Books are lucky. Every so often, they get to shed their outer skin and take on a fresher, younger appearance. If only we could do the same! Something Like Summer is nearing its tenth birthday and I felt that it, along with the other books in the series, could use some sprucing up. We’re sticking with the same bold colors while highlighting the main character of each book, and personally, I think the first batch looks great! “Wait a minute, Jay,” you cry. “Weren’t the old covers drawn by your husband? What kind of a heartless bastard are you?” I’m very attached to the original covers, believe me. We’ll still be using them, albeit in a different capacity. I’ll go into more detail at another time. For now, this will be a slow roll-out. The first four books are complete, and more will be added later. Until then, the print editions will remain the same, and when Something Like Stories: Volume Three is released, it will have a traditional “I love my husband and his art so freaking much” cover. Once enough time has gone by, it will get a revised cover to match with the new style. You can see the full covers here.

Times are crazy right now, but I’m not going to insult your intelligence with one of those “Our company has your health and safety in mind. Buy our shit.” messages that there have been way too many of recently. However, I have been thinking about how many folks won’t have as much money as usual. I’m certainly concerned about earning enough to get by, so I put together two budget options hoping that we can meet in the middle. The first of these cheaper solutions is that I’m enrolling the entire Something Like… series in Kindle Unlimited. That means the eBooks will be exclusive to Amazon for the next three months, but it will also enable tons of people to read them without having to shell out extra, assuming they are already members of that program. (It’s ten bucks a month for an all-you-can-eat book buffet.) I’m not happy about the exclusivity that Amazon demands, but I would like to try having my books in Kindle Unlimited just once to see what I think. If it’s successful, I might periodically add some books and take others out, like Netflix does with their programming. New releases will be available on all platforms, so no worries there.

I’ve also put together a “boy” themed box set at a discount price. Boys in Love includes the newly revised Kamikaze Boys, my bittersweet bromance Straight Boy, and a heartstring-tugging novella called The Boy at the Bottom of the Fountain. You can get all three as eBooks for the low introductory price of just $7.99. That’s five bucks cheaper than buying them individually and a lot of escapism while we wait out these lockdown orders. You can get Boys in Love from Amazon, Apple Books, Google Play, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo.

Times are changing and so must we. I hope that something above appeals to you. If you already own the above books, thank you! I don’t suppose you have a friend who would be interested in any of the new options? If so, I’d appreciate if you gently nudged them to see if they’re interested. As for me, I’ll buckle down and work on getting the next book released. Until then, please be safe and treat yourself (and others!) with kindness.