• Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    A Few Great Questions Today…

    First A Question on Priorities… The question boiled down to this… “What is more important? Writing, Learning, Reading, Publishing?” Great question, and I honestly had to stop and stare at it for a moment because in the publishing world of 2024, all of those are important. There needs to be a balance of feeding them all regularly. But writers tend to get into trouble over time when they drop one or two. “I don’t have time to study another author’s book or to take a class or worse yet, I don’t need it right now.” So learning gets left out and the writer goes stale and dull in time. “I…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff,  publishing,  workshops

    Judging, Gifts, and Golf…

    Yes, I Am a Judge… Of the Writers of the Future writing contest. How it works for us professionals is that the editor of the book Jody Lyn Nye and a host of first readers wade through all the submissions every quarter and they send us professional-writer-judges 8 stories. I tend to judge two quarters a year is all. There are no names on the stories, but if I recognized a student’s style or story, I would disqualify myself. So total blind judging on our parts. Now here is what is interesting that most writers don’t know. Many, many writers were published out of the contest, which means they had…

  • Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    Why So Many??

    Got That Question the Other Day… Why have I done so many Kickstarters? Done 44 of them, working right now on building #45. My honest answer. I like to get my books and Kris’s books and our projects to readers. That simple. And here in 2024, that is the first step in telling readers what is available. Just as with any kind of promotion, Kickstarters take time to build up followers, but first question I always ask someone who is complaining about book sales is have they done a Kickstarter? Answer is almost always no. Fear.  Too busy. Too much work. All the reasons for the answer “no.” And when…

  • Branding,  Challenge,  publishing,  workshops

    Bite-Sized Branding and Trademark

    EVERY MONDAY MORNING FOR 2025 Last few years we have done Motivational Mondays (twice), Creative Survival, and Bite-Sized Copyright with the structure of four videos every Monday morning for the entire year. So for 2025, we are going ahead and really doing a challenge with BITE-SIZED BRANDING AND TRADEMARK. Four videos every Monday morning for the entire year to make branding and trademark for writers easy and painless to learn. Of all the classes we teach, this might make you the most money in both the short run and long term. This will not be legal advice on trademark in any way, but will be advice from one writer to…

  • Branding,  Challenge,  publishing

    Accidental Branding…

    Happens to Most Writers… Pretty simple how it happens. You end up with a logo or a certain look or on a series of books. You are doing it because it looks cool and to tie your books together, which is a basic form of branding for sales. All fun and if you let it slip or change it down the road, the brand is gone. But what most writers don’t know or seldom think about is the increased value of their copyright, their trademark, their brand caused by doing something that simple. Granted, most writers worry  bout how many sales they are making month-to-month and nothing about creating value…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  Pulphouse Fiction Magazine

    Classic Plus Prepare Ahead Classes

    This Time Writing For PULPHOUSE FICTION MAGAZINE!! Last spring, to get the writers ready for the Anthology workshop and to help them understand what the book editor’s at the anthology workshop wanted, we did a series of Prepare Ahead classes on the WMG Writer Store. Each class had a interview by the book editor, guidelines, and ten videos about how to write short stories for that specific sub-genre. Lots and lots of good information. And then the writers wrote for the anthology. I was reading for Pulphouse Fiction Magazine at the Anthology Workshop, but the book editors had first choice of a story written for them. I still bought 7…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Scheduling the Impossible…

    Scheduling Is Something We All Get Used To… Indie writers at some level or another all get used to scheduling publishing projects. Nature of this new world and actually for me, I had so many deadlines in a year in the old traditional publishing days, I had a massive yearly schedule for writing and travel and deadlines and money flow. In indie publishing, scheduling is just something we all do at one level or another. And then there is the WMG Publishing schedule master, Kris. Two major ongoing projects (Pulphouse monthly) and Holiday Spectacular (More moving parts than you can imagine) are year-long things. Plus for our books and such,…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Mentorships Still Availble…

    Lots of Interest… But so far this is still open. Two posts ago I gave the full story on how these came about and the history. Do read that. So as I said, I can safely handle two more writers. Write me if interested and I will answer what questions I can.. Cost is $3,000.  (This is just between you and me, no one else, although your partner is fine to ride along.) Any topic about writing and publishing is valid. I would be here to help you for as long as you want me to, meaning for years. But I do ask that every Sunday (or Monday or at…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff,  On Writing,  publishing

    Two Mentorships Open

    First Open Since 2022 Back in 2019, I opened up what we called a mentorship where I answered questions on anything that person wanted in writing and business of publishing. I took seven mentees total in 2019 and early 2020. How it sets up is that I asked the person to report in to me every Sunday (or Monday or at least once every two weeks) about what they were doing, progress or no progress. Writing or publishing done or not done. And plans for the coming week. I was sort of a check-point each week. If there were questions, I tried to answer them, or look at a cover,…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    Great Bundle Sale Still Going!!

    Any Bundle on Teachable (Including The Six New Ones) Any bundle is 50% off on Teachable. And as some suggested, we are adding in new bundles to focus on certain topics We have six now with more coming soon. To get a bundle at half price, simply go to WMG Teachable, find the bundle or bundles you want, and hit purchase. Then put in the code… GREATBUNDLE And hit apply and you will have it for 50% off. And most bundles are really good deals to start with. We are doing this because we are launching the FOCUS BUNDLE series. But first let me list the large bundles, the ones…