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In a Suite On the Beach
In Lincoln City… Spent about three hours up in the warehouse tonight, some of that time talking with Steve and Chris York who stopped by. Wonderful to see them. Some time giving Kris a FaceTime tour. Ugly amounts of work. So much really good stuff. Like at one point I was moving a few boxes of toys and found an entire box of Lionel Train Track from the 1950s in great shape. Maybe a 100 pieces. Not a clue what to do with it. Boxes of stamps (my friend Bill collected stamps). One entire box was stamp collecting supplies. I will keep the US stamps to use (sold the older…
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In Boise
At Homewood Suites… Love these places. Huge living room, nice kitchen, large bedroom and nice bathroom. I could live in this place without trouble. Got out of Vegas around 10 am and ten hours later, with three stops, pulled up in Boise. I went right up the middle of Nevada and it was no issue. Other than there wasn’t any places to get out and walk some and I ate far too much. I will be better now going forward. Did a couple mile walk once I got checked in here, but getting up very early for the drive to the coast, so not going to make my full steps…
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Traveling… Oh, My….
Off to WMG Publishing Northern Offices… By the time most of you read this on Wednesday, I will be somewhere in the center of the Nevada desert, headed north. I will stay in a nice suite hotel in Boise, then on to Lincoln City, Oregon, on the coast, on Thursday. Then on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday all day, I will be in the WMG Publishing 7,000 square foot warehouse/office basically organizing things. This trip is organization and decisions on what I am going to be doing with a lot of things that fill that place. We first got that warehouse nine years ago when my friend Bill died and…
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Losing An Art Form In Book Sales
Just Was Brought to My Attention… That publishing is losing an art form. Television still has it, so do movies, so do gaming and other licensing areas. But books are losing this art form completely. Tag Lines. That’s right, writing a tag line to catch a reader’s attention used to be an art form on book covers and helped sell millions of copies of books. But now, due to simple lack of knowledge, the art form is vanishing. So what is happening? Well, in traditional publishing, massive budget cuts have taken out most of the sales force, leaving a few for only the bestsellers. Where the sales force used to…
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Still Time to Get Into June Workshops
A Bunch of Great Ones… First week will be done on Tuesday and Wednesday, but if you jump in and let me know, I’ll still read your first assignment. And then you can stay with the workshop the rest of the way. First weeks are often summary weeks and focus weeks. So to get to them, go to June Regular Workshops on Teachable. To find them, just remember to hit “see all courses” and then scroll down to the regular workshops. Some really good workshops and the brand new KILLING THE CRITICAL VOICE workshop is also starting. So here is the list. A good month for workshops and to keep…
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Cold Poker Gang Kickstarter Hit Two Stretch Goals!!
Gets Great From Here On Up!! Any supporter will now get three books and a choice of lectures just for supporting the kickstarter. And with each stretch goal hit now, more reading and more workshops, pop-ups, and so on. (The “so on” will be really amazing for anyone if we get there. (grin)) And I am excited because now we are finally going to get the Cold Poker Gang entire series into hardback. I want that set of books on my shelf. Just having it there will make me write more and more books in the series, I can tell you that. I am that superficial at times. (grin) So…
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Cold Poker Gang Kickstarter Almost To First Stretch Goal
Only $310 Away… I want to thank everyone for the support so far. Been fantastic. And we still have 12 days to go. With the stretch goals above this first one, writers will get a choice of a $50 lecture and then the next stretch goal a choice of a $150 Classic Workshop. Above that is a Pop-Up choice worth $150 and above that it will really be amazing. Readers for each stretch goal get books to read. A couple I wrote you might never heard of, actually. Can’t believe we are so close to the first stretch goal. That is so cool. Thank you!! So here is the link…
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Kris’s Birthday Party Part Two
THANK YOU, EVERYONE!! For all the wonderful birthday cards you sent to Kris. She has a list on her Facebook page of everyone. Please pardon the typos, they are mine, since I was typing in names, and trying to read handwriting and two cards had some water damage so we just couldn’t get names. But wow, it was wonderful!!! You made Kris’s day, folks! And made it special. So thank you!!!!!!! After we got back from the Bellagio, We put the birthday cake in the middle of the dining room table with the huge pile of cards. We had had a piece of cake the night before and Kris had…
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Kris’s 60th Birthday Part One
A Really Fun Day in Two Posts and Lots of Pictures! And Kris said she had a blast. She started off her day with her normal morning run, and Fremont Street was open. It just so happened that the casinos were opening here in Vegas just today. The town felt alive and coming back to Vegas. Wonderful. So she ran on Fremont Street, like she used to do. She describes it on her Facebook page wonderfully. Then after I got up and got around, we headed out to the Bellagio to see the Japanese Garden display there. They opened at 10 am and we got there around 1 pm. The…
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Cold Poker Gang Kickstarter Hit Goal!!!
In Just 24 Hours!! Wow. That is so cool. Thank you, everyone! Going to finally get the entire series into hardback and all supporters will get an early copy to read of BOTTOM PAIR, the new novel. That will be available to early readers from the campaign later this fall and published for everyone later in the winter. Remember, there is a nifty new workshop only available through this campaign called How to Write Mystery Series. A number of people have asked if it will be different from what Kris taught in her in-person (and Study Along) mystery workshop. And different from the now classic Writing Mysteries Workshop and the…