in classical algebra, the picard group of a commutative ring r is invariant under quotient by nilpotent elements. in joint work in progress with ishan levy and guchuan li, we study picard groups of some quotient ring spectra. under a vanishing condition, we prove that pic(r/v^{n+1}) --> pic(r/v^n) is injective for a ring spectrum r such that r/v is an e_1-r-algebra. this allows us to show picard groups of quotients of morava e-theory by a regular sequence in its π_0 are always ℤ/2. running the profinite descent spectral sequence from there, we prove the picard group of any k(n)-local generalized moore spectrum of type n is finite. at height 1 and all primes p, we compute the picard group of k(1)-local s^0/p^k when k is not too small.