I have a few admin odds and ends today and a nerdy folklore share:

House Andrews appearance – they will attend Jasmine Mas’ signing tonight at 7:00 pm at B&N Arboretum in Austin, Texas. Ilona and Gordon will be hanging out and asking Jasmine some questions about her new release, Bonds of Hercules. I believe there are still a few tickets left on Eventbrite if you’re in the area.

For readers in Australia and New Zealand: a reminder that you will not be able to see the preorder for This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me – Maggie the Undying 1 yet. This is because titles distributed through Australian publishers usually appear for preorder 3–4 months before release. Expect preorders in that region of the world to appear around December 2025.

Magic Strikes (Kate Daniels #3) in dramatized adaptation by Graphic Audio is available on promotion on the Audiobooks. com website until November 2nd. If you haven’t yet listened to the full cinematic Midnight Games rendition, you can snag it here for 50% off.

I know everyone is very eager about The Inheritance audiobook – Ilona will have an update on that for everyone soon! We’ve shared some samples previously in case you want to tease your ears with the awesomeness of our dual POV narrators, Hillary Huber and James Konicek.

And finally: I loved watching this video on folklore from medieval historian Dr Juliette Wood today. It made me think of my favourite Horde and the kind of topics we always dissect in the comment sections, so I thought you should all know about it too.

Get in the mood for (razor-free!) Halloween with Internet cryptids, mermaids vs sirens, and how the Victorians managed to shrink the fae:

The post Hump Day Roundup first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

Comment-Section Spam

Please don’t interact with spam or dodgy links in the comment section.

There is no need for you to:

• test suspicious links for me

• tell Dr Babalooba where he can stick his combo love-spell-herpes-cure potion

• reply to tell me to delete them

I see everything that comes through the blog. Every. Single. Comment.

I get each one as a separate email in my inbox, and because I’m super chill like that and don’t know what anxiety is, I also double-check and re-read the comment sections on the website.

Despite the persistent myths surrounding my Transylvanian cryptid nature, I do occasionally sleep, eat, or step away from my inbox for a few minutes to listen to the children of the night and the sweet music they make. When that happens, something unpleasant might crawl in. Just scroll on by please, it will be drained of blood and power ASAP.

The Book Club Scam

This one started by targeting indie authors, but has now mutated to go after readers.

The original pitch went something like this: “Behold, we are the Mighty Book Club, feared by TikTok itself. For a small snack fund for our meetings, and a modest fee that pays for these honest people’s trouble, we will read your book, shower it with glory on all the review sites, and change your life!”

Now they’re sliding into readers’ inboxes with variations on: “We’ve noticed your great interactions with Ilona Andrews. You would be such a great addition to our very exclusive book club, because you’re so terribly smart and insightful. We’re inviting you to join our elite ARC-reading team, where we have Book That Hasn’t Been Published Yet about [insert topic or request you’ve made] and you could read it for basically free!

*except a small membership fee.”

I get it and I sympathise. Making yourself noticed as an indie author nowadays is a Sisyphean task and reviews help immensely. On the reader end, having p*tience for years to hear about your favourite character or your long-aw*ited sequel is hell.

But real reader groups don’t promise ARCs for money, and they don’t demand cash in exchange for reading and reviewing. Block the contact, delete the email, and treat yourself to snacks you didn’t have to fund a con artist with.

Well-Known Author Wants To Make You A Success!

If you take a gander at the comment sections of Ilona’s Writing posts, you’ll notice that a good number of the BDH are authors or aspiring writers. This scam sadly preys on those dreams, abusing the name and reputation of beloved authors.

The scammer pretends to be Ilona Andrews (or another popular published name) reaching out (from a free email address domain) to say how much they loved your self-published book/novel concept about the immortal Texan wereferret who solves crimes in space (this is not what your book or idea is about, and implies well-known author has severe gaps in their reading comprehension: that’s because this message is written by AI).

They will say what a pity it is that you don’t have the support your fabulous talent deserves and will offer to arrange marketing and publicity through their publisher, which will ensure the same success Ilona Andrews has, as well as “premium bookstore placement”. For an advance/ small administrative sum, which will be recovered a thousandfold as soon as your guaranteed sales take off.

This is not how publishing works.

Traditional publishers pay YOU an advance. Marketing and publicity services are stipulated in contracts, which are negotiated formally, with lawyers, not through Gmail messages.

If you ever want to make an author laugh uncontrollably for at least 10 minutes, tell them that they could ensure your commercial success if only they wanted to help you. There is no magic formula that best-selling authors are hoarding, and they’re anxious about their audience or retailer interest with each release themselves.

I cannot speak for other authors, but House Andrews will never:

• cold-email you from a generic free address like Gmail, Outlook, or Yahoo. All official communications directly from us will come from addresses ending in ‘@ilona-andrews.com’ as domain

• offer to republish or market your book, or

• request money for any service.

It’s true that House Andrews does promote other authors, both self-published and traditional—directly through this blog under the Recommended Reads tag and never in exchange for fees! If you ever get a message similar to what I’ve detailed above, don’t reply. Forward it to me at modr@ilona-andrews.com or just delete it.

In conclusion: if it looks weird and too good to be true, costs money upfront, or guarantees you herpes-free eternal commercial glory, it’s a scam.

Stay vigilant, keep your wallets closed, and leave the digital pest control to me.

The post Dirty Tricks and Scammy Grifts first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

The BDH has been loud and clear in their need for merch to be available. We understand that Christmas is coming up, and we are very flattered that you want to have cool stuff related to our writing.

We are in talks with a small business who offered to print merch in-house, meaning they make it and send it. This would not be a POD. They would look at each item before it went out. They would combine orders so you can pay less for shipping. We will be taking a standard percentage off the top. You will get merch, and we will hopefully avoid the stress of retail.

We need some data to make sure that everyone understands your needs. Please answer honestly. More than one answer is permitted.

What items are you interested in:

What theme are you interested in:

Thank you for your help. Stay Chalant!

If you are getting this post through email, please go here to vote in the poll.

The post Merchandise Poll first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

::Waves:: Something is going around in our area. It’s like a summer cold and not a summer cold. It starts with body aches, specifically in the legs. Gordon and I both had it since Monday and it finally ran us down. I’m typing this and fantasizing about crawling onto the couch and napping.

I talked to a couple of friends across country, and they have it, too. Apparently, this is nation-wide.

We are going to take a couple of days off and regroup. We will see you on Monday.

Please don’t email Mod R this weekend. The prerelease and release week were very busy and she is off starting today.

The post Time Off first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

“Your books are no longer available at my library…”

I don’t need to talk about importance of libraries. Everyone here knows how crucial they are. So many of us rely on libraries not just for their entertainment, but for a way to search for a job, for educating our children, and for interacting with our community. Libraries are essential to good citizenship. They keep us informed.

Also, not to mince words, but a lot of people are on a limited income. Libraries are their only option for reading.

A tiny local library doesn’t have the budget to offer a wide selection of books. Until now these libraries could get a federal grant, which would help them pay for things like Hoopla and Libby. Both of those services offer a massive book database and let you borrow books the local library otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford.

Everyone wins. Readers get books, little libraries can offer a wider selection, and everyone is happy.

Not so fast. We’ve been getting emails about our books suddenly not being available in the library systems. What actually happened was that the local libraries were dropping out of Hoopla and Libby services. They are anticipating having a lot less money next year and they are trying to preemptively save where they can.

Why this is happening:

Prior to 1996, the support for US museums and libraries was spread across several different institutions and was mostly under the jurisdiction of Department of Education. In 1996, these different institutions were unified into Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

IMLS is the largest and in many cases the only source of federal funding for libraries and museums. If you are any kind of library, botanical garden, zoo, archive, or museum, these are your people. IMLS allows libraries and museums to apply for grants, and it offers resources and support.

If you are a tiny library in a rural community, that’s how you pay for services like Hoopla and Libby. IMLS is your lifeline. The current administration is trying to eliminate it.

The total budget of IMLS is a drop in a bucket. For example, in 2022 it distributed 257.2 million in funding. It’s a ridiculously small amount considering how much money is being allocated everywhere else. The entire IMLS budget for 2026 would be less than .003% of the federal budget.

This isn’t about cost-cutting. This is about control. The less informed people are and the more ignorant they are, the easier it is to control and mislead them.

American Library Association has sued the administration to keep IMLS going, but it is very important that Congress includes IMLS in its budget for 2026. The institute is still operating while the courts are deciding what is going to happen, but if they don’t assign any money to it, then obviously it can’t function.

We need to keep IMLS funded if we want libraries to function.

If you would like to help, please go here.

American Library Association

It costs no money, just a little time. This page tells you how to call or email your representative and let them know you don’t want your local library to lose access to their federal funding.

I’m locking the comments on this post. If you’re getting this through the newsletter, please do not respond to it. We will not reply. Please don’t email us about it through the website. When we respond and write out our thoughts, we feel like we’ve accomplished something and it makes us less likely to take further action.

If you want to do something, go to the link above. This is where we need to focus our collective energy.

Thank you on behalf of libraries.

The post Library Funding Crisis first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

Edit from Ilona: Guys, you are killing us with error reports. There is no malware. Look at the email: it is literally a chapter of text. Nothing is imbedded in it. This is happening because Gmail is stupid. We are working on fixing it.

The post Gmail Newsletter Malware Situation first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

Hey guys. So the new book was kind of complicated and tough to write, this year was really busy, and everyone on the business and creative side of House Andrews is tired and super happy for the holidays. We know you love us, and since we keep getting concerned emails about why we stopped posting, we thought we would clarify things.

Going forward: there will be fiction on the blog on Fridays. So every Friday, check in with us.

There won’t be much besides Fiction Friday until after New Year.

Mod R worked so hard this year and she deserves a holiday. Until she comes back, you have me as you moderator. After that, we will resume Monday and/or Wednesday posts.

Thank you for your patience. We’ll see you on December 22nd with cuteness, darkness, and snow. Cute snowy darkness. You have been warned.

The post Admin Post: Schedule Going Forward first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

No posts and now two posts in one day. Woo!

Today is hopefully the last day of the roof construction. I misspoke in my previous post. We are actually on week 3, not week 2. My temper and nerves are frayed to the maximum capacity, so hopefully this will be coherent.

Business Stuff

Magic Clams (hehehe) is proceeding as scheduled. The copy edit comes back to day, and so far we are still on track for the release.

The audio of Magic Tides is being recorded. The past 6 months tells me that no matter who performs it, the Audio BDH will Hate And Have Problems, HAHP – a new BDH acronym, but it should be coming out on June 13th. Magic Claims will follow soon after.

We will be migrating the site some time early next week. We have simplified some things, made free fiction more prominent and easier to find, and given the site a facelift. More on the changes when we go live. But if you see weirdness early next week, you’ll know why. We will be losing some recent blog posts due to the peculiarities of the migration.

Someone asked if we would bundle our Writing Article blog posts into an ebook for convenience. I don’t have an answer for you on that. The problem with this project is that we would need to distribute it, which means we would need to charge money for it. Which means we’d need to come with $2.99 or whatever worth of content. Not sure we have that right now in blog posts alone.

In other professional trials and tribulations, we’ve been doing prep work for other projects, trying to do all the tasks on a variety of stories that are related to writing but are not writing. Making a fantasy language, even with Vulgarlang app, is time consuming and terrible. Someone do it for me but make it sound exactly the way I want it to sound. Oy. I’m this close to just stealing Welsh and altering the spelling.

Fun Stuff

In leisure news, I’ve almost finished the cross-stitch dragon. Doing backstitching now with mixed success. Lots of frogging. Frogging is a craft term meaning ripping out what you have sewn. It comes from “rip it, rip it” which sounds like ribbit, ribbit, the frog sound in English language. Slavic frogs say kwuh, by the way. No idea how that came about. Clearly there is a frog language barrier.

Gordon and are both playing Solasta: Crown of the Magister, a computer game based on the latest rule set of Dungeons and Dragons, where we lead a party of adventures on a variety of quests. I’ll have you know my 4-person so-classic-it’s-cliché party rules supreme. I’m running a 2-handed Oath of Tirmar Arun Dragonborn Paladin, a Sylvan Elf Swift Blade dual-wielding ranger with ambidexterity, an Einar Hill Dwarf battle cleric, and a High Elf Shock Arcanist Wizard. I gave everyone outrageous stats and I have no regrets. Smiting the undead is the most satisfying thing either. And the game asks me every time, so I feel like a powerful overlord. “Yes, you have my permission to smite this enemy. Proceed.” And then the paladin chops them in half. Muhahaha!

Gordon is running a druid instead of the cleric and some kind of sorcerer. I question his choices.

I know that Baldur’s Gate 3 exists, but I have issues. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about: Baldur’s Gate 3 is the triquel? the sequel to award winning D&D game series, Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate 2. It is on the older side and it featured the same type of play: a party of adventurers doing quests. Baldur’s Gate 3 is being developed by Larian Studios famous for their Divinity series, which I played. Right now it’s in Early Access, which means that you buy the game for the right to preview it and play through part of it before it is released. Basically it’s like paying to read half of an ARC and when the book is published, you get the whole thing free.

So it sounds great, but as I’ve said, I have problems.

First, the price. $60 to beta test the game? Second, it is showing no signs of leaving the Early Access. Third, Larian games tend to take themselves too seriously. What I love most about D&D is the funny interactions between the characters. Give me Minsc and Boo any day.

Larian thinks that “No one has as many friends as the man with many cheeses!” is the height of comic genius. Meh. Their character interactions are so stilted, and their plots lean toward tragic and gloomy.

That’s one thing Solasta does right. The interactions between the characters are hilarious. The character models are horrible, however. OMG.

And now I’ve caught you up on some of the things happening with us.

The post Random Book Updates and Too Much D&D. first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.