she reveals the truth about who orchestrated his death.

Magda’s life with Yeshua teaches her that she has more strength than she ever imagined, and she begins to tap into a spiritual power uniquely her own—the power to connect people. Magda’s true role in the history of humanity, it turns out, is just beginning to unfold.

“Wickedly clever, yet respectful in its bold retelling, this is an inventive, immersive, and enthralling tale, reminding readers that written history rarely captures the whole story.” 

– SPR Reviews  

“Magda Revealed”

Ursula Werner | April 8, 2025 | She Writes Press | Historical Fiction 

Paperback | 978-1647428648 | $17.99

Ebook | 978-1647428655 | $12.99

Ursula Werner has been writing for over twenty-five years. She has published one novel, The Good at Heart (2017), and two chapbooks of poetry, The Silence of the Woodruff (2006) and Rapunzel Revisited (2010).  Werner holds graduate degrees in English literature and law and works part-time as an attorney. She and her husband live in Washington, DC. Find out more about them at her website.

Follow Ursula Werner on social media:

Facebook: @UrsulaWerner 

Instagram: @UrsulaWerner_Author

In an interview, Ursula Werner can discuss:

  • The historical implications of Magda’s story, and how it impacts religion & feminism today 
  • Why Ursula felt drawn to the history of Mary Magdalene, and how she hopes “Magda Revealed” “sets the record straight” about Magda’s reputation 
  • How her philosophy of “uncovering truth, justice, and history through storytelling” is important in today’s political and social climate  
  • Researching Mary Mary Magdalene and creating a compelling fictional narrative 
  • Why it is timely and critical for feminist-driven stories to give a platform to marginalized voices silenced by history
  • The disconnect between today’s political climate and religious beliefs: What did Jesus really teach and believe? How can people vote for morally bankrupt politicians who call themselves Christian? 

Praise for “Magda Revealed” 

2024 Firebird Award Winner for Best Christian Fiction 

Co-winner of the Pinnacle Book Achievement Award in Fiction for Winter 2024

“Fresh take on the story of Jesus, from Mary Magdalene’s perspective…Fans of historical retellings will be captivated.” 

–BookLife Reviews, Editor’s Pick 

“A message of love and equality is centered in Magda Revealed, a piquing alternative historical novel that reconstitutes a figure whose significance was buried in the Bible.”

–Foreword Reviews 

An Interview with Ursula Werner

1. Why is Mary Magdalene important today?

If Jesus Christ is important today, then so is Mary Magdalene.

Now, not everyone will agree with the ongoing importance of Jesus, especially non-Christians. But the messages Jesus tried to bring to humankind – love each other as yourselves, tolerate your differences, forgive each other your wrongs – are messages that withstand the test of time.

Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ right-hand woman. More than anyone else – even other apostles – she understood what Jesus was trying to say. She was the apostle Jesus told others to turn to for guidance after his death. In fact, in 2022, after 2000 years of falsely labeling Mary Magdalene a whore, the Catholic Church finally acknowledged her importance, hailing her as the “apostle to the apostles.” 

2. How has Jesus’ message gotten hijacked through the ages and how does your re-telling share the truth?

Jesus’ message to humanity in the first century was a simple one with profound implications: Everyone is equal. Everything Jesus said and did underscored his belief that all people are inherently the same, regardless of race, nationality, or economic position.  

In fact, a fundamental premise of all Christianity today – that humans can only be “saved” if they adopt Christ as their savior – would flat-out be rejected by Magda and Jesus. Jesus never demanded that people believe in him, nor did he think of himself as divine. (This last assertion might be disputed by New Testament theologians, but I believe it is consistent with the historical Jesus presented by most historians.) 

3. Tell us more about your writing of “uncovering truth, justice, and history through story-telling.” How is this mindset especially important as an author writing in today’s political and social climate? 

I love to tell stories, and I love language. Though, I didn’t know that my concern for social justice would end up informing my novels as much as it does. I thought, when I began my narrative about Magda, that hers would be a story of intense love and devotion, and it is that. But it is also a story of re-making society – how does one begin doing that, and is it even possible? 

The superpower that Magda has (spoiler alert here!) – uniting people together, merging their spirits – is her first step in reforming society. If you experience someone else as you experience yourself, how can you turn around and hurt them? As an author, my only superpower (if I’m being effective) is to expand the reader’s world, to introduce them to an experience they would otherwise not have had.  And maybe even, to give them a more compassionate view of the world. We could certainly use more compassion in the current political and social climate.

4. What do you hope readers will take away from this story? 

Ideally, I would love readers to take away two ideas. First, what I think of as Jesus’ primary message – that we are all basically the same and that we should look past superficial differences and try to connect with each other. (One reviewer of Magda Revealed chastised me for reducing the complexities of “Christian theological categories” into this “exasperatingly simple” message. That person, I respectively submit, completely missed the point.)

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Bestselling author investigates the life and lore of his ninth-great-grandfather and one of the world’s most famous outlaws: Captain William Kidd

Posted on | by Marissa DeCuir

DENVER, Colorado – In “Captain Kidd: A True Story of Treasure and Betrayal” (Diversion Books/Simon & Schuster, May 13, 2025) bestselling author Samuel Marquis delves into the legendary life of his own ninth-great-grandfather, Captain William Kidd (1654–1701), casting new light on one of history’s most infamous figures.

Captain Kidd has captivated imaginations for over 300 years and inspired many stories about pirates. But was he really a criminal? Just how many ships did he plunder? How many men did he force to walk the plank? And how many throats did he slit? Or is the truth more inconvenient? That he was a buccaneer’s worst nightmare, a revered pirate hunter turned fall guy for scheming politicians? 

In “Captain Kidd,” Marquis reveals the real story. Kidd was an English-American privateer and leading New York husband and father. He was dubbed “trusty and well-beloved” by the King of England himself and described by historians as a “worthy, honest-hearted, steadfast, much-enduring sailor” who was the “victim of a deliberate travesty of justice.” With honors far more esteemed than the menacing Blackbeard or any other sea rover at the turn of the 17th century, how can Kidd be considered both gentleman and pirate, both hero and villain?

“Captain Kidd: A True Story of Treasure and Betrayal”

Samuel Marquis | May 13, 2025 | Diversion Books | Nonfiction / History 

Hardcover | ISBN: 978-1635769685 | $34.99 

About the Author

The ninth-great-grandson of legendary privateer Captain William Kidd, Samuel Marquis, M.S., P.G., is a professional hydrogeologist, expert witness, and bestselling, award-winning author of 12 American nonfiction-history, historical fiction, and suspense books, covering primarily the period from colonial America through WWII.

His American history and historical fiction books have been #1 Denver Post and Amazon bestsellers and received multiple national book awards in both fiction and non-fiction categories (Kirkus Reviews and Foreword Reviews Book of the Year, American Book Fest and USA Best Book, Readers’ Favorite, Colorado Book Awards). Marquis’ historical titles have also garnered glowing reviews from #1 bestseller James Patterson, maritime historians, U.S. military veterans, Kirkus Reviews, and Foreword Reviews (5 Stars). His pirate book “Blackbeard: The Birth of America” has been an Amazon #1 Bestseller in Colonial Period History of the U.S.

Marquis lives with his wife in Louisville, Colorado, where they raised their three children. Find out more about him at samuelmarquisbooks.com. 

Follow Samuel Marquis on social media:

Facebook: @samuelmarquisbooks | Twitter (X): @Sammarquisbooks 

Instagram: @sammarquisbooks 

Early Praise for 

“Captain Kidd: A True Story of Treasure and Betrayal”

“A swashbuckling account of privateers, pirates, and pirate brokers on the Caribbean high seas at the dawn of the 18th century. With Captain Kidd, Samuel Marquis deftly separates the man from the myth in a riveting narrative that includes a compelling cast of characters, cannon fire, sword fights, mutiny, and treasure—all with the fate of empires hanging in the balance. A rollicking tale that proves that true stories are the best ones.”

—Buddy Levy, bestselling author of Realm of Ice & Sky and Empire of Ice and Stone

“Marquis paints the life of the inimitable Captain Kidd in bold, rich colors. A dashing, absorbing tale.” 

—Stephan Talty, bestselling author of Empire of Blue Water

An Interview with Samuel Marquis

How and when did you first discover you were related to the legendary Captain William Kidd? 

My parents and relatives told me at an early age that I was the ninth-great-grandson of Captain Kidd based upon our Marquis family tree on my father’s side. However, the stories I heard represented the traditional British Crown and East India Company narrative that he was a New York gentleman who went off the rails and “turned arch-pirate” — which is complete balderdash.

What was it like reexamining an ancestor with such a controversial past? How did your familial connection shape how you researched and approached this book? 

As a professional scientist and hydrogeologic expert witness in addition to being an American history author, my approach was to research and write the book as a scholarly historian and not as a family descendant. At the same time, it was important to me to present a sympathetic portrayal of Kidd. He has been badly mischaracterized and maligned as a vicious cutthroat and arch-pirate over the centuries. All due to the original anti-piracy propaganda campaign in the late 1690s by the English Crown and East India Company.

Why do you think Captain Kidd’s legacy stays with us more than other impactful people from his time? Why do you think his tale continues to capture the imagination of so many people? 

Over the centuries, Captain Kidd has come to define the “pirate” brand even though he was never actually a pirate. He remains such a pivotal figure in the history of piracy because of his unique and complicated life story and career trajectory; his key role in the creation of buried-pirate-treasure mythology; his ridiculously unfair trial in which the English Crown illegally stacked the deck to win its case against him; and his Forrest-Gump-like connection to a wide variety of important historical events and people from 1689-1701. 

Did Captain Kidd really bury treasure here in the United States – and be honest, have you ever looked for it?

 Most, if not all, of this “treasure” was tracked down and seized by Kidd’s treacherous business partner and sponsor of his Indian Ocean voyage, Lord Bellomont. Bellomont was the royal governor of New York, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, who arrested and imprisoned him. Thus, Captain Kidd did not “bury” treasure in the way that we have come to know from Treasure Island and Pirates of the Caribbean. 

What do you hope people will take away from this book?

I want my readers to see Captain Kidd as he truly was, as a gray-shaded colonial American hero, and not as the villainous, heartless, dastardly, and fiendish arch-pirate, as falsely created by the English Crown and East India Company, who made him out to be a monster to suit their own political agenda. Perhaps my dedication at the beginning of the book sums up the Captain Kidd legacy best:

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From a high stress career in global advertising to a simple rural life in a barn in an Italian hill town

Posted on | by Marissa DeCuir

A writer’s journey of transformation through love, food and community in Piemonte 

SAN FRANCISCO – Barbara Boyle’s inspirational new memoir, “Pinch Me: Waking Up in a 300-Year-Old Italian Farmhouse” (She Writes Press, Feb. 11, 2025) is an evocative account of leaving the frenetic life of an advertising creative director to create a dream life in the faraway hills of Northern Italy.

Newly retired and traveling through Europe, Barbara stumbles upon the ancient Italian hill town of Monforte.  She is enchanted by the castles and the sweeping vistas reaching out to the Alps, captivated by the region’s cuisine, and confounded by its extraordinary culture of kindness. One morning, she awakes and looking out over the valleys, finds herself longing to be there in her own home, drinking her coffee and watching the sunrise. 

This is the story of how she leaves her life behind in San Francisco and takes apart a 300-year-old stone barn to build a new home, a new life, in Italy. It’s a tale filled with discoveries, disappointments, pleasures, frustrations, and triumphs. And given the gastronomic excellence of the region, she shares some special recipes as well. Ultimately, this journey lets her see the world, and herself, through a different window. It’s a memoir filled with food, friendships, and scenes of Italy, of love and the powerful joy that comes from building a dream.

“Pinch Me: Waking Up in a 300-Year-Old Italian Farmhouse”

Barbara Boyle | Feb. 11, 2025 | She Writes Press | Memoir 

Paperback | ISBN: 978-1647428327  | $17.99 

About the Author

For years, Barbara Boyle enjoyed a colorful worldwide career as a creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi, Grey, Lowe and other advertising agencies, creating commercials and stories for Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Mars Inc, and dozens of other marketers. Always a writer, this is the first time she has had the time required to author a book. Her flash fiction has appeared in Sky Island Journal, Star 82 Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, and other literary journals.

Food and wine have also been a lifelong passion of hers. While living in Paris, she took the Regional French Cuisine course at Le Cordon Bleu and later completed the professional cooking course at The Institute of Culinary Education in New York. She now resides in a farmhouse in Piemonte, Italy with her husband, Kim, surrounded by orchards, vineyards and barking deer, and maintains a home in San Francisco. Find out more about her at https://www.barbaraboyleauthor.com/ and https://boyleb.substack.com/. 

Follow Barbara Boyle on Instagram: @barbaraannboyle10 

An Interview with Barbara Boyle

In your book, you talk about t retirement as an opportunity for reinvention. Can you elaborate on that? 

Retirement is a unique time. You have experience, and you have time, and if you are lucky enough to have good health, you have nothing holding you back from going for an exciting new chapter. Sure, you could put your feet up and take it easy, but I found that learning a new language, a new cuisine, a new culture and way of life, is invigorating and very satisfying. I could not have imagined how joyous this chapter of my life could be.

Moving abroad already comes with its challenges. Why did you decide to renovate a 300-year-old barn into a beautiful new home brimming with charm and character?

We just took it one step at a time. It did not cost too much money to buy the home, by U.S. standards. And we took the reconstruction one step at a time too. The roof, the structure, the finishes, and at each turn we thought, if we had to sell now, we would not have lost much, and this would have been a great adventure. We were also lucky in that we found a great builder who knew his stuff, and was a good, kind person who we trusted. That was key.

How did you and your husband immerse yourselves in your new community? How did you forge and maintain meaningful connections? Did you experience any resistance from locals not wanting Americans moving into the region? 

After living in Paris before this, I was shocked at how welcoming the Italians were. There had been a few Americans as frequent visitors to the area before us, kind, gracious Americans, who helped to build trust in our country. But honestly, Italians still credit Americans for helping them win the war in their backyard, World War II, so they were predisposed to like us. And we were still a novelty; not many Americans live here full time. Other than that, we just lived our life with respect for their culture. And we tried to learn the language and do what we would do anywhere. They all knew who we were, it was such a small community, and we just tried to be ourselves. Before we knew it, friendships formed. It was pretty magical.

PRAISE FOR “PINCH ME” BY BARBARA BOYLE

“Richly evoked. … The process of restoring the house makes for a satisfying read, in part because it fulfills the fantasy many readers have likely had and never acted on.”

Kirkus Reviews

“Barbara does what many of us dream about—escapes a familiar life and creates an extraordinary, idyllic one in a faraway land. Authentic, deeply personal, and unfailingly optimistic, Barbara’s tale nevertheless has a real-life plot twist, her triple-negative breast cancer diagnosis. This unique adventure is a joy to read and leaves us remembering the importance of sometimes seeing the world through a different window to find what matters in life.” 

Maxine Paetro, #1 New York Times bestselling co-author with James Patterson

“A captivating memoir about falling in love with a rustic village in Italy, renovating an ancient farmhouse and bringing a dream to life. With warmth and wit, Barbara Boyle envelopes you in an unhurried world of ripe vineyards, fairytale castles, and mouthwatering meals (recipes included). Bellissima!” 

Terry Trucco, frequent contributor The New York Times, and Martha Stewart Living

“Truly immersive and a lovely read, ‘Pinch Me’ feels like curling up with your favorite blanket and binging HGTV, The Food Network and The Travel Channel … all at once.  This inspiring memoir shows readers that you can make that far away dream a reality.” Shelby Saville, author of And They Had a Great Fall and CIO, Publicis US

Download press kit and photos

Industry Interview with the creator of of StoryTimeTeen, James Tilton

Posted on | by Marissa DeCuir

For our 2024 blog series, we’re highlighting industry professionals to find out more about their time in the book world. Follow along for insight on what catches a reviewer’s interest, things to avoid when pitching a media outlet, what librarians are searching for and more. 

Today, we’re chatting with James Tilton, the creator of StoryTimeTeen and a Creative Writing teacher at his local public high school, where he’s helped hundreds of students publish poems, vignettes, and short stories for distribution at a nearby independent bookstore. He’s hoping one day he can see his own words in print as well.

1. As someone who hears about A LOT of books, what makes one stand out to you?

I’m always a sucker for new titles from authors I already love. Nic Stone and Becky Albertalli come to mind especially. I’ll read anything they write, and I suspect their teams are well aware of that at this point!

2. What’s the worst thing an author (or publicist!) can do in telling you about book they’d like you to consider for coverage?

I know that some people say “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” but I’m a sucker for a good cover. If you’ve got a great cover, include it at the bottom of your email. I love seeing stunning covers! It’s how I first fell in love with Nicola Yoon‘s A Sun Is Also A Star.

3. What makes your job at StoryTimeTeen easier?

We at StoryTimeTeen have a long-running series where young adult authors write letters to their teen selves. It’s incredible! We get the most honest, heart-breaking/warming letters from the most incredible authors, and it’s truly a pleasure to publish them. BUT sometimes those same amazing authors and publicists assume that we already have their bio, headshots, and book covers or can find that information easily online. The problem is that those things change sometimes, and it can be a little tricky to know if we got the right bio or the finalized cover or the most recent bio. Authors and publicists who remember to send that information to us, whether via email or as a Google Drive link, are my favorite! That simple step saves us tons of time and can help us make sure we’re getting everything right before the post goes live.

4. What’s the most memorable (or maybe funniest) pitch that’s ever come your way?

I’m a sucker for wordplay. One of my favorite pitches recently came from Books Forward actually. You pitched Tracy Badua‘s newest book as “When A Music Festie With Your Bestie Gets Testy.” That headline grabbed me. I guess you could say I thought it was the… bestie. Too much? I’ll stop.

5. Did you always know you wanted to be involved in the book world?

I got involved in book blogging when I first started writing young adult novels myself. My agent thought it would be a good way for me to find a bookish community, and I’m so glad I listened to her. I’m a high school teacher as well, and I’ve found so many books that I can recommend to my students. We’ve even got a book club now and take regular field trips to local book festivals, including YALLWest, where I was lucky enough to be honored with a Purple Ink Award. None of that would have happened if it wasn’t for book blogging.

6. What is your most recommended book and why?

That’s such a hard question, and it’s why I created an algorithm to do it for me. It takes a reader’s bookish preferences and gives them a personalized recommendation in less than a minute. I call it the Book Rec Generator, and it’s one of the things that really sets StoryTimeTeen apart! You can try it here.

7. What is a book that surprised you recently?

I just finished TJ Klune‘s In The Lives Of Puppets this morning, and it was incredible. It’s this Pinocchio retelling set in the future that manages to be laugh-out-loud funny and still have so much heart. His writing always makes me fall in love with being human, and this book is no exception.

8. What is your favorite part about working in the book community?

The free books, for sure. I think it’s my students’ favorite part too. My classroom library is loaded at this point, and they love it!

Exploring AI: Limitations and legalities

Posted on | by Marissa DeCuir

Content alert: the following was written by a human.

Books Forward is chatting with Dr. Andrew Burt. Burt is the author of lots of published science fiction, including his newest novel, “Termination of Species,” for those who like AI, biotech, chess and a bit of romance.

Dr. Burt was VP of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) for several years. He heads Critters, the first writers workshop on the web and home to other writerly resources. He runs ReAnimus Press and Hugo-winning Advent Publishers, helping award-winning and bestselling authors breathe life into great books. Outside of writing, he’s been a computer science professor (AI, networking, security, privacy and free-speech/social issues). He’s the founder of Nyx.net, the world’s first Internet Service Provider. And he’s also a technology consultant/author/speaker. For a hobby, he constructs solutions to the world’s problems. (He jokes: Fortunately, nobody listens.)

PART 1: Changes in publishing

What can AI NOT do?

There are plenty of non-writing related aspects that AI won’t help with; at least for now.

The current breed of AI is focused on creating content, not so much on finding answers to questions or planning. So ChatGPT isn’t going to be great at finding a list of places to advertise, but it can help write ads. It could regurgitate ideas for marketing plans that it’s found that others have written, but AI’s can’t yet really plan such things. Remember, it’s all based on the probability of what word could come next in an answer.

That’s just today’s AIs. Nobody foresaw ChatGPT’s capabilities just a couple years ago; it just popped up based on AI people trying things with huge amounts of data. (And, frankly, getting surprised at the result.) Tomorrow’s AIs… who knows. That’s one reason I wrote a novel about where AIs and humans might be going.

What should authors be wary about when it comes to using AI?

If a newbie wants to use AI to write their whole book/story/article, then it won’t really be “theirs”; it won’t be their own artistic creation. And if the goal of a certain author is to breathe life into their own artistic creation, then the more they use AI the less they’re doing that.

If an author’s goal is to make money, by quickly creating some particular text, then AI is getting pretty close to that in a number of areas. Again, the shorter the text, the better AI will be at it. A lot of AI generated text won’t be salable, though; so don’t bother trying to get rich quick by sending in a bunch of AI stories or books to get published. (As many people are doing, clogging the slush piles of publishers. This ultimately hurts new authors, as publishers shut their doors to slush and only accept work from authors they know, or via agents or other forms of vetting.)

If an author does want to create “art,” they should minimize the use of AI. That applies to any use of it, for idea generation, editing for length, smoothing out word choices, or critiquing—any of that reduces their artistic input.

A big problem with AI content is that it often contains factually incorrect information. So, never rely on AI content to be correct. The technical term for it is “hallucination,” but the lay term for it is “lying.” I wrote a couple blog posts about this showing how insidious their lying is. Generative AI’s are structurally incapable of telling true from false information (they are literally making randomized guesses at what the next word in a sentence might sound good), so I’ll repeat this: Never rely on them for factual accuracy.

Sounds like AI

Another pitfall to be aware of with AI created text is that it tends to have a certain style about it. It can often come off as bland, corporate, uninspired or generic. AI’s are, after all, mimicking the sort of “average of everything ever written” in their approach. Even if you ask it for a certain style, the way these AIs work is by looking for the most generic output. They look for the “most likely” next word that follows the words they have so far. Then they look for the “most likely” next word after that, and the next. This inevitably produces a sort of non-unique style, or if you ask it for a specific style, like “write like a pirate”, you get a generic version of a requested style.

To further keep you up at night, there may be obvious or unknown biases in AI output. (Gender, race, ethnicity, etc.)

And some readers may react negatively if they know or think you’ve used AI. For example, people have won awards based on what turns out to be AI generated content. People ask, how deserving are they? How much of the award-winning aspect is their own, vs. software created?

What are the legalities surrounding AI?

From a legal standpoint, it’s unclear if there are copyright infringement issues at play. The current batch of AIs were “trained” by “reading” massive amounts of (copyrighted) material. If they then spit out some text, there’s a question whether it’s either a direct copy of some of the input text (unlikely, but not impossible), or a close enough derivative of it, that some author of the original text could find out and bring legal action about it.

Such lawsuits are already happening. (Whether they win or lose, defending yourself against a lawsuit is costly and time consuming.) Some authors contend that merely using their work as input without permission is illegal. Thus anything it creates as output they contend is likewise illegal. It will be for the courts to decide this since it’s such unexplored legal territory. There’s no law against copying an artist’s style. You just can’t copy others’ specific artistic creations.

It’s also unclear if AI-generated or AI-assisted text itself can be copyrighted. So far the answer has been “No” on AI generated text. So if you use AI to write a book, article, etc., it may not be something you can copyright—that is, anyone else may be able to copy it for free. Using AI for assistance? Totally unknown copyright issue.

As a final thought, Amazon has been asking authors if their KDP content was produced with assistance from AI. It’s unknown what they’ll do with this information. But it’s possible they’ll refuse to publish such works (as they now do with books that contain whatever they deem too much public domain content).

 

Worried about book industry scams? A few helpful resources

Posted on | by Marissa DeCuir

Recently Writer’s Digest ran an article I wrote to help authors avoid AI-generated Bookstagram scams.

As a former newspaper journalist, I feel so passionate about helping people discern reality from fake information.

The rise of social media has certainly played its role in causing a sincere confusion between real and fake news, though propaganda and scams are nothing new.

Many industries have their share of scammers trying to con people out of money.

Specifically in the book industry, our author clients often ask our Books Forward team if a promotional offering is worthwhile. And while it’s typically not, the real question cuts even deeper: is the opportunity even legitimate?

We’ve had the joy of representing authors and promoting their books for decades, and with that experience has come many promotional programs that make ridiculously exaggerated (sometimes flat out false) offers to our clients.

Be alert, be aware and ask questions.

Ask your author friends and industry insiders for their experiences and guidance on whether or not a promotion is credible.

And consider these helpful resources:

  1. Stay tuned to The Authors Guild Publishing Scam Alerts.
  2. Writer Beware consistently shares real scam examples and questionable trends in the industry.
  3. Author Alexa Donne released this video walk through of two real book marketing scams. 
  4. Books Forward author Dr. Seema Yasmin’s “What the Fact? Finding the Truth in All the Noise” may not be book industry focused, but there are plenty of great concrete tips and tools to lean on in considering what’s real or fake.

Happy truth hunting!

Exploring AI: Changes in publishing

Posted on | by Marissa DeCuir

Content alert: the following was written by a human.

Books Forward is chatting with Dr. Andrew Burt, author of lots of published science fiction, including his newest novel, “Termination of Species,” for those who like AI, biotech, chess and a bit of romance.

Dr. Burt was vice president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association for several years. He heads Critters, the first writers workshop on the web and home to other writerly resources. He runs ReAnimus Press and Hugo-winning Advent Publishers, helping award-winning and bestselling authors breathe life into great books. Outside of writing, he’s been a computer science professor (AI, networking, security, privacy and free-speech/social issues); founder of Nyx.net, the world’s first Internet Service Provider; and a technology consultant/author/speaker. For a hobby, he constructs solutions to the world’s problems. (He jokes: Fortunately, nobody listens.)

PART 1

When ebooks emerged, experts predicted “the end” of traditional book publishing. Is text generative AI “the end” of traditional book writing and promotion?

I was a fan of ebooks since the late 90s, when the very first ebook devices were coming out, and I largely only read only ebooks. As such—plus being a computer science professor and science fiction writer, inevitably peering into the future—I was indeed one of those predicting significant changes to how people read, and thus, to publishing.

However, my predictions came with a caveat, one which has not (yet) materialized: I said that when ebooks could mimic the most relevant aspects of a paper book, they would likely replace paper books. The tipping point I proposed was that when there a device that looked like a book, i.e. several hundred sheets of pages with words and images on them, bound at a spine, the “codex” format, but digital—basically a bound set of hundreds of sheets of thin digital paper, that can each act as a screen displaying whatever pixels we want—and super cheap—then there would be no real need for print books.

The need for books

There is something that people inherently like about these objects we call books: the shape, the multiple pages that you can riffle, that you can stick a finger in to hold a place, that you can quickly flip forward and back in, that can be dropped in a bathtub without causing (too much) emotional damage, etc. (and, as is almost invariably pointed out, “the smell”). But make the pages digital instead of static text, and wow, that would be a game changer.

Ebook devices don’t mimic that today. They display one page at a time and navigation within is cumbersome. The bound, multiple page aspect of a book is critical to its success. This “codex” format pretty much replaced “scrolls” of old. It’s a better format for humans to use. So, the market for print books still thrives.

AI and publishing

On the publishing side, it’s not ebooks per se that have altered publishing, but the inexpensive cost of anyone being able to publish a book—both as an ebook and as a print-on-demand (POD) physical book. The one competitive advantage that traditional publishers still have that small or self publishers don’t, is the massive marketing dollars. This creates not just the ability to run ads and do all kinds of promotion to lots of eyeballs, but also the ability to print thousands or millions of copies in advance and get them on store shelves across the country and world. Thus, new authors with a traditional publisher still don’t get access to those huge advantages, and this is where publishing has changed.

If you submit to the major publishers and they reject you, you can now publish it yourself for a lower cost. It may not sell many copies, but it might. Lightning strikes. And the sheer volume of such books does, in aggregate, take readers away from books from the major publishers. A small number of readers each of millions of self-published books represents millions of readers who aren’t reading books from the majors. Readers have vastly more choice.

So—and I’m really working my way back to AI!—the new technology of ebooks, POD and free platforms like Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) did change publishing, but only when they meet the needs of the consumers. Likewise with AI.

So how do you anticipate AI will affect the industry exactly?

AI is really taking off recently in terms of capabilities, mostly because the computing power has reached the point it allows the massive amounts of calculations necessary.

It’s worth briefly mentioning how these “Generative” AIs work (also called “Large Language Models”, or LLMs; because they were trained on massive amounts of text). They look at a huge amount of text (and images, etc.), mush it up into hundreds of billions of numbers, and spit out the most likely next words based on the clues it finds in a question you ask it. It’s all based on the probability of what word could come next in an answer.

What we see today is the tip of the iceberg in what these AI systems can do. But, looking at what they can already do today, we can (at last!) get to some kind of answer to the question:

When AI can do what consumers-of-writing want, and do it better than humans can do it (notably in the realm of cheaper and faster, of acceptable quality writing), then, yes, AI will be “the end” of that kind of traditional writing.

But note I put some weasel words in there: “that kind” of writing.

A variety of written material

There are all kinds of written material out there. Science fiction novels, fantasy short stories, scripts for rom-com movies, self-help web pages, historical scholarly journal articles about the crusades, scientific papers describing experimental results in quantum physics, holiday greeting cards, ad copy for TV commercials about cat food, headline news articles, business proposals, answering support questions in a chat session, getting ideas where to visit for a road trip, job descriptions, condolence emails, instructions for assembling a bookcase… the variety of “writing” is just massive.

Generative AIs like ChatGPT, Gemini, etc., can do some of these things already to the point where paying humans isn’t needed. This of course applies beyond words, to any kind of content, images, videos, audio, etc. These are human “creative” endeavors, even if Ikea pictorial assembly instructions aren’t exactly heartwarming art. 🙂

And that’s a big divide: Content created for art’s sake vs. content for commercial purposes.

The future of writing

I can say with near certainty that AIs will be “the end” of many of these human content-creating endeavors as career type jobs. Chatbots are already replacing human jobs for tech support. (Maybe not well, but they’re so much cheaper that businesses can’t help themselves.) AI created artwork can already replace costly human artists. AI will touch every aspect of “writing” (or other content creation) in some way. It’s simple economics: When someone discovers a free/cheap method of producing something that mostly gets the same job done, that method mostly replaces the old more expensive method. Cars replaced horses. How often do people mail hand-written letters to each other? Or send faxes? etc.

If/when this will happen to writing (and promotion) will depend on the kind of writing and promotion we’re talking about. Many kinds of content creation that people are paid for now will simply be cheaper to replace with AI-generated content.

In terms of book writing specifically, how does AI come into play?

At book length, it will take longer. AI can’t quite today write a horror novel better than Stephen King—most AI generated novels are pretty horrible—today—so Stephen King’s job is safe for a few years. Maybe 5-10? If we’re talking non-fiction, since generative AI’s are untrustworthy for factual correctness, they could maybe produce readable prose, but you’d have to carefully check every single fact. AI might scrounge up some actual facts (that you verify) that you didn’t know about, since they’ve trained on massive amounts of data, although many older books and articles remain unscanned, thus remaining unavailable to AIs and only accessible to humans. So, I don’t foresee AI replacing book length non-fiction for some time (although it may help make it much easier/faster to write).

At short length, AIs can already create poetry that humans can read and think has deep meaning, even when the AI creating it had no such intention. For that matter, I wrote a really simple AI back in the 90s that created a particular kind of gibberish writing derived from some input text. [It’s at critters.org/bonsai.] A few lines of computer code produced some random, intriguing sounding output that often seemed “deep” simply because humans are good at finding meaning in randomness. Think of how we find animal shapes in clouds.

The concept of collaboration

When we add in the concept of collaboration, where a human author uses AI as a tool to help them write a “better” book than they could have alone, that opens up even more options for AI to replace human effort. Just like spreadsheets made it possible for non-techies to do some complex tasks, people who are less capable at writing can use AI to create books or other length content, especially (non-factual) non-fiction, like a book of jokes (to the extent facts don’t play a role). An AI is suited to taking stilted, grammatically incorrect, typo-ridden prose and making it sound much better.

There’s a large market for that. But this could be a double-edged sword: In this case, more newbie human “authors” benefit from being able to write “better,” but the influx of magnitudes more competent texts leads to even fewer sales for authors who possess native talent for writing and don’t need AI help. This isn’t to say anyone can ask ChatGPT to “write a 300 page book on the evolution of dinosaurs” and presto! out pops a bestseller, but AI might cut down their effort by a factor of, say, ten. (And who knows, in 5-10 years…)

People write a lot of short- and mid-length reports on things, like news articles, progress reports, job descriptions, etc., where beautiful prose isn’t a goal. If factually verified, AI’s can probably take over a lot of this work. Then the human becomes mostly the creator of the prompts, provider of the data to describe (both of which can be somewhat automated as well), and (very importantly!) the fact checker for the output.

Promotional materials

On the promotional side, AI tools will also make writing book blurbs, ad copy, etc. easier for novices. You can create more variations to test which of several ads sells the most.

Check out part two of our Exploring AI series here.