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It’s Here!!!
The Time of Great Forgetting.. In all my years of watching writers go through this period from April to the middle-end of July, break all streaks, get too busy to write, actually forget about writing and publishing completely, I have not seen a year this bad except for the spring two years after the pandemic. That was the worst, but this is coming in a close second this year. Not a clue why. It is just very, very clear to watch. So in this time, the focus is on family (as it always should be), vacations, gardens, nice weather, and just GETTING OUT OF THE HOUSE. With writing and publishing,…
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Fiction Branding… Part 12
The Value of Copyright… This will be very basic in this chapter. Very. And then in another post on branding, I will talk more about estates and so on which is very complex and writers need to think about it. To start off with, many of you automatically defaulted to the… “My copyright has no value. It really doesn’t sell.” The problem is that statement is a belief that has no basis in any reality. Sort of like believing in a Yeti having babies with a an alien from space. It could happen, but more than likely your belief is just wrong. Copyright is a form of property under the…
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Fiction Branding… Part 11
Short Fiction and Discoverability… I said clearly in the last part of this series that short stories, standing alone, do not lead to major discoverability in the calculation of 20 to 50. Wow, I really wish they did. However I left the impression that short fiction does not help in general discoverability and that is so, so far wrong as to be funny. Short fiction is a major source of discoverability, just not in the 20 books to 50 thousand thinking. Let me start off with one major thing here that I will talk about later. NEVER PAY FOR PROMOTION OF ANY KIND. You could make that a hard and…
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EXPECTATIONS…
A Topic So Large I Have Considered Writing a Book About It… Expectations are both powerful and deadly to writers. But to early stage writers, mostly deadly. A positive expectation can come from experience. For example, back in traditional publishing days, when I was hired by a publisher to write a book, they had an expectation that I could do the job and I had an expectation I could do the job. I like testing myself with writing challenges. I always go into them with an expectation that I can hit the challenge and that gives me fuel to keep going on tough days. When I send a story to…
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Fiction Branding… Part 10
20 to 50 Thinking… And how branding fits with that. 20 to 50 is shorthand for having 20 major books published will make you 50 thousand a year. And if you do a bunch of things right, it often works. But you have to do a bunch of things right. Why 20 Major Books? Ways of discoverability, basically. If you have one book, that book can be found through all the places you have it for sale and that’s it. So say you are wide and have it out in 150 different stores around the world, plus paper through Ingrams. (I am estimating that number of stores by counting up…
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LAST DAY for Writing Restart Challenge with Kris
Yes, Kris Has Started Another Challenge… You can sign up through today (Friday) and get the first three letters. She had a rough last couple of months writing and surprised me the other day saying she wanted to do a challenge to get herself back focused on fiction writing in May. So I asked her if she wanted to do it the same way she did in January, with a letter every night to those in the challenge and she said yes. So here we are… Spring Restart Writing Challenge with Kris The challenge is to write as many consumable words from Wednesday, May 1st through Friday, May 31st 2024…
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Spring Restart Writing Challenge With Kris
Yes, Kris Wants to Do Another Challenge… She had a rough last couple of months writing and surprised me the other day saying she wanted to do a challenge to get herself back focused on fiction writing in May. So I asked her if she wanted to do it the same way she did in January, with a letter every night to those in the challenge and she said yes. So here we are… Spring Restart Writing Challenge with Kris The challenge is to write as many consumable words from Wednesday, May 1st through Friday, May 31st 2024 as Kris writes. The goal is to get writing and focused on…
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Pulp Speed Post is Back!
About a Year Since I Last Posted This… I wanted to bring this back again because I also just brought back for May (one month only) the Reaching Pulp Speed regular workshop. (Those of you with lifetime workshop or Everything subscriptions, write me for the May code.) I am also working back to Pulp Speed and above after my last two life events with the eyes and then the arm. So figured I could use it again as well. (grin) (I wrote this post around 2014, then brought it forward to 2016, then 2017, and just about every year or so since, skipping 2022.) Not at all sure why this…
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Reminded of Something…
Backlist Memories… Not a part of my branding series, just me reminding myself of something… Here is the story. Fact, at the moment Kris and I have about 1,400 titles of one sort or another. We have spent over 12 years of hard work and time and a ton of money to get those all into one form of print or another. Some make decent money, some make a little money, some don’t sell at all. Normal and expected. I have to be honest, I can’t remember a bunch of the novels I have written and published. Very few of the 106 published novels in traditional publishing, more of the…
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Write Stuff Storybundle Ends Today!!!
An Amazing Deal! Nine different writing books plus a $150 craft workshop, all for $25 bucks. And it is about to end! Read yesterday’s blog for Kris’s essay about all the books. I even have one in this bundle that some of you might recognize as from blogs I did here about editing and getting editors to read your work. And Doug Smith’s new edition of his book is worth the entire price of the bundle. Not counting the $150 pop-up writing class on Fear of Success. You can get it all for just $25 at least through the rest of today. Then all gone. The Write Stuff Storybundle