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SERIES COLLIDE KICKSTARTER IS LIVE!!
SERIES COLLIDE IS PART OF THE COLLIDE SERIES… Yeah, I know, kind of weird, but in the last five years we have done these collide Make 100 Kickstarters with 50 stories by Kris and 50 stories by me on different genres or topics. So this year we are doing stories from Kris and my series, and this is the 5th installment of the Collide Series. Two great special workshops in this one as well about how to write series endings (stories, books, entire series) and how to write Cross-Genre series, which both Kris and I do a ton. Her Retrieval Artist series and my Thunder Mountain series are two examples…
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Day Three of the Challenge
Stunningly Simple and Yet Difficult to Understand… You become a trademark owner as soon as you start using your trademark with your goods or services. You establish rights in your trademark by using it. Here is what I think is the problem with fiction writers with both copyright and trademark. Fiction writers have no issue making stuff up. Yet when it comes to putting a value on what they made up, even if readers or editors buy it, that product has no value to them. And writers purposely stick their fingers in their ears and hum the Star Spangled Banner when you try to talk with them about the value…
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First Day of the Challenge…
Publishing Opinions from Yesterday… Interesting that no one agreed or disagreed or said anything about the opinions yesterday of where I think indie in 2025 will go. But I did get a letter from a new writer asking me if my book Killing the Top 10 Sacred Cows of Publishing was still accurate. I told him it was dated and things are much worse now for traditional publishing for fiction writers than they were when I wrote the book ten or so years ago. Much worse. Traditional publishing is a graveyard for young fiction writers and their dreams. No other way to look at it, sadly. But this guy also…
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My 2025 Challenge
And Back to the Format of this Blog… This blog on most nights will be in three parts for all of 2025. Part 1… PUBLISHING… First part I will talk about something in publishing or writing. More than likely finish the series on trademarks and so on. That will start tomorrow. Part 2… LEARNING… This will be all sorts of things about books or learning or workshops… For example, the 12 Holiday Days of Workshop Sales is still going. See yesterday’s blog. Great bargains to help you learn and get into the new year. Part 3… MY WRITING… Every night I will write about my writing that day, about the…
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Last Day…
Tomorrow This Blog Goes Back to Normal… And tomorrow I will finally announce my challenge here that I am going to attempt for 2025. I think I have all the parts worked out, so should be interesting. And this blog will go back to having three parts. But for right now one really great last day on the 12 Days of Holiday Workshop Sale. The Everything Subscription at half price. That covers everything that is on WMG Teachable and everything that is coming into the future. Might be the best year-end gift for your writing you can do not only for this year but for years to come. Twelve Days…
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It All Started With Workshops
We Called Everything a Workshop… At least in the beginning. And we tried to fit everything we decided to try to teach into the workshop format for the first number of years of online classes. But that slowly became clear it would not work, so we came up with lectures, and then Pop-Ups, and then general classes of all kinds and shapes. Every month we do regular workshops, the ones we consider to be the core classes every writer needs. Those regular monthly workshops are six weeks long, have five assignments, and about 40 videos total each. When a workshop loses attention, but we still feel it is important knowledge…
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Wow! Have We Done a Lot…
I Swore I Wouldn’t Do Online Classes… Not kidding. I swore I wouldn’t do them. Back before there was anything like Teachable, I was pushed into doing one online class one fall by a group of writers, encouraged by my wife. I swore it would only be one. I honestly did. Kris and I laid out the class and I presented it. Had to create a web site that acted very much like Teachable for the first few years. Then since we had decided for the moment to not do any more in-person classes, I did a few more over that first year. (We brought the in-person classes back at…
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Looking Forward…
Monday Morning Classes… Over the years we have done numbers of Monday morning classes, where every Monday morning four new videos appear on a certain topic. For 2025 we are doing PUBLISHING MONDAY and BITE-SIZED BRANDING AND TRADEMARK. Both should be great fun, 52 weeks of four videos per week per class, and they are available as the 4th item on the 12 Days sale list for 50% off. (No homework or assignments, just learning every week.) In 2023, we did a very future-looking Monday morning class called THE DECADE AHEAD, talking each week on how to focus out ten years with your writing and publishing. And just today I…
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I Am Making Progress On My Challenge Preparation
Actually, A Lot of Progress Today… I even did a couple of Smith Monthly Covers!! Still not sure about some of the tiny detail stuff, but covers look very possible and a lot of fun. Yay! I also did some of that basic stuff like used a few exterior hard drives to make sure everything was backed up. Amazing how many files I have with my fiction since my first computer days. And got two computers down on my office desk in WMG and ready to get set up. Those coming to the January Space Opera here in Vegas in mid-January will get to see all that sort of thing…
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More Challenges for the New Year…
Our Regular Four Challenges Enter the 2025 Holiday Sale… For years now we have had four challenges that writers can jump into at any point during the year and start at any time. — THE GREAT CHALLENGE which is to write and send to me one short story a week. — THE GREAT PUBLISHING CHALLENGE which is to publish one major thing a month. (Collection, novella, or novel.) — THE GREAT NOVELLA CHALLENGE which is to write a new novella every month. — THE GREAT NOVEL CHALLENGE which is to write a new novel every two months. Very few people have tried the novel challenge and only a couple of…