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Topic of the Night: Some Costs of Short Fiction Publishing
Some Costs of Short Fiction In the old days, meaning ten years ago, we counted the price of selling short fiction in the cost of envelopes and postage. Not a small cost, actually. And printer ink and paper. Now submissions are electronic with no costs other than the ability to deal with rejection and the wait for an editor to read your work. Actually, in this new world, the wait is the worst part since things are done so quickly these days. So what are the indie publishing costs of what I described yesterday in trying to make a living with your short fiction? Office Costs Most of the costs of…
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Topic of the Night: Making a Living Writing Short Fiction
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 10,000 words. I love reading it and I love writing it. And doing this exercise is fun for me, even though no one will ever follow this path. Besides, I am…
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Topic of the Night: A New Online Workshop: Teams in Fiction
Kris and I have decided, once again, to tackle a really, really important area of fiction, but one we believe most writers flat don’t understand or even realize exists. Teams in Fiction Basically, when Lester Dent (under a pen name) invented Doc Savage, he broke an old fiction tradition of one character and a sidekick. With Doc Savage, he created five team members that worked around Doc and by doing so set the template for all modern fiction. Think about your favorite shows. NCIS, the number one show on television, has Gibbs in the middle and his team around him. Captain Kirk and his team. Luke and his team in Star…
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Thirty Fantastic Years
THIRTY FANTASTIC YEARS Thirty years ago today I pulled into a driveway at an address in Albuquerque, New Mexico that Algis Budrys had sent me to. As I walked in the door, I met Kristine Kathryn Rusch and we have been together ever since. We had a wonderful day today just having fun and talking about thirty years and about years to come. I can’t even begin to imagine where I would have ended up if not for AJ sending me to that address. Certainly not here doing this. More than likely I would no longer be writing and would have just ended up working a golf course counter and…
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Some of My History
Some of My History Today, while working on a new project for this web site (see the topic of the night below), I came across a video of what it was like when I was skiing. Now, I was never as good as the guys they are showing here, but I skied with some of them regularly. And a number of others who were in the early days of the hotdogging, as we called it. I was into snow skiing and the fun of the early days of hotdogging from 1969 to the spring of 1972. Crazy fun. In person, I can tell you some wild stories. But watching this…
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Had Fun Working in Our New Bookstore
Fun Working in Our New Bookstore Yeah, that’s right, WMG Publishing will, in short order, be the owner of a brick and mortar bookstore. It’s a large area inside of the new Pop Culture Collectables store. Actually one third of the entire store is paperbacks, hardbacks, sf and mystery digests, and magazines. Another third of the store is a comic book store. Wait until you see the wall of comics. I’ll do pictures. And in the comic book room will be die cast cars as well. And larger cars. And the main room is toys, non-sports cards, cookie jars, sports collectables, jewelry, and collectable boxes and clocks. We also have in…
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Workshops and Store
Workshops and Store A focused day, since this is the end of the month and the May workshops are starting up on Monday, so lots of things to do. Also, we are aiming at having the new store open by the 25th, so I’m going to be spending some time there. ATTENTION! Anyone who is signed for a May online workshop should have gotten a letter from me. If you did not, write me. And there is still room in all the workshops. Remember they are limited to no more than five (except the two new ones), so these workshops now have become more focused on me trying to help each…
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Setting Up New Writing Schedule
Setting Up New Writing Schedule Still pretty tired from the sleep schedule getting screwed up, so spent the day doing workshop stuff and getting ready to really fire back up the writing. See Topic of the Night below. ——— The Day Once again nothing really much to talk about. Made it through some errands and then went for a walk with another professional writer to get some steps in. Then back to WMG offices to work on workshop stuff. Then I headed home around 8 p.m. to cook dinner, then back working on workshop stuff and my writing stuff for the rest of the night. ———- Workshops May Online workshops…
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Workshop Day
Workshop Day Still pretty tired from the schedule getting screwed up yesterday with jury duty, so spent the day doing workshop stuff. ——— The Day Nothing really much to talk about. Introduced our cleaning person to the new cat, then headed to the WMG offices to work on workshop stuff. Had lunch with Kris, then more workshop stuff. Home for dinner around 7 p.m. and then I watched the Blazer game with the new cat on my lap. Then I took a nap, watched more television, worked on more workshop stuff, and am now going to call it a night. Got stuff accomplished, just nothing exciting. (grin) ———- Workshops May…
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Topic of the Night: How I Organize What I Do
Organization I got a request that I talk about how I keep my writing and business organized. I’ve been meaning to do this post for a time, but haven’t gotten to it, so figured why not tonight. So thanks for the suggestion. Pushed me over the edge. Also what pushed me over the edge was at a little after eight this morning I was going through security scanning to get into the courthouse for jury duty and I had to empty out my pockets. The guard looked at me very strangely when I dumped into the dish seven different thumb drives. I will explain why below. Publishing Business Organization First…