• Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign,  publishing

    Brandon Helps Us All Once Again

    Brandon Sanderson’s Second Kickstarter… Brandon’s campaign is about to break the record for the largest campaign in Kickstarter history. It is over twenty million as I start to write this and still climbing. And he is doing this in the FICTION category with four books. Three years ago Loren Coleman and I got it in our heads that Kickstarter could be another sales-of-books source, like a bookstore for preorders. We started a free Kickstarter for Fiction Writers place on Teachable, and Loren wrote an entire book on Crowdfunding for Fiction Writers, which is basically the bible. Our intent was to make Kickstarter pay attention more to the Fiction category like…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Aliens Among Us

    A New StoryBundle… Hold on, you can’t buy it yet. I have not put it all together yet, to be honest. I am looking for some great science fiction novels or novellas with aliens in them. Turns out they are harder to find than you might think. But, of course, I am being  selective because I love doing these bundles and work hard to make them the best they can be. The one going right now is CATTITUDE and if you love cat stories and haven’t grabbed it yet, don’t wait too long. It will be gone soon. So I am being selective looking for novels or novellas that focus…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    Cool Collections Workshops Starting in March

    Four Different Collections Workshops They last nine weeks, you write five stories, I help you put the entire book together and the week #9 assignment is that you publish the collection that didn’t even exist before you started the class. Great fun!! And yes, by putting in the code MidWinter, you get them for half price. Also, if you hit every assignment and publish on the last day, you get a Pop-Up Credit worth $150.00 So this is a fantastic deal, especially during the sale. Collection Classes focus for March/April are SPIES RELATIONSHIPS FANTASY HEROES/HEROINES Relationships can be about any kind of relationship, not just romance. Remember, during the nine…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Multitasking Big Time Today

    Not Even Counting the Sale And Bundle Stuff… Today, after my normal email, I went to work on doing the final layout of Smith’s Monthly #58. It will be out next week and up on Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/deanwesleysmith Then after that Kris and I walked a few miles to a great lunch place and spent some time there working on different workshops, getting them all planned out. I have also recorded a new class called CLIMBING OUT OF THE RUBBLE which will be part of the Master Business Class, the licensing class, and also on the Decades Ahead class. It will be up by Monday in all three. It will be…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Four Challenges Now

    They Are Designed to Help and Be Fun… On WMG Teachable, you can find four challenges now. The Great Challenge… Write one short story a week for one year. The Novel Challenge… Write one new novel over 30,000 words every two months for one year. The Novella Challenge… Write one novella (15,000 to 30,000) words per month for one year. The Publishing Challenge… Publish one new major project per month for one year. (Novel, novella, collection, or omnibus all count.) The cost is $600 to buy in ($300 during the sale this next week). You start at any time, but once you start, the clock is ticking. If you miss,…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    Writing and Workshops and Smith’s Monthly

    Scary Busy Day… I finished getting an issue of Smith’s Monthly to WMG publishing for copyediting. Then in a few days I will need to lay it out. I wrote a good 2,000 words in introductions and stuff for the issue. Also had an hour-plus meeting with WMG on different stuff. I also did a ton of workshop stuff today. And a lot of assignments. (I don’t count all those words and letters in my total.) And tonight I wrote a 3,000 word Thunder Mountain short story called “Yesterday’s Cold Grave.” So wow are my eyes tired and I need to keep this blog short. So just going to tell…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    MidWinter Workshop Sale Starts Now!!!

    Blogging Early Tonight… Wanted to let everyone know about the sale starting now. Go to https://wmg-publishing-workshops-and-lectures.teachable.com/ Then hit “See All Courses” and find the course you want. It will be half price by hitting Purchase and then on the top of the next page put in the coupon code: MidWinter That will get you the class, the workshops, the lecture, or Pop-Up at half price. And you can buy as many as you want, but you have to do it one at a time since Teachable does not have a shopping cart. The MidWinter sale will last until Thursday, February 24th at 7 pm. In essence ten days. And yes,…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    Didn’t Run… Slept!

    Kris and I Both Slept In… We figured we needed the sleep more than we needed the three miles. And boy were we right.  And I took another hour plus nap later before finally feeling rested. Don’t buy any workshops tonight or in the morning until I give the go-ahead. We have decided to do a Mid-Winter sale. (Actually the code will be MidWinter to get half price.) That said, when the sale starts, I do have all the March workshops up, including the new one SECRETS IN CRAFT. It is a craft workshop talking about the secrets of writing better fiction. Might be one of the best craft workshops…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Patreon Updates

    Smith’s Monthly #57 and 3 Raw Stories… Got those on Patreon. If you want to really see what Smith’s Monthly looks like, read the pdf version. You get to see it completely. And the last five pages with all the covers of all 57 issues is pretty stunning.  But for those of you at the $5 level on Patreon and above, I put up both the Bookfunnel link and the pdf of Smith’s #57, the January issue. Also put up three more raw short stories from the challenge. What is slowing me down is the covers, of course. I did those three in an hour, but I got to find…

  • Challenge,  publishing,  workshops

    Deductions

    Paying Attention to Your Taxes? If, in the best world (which I must admit almost no writers live in), you would have already figured your income for 2021 from your writing and the expenses you can take that income down to make sure you don’t pay taxes. Yeah, and cows can fly. But that is the right way to do it, and honestly, except for 2020, I come close each year to knowing exactly what WMG Publishing made and our tax situation by the last week of the month. I don’t have it to the penny, but I know. (Let’s just say that 2020 surprised me on the income to…