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A FUN CHRISTMAS PRESENT
A GUEST ESSAY…SOME FUN FOR EVERYONE… Those of you following this blog know I never do anything with guests and don’t ask me to because I will always say no. Always. But in this case, I read Judge Bubba’s most recent Christmastime Essay/Letter and got such a kick out of it, as I have with all his letters, that I asked Judge Bubba if I could do this and he graciously said, “Sure, why not?” Some background. When I am in Boise visiting friends, I tend to hang around with lawyers and judges. I am not sure why they let me tag along at times. I only have three years…
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Blast From The Past
Great Old Picture… From my first moments at science fiction conventions back about 35 years ago, Jay Kay Klein was there, taking photographs. I have no idea how many thousands of pictures he took of me over the decades, but it seemed that every time I turned around there was a flash. And it never once bothered me. Jay Kay Klein started taking photos far before I arrived on the scene and kept up taking photographs of sf authors and fans until just before his death at 80 in 2012. He was a very, very nice person, published some decent stuff over the years as well, but was a stunning…
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Joanna Penn Blog
Joanna Penn Blog About the Master Business Class Joanna Penn was here at the coast last week along with forty or so other professional writers. It was wonderful meeting her for the first time. So if you want to know a few things Joanna took away from the Master Business Class last week (and see a picture of her and Kris and me), she did a great blog about a few of the things. Worth the read for writing thinking. http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2016/10/28/coast-masterclass-2016/ ——– You can support this ongoing blog at Patreon on a monthly basis. Not per post. Just click on the Patreon image. Thanks for your support.
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Store Pictures
The New WMG Publishing Store Pop Culture Collectables #2 Professional writer J. Steven York stopped by the new store and took some photos. He has all of them on his Facebook page, but he generously gave me permission to show some of them here. He’s such a great photographer I couldn’t pass up the chance. Thanks, Steve! To start off with, the store is three very large rooms, over three thousand square feet. A large part of it is books, and yes, a large section is just WMG books. So impossible to capture everything in every nook and cranny. But here is a general tour. The first picture is looking back…
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Cat Picture That Has Nothing to Do With Anything
Two of our three cats sitting in windows enjoying the fresh coastal air. Galley is the old orange guy, Sir Duke is the new kitten. This is for you, Kris. (grin)
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29 Great Years
Twenty-nine years ago today, Algis Budrys instructed me to give another writer a lift from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Taos for a week-long workshop. That writer was Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Here is a picture of what we looked like in 1986. We have been together ever since. Here is what we look like hundreds of novels, hundreds and hundreds of short stories, and 29 years later. Happy Day, Kris. It’s been great fun, to say the least.
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Full Year of Smith’s Monthly
I thought this looked kind of cool. Who knew I could actually get all of the first year out and on time? (#12 shipping later this month.) And I’m still going strong. Fun! It’s in grayscale because it’s an ad in Smith’s Monthly interior.
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What About Those Numbers?
What About Those Numbers? Over at Author Earnings, Hugh Howey and Data Guy released the July sampling and talked about it. Worth the read, folks. http://authorearnings.com/july-2014-author-earnings-report/ The rest of this post is an expanded response to a question on my daily blog about what I thought about those numbers. It’s hard to argue with numbers like that, even though they are taken from only one bookstore. Yanking a sampling like that only once is an interesting thing, but having the numbers remain consistent over three samples spread six months apart is stunning and is giving the data more credibility. The idea that traditional publishing is the “only way” to publishing…
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My Best Selling Books (That I Can Claim)
Or at least I think these are my bestselling books. I have just over 16 million of my books in print (that I can count) under all my names, but these five, I think, were the top five sellers that I can claim. A couple of them I can’t and don’t count exact numbers. I’m doing this because, to be honest, I got a couple of comments from people wondering how I could give such advice like I knew what I was talking about. One guy thought I was an accountant just working with writers. Not kidding. I say in my short bio (that needs reworking) that I have sold…
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The New World of Publishing: Having Fun… Again
(Note: I wrote this in July 2013 and am posting it here again up front (without a word changed) because, to be honest, I’m getting a lot of certain types of questions from writers. This works as an answer to those questions. So here it is again. You might want to read it again, even if you remember it from July.) Having Fun Yeah, I know. A weird topic for a blog: Having Fun. Over the last week or so I had the fantastic pleasure of being in a large room for a week with thirty-five very-well-published professional writers, all excited about writing and publishing and having fun. That’s right. In…