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Getting Started On Make 100
Many Steps… First off, next week everyone who supported my crazy idea to Make 100 Paperbacks will be contacted with the code for the Pop-Up bonus, plus to get your choice of Classic Workshop. And also since most surveys are in, we will be sending out the books that can go out. Again, thanks everyone. So tonight, after my eyes got tired from reading for the anthology workshop, I started the first step of cleaning up the Smith’s Monthly web site. Found a new theme that will work for now, loaded the advanced pro part of it, got everything updated on the back side. The theme will work great for…
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Your Likes Have Nothing To Do With It
I Know, Hard to Believe… I have talked about apps a few times here, got some great comments and ideas. And numbers of writers are already on the chase in different ways. Thanks for those comments! And I talk all the time about electronic publishing and how readers are reading. And how so much of the world is reading on their phones now. Clearly a trend of the future that I don’t see changing. But if I only published in ways that I personally read or like, I would never publish electronically, only paper. And I would never think of gift cards or apps. Why? I don’t read electronically and…
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March Workshops Up
All Ready for Sign-ups… A good list again this month, I think. They start on the 5th and 6th, thankfully for me after the Anthology Workshop here in Vegas. Also the new Futures Workshop: Structure will be starting on March 6th. Sign up for any of them on Teachable here. Or if you have a workshop credit you would like to use, write me and tell me which one you want to be in. March Six-Week Regular Workshops Now Available… Class #21… Mar 5th … Depth #3: Research Class #22… Mar 5th … Author Voice Class #23… Mar 5th … Dialog Class #24… Mar 5th … Writing into the Dark Class #25… Mar…
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Got Pushback On App Idea
Not At All Sure Why… Of the three ideas I mentioned the other day that I thought might be ripe to start gaining speed, the most attention went to the mass market size and a lot of people liked the gift card for electronic books. But wow did I get a lot of “That can’t work!” about writers having an app. Not in comments, but in private email and other ways. Stunning. And no one has a really good reason why not. It might be that apps look “important” and hard to do or something. Or that writers can’t see any reason to use one for themselves. And I must…
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Tip of the Week #57
The I’m Not Old Enough Excuse… I was going to do a blog on this, then decided to make it a tip of the week. (For those who do not get the Tip of the Week on Teachable, this is what they are like.) So then I got lazy and decided to just put this up on YouTube instead of doing a blog about it. So here is Tip of the Week #57. Warning to writers: It has the swear word “Practice” in it.
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February Workshops About to Disappear
Still Time to Jump In… The February regular workshops are starting into their second week and will soon be replaced by the March workshops. Nine of them in February and they are a good group. Depth in Writing is the workshop to take first, but this month if you have had Depth, I would suggest either Teams or Endings. Both will really help your writing. I think understanding teams in fiction just makes novel writing so much easier. It gives books almost an automatic structure or bones. And knowing all about endings makes readers want to buy your next books. So anyhow, you sign up on Teachable if interested, or…
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Business Workshops Around the Country
Three… Maybe Four… Worth Thinking About But only on one does the entire focus stay on the upper levels of Indie writing only. That is the Master Business Class WMG Publishing puts on every October in Las Vegas. Details below. What are the others? First off, SuperStars Writing Seminar in Colorado Springs just finished and it is great. Hosted by WordFire Press and Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta, it is a great place to go and network with other writers and learn about all basic sides of the business. Did I say networking. They are great at that. But Superstars spends about half its time on traditional publishing. But if…
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Reading as an Editor
I Have A Lot of Reading to Do… As does everyone else who is attending the 2019 Anthology workshop here in Las Vegas the first week of March. And even better, the stories are all written by writers who sure know what they are doing. This is not slush. This is what Kris and I used to call back in the days (early 1990s) of Pulphouse or F&SF reading, the “pro pile.” Everyone attending the workshop is reading like editors, not readers, or they should be, even though only five of us professional editors will be up front actually buying stories. But I have a real advantage in this reading.…
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2020 Las Vegas Workshops Announced!!
Some Fantastic Workshops!!! We are a few months late announcing these this year, but now we are ready to go. We wanted to wait and find out first how the large master class went here in Las Vegas in October and then the smaller craft workshops taught by Kris here in January. The verdict? About a million times better than the coast. Everything is easier, flights are cheaper, rooms nicer and without ghosts, and the food is available in hundreds of choices for every allergy and diet. It is more expensive for WMG Publishing to do, but we think the extra costs are worth it for the writers attending. You…
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Some Ideas I Think Might Be Ripe
This Is Just A Fun Thought Experiment… But I think that some ideas in publishing that have been around for a time and not gotten much traction might be nearing time-is-right place. Just my opinions, and I am sure I am missing a ton of other close, but not ready yet, things. But here are three to think about that I personally think are close. Idea One… Gift Cards for Books Now back in 2011, we did a couple books on credit-card-like cards with a code on the back to download the book. In essence the idea was to give a physical form to electronic books. We mounted the books…