A Letter to Mojo, and to All of You
July 2026
I’ve spent years telling and teaching the truth about tech for authors, self-publishing, bringing books into the world, this rebuild of an author career from ground zero — the messy parts, the scary parts, the parts that didn’t look anything like the highlight reel. So, it just wouldn’t be right to end this any other way.
No please subscribe buttons… no please share buttons… no marketing and no “ask” involved… just a (not so) simple message.
This isn’t a “taking a break” post.
This isn’t a “reimagining my content strategy” post.
And it certainly isn’t an “Pay attention to me because I’m mad and leaving this FB group - good day… I SAID GOOD DAY, SIR!” (LMAO) 🤪🤣
This is a goodbye letter.
Part 1: What This Actually Was
I need to say this plainly now, because looking at it now, I don’t think I ever said it plainly enough:
Authors Mojo was never really a business to me. Not underneath.
Yes, I needed it to pay bills — just like everyone else, I am an actual human being with cats to feed, and a kid-in-college to keep in French fries and snacks, and a roof that demands a rent payment, and trying to do that all almost entirely on my own two self-employed feet.
I operated Mojo in the red, out of my own pocket, for 85% of the years it was running — so, I won’t pretend money didn’t matter.
But that was never the point of it.
In fact, if you’ve been with me over the near decade of doing this… then you already know the reasons it started was:
I was disgusted by people/companies who were taking advantage of authors - charging exponentially more money for tech work / web sites / formatting, than was even close to fair market value.
Authors — the real human behind the keyboard — shouldn’t get dumped off on the side of the road when they don’t bring “big enough money” to the table — and that is part of the reason this decision has been so extraordinarily difficult to sit with — and if you’re one of the ones who’s been with me this whole time… then you already know exactly what I’m alluding to on this specific point.
I had a wealth of tech experience (30+ years of it at the time of this writing in July 2026 — yeah, I’m that old! lol) that I wanted to use to help other authors bring their stories into the world… even if they were tech-scared, had no idea where to start, or even had zero-to-very-little budget for it — because getting more people’s stories -into the world mattered more to me than trying to make “big money”.
So, yeah, the point — the whole reason I built this thing in the first place — was two things: helping authors get their stories into the world and building real friendships along the way while I did it.
Not “audience.” Not “community” as a marketing term.
Friends.
People I hoped would still be here, in some form, even if the courses and the content changed shape a hundred times over the years.
I pictured something almost embarrassingly simple, if I’m honest: a group of people who’d still be checking in on each other’s word counts five years from now. People who’d remember each other’s cats’ names and bad first drafts and the times launches flopped (or soared!), and times when everything fell apart, and the times royalties were better than expected, and new books came into being… the wins, the losses, and all of it… and still keep showing up.
That was the whole dream, dressed up in course modules and Substack posts and almost a thousand live group web-meeting calls — because that was the only shape I knew how to build it in
— and frankly, “selling” has not always been my strong suit. lol
That was what I was actually building toward every single time I sat down to write a post, build a new course, record a lesson, or answer a question in a comment section or frantic, panicked private message at midnight when I should’ve been asleep.
Part 2: The Honest Accounting
Here’s the part that’s harder to say, but I’ve always tried my best to promise you honesty, so here it is.
In recent months — and more specifically this past week in earnest — I started sitting with the possibility of closing Mojo down.
I mentioned it — more than once — in both the free posts and the paid ones.
Days went by.
Silence.
Not from everyone, and not because anyone did anything wrong. But close enough to everyone that it told me something I’d been circling for a long time and not quite ready to land on.
I assigned a depth to a lot of these relationships that wasn’t actually there on the other end… and Authors Mojo became a part of who I saw myself as.
(and that is 100% on me, period, full stop)
Not because any are bad people, or because anyone owed me anything they didn’t choose to give — they didn’t.
But I built this hoping it was mutual in a way that, for most of you, it just... wasn’t.
And that’s not a character flaw on me or anyone else.
I think it’s just the truth of what this actually was, versus what I hoped it would become.
For a long time, I started feeling like a dancing circus bear — showing up, performing value, earning applause, and telling myself the applause meant something deeper than it did. The moment I stopped dancing — stopped producing in those ways, stopped trying to prove, just sat still and shared what was actually happening in my life and my head about this decision — the silence answered a question I’d been too afraid to ask directly for a long time.
That’s not me being dramatic. That’s not me looking for pity or being overly emotional about a rough week. That’s just data.
Numbers don’t lie the way stories do, and I’ve been staring at this particular set of numbers long enough now to stop making excuses for what they’re telling me.
I think I failed at the friendship part of this dream — the part that mattered most to me — far more than I ever succeeded at it.
I tried to build something with real care, consistently (as best I could), for years. And most were never really here for that. Most folks were here for the free thing or only for the ROI, and that’s allowed, and it’s not a crime.
But what Mojo became never aligned with and coalesced into what I dreamed — and needed — it to be …
— and because I’m someone who doesn’t lightly walk away from anything — it has taken me longer than was healthy to admit that to myself and to willingly acknowledge the hard-data numbers that supported that truth.
Part 3: What I’m Choosing Now
So, I’m closing the doors on this version of Mojo.
Not the content — the content and the courses I’ve built over the years will likely find a new home eventually — maybe — somewhere quieter, somewhere that doesn’t ask me to keep performing beyond the value provided in the courses/content itself, just to earn a place in anyone’s inbox.
But, as of today, the live, relational version of Mojo — the version where I show up hoping for and trying to build real connection and mutual investment… the version where I answer everyone and anyone’s questions that pop into my private messages or inbox — that part is ending.
This isn’t bitterness. I want to be really clear about that. I do not regret a single minute of the tens of thousands of hours I spent trying to build this.
📚I got to help some of you finish books you were scared to finish.
📣I got to watch a few of you find your voice.
🏆I got to be a small, behind-the-scenes piece of some real triumphs that you all accomplished.
(and I thank you for that - because I’ve always said, from the very first day a decade ago of this crazy adventure that I may never be a world-famous best-selling author, or change the world with my stories… but just maybe I can be a small part of someone else’s who does)
Those wins were real, even if they were fewer and smaller than I’d hoped for.
I’ll always be glad I tried.
And “not bitter” doesn’t mean pretending this doesn’t hurt — (it does—a lot) — it means I get to grieve it honestly and still walk away with my hands open instead of clenched.
But I also love myself enough now — and I’ve fought hard to get to a place where I can say that and mean it — to stop pouring my whole heart into a room that mostly stayed quiet when I needed it to talk back.
Part 4: Goodbye
So — thank you. Genuinely, to all of you, but most especially to the few of you who were real friends through this, who showed up, who talked back, who made this feel like it was working the way I’d hoped. You know who you are, and I hope you know how much you meant to me.
And to the rest — I don’t say this with any anger, not one single ounce — I hope you find whatever you are looking for in your author lives. I hope your stories get written and get out into the world and hit every goal you’ve set for them — mine or somebody else’s help notwithstanding.
This is the “Mojo Mama Bear’s” and Authors Mojo’s last chapter. Thank you for the last decade. Thank you for reading this far — even that, at the end, means something.
And if you’re reading this, even months or years from now — maybe you took a course from me once, maybe you’re just curious where I went — this page isn’t going anywhere. I’m leaving it up on purpose. No dead link, no generic placeholder, no version of me pretending this never happened.
Just this. The truth, same as it’s always been with me.
If you want to know what became of me, the AVHQ is still running, and you can find me writing fiction under Sadie Brent, Morigan Shaw, and EF Jamison (and a coming soon new pen name I’m not ready to share just yet) — still telling stories, still building things with my whole heart, just pointed somewhere that loved it back.
With a well-worn but tired heart, and an honest, warm hug goodbye,
🐻 (just)Stacy
☮️💖🤗
Now… before I take a few fully unplugged days to properly feel sad & grieve all this…
One last piece of Mojo Mama Bear wisdom from my heart...
We writers pile a lot upon ourselves... trying to do and be everything that is required of us PLUS trying to chase down our own dream on any spare energy that’s left over... or on fumes... keep chasing those writing dreams, I know I certainly will be — but give yourself some grace, because don’t forget, we’re Only Human:
(my absolute favorite version of this song, btw)