This Was a Fun Post in Late 2011… Still all true going into 2018. Sadly. I actually did two posts on this topic because I had to shoot off all ten toes of indie writers. But for a bring forward, this one is the fun one. See if this almost completely holds up after six years. I think it does and I find that amazing. —- I started noticing how indie writers shoot themselves in the foot as far as sales. And not just once, but often so many times that it guaranteed that no sane reader (past family and friends) would pick up their book. And they did it…

New Year Making Me Look Back… Plus I was cleaning up things, killing some old posts, and I ran across this post that was originally called “The Death of an Indie Writer.” How’s that for click bait? (grin) I wrote it in July 2011, way back in the start of all this craziness. And frighteningly enough, I was right on almost all of it and I am still seeing this same thing today, even though most new writers coming in have lots of information and this new world is pretty stable. That doesn’t seem to be helping. So here is the long post, updated only slightly to 2017. I thought…

That Sounds Strange, huh?… It actually is sort of a strange circumstance. For a dozen years Sheldon McArther owned North by Northwest Books and Antiques. And Shelly is a picker extraordinaire. Especially with books and glassware. And he knows something has value when he sees it. So much of the extra books and stuff he found over the years ended up in this large back room of the bookstore in boxes and then when he sold the store to his manager, she cleared out stuff she didn’t want to carry in the store and stuffed it in the back room as well. It was impossible to even go in that…

Everyone Thinks I Am So Busy… And sometimes I am. Sometimes, I just putter through the day, going out to the stores, doing some workshop stuff, cooking dinner, taking a nap, doing some reading, taking a nap, watching television, doing more reading. I think there was another nap in there somewhere. And that was the day. Not sick, so nothing to worry about. Just getting caught up and taking it easy at the moment. And I wouldn’t even be posting here about today if I didn’t have this running streak of days posting. (grin) —————- Ghosting Novels Over the last few days I have gotten the same basic question twice.…

Usually Don’t Need Time Off… Mostly because what I do is not really work in any form. Sure, it’s tiring at times, but I get to write as much as I want, work with other writers in workshops to help them advance, and play with collectables. Nope, not work. This last three or four weeks have been pretty nonstop, so I just decided today to stop for a bit, do something slightly different just to break the routine. I headed into the valley to do some picking by myself. Took my time getting back. Nap, cooked dinner, watched The Voice, another nap, did a few assignments I hadn’t gotten done…

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…

Had a Blast… Spent from 1 p.m. until 5 p.m. at the store, mostly talking with people and buying comics from people bringing them through the door. Great fun. Then off to dinner for a birthday of a friend, then back to the office to work on workshops. Then home to keep working on stuff here, including putting the final table of contents together for Issue #1 of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine. Paper copies of Issue #0 should be shipping as soon as they get here. I am very proud of how the magazine is shaping up. Great fun for me, and I hope the reading is fun as well. ————–…

Tough Getting Up at Noon When I Saw Seven A.M…. And the store was deadly slow. So got lots of talking in with the owner of the small mall and with Dan who runs our bookstore which is across the parking lot from the store I was watching. It feels good to actually be out there seeing how things are running instead of just checking in a few times a week. I don’t need to do this, but I thought it would be fun, except for the lack-of-sleep part. Then I headed back to my office at the WMG offices and except going home to cook dinner, was in the…

Not a Great Day for Picking, but Not Bad Either… I actually spent half the time in the place today in Salem on my phone on eBay looking up German and French and British vintage china to see what prices I could get for it on eBay. (For some reason there was a lot of it.) Found some really nice stuff, not sets, just parts, but the entire cost of the dishes I did find was $2.42 cents (not a typo) and I bet we will list and sell most of that china for well over two hundred bucks. Now that’s a mark-up. (grin) So a fun afternoon to break…