And I Thought My Blogging Steak Was Going to End… 45 minutes on the phone with Bluehost this evening got the problem solved. Seemed like a security certificate had gotten shut off. Shut down pretty much everything until we got it fixed. But the fine folks on Christmas Eve at Bluehost got it solved and I am doing yet another blog in the streak. This afternoon a bunch of writers showed up for Sunday lunch at WMG and the discussion was fun for almost three hours. And then besides my time on the phone with my internet provider, Kris and I spent the rest of the evening together. I cooked…

Yup, A Romance Movie… Got stuck right at the “meet cute” of the move called A Christmas Prince staring a bunch of actors I didn’t really know. Stayed with it because I knew every detail that was going to happen and I wanted to see if I would miss. I didn’t. Still a movie nice enough to watch as well. If you want to study either the romance plotting structure or romance team structure, this is a perfect movie to study. No theme deep enough to get in the way, standard romance troupe of hidden prince, standard heroine, everything. And they hit every detail in the plot structure as they…

I Just Wanted a Way to Say Thanks… You all keep me on my toes and learning with great questions, both in comments and in letters both here and through the workshops. I feel like I am very lucky to have the ability to keep active, keep learning, and keep having fun with my writing. So for all of the thank you comments and letters, I want to say from myself, Kris, Allyson and the gang at WMG… “You are more than welcome.” I just hope a comment or two in the lecture will help you get focused in the coming year. Now, it’s Saturday before Christmas. Go enjoy the…

A Free Lecture… That’s right. From me, Kris, Allyson, and the entire crew of WMG Publishing Inc, a free lecture to help you get your writing set for the new year. Normally I do all sorts of blogs here about getting ready for the year, but this year I figured the best way to try to help would be to give everyone who is interested a free lecture. I will do some blogs as well, so don’t worry about that. Can’t let that tradition go by. (grin) The lecture is called CARVING TIME OUT FOR YOUR WRITING and I recorded it in 2013. It is still completely up to date…

Last Night’s Post Got Me Some Private Letters… All good ones, all asking about sales blurbs and why they are so bad from New York publishers, for the most part. And got a few comments on the blog as well on the same topic. I thought a couple of the other shots-in-the-foot would get more attention and feedback, but nope, all sales blurbs. No one mentioned that one at all the first time I posted that in 2011. Things have changed I guess. And do read the couple comments on last night’s blog. I gave a few quick lessons. The reason sales blurbs are so bad on most books from…

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…

PROMOTION AND SALES PACKAGE OFFER FROM WMG PUBLISHING INC. LAST DAY TODAY! As a one-time offer, limited to only ten, WMG Publishing Inc. will be offering to put together an entire sales package for one of your books. A holiday offer to the writers who have supported our projects and workshops over the years. This package will be put together by the entire team at WMG Publishing. And yes, I will be helping as well, even though I don’t work officially at WMG. The idea of this is to help you (or whoever you buy the package for) set up a sales and promotions plan for a book, with all…

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…