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Henry Kuttner
One of My Major Influences… Not so much for his writing, but for Kuttner’s ability to write a lot of stories. And his partnership and marriage to C.L. Moore. Henry Kuttner died in 1958 at the very young age of 43, so I never had the pleasure of meeting him. Or C.L. Moore for that matter, mostly because she stopped writing and left the field in 1963. But she was maybe the most important of the early women writers in science fiction. Kuttner (and Kuttner and Moore together) did well over 300 short stories and a ton of novels, publishing under more than a dozen major pen names, plus their…
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Publish 100 Cat Stories
Way Back Before Covid, We Did a Kickstarter… January. Seems like a billion years ago, doesn’t it? The idea was part of the Make 100 promotion by Kickstarter, so we decided to publish 100 cat stories in twelve volumes called THE YEAR OF THE CAT. We planned on starting publishing in May and we did. And do one book per month, and we have. Even with Covid and fires and who knows what else coming this year. So this month #5 just came out, right on time. #6 is turned in and Kris and I are working on #7. All fun. Part of that Cat Kickstarter campaign was a workshop…
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Another Way-Back Post
Just For Fun… This is a picture taken by photographer Beth Gwinn of a large group of writers and editors at Westercon in 2000 or 2001. Not sure. About twenty years ago. Looks like some sort of Locus Award ceremony. Sadly, a lot of the people in this picture are now no longer with us. And I suck at names, so I am going to miss a few. Very sorry about that. Starting on the right and going left is Kristine Rusch, Gardner Dozois, Connie Willis, Lucus Shephard, Ursula LeGuin, Tim Powers, Mark Kelly, Steve Barnes, Jacob Weisman, Beth Meachem, Tom Dohorety, Charles Brown, Nina Hoffman, and Janice Gelb. Thanks…
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Another Go At A Myth…
The Myth: Indie Publishing Costs a Lot to Do… Silly myth, but it is pushed hard by traditional publishing and by those who want to sell all their rights and let traditional publishing keep all their money. And it is pushed by just not knowing or getting information from the wrong sources. Remember, there are always people trying to stop you. So let me detail out the costs here as clear as I can. Let me make a couple of assumptions clear first. Assumption #1… For novels you must have copyeditor, someone who finds typos in your work. This can be a good friend, someone you hired at your library…
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Deadlines
Got to Love Them… I wrote four short stories in the last week or so, got two more to do I found out today. Actually thought I only had one, but had missed one. And in a wonderful meeting (wonderful because everyone at WMG Publishing is healthy and our offices are still there), I got a number of other deadlines set. When focused, I work great to deadlines, and at the moment I am focused on writing and exercise. So I should be fine. My writing deadlines for the next month. (Yes, I do mean one month.) — Two new original short stories. — Introductions and author intros for Cat…
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Special Workshop…
Only Through A Kickstarter… A special three-week workshop through a very, very special Kickstarter campaign put on by great editor and writer, Mark Leslie for his Obsessions Anthology. Feed the Obsession Kickstarter campaign. Kris and I both have original stories in this anthology, along with some other fantastic writers. And since the object of this campaign is an anthology called Obsessions, we offered to do (just for the Kickstarter campaign) a special three-week workshop. Exclusive 3 Week Horror Fiction Workshop “How to Write an Obsession Story (That people want to read.)” Or “How to Write a Horror Short Story.” The reason this is exclusive is because you can only sign…
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A Few More Hours On The Half-Priced Sale
Leaving the Coupon Code Active until Wednesday Evening… Since yesterday was a holiday here in the States, and today it seems like half of the West Coast is either covered in smoke, worried about fire, out of power, or all three, Kris and I figured we would let the code stay active until Wednesday evening. That way everyone had a chance to get a workshop or class that they wanted. The code to get anything on WMG Publishing’s Teachable is: EndOfSummer Those of you in the Space Opera Workshop, I mentioned on Week #2 you should look at the four Pop-Ups. Well, the codes were going to go out today,…
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New Workshops Are Up
Well, One Is New… I have the new Making Money with Your Writing workshop now up on Teachable and starting in October. It is in the lifetime subscription as well. And I put up three classic workshops as well. Writing Romance, Information Flow, and Endings Workshops. Since the half-price sale is going on, I wanted to make sure they were available. Also the four new Pop-Ups are up. For those of you who supported the Return of Boss (actually you still can at Late Pledges which gets all the stretch rewards as well) you will be getting codes for those four Pop-ups later this week. And codes for all the…
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I Shrug At Audio Books
But I Am A Business Person… I know, I know, all authors get all excited about audio books, and can quote the statistics about how it is the largest and fastest growing segment in the publishing world. And they would be right about the statistics. But as anyone who has ever taken a statistics class, those numbers can be used in all sorts of ways. So let me give you some numbers, even real numbers in publishing seem elusive and difficult to get. Many reasons for this, not the least of which is that Amazon, the largest bookseller on the planet, does not release numbers. And traditional publishing often counts…
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Course Curriculum
Updated Because of the Sale… You can find this workshop curriculum at any point on the front page of my web site on the right under the Curriculum tag. There are a bunch of workshops, pop-ups, lectures, and other classes that I tried to put in some sort of order. If I missed something or didn’t add it in for some reason, just write me with questions. Remember, until the 8th, everything is half price on Teachable. Everything, including classes, lifetime subscriptions, everything. Full instructions and reasons for the sale are in the previous blog, but all you have to do is hit purchase and then put in the code:…