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Fiction Branding… Part 2
When To Think About Branding… Being a fiction writer is a fine balance in your head of being completely creative and telling the best story you can while at the same time holding in check all the critical voice stuff that says everything you are writing is crap. Long-term professional fiction writers have this controlled completely in one way or another. Early stage and middle stage fiction writers fight the battle with every story or novel. The key early on is to clear out or hold back the critical voice while trying to stay out of the way of the creative voice. Most writers fail and thus have short careers.…
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Fiction Branding… Part 1…
Different Types of Branding… And you brand a fiction series for different reasons. So for a number of posts, I’ll talk about fiction branding and the known reasons to do it, and some reasons most fiction writers never once think about. And yes, at times I will talk value and trademark and so much more. But starting off, most indie writers understand the surface level of book or series branding. (I am not talking to traditionally published fiction writers because they do not own their own books with traditional contracts these days.) Making books in a series look like they belong together, and making books under an author’s name also…
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Editing and Reading Observations… Part 9…
Bad Choices by the Writer… In previous parts of this series, I have been talking about why I will stop reading a story. I have mostly focused on craft issues in the telling of the story. Craft issues can be solved with learning and study and putting a lot of words through your fingers (combined at the same time with the learning and study). But for this part, I want to talk about the lack of understanding by the reader of two major elements of commercial fiction… 1…THERE ARE READERS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORDS… In the early stages of writing, writers only focus on the words and…
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Introduction to A Class About Learning…
A FIFTY YEAR PERSPECTIVE OF LEARNING… As I said last night, this year marks 50 years since I sold my first two short stories (and started selling a lot of poetry as well.) Over those 50 years, I was stunningly lucky to have some amazing mentors (who also became friends.) Jack Williamson, Damon Knight, Kate Wilhelm, Algis Budrys, Harlan Ellison, Frederick Pohl, Julius Schwartz, and others. As I said, stunningly lucky. So I figured that since I am still around after 50 years of selling fiction and they all told me a lot of great stuff, I am going to do a nine-week class talking about and telling stories about…
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Lifetime Sale and New Class
All Lifetime Subscriptions Half Off… Just through the end of January. Only lifetime subscriptions. Not any of the bundles or anything else. Just the five lifetime subscriptions, because I got a few questions about them. Use the code: LIFETIMESALE At half price, they are very good deals, especially the Lifetime Everything. And if you have another lifetime subscription, I can take a little more off that Everything price. Write me for details. Fun New Class… This year marks 50 years since I sold my first two short stories (and started selling a lot of poetry as well.) Over those 50 years, I was stunningly lucky to have some amazing mentors…
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Shared World and Directed Study
Both Directed Study and Shared World Now Available… First, Shared World… The shared world in the second class is for THE SILVER LADY, a hotel and casino just outside of Vegas. There will be two initial volumes set in THE SILVER LADY. One mystery volume of mysteries set there and one ghost stories. It is a nine week class starting on January 22nd. Yes, it will have assignments. And yes, we will give plenty of time to write for the two anthologies. You can still sign up for the first class and go through it at your own speed and write for the two new Cave Creek anthologies coming later…
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Still Working Out the Kinks…
New Issue of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine Published… With the wrong cover. Oops… In the holiday issue, #24, I really wanted to feature Annie Reed’s fantastic new holiday story. We do that feature by using big header on the cover. (see the correct cover below) But the first cover without that feature got put on instead and sent out. And even loaded up to our store. Now understand, we just went monthly and then a few weeks into that, I broke my shoulder and couldn’t be of much help. But the October, November, and now the December issue made it out. And January issue is on time. So going monthly is…
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Bringing Forward. FAILURE MUST BE AN OPTION
A Series of Posts to Get Ready for the New Year… (I first did a version of this post in 2012, then brought it forward and updated it for 2014, and updated again in 2017, and here it is as part of this year-end flurry of posts to help get ready for 2024.) I’ll bet a few of you got very uneasy by me starting off a blog post with: “Failure Must Be An Option.” This post is about how to move forward with your writing. And to do that, you must fail, over and over to become an artist in this business and to just survive. And that’s normal and perfectly…
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We Know This Is Sort Of Silly…
Like Having Access To A Library… For years, Kris and I have been wanting to offer our writing fans a way to get everything we have ever published through WMG Publishing. That’s right, almost 50 years each of writing. But it was never possible. Until now!! Every eBook on the WMGBooks.com online store shelves. EVERY eBook. Now and published in the future. Over a thousand titles so far with hundreds still left to be added in the next few months. Not counting all the new writing and projects coming up in the future. This is a LIFETIME subscription. That means… EVERY Kristine Kathryn Rusch title. And all of her pen…
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GET ALL OUR BOOKS AND A WORKSHOP SALE!!
All Workshops Available for Sale!!! Workshop Sale First! Yup… Black Friday and Cyber Monday and Small Business Tuesday are all coming up so beside sales on the Shopify stores, we are doing a workshop sale. Everything on WMGTeachable is 50% off. Everything. And below are some really cool new workshops. To get 50% off, simply hit purchase on the class or workshop you want to take, then on the next page put in the code and hit apply and you will get the class or workshop or whatever for 50% off. Code is: BlackFriday50 Any problems or questions, feel free to write me. New Classes!! Indie Writer’s Guide to Shopify…