• Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Research and Study

    We Study In All Sorts of Ways… Normally I don’t say much about my reading or other activities except when I am detailing out a few days while writing a project in a challenge. Like the five day novel challenge. I do a little more detail on the short story challenges about the life around writing them. But not all of it by a long ways. But tonight I’ll tell you what I did for a few hours. I found myself studying a puzzle mystery form. Castle, the very first season when it was great, was a great puzzle mystery series pretending to be set in a police station. Not…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    The Secret To Being A Long Term Writer

    This Post Brought Forward and Updated Some… (I thought this would be a fun topic to bring up again. This is from a bunch of years back and was only part of a daily report post.) I got a question from a writer about what full time writers there were and if I would recommend some of them to study to see how full-time writers did it. Well, I am about the only long-term full-time writer who does this level of honest blogging about my life. But my way of doing things is not the only way by a long, long ways. I tell writers to find their own way.…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    All July Workshops Started

    July Regular Workshops… This might be out best list for a month of workshops we have ever done with the addition of the Magic Bakery workshop and Information Flow. I am very, very pleased these workshops have come this far. And are still moving forward. You can find the workshops under Online Workshops to the right of this post. Sign up for July on Teachable.com. For credits or workshops beyond July, write me. Each regular workshop is 6 weeks long. Again, it will take you about three hours per week on your own pace to do each of these if you do the assignments. All workshops have now started, but still…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    A Copyright Scam

    On Facebook and Other Places… You know how really stupid writers are about copyright when some company can offer a way to make money off of the writers by sounding stupid and using terms wrong. The scam I have seen numbers of times now is that a company will offer to “Copyright Your Work” for you for a measly $99.00 plus fees. Not kidding. (I bet those of you who understand copyright just shook your heads.) And I got a hunch the scam artists on this one have a lot of takers. All writers too stupid to realize that the moment they wrote their story in some form, it was…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    Lifetime Subscribers Offer

    Something Special For Lifetime Workshop Subscribers… After some discussion at WMG Publishing, we have decided to occasionally offer something special to the Online Workshop Lifetime Subscribers. Not all of the lifetime subscribers will be able to take us up on the offer, but we want to make the offer anyhow. So we want to offer a $750 Publishing Master Business Class to anyone who is a lifetime subscriber between now and September 1st. That’s right, $750 tuition on us. I have sent letters to all lifetime workshop subscribers giving them the details. If you become a lifetime workshop subscriber before then, the offer will stand for you as well. The…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    Blog Number 2,166

    Every Day for Almost Six Years… I haven’t missed a day yet. Now ain’t that silly? On August 1st it will be six years if I don’t miss between now and then. That will be 2,190 days of never missing a blog. Some blogs had value, some were worthless like this one. Imagine if I had that same streak going writing a short story per day? Now that would be interesting. And some stories would have some value and others not-so-much. It’s been an interesting six years, that’s for sure. I am making note of this because today I started really tracking weight, walking distance, and running distance, as well…

  • Challenge,  News

    Store Has New Sign And Fun Stuff

    It’s Friday, So Some Fun Stuff… First off, one of my books from my Seeders Universe is in a nifty bundle that you can buy just about everywhere. But for a ton more information on this bundle called Sci-Fi-July Redux, go to… https://bundlerabbit.com/b/sci-fi-july-redux And I have one of my all-time favorite stories in a nifty short story bundle called The UFO Bundle. Kris has a great story in this one as well. But I love my little story because it just is flat out weird. Just look at the cover blurb. (grin) Get information at https://bundlerabbit.com/b/ufos Our South Pop Culture store has a new sign just put up today. You should…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    A Copyright Question

    Going To Phrase It A Little Differently Tonight… Fact: You sold all rights to your book, signed them all away in some contract that seemed like a good idea at the time. Your book no longer exists in your magic bakery. Now, a corporation owns your book, is doing nothing with it, and you can’t get it back. It is an accounting number on their financial bookkeeping. All your work is gone. Poof. Because you made a bad decision and signed over all rights for the life of the copyright. (All the writers I saw in Barnes&Noble did that, sadly.) Question: When can you or your heirs publish that book?…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    July Workshops and Copyright

    Still Time to Jump In… Kris and I have been working some on the two new regular workshops, Information Flow and The Magic Bakery, and they are turning out really nifty so far, in my opinion. The Magic Bakery will help put this business in complete perspective. And Information Flow is going to be tough, but an eye-opener. And I had a question yesterday that made me realize that writers just don’t know much about the aspects of Public Domain, and thus Copyright. So if I asked the question… “Can your heirs still sell your work 71 years after your death, when your work has dropped into the public domain?”…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Making A Living With Short Fiction 2018

    Back By Popular Demand… Actually, I am bringing this forward from May 2016 and it is mostly unchanged. I will put in BOLD ALL-CAP ITALICS when I have changed something. ———— Can You Make a Living Writing Only Short Fiction? Every year or so I look at this topic once again, do the math, see if anything has changed over the last couple of years. And now, here in May 2016, things have changed some, but in my opinion it would still be possible to make a decent living writing only short fiction. Why do I like this topic? Actually, because I love short fiction, meaning any story under around…