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Productivity…
Every Writer I Know Thinks They Don’t Write Enough… Does not matter as to the level of the writer or the years in the business. It is uniform. No writer is as productive as they think they should be, or want to be. I am no exception to that. First off, don’t get the two words Productive and Prolific confused. They are not the same thing. Prolific is a person’s opinion of another writer, based most often on some unknown and unknowable amount of books published. I have seen writers who write one book a year for ten years called prolific. Productive is a relative description of a person’s work…
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Learning Curve Day…
Combination of Frustrating and Fun Been a while since I did a full book cover, spine, and back cover with InDesign, but worked out great even though I had to totally build it from scratch since previous administrations of WMG didn’t see fit to save a flipping template. Sigh…. Then went from InDesign to Canva, to start learning what everyone says is so easy. Well, not so much. Going to take me some time there. Got a hunch it is the InDesign learning making it more difficult as it did with Vellum. So put the cover for the first volume of DETECTIVES COLLIDE that I did into 3d and worked…
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Loss of Trademarks…
Writers Just Shovel Money into a Fire… By the very nature of what we do as Indie writers and publishers, we are creating trademarks. Common Law trademarks, but still trademarks. I always thought trademark meant “lawyers make more money.” But the reality is we all create trademarks all the time with our books, our series, our businesses. And no law says you must register them. And don’t let any fly-by-their-wallet lawyer tell you that you must. The term “trademark” basically means you are doing business (trade) with a name (mark). And trademark is basically the right to exclude someone else from making money with your name in the same area…
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Classes and Workshops Available In January On Teachable…
Teachable Screwed Up the Order Again… It is being fixed, but if not fixed when you go there, in the upper right is a menu with the option “Recommended Order” and if you pick that, it will revert back. I am putting the links to these classes below for easy access, Some great stuff starting up in January. And note: the January FEAR AND PRODUCTIVITY SEMINAR is not a Teachable class. Details on yesterday’s bog. Still lots of spots available. Also note: The 2026 Words Per Day in 2026 Challenge will be posted in the next few days along with the January regular workshops that will bring back some classics…
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January Seminar…
FEAR AND PRODUCTIVITY SEMINAR Preparation for the New Year January Seminar January 5th through January 30th Here is the post again for the January Seminar… Kris and I have been looking forward to doing this for most of the year, but knew that January would be the perfect time. January everyone is excited about the new year and moving forward, making the new year better than the last. So we want to help. And to do that, sometimes all it takes are a few small changes, a focus on a certain mindset, an understanding of what it takes to move past fear and be more productive. That’s what this seminar…
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Kickstarter Friday
No Fiction Campaigns This Week That Are Worth Studying and Backing… I do this every Friday when I have a few campaigns I think are worth putting here. Tonight no one sent me any campaigns to do, and honestly there were a few good campaigns, but ending in hours or one day and not worth mentioning. And one big one that is doing all right but will lose a ton of money. Not something to study. I will not say much negative about a campaign. If there is too much or it is going to fail, I won’t post it here. And for those wondering where I get off judging…
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Write More In the New Year!
FEAR AND PRODUCTIVITY SEMINAR Preparation for the New Year January Seminar January 5th through January 30th Kris and I have been looking forward to doing this for most of the year, but knew that January would be the perfect time. January everyone is excited about the new year and moving forward, making the new year better than the last. So we want to help. And to do that, sometimes all it takes are a few small changes, a focus on a certain mindset, an understanding of what it takes to move past fear and be more productive. That’s what this seminar is all about. It is about craft, publishing, mindset,…
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Learning, Cookies and an Opinion…
Fun Things About This Time of Year… Tonight, Kris baked Christmas sugar cookies and I slathered on white sugar frosting. I managed to only eat about four of them due to the fact that I wanted to spend some hours working tonight without fighting a sugar coma. Yes, the cookies were that good. This afternoon, in the Kickstarter Design Class webinar, I learned that younger people than me (most everyone) these days will buy three states of any book. They want the electronic, an audio copy, and a physical copy. Now, back in the traditional publishing days, that would have made zero sense, but as it was explained to me…
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A Fun And Powerful Saying…
I Think It Was Nelson Mandela Who Said It… A quote that fits my challenges and also the Mindset workshop that just started. “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” Yup, exactly. Problem is that is you believe something is impossible, you make decisions to make sure the impossible belief is true. So, for example, my challenge is to do 52 collections this year, all ten stories each. No repeating stories. Impossible, right? Basically publish one collection per week. I am five weeks in and tonight I put together the 7th collection. I should have ten collections (100 stories) done by tomorrow night with covers for all ten. A couple…
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Update on My Last Year’s Challenge…
Far Too Aggressive and I Knew It… But considering the year I had just come through and the one we were about to go through, I needed something to keep my focus on writing every day. And what better way to do that was to attempt to write one short story per day for the entire year. Totally worked. Of course I did not hit the challenge, I wrote 106 short stories. In a really bad year for other reasons. I know a number of you managed fifty or so this year. Way cool, but my “failure” produced more short fiction than many writers will write in their entire careers.…