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Topic of the Night: TIME GOES BY
I have talked a ton about the value of long term thinking and understanding copyright. So for fun tonight, let me give you a fun example of what is possible. And what Kris and I are planning in the future. Let me take the book Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Long Night. Kris and I wrote the book in 1995 and it was published in 1996. Twenty years ago. I think the contract on it was an all-rights contract combined with a work-for-hire contract. At least all the later media books were, but not sure on this one, I will have to check the contract. If I remember right, the novel itself…
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Topic of the Night: A Fun Offer
Free book! One-day-only BOGO deal! TODAY ONLY–9 a.m. to 5 p.m.PST! Thursday. If you purchase the Women in Fantasy Storybundle at the unlock rate ($15 or more), you will get a copy of Fiction River: Fantastic Detectives, FREE! Just send your proof of purchase to subscriptions at wmgpublishingmail dot com. Go ahead: Tell your friends. Ten books in the bundle, an extra book for free from WMG Publishing. Folks, this is some great reading if you love fantasy. And in case you are wondering why I am pushing this besides being a series editor on Fiction River, I also have a Poker Boy story in each Fiction River volume. In fact, in Fiction River: Fantastic…
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Topic of the Night: Day-Job Thinking
DAY-JOB THINKING VS LONG-TERM THINKING In the great comments on the last topic of the night, this new topic was brought up. So thought I would expand on the idea. Day-Job Thinking goes like this: I need a certain amount of money to make my bills this month and a day job gives it to me in a “secure” fashion. Nothing at all wrong with that thinking. Nothing. We all have to live and make bills and eat and all those sorts of things. This is survival thinking, folks, plain and simple. So again, nothing wrong with that kind of thinking. Critical. Long-Term Thinking is the ability of a person to see…
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Topic of the Night: About Time and Sales
ABOUT TIME AND SALES At the writer lunch today we talked about a royalty statement I got recently from Pocket Books on one of my many Star Trek books. It showed that the book had sold six copies. Under the old system, I would have glanced at that and just tossed the sheet laughing at how a book can only sell six copies in six months. But I am trying to move my thinking to readers. The old traditional thinking (and those in traditional publishing to this day) never considers readers at all. Just sales, numbers on a piece of paper to be batted around with graphs and profit/loss statements.…
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Topic of the Night: Balancing the Parts of Modern Publishing
BALANCING THE PARTS OF MODERN PUBLISHING Over the last week I have received three different letters from writers worried about the same problem. That problem is simple to describe, but very complex in nature. How do you balance the writing with the production and promotion of your work? That sound familiar? I bet just about every indie writer nodded to that. I am no exception, neither is Kris, or any of the other professional writers around town here or in the workshops. This balancing act we all must do is a continuous battle. We all talk about it all the time. And I do mean all the time. Of course,…
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Topic of the Night: One Reader
ONE READER: New and Old World I have been been just sort of thinking through different aspects of the new world of publishing compared to the old world. And adding in what is success in this new world and time and other factors. It has been kind of fun and I hope to continue approaching this from different angles at times. Not all the time, just at times. So for a moment here, I want to be clear on the summary of some of the clear differences between when I sold my first novel in 1987 (not first novel written) and the world now. First, what was happening thirty years…