Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

Back At The Store for the Third Day

December 11, 2017 /

And Once Again I Had a Blast…

Spent from 1 p.m. until 4 p.m. at the store, mostly talking with people. The rock shop owner across the parking lot outed me as a writer to a few really nice young people who were science fiction fans. It was a joy to talk with them, actually, because they were fans of reading.

Kris showed up on her walk after a time and they got to talk with her as well. Really nice people. They had no idea who we were actually, but they were sf fans and loved Star Trek and Star Wars.

I headed back to my office at WMG and worked on workshop stuff until going home to cook dinner. Then spent the rest of the night until after 4 a.m. doing email and putting Issue One of Pulphouse together. It will be out in late January.

Speaking of magazines, for you Patreon supporters, I will be sending out two issues over the next two days of Smith’s Monthly. Working on getting that caught up some.

And will be working on the new novel in the next few days with luck. I will track it here just for a kick to see how I do through the holidays.

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Promotions Package

And yes, we still have a few spots open. Write me if interested. Still four of the ten spots open.

This is not a workshop. This is an individual promotion package WMG will put together just for you and your book. Nothing close to a workshop type thing and it will never be repeated.

Information at: https://deanwesleysmith.com/promotion-and-sales-package/

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Fantastic Christmas Bundle

I am very, very proud of this new Christmas Cheer bundle with Storybundle that I curated. I have read every story and novel in the bundle and they are great. Call it my recommended reading for Christmas this year.
You can get it at www.storybundle.com/christmas

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Short Story and Novel Challenge

I am only taking five on each challenge starting on January 1st. So don’t miss on this one if you want a great challenge to start off your new year. Details are a few posts back.

But basically 30 stories in sixty days or three novels in three months. You sign up, when you are done, you get two regular workshop credits. (And with me reading your work I’ll be able to tell you which workshops will help you the most.)

Cost is $600 (same price as two workshops, so I read for free). Write me at dean.wmgworkshops@gmail.com if interested in jumping in. I will shut it off at five per challenge.

This will really get your resolution to produce more off the ground in January. And yes, here there are spots open in both challenges.

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December Regular Workshops Have Started Up

Still time to sign up. I will put up the January workshops shortly.

Those of you with credits from either the Kickstarter or the certificate special we just offered, you must write me to sign up.

Those who would just like to sign up directly can do so on Teachable at any point. December workshops are there and started. I will have the January workshops posted in a few days.

Nice to have some options on signing up finally.

Class #61… Dec 5th … Think Like a Publisher
Class #62… Dec 5th … Endings
Class #63… Dec 5th … Point of View
Class #64… Dec 5th … Writing Mysteries
Class #65… Dec 5th … Speed
Class #66… Dec 5th … Teams in Fiction
Class #67… Dec 6th … Depth in Writing
Class #68… Dec 6th … How to Edit Your Own Work
Class #69… Dec 6th … Character Development
Class #70… Dec 6th … Writing Secondary Plot Lines
Class #71… Dec 6th … Advanced Depth
Class #72… Dec 6th … Novel Structure

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6 Comments

  • JM

    December 11, 2017 at 9:34 pm

    Blast from the Past

    So, I brought up the 35 year rule (generically) on Twitter about reclaiming a story written as Work For Hire for a Media-Tie-In and two people basically told me no, that’s a misinterpretation and it can’t be done. Now, they might have misinterpreted what I meant (even at 280 characters, Twitter doesn’t have a lot of room, and I did say it depended on the contract language) but they seemed quite adamant that nothing could be reclaimed after 35 years.

    Therefore, I wanted to follow up with you since you are in the middle of the process of actually doing it, to see how your reclamation has been going.

    (If you have time. I can see how busy you are.)

    • dwsmith

      December 11, 2017 at 10:07 pm

      Tell them to go learn copyright. (grin) The Copyright Handbook is a good source for beginners like that.

      Of course it can be done. I haven’t started the process yet, but me and my IP attorney see no problems. We will be the test case and we expect some of the companies to release the copyright and others to fight and we will fight in court. And win. But yes, it can be done under the law.

      Your twitter folks might be confusing Trademark and copyright. I did not write under copyright law anything “Work for Hire” because I did not work for the company (does not matter what the contract “says” in that reguard) but was an independant contractor. Thus the Work for Hire copyright rules do not apply. I did sign “All rights” contracts for those same books and that is what I can get back. I can get back my novels just fine. I will not be able to impinge on the trademarks in those novels, of course, so I can scrub trademarks and republish just fine.

      Going to be a fun battle and I will be right out in the open when it starts. Should be interesting. I am in the ten year window right now with my first Trek and Men in Black novels, but have decided to wait until I have more books in the window before filing for all of them. Much more fun that way. (grin)

      • JM

        December 12, 2017 at 8:30 am

        Apparently, the person responding to me on Twitter is an attorney. (No idea if an IP attorney or not, nor whom he represents.) They asked me to point them here because they want to discuss it further – something about the contract not properly setting up Work For Hire as an opening to get rights back, but not Work For Hire itself.
        Since I don’t really know who he is or who he represents, I leave it to you. May I point him here or would you rather not deal with it?