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Writing Career Camp
WRITING CAREER CAMP… Online July 15th through August 12th Since we did the last master class back six or seven years ago, we have been trying to come up with a way to bring everything in indie publishing and writing together. And have it all presented in a way that makes sense. With our regular workshops and classes and such, there are so many gaps of large areas we are missing that we want to cover. Really important gaps to indie writers and publishers. So for four weeks, we are going to do our best to cover everything we can, in an orderly fashion that will help writers of all…
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Advanced Magic Bakery… Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven… The Magic of the Business Oh, oh, to show another aspect of the magic of the bakery, I have to talk a few numbers and some pretty easy business terms. So hang on. I promise I will be gentle. To start a regular store on the corner of any town, it costs a lot before the first customer even walks through the door. Rent, set up of electric, fixtures, money and inventory systems, licenses, often remodeling and then you have to buy your inventory to stock your store. And since it has been 8 years since I started a brick and mortar store, I know I am forgetting…
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Advanced Magic Bakery… Chapter Six
Chapter Six… Who Are Your Customers? Right now this Advanced Magic Bakery metaphor is getting a little extended. You think? So to understand exactly what this is about, make sure you have read the Introduction and first five chapters. So you have been baking for a number of years and getting better at making your pies (stories) taste better and be more desirable to readers. And you have a bunch of short fiction pies and over twenty major book pies in your magic bakery. (In your magic bakery means you have published your stories wide around the world. That is all.) The pies are all on your wonderful magic bakery…
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ADVANCED MAGIC BAKERY… Chapter Five
CHAPTER FIVE… What You Sell… What do you sell out of your magic bakery? Simple answer… NOTHING. You never sell anything. Period. When someone walks in and wants all rights to use one of your magic pies, you simply say no. You sell all rights, you lose your pie. It walks out the door with the buyer and you can do nothing with it. And as I said last chapter, you wave your moral rights and basically the same thing happens. You lose control of your pie. You still have your copyright, but no control over what is done with it. You make all your money in your magic bakery…
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Coaching Questions…
Got Some Questions on the Coaching After Last Night’s Bog Mostly just what the heck is it? So figured I would bring up the original post and update it on how things are really working after a bunch of months now. Actually since February. Kris and I have talked a lot about how fiction writers have for one reason or another trouble getting their work out to readers. And often when this builds up, it causes a slowdown in the writing itself. A form of writer’s block. It turns out, every writer seems to be stuck at a very different place. And the topic is so huge, it just can’t…
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ADVANCED MAGIC BAKERY… Chapter Three
Chapter Three: Moral Rights This book is mostly how writers can use the magic of copyright to make money from licensing their stories. But copyright has a number of other uses. You own and control a copyright the moment you put your story in a form. You control the form. In our extended metaphor, the form is the pie. And you can control the slices of the pie you license, the terms of the license, and so on. Interestingly enough, while in that kitchen creating your most recent pie, you create some other advantages that are stunningly valuable that go along with that pie, but more than likely you won’t…
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New Kickstarter Launches At Noon!!
MARY JO ASSASSIN books… I love writing Mary Jo stories. It is amazing how complex killing someone can get. At 1,000 years old and a member of the Assassin’s Guild, she is well trained and practiced. Oh, if you are looking for magic or swords or things like that, afraid none of that in these books. She is sexy and deadly and doesn’t age, but she does love her partner, another assassin, and a good Screwdriver after a job well done. (Vodka and Orange Juice.) She might be called a completely modern assassin. Leaves no trace and has a very powerful code of ethics. And she is one of those…
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How to Achieve Your Dreams…
New Workshop Up… Got a hunch that some writers are going to return from the land of The Time of Great Forgetting and wished they had started this. It starts on June 10th and goes for 9 weeks, so right into the first week or so of August, after the Time has cleared for most. Get it on Teachable. Here is the blurb about it… HOW TO ACHIEVE YOUR DREAMS A step-by-step guide to Writing More, Getting More Readers, and Making a Living with Your Writing. 9 week class given by New York Times bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith and planned by both Dean and New York Times bestselling author…
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Got Busy…
Almost Forgot To Do This Blog… Spent a lot of time today working on the coming Mary Jo Assassin Kickstarter (Kickstarter Link). Then a bunch of time recording some workshops. Then email and a bunch of time preparing to really fire back up the stories tomorrow. You know, June 1st great restart. Almost have my sleep scheduled back in place to help the writing. At this point in the story-per-day challenge, I had a horrid three months, but I am far from giving up. That’s why the refocus tomorrow. Seven months can make up for a lot of the bad three months. Now I know for those of you lost…
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Bad May? Three Days to Reset…
I Actually Had a Great May… But very little writing. Lots and lots of great real-life stuff, great business stuff, and a fun Licensing Expo. I even changed my schedule a week or so back to get up at 9 am, which meant almost no time for writing in my normal writing time. Now I am still working on a short story per day challenge for this year, but I am a bunch of stories behind. Not tossing in the towel and won’t on this challenge. I still have seven months to go. And wouldn’t it be just horrid if I only got 300 short stories done. Oh, poor, poor…