The $0.99 Deal That... Wasn’t Quite

When I first set up a Kindle Deal for The Order of the Sacred Vow, I was genuinely excited. I’d timed it for June 1–8, eager to give readers a full week to discover Portia’s story at just $0.99. It felt like a generous re-introduction of the novella’s new edition. But here’s what happened—and what I’ve learned.

By the end of the deal, the price had crept back up close to its original. Some readers missed the offer entirely. And that’s on me.

And if you’re an indie author navigating the wild west of Amazon marketing? Learn from me: read the fine print, monitor your deal daily, and keep your readers in the loop.

Thank you for your patience—and for continuing to dream with me in the world of Amorphya.

—Jasmine 💚

What began as a vow carved in stone…

…becomes a descent into fractured faith, ideological war, and the hunger of something ancient beneath the lake.

The Order of the Sacred Vow is now available in its second edition—a darker, more immersive version of Portia’s journey through loyalty, blood, and awakening. And now, the city of Amorphya breathes with sound and vision.

🎬 Watch the full book trailer below:

Grab your copy of the book on Amazon:
📖 Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F7RM91JY
📱 Kindle Deal (Limited Time Offer is $0.99 June 1–8): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F76SZ781

Behind the Scenes

When I envisioned the trailer for The Order of the Sacred Vow, I didn’t want flashy explosions or generic text scrolls.

I wanted something darker. Slower. A whisper of heresy wrapped in ritual.

What I created is a 60-second trailer powered entirely by a mix of creativity and modern tools. Here’s how I did it:

🖼️ IMAGERY

The visuals came from several AI art platforms:

• Midjourney: for moody cityscapes and characters
• Leonardo & DALL·E: to enhance details and match tone
• GIMP & Luminar Neo: for post-editing, glow effects, and light distortions

Each frame was refined manually to preserve the layered look of Amorphya—gritty, sacred, and broken.

🎵 MUSIC & SOUND

The soundtrack was composed in Suno, with eerie harmonics and distant echoes.
Voiceovers? Done in ElevenLabs, where I chose a tone that felt half-prayer, half-prophecy.

🎬 VIDEO EDITING

I used Movavi for final assembly and cuts.
Transitions were built to feel like flickering thoughts—half-forgotten doctrine and bleeding memory.

For extra drama, I experimented with Sora and Kling to animate moments.

💬 SCRIPT & STORYBOARD

The quotes you see:

• “The last city on Earth…”
• “The Order keeps the peace…”
• “And the Dream… is hungry.”

were all mapped out with the help of ChatGPT, who became my full-time creative assistant, script-polisher, and caption whisperer.

🧪 TOOLS I USED:

• GIMP, Luminar Neo, Movavi – for editing and final export
• Midjourney, Leonardo, DALL·E – for artwork and worldbuilding stills
• Suno AI – soundtrack generation
• ElevenLabs – voiceovers
• Sora, Kling – visual effects and motion
• ChatGPT – planning, storyboarding, and moral support ☕️

You don’t need a studio to make something cinematic. You need story. Mood. And tools that serve your vision.

If The Order of the Sacred Vow was a ritual…
This trailer is the first crack in the altar.

A few days ago, I posted something deeply personal on the blog and shared it on Reddit. I didn’t expect it to go viral. I wasn’t trying to spark a debate. I just wanted to speak—about art, about AI, about growing up with nothing but imagination and the stories I carried like hidden treasures.

The post was titled “The Final Stand for AI Tools”. And it became something much bigger than I expected: over 8,000 people read it. Dozens replied.

Some told me I wasn’t a real artist. Others told me I was exactly what art is meant to be.

💬 I said:

“I didn’t see the sea until I was 34. But I had written poems about waves and salt wind long before. I wasn’t stealing—I was imagining. That’s what creation is.”

I talked about how AI tools gave me access to something I never had before: 

• The ability to score my stories.
• To hear what Galatea sounds like.
• To make music—finally.

And for that… I was told it didn’t count. That it wasn’t “real.” That it was just pressing a button.

But here’s what else happened:

💡 A man who’s worked in music for 31 years wrote:

“I don’t care how you made it. If I like it and it’s awesome, then I like it and it’s awesome. Period.”

Others told me AI helped them finally make a song after decades of silence.

Some said they never felt like musicians—until now.

One person said they’d been quietly using AI to finish songs their heart had held onto for years.

🧭 And me?

I realized I wasn’t alone.

I realized there are so many of us out here—quiet creators, library kids, late bloomers—who’ve been told we’re “not enough” because we didn’t come up the traditional way.

Because we use new tools to tell old truths.

But the story is still ours.

And no one gets to take that away.

💬 So here’s what I want to say now:

I am a writer. A worldbuilder. A dreamer who found a voice in tools I never thought I’d have access to. I’m not here to replace anyone. I’m here to create what only I can create.

If that’s you too—if you’re building something with what you’ve got, even if it’s different—don’t let anyone silence you.

We’re real. Our stories are real.

And our songs?

They’re echoes of the things we imagined loud enough.

Music from a story that was never supposed to exist...

🎧 Moonborn: Songs of Defiance

What began as a design refresh quickly became something deeper.

I made the decision to unpublish the old versions of Poems from a Monster, The Order of the Sacred Vow, and The Fruits of Earth. I thought I’d simply reformat them, maybe adjust a few things. Nothing major. I needed a break from the emotional gravity of the Galatean Saga—after two years immersed in the story of Bem Parkett, I needed a breather. (And if you’ve ever read my acknowledgements for KoS: Invasion, you’ll know just how over-emotional that journey was.)

But as I opened those old files, something unexpected happened: I rediscovered the reasons I wrote them in the first place.

From Short Story to Full Novella

For Poems from a Monster, I added new pieces—verses written over the seven years since its original release. For The Order of the Sacred Vow, the transformation was even more dramatic: what was once a 5,500-word short story is now a 25,000-word novella. The second edition isn’t just longer—it’s deeper. More immersive. More me.

I expanded Portia’s arc, added psychological nuance, and wove in stronger threads of mystery and philosophical tension. I clarified the worldbuilding of Amorphya, making it feel lived-in and fractured, as it always should have been. It’s not just a facelift. It’s a new incarnation of a story that’s haunted me for years.

A Return to Themes That Still Matter

What surprised me most was how relevant the original themes still are to me now. Even across all my other work—including The Galatean Saga and even some of my poems—there’s one thread I keep pulling:

I’m endlessly fascinated by belief.

By what happens when people hold their convictions tightly enough to act on them. By the fallout of those actions. By the moment faith becomes doubt—or deeper faith.

With a background in sociology and human resources, and now working in engineering, I guess it makes sense. I’ve always been drawn to the structures behind human behavior. What shapes individuals? What fuels collective movements? What happens when ideology turns into action?

The Order of the Sacred Vow explores all of that. And this new edition lets it breathe in ways it couldn’t before.

So here we are. A second edition. A new beginning for a story I never really let go of.

Thank you for reading—and for walking into Amorphya with me once more.

Scoring the Sacred: A Soundtrack for Portia’s Journey

As the new edition of The Order of the Sacred Vow took shape, I found myself hearing it—literally. The sounds of Amorphya, the silence before a sacred strike, the chants of devotion before doubt. I began composing and curating an original concept album to score the novella’s emotional landscape. Each track maps to key moments, characters, and philosophical beats in the story. It’s music not just for ambiance—but for immersion.

You can now listen to the full concept album on Bandcamp, or stream it directly from my blog. Think of it as a soundscape for your reading, or a companion for your own reflections on belief, duty, and what lies beyond obedience.

🎧 Listen Now: The Order of the Sacred Vow

My mother raised me and my older brother on her own—our father left before I ever met him. All I know about him is what my mother told me: he was good with his hands: calligraphy, drawing, and woodburning. 

And I guess, somehow, I got that creativity from him, too. Also from my mother, who appears to have no creative bone in her, and yet she tells some stories with the power of conjuring images and feelings and build up worlds with nothing but spoken words.

We Had Nothing—But We Had Imagination.

We didn’t have toys, not really. But we had stories. Our favorite game was called “let’s pretend.” We didn’t know it at the time, but we were playing role-playing games—with our words, our voices, and the fierce worldbuilding that only two children who have nothing but each other can create.

That instinct—to imagine, to tell stories, to build entire lives in silence—never left me.

First, it came out in drawings. The halls of my school were covered in my watercolors.

Then came poetry. A teacher once referred me to a local publisher. I was so proud—until I realized the man behind the “opportunity” was just another predator hiding behind polite words. I learned something important then: in this world, talent is never enough. Especially if you’re a girl. Especially if you’re poor. Especially if you refuse to play someone else’s game.

So I Chose Survival.

I knew I wouldn’t make it as an artist—not without connections, not without money, and not without selling pieces of myself I wasn’t willing to give.

So I did what many of us do: I chose learning.

University. Master’s. A career that could pay the bills and help my aging mother—the woman who worked 40 years as a seamstress without ever compromising her values, even when there was nothing in the fridge and bills piling up.

I didn’t want to starve as an artist, because I already had as a kid.

I remember going to the flea market as a twelve-year-old to sell things from our home just to make it to my mother’s next salary. That kind of memory doesn’t fade—it etches itself into your bones.

But it didn’t kill my imagination. It only made me more determined...

My First Computer Was a Portal.

I didn’t get a computer until university. We couldn’t afford one before that. But when I finally did, it was like someone handed me a key to a locked room inside my chest.

I made flipbook animations with paper and pen before I ever had a mouse. Then Paint. Then Windows Movie Maker—slow, glitchy, but magic. I dabbled in sound, in images, in every medium that would have me.

Not because I wanted to be famous, but because I couldn’t stop imagining.

I didn’t call myself an artist.

But I never stopped being one.

And Now I Use AI—And I’m Told That Makes Me Fake?

Today, I finally have access to tools I only dreamed of growing up. I can write the stories in my head and score them. I can build worlds where words and music and images intertwine.

I can give voice to a saga I’ve carried in silence for years—stories like Moonborn and the Galatean Saga, where sound is emotion, and emotion is survival.

And now that I can make music, really make it... I'm told it doesn't count because I used AI.

As if anyone who’s never seen the years I spent reaching for creation has the right to tell me what I am.

And because I use tools like Suno or ElevenLabs or Midjourney or Kling to build what I couldn't afford to create any other way—I’m told I’m not a “real” artist?

By people who didn’t see the market stalls.

Didn’t see the paper sketches.

Didn’t see the girl who was told not to bother learning guitar because the family couldn’t afford one.

Didn’t see the poems that never got published because a man wanted something in return.

Didn’t see me learning, experimenting, failing, trying again—for years—just for the joy of it.

That judgment hurts.

But I won’t let it stop me.

Because these stories inside me—they’re mine.

And no one gets to take them away.

For Anyone Who’s Felt the Same

If you’ve been dismissed, laughed at, talked over—

If you’ve been told that AI tools are “cheating,” or that your voice isn’t real because it’s carried by new technology—

I want you to know this:

You are not fake.

You are not less.

You are not late.

You are not alone.

You’re a creator.

And the way you create doesn’t need to fit someone else’s mold.

It just needs to be yours.

I’m Still Here. Still Making. Still Imagining.

I may not have started with much.

But I have this now:

A voice. A story. A universe.

And the tools to finally bring it to life.

AI didn’t hand me a shortcut.

It handed me back a dream I thought I’d never reach.

So no, I’m not here to argue about whether it’s “real.”

I’m just here to create.

And if you're the same—welcome.

Keep building. Keep dreaming.

We’re the real ones.

The quiet ones.

The ones who never stopped imagining.

I Wasn’t Supposed to Be an Artist. But I Never Stopped Creating.

Ten weeks ago, I started this series with the goal of exploring how AI can enhance, not replace, the creative writing process. And what a journey it’s been!

The world of AI is developing at an insane speed, and whether we like it or not, it’s here to stay. As authors and creatives, we can either ignore it, resist it, and hate it—or we can learn to use it to our advantage. Personally? I think we have a lot more to gain by experimenting with AI, figuring out where it fits into our process, and using it as a powerful tool to expand our creative reach.

Because here’s the thing: AI will never replace human creativity.

A tool is just a tool. It’s the human mind behind it that makes it meaningful.

The Unfair Advantage: Writers vs. Other AI Users

Here’s something interesting—I truly believe that writers have an advantage over many other AI users. Why? Because we know how to describe things vividly.

Other people might struggle with crafting good prompts, but we? We write for a living.

When we apply those skills to AI-generated writing, images, or even music, we get far better results than the average user.

It’s not about letting AI do the work for us—it’s about using it as a creative extension.

Tips for Writers Experimenting with AI

What’s Next? Let’s Keep the Conversation Going!

This marks the end of this series, but the discussion doesn’t have to stop here.

Drop a comment on the blog post or reach out on social media—I’m on almost every platform, and I’d love to keep the conversation going!

Thanks for following along on this journey, and happy writing! ✨

To celebrate the release of my second edition of The Order of the Sacred Vow, I’ve launched a subscriber gateway into my fictional universes.

✨ Join my newsletter and receive your choice of welcome gift:

• 🎼 Moonborn: Songs of Defiance (Galatean Saga Concept Album)
• 📕 The Ritual Edition – Concept Album + Lore Booklet
• 📘 The Order of the Sacred Vow eBook
• ✒️ Poems from a Monster – A raw and intimate poetry collection

➡️ Sign up here: Join the Worlds of Jasmine P. Antwoine