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Playing With Licensing
Once Again… I mentioned a while back for the Cold Poker Gang kickstarter that I created a set of cards with all the book covers as the backs. Looks way cool. And a few people will be getting signed decks from me from the Kickstarter rewards. (By the way, the surveys have all been sent out. I will be contacting you with workshop stuff later in the week.) I also got one test deck of cards with the new book only on it. Way cool looking. I also made a poker chip set with Cold Poker Gang on every chip in gold lettering and my new book cover on the…
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Recorded a New Pop-Up
Not Live Yet… But will be next week. In fact, I am going to record a second one as well and put both up at the same time next week. The new Pop-Up I recorded is called Fear of Success. We are doing right now the first time through a Killing the Critical Voice workshop (that we will offer every month) and fear of success is often so much of the reason for not being able to fight critical voice. And it is amazing how many writers have vanished or held themselves at a certain level because of this fear. Critical voice always comes out in fear, by the way.…
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Dr. Jerry Pournelle’s Advice
Advice from Another Pro… Before he died in 2017, Dr. Jerry Pournelle recorded at the Writers of the Future conference advice to help newer writers. He wasn’t talking to fans, but to writers. It doesn’t matter what any of you thought of Jerry personally, his books were New York Times bestsellers and he was in the industry writing for over forty years or more. And besides helping writers at Writers of the Future, he often took in single student to mentor. Some major writers were his students at one time or another. And I know a lot of you don’t believe me at times about some of the advice I…
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A Real Test…
For What Remains of My Critical Voice… Which is clearly nothing. Tonight I had to read a lot of assignments in the critical voice workshop. This assignment details out how each person makes projects important and thus allows critical voice in. Now in all those assignments there was an amazing amount of reasons, excuses, and just scary problems. I read them all tonight to get a basically form-letter response to everyone. Nothing I could really say. It was one of those awareness assignments. But tonight I also had a short-notice short story due that I had to finish by tomorrow. That kind of deadline can make a story “important” quickly…
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Tags and Sales Copy
Captain Proton… Defender of the Earth! “Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear when Real Men with ray guns and beautiful women in beguiling outfits battled hideous monsters from outer space! Return with us to the days when Captain Proton ruled the skyways!” That is part of the back cover copy of a full novel I wrote called Star Trek: Voyager Presents Captain Proton. I wrote the novel under the name D.W. “Prof” Smith and in the style of E. E. “Doc” Smith’s Lensman series. Captain Proton, for you non-Voyager fans, was a character on the holo deck in the show. (I also wrote a book staring…
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Just Eight Hours Left!!
Cold Poker Gang Kickstarter Campaign… Almost to the fourth stretch goal. If we manage to hit that, everyone will get 5 extra books, plus $35o in lectures, Pop-Ups, and Classic Workshops. Plus, remember that the only place to get into the special Writing Mystery Series workshop is in this campaign. It is a three week workshop and the reward level is $150. You have your choice of taking it in July or August. And there are discounts on lectures and regular workshops as well. Ends at 6 PM tonight, West Coast Time, so not much time left. Here is the link to the campaign… Cold Poker Gang Kickstarter
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Losing An Art Form In Book Sales
Just Was Brought to My Attention… That publishing is losing an art form. Television still has it, so do movies, so do gaming and other licensing areas. But books are losing this art form completely. Tag Lines. That’s right, writing a tag line to catch a reader’s attention used to be an art form on book covers and helped sell millions of copies of books. But now, due to simple lack of knowledge, the art form is vanishing. So what is happening? Well, in traditional publishing, massive budget cuts have taken out most of the sales force, leaving a few for only the bestsellers. Where the sales force used to…
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Still Time to Get Into June Workshops
A Bunch of Great Ones… First week will be done on Tuesday and Wednesday, but if you jump in and let me know, I’ll still read your first assignment. And then you can stay with the workshop the rest of the way. First weeks are often summary weeks and focus weeks. So to get to them, go to June Regular Workshops on Teachable. To find them, just remember to hit “see all courses” and then scroll down to the regular workshops. Some really good workshops and the brand new KILLING THE CRITICAL VOICE workshop is also starting. So here is the list. A good month for workshops and to keep…
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Cold Poker Gang Kickstarter Almost To First Stretch Goal
Only $310 Away… I want to thank everyone for the support so far. Been fantastic. And we still have 12 days to go. With the stretch goals above this first one, writers will get a choice of a $50 lecture and then the next stretch goal a choice of a $150 Classic Workshop. Above that is a Pop-Up choice worth $150 and above that it will really be amazing. Readers for each stretch goal get books to read. A couple I wrote you might never heard of, actually. Can’t believe we are so close to the first stretch goal. That is so cool. Thank you!! So here is the link…
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A Streak Still Holding
Day 2,860… That’s how many days it has been since I missed writing something here on this blog. August 1st, 2012 I started. And the reason I counted this tonight is because I have a Kickstarter campaign I will announce here tomorrow afternoon, but needed to keep my streak alive here tonight. So write about the streak. Duh… I suppose I should also tell you that June Regular workshops are starting today and tomorrow. And those of you signed up for the June session of Creative Nonfiction Writing workshop from the last Kickstarter, it also started today. (Only could get it in the Kickstarter.) And the June Historical Fiction special…