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Sitting and Laughing….
Just Couldn’t Stop Laughing… I got sent this newsletter that I tend to read every month. It is from a major traditional published person, a former editor and so on, who has her head so far up the ass of traditional publishing, I have no idea how she sees anything clearly. And she often does not. She pretends to pay attention to indie publishing, then does a sad and so uninformed piece of Pay-to-Publish, I got disgusted. But that is not what made me sit and just laugh and have a hard time stopping this afternoon. She did an article about how the AALA (American Association of Literary Agents) revised…
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The Wet Blanket Reality– Chapter Three
Chapter Three…You Get An Agent This book is a travelogue through the steps it takes in 2022 to become a traditionally published fiction writer. So please read the Introduction and First Chapter and Second Chapter before this one. You do that, this chapter will make more sense, as much as this chapter will ever make sense to a sane, thinking person. (Writers are neither sane or thinking at this point in this process.) So after years of work, you declare your novel masterpiece finished and have a party. Then you spend a ton of time and effort sending out query letters to agents. (Your book never leaves the house, just…
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The Wet Blanket Reality… Chapter Two
Chapter Two… The Query This book is a travelogue through the steps it takes in 2022 to become a traditionally published fiction writer. So please read the Introduction and First Chapter before this one. You do that, this chapter will make more sense, as much as this chapter will ever make sense to a sane, thinking person. (Writers are neither sane or thinking at this point in this process.) So after years of work, you declare your novel masterpiece finished and have a party. So what next? EVERYONE KNOWS (stupid common knowledge and not true, but we’ll go with the myth here) that you must have an agent to sell…
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October Workshops Starting…
Tuesday and Wednesday… The October regular workshops are starting, plus the second sessions of the special workshops from the Pulphouse Kickstarter. Those two are not available for sale, but the eight October regular workshops are available and there is a half-price sale going on. See the last two posts for information. I have two more chapters in the Wet Blanket Reality book done, both on the next steps a writer goes through with agents to get to being traditionally published. So stay tuned for that. Or as they say in traditional publishing, “Hurry Up and Wait.” (Not kidding.) Remember the two new six-week regular workshops, POWER WORDS starting tomorrow and…
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The Wet Blanket Reality… Chapter One
Chapter One… Manuscript Must Be Perfect Writers who believe in the myth of traditional publishing also believe deeply in the myth that rewriting is good and that a manuscript must be perfect before you dare send it off to an agent. Perfect, I say!! Perfect! (I have never in my 40 plus years in publishing ever seen a perfect manuscript.) So what happens is that years and years pass while the writer “Works on their book.” Okay, come on, we all know a number of these writers spending years “working on their book.” And sadly, these writers are proud they are doing that and they will be glad to tell…
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The Wet Blanket Reality… Introduction
INTRODUCTION…The Myths The Wet Blanket Reality will be a writing book about the reality of trying to sell novels to traditional publishers. I suppose the title of the book could be TRADITIONAL NOVEL PUBLISHING: The Wet Blanket Reality. But as I write this here on my blog, chapter-by-chapter, I’m just going to call it by the subtitle. Fits better. And sadly gives away the book. That’s right. I am going to be a wet blanket, smother a little of your writing dreams to help you gain a more sustainable and fun dream of being a long-term professional writer. Think of it this way. Part of you is on fire so…
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Career You Learned No Longer Exists
Happens All the Time, I know… But it seems to really be happening just lately in fiction writing. Or maybe I am just noticing it more lately. But in Publishing in the 1970s through the early 1990s, it was possible to learn the career and it would remain as you learned it. In fact, there are still old pro writers teaching those old ways to young writers even today, even though the writing career of those times no longer exists at all. Kris and I used to tell writers it was possible to make a living with your writing in traditional publishing, because that was the only game in town…
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And Old Projection Brought Forward For Fun…
What is a Print Run, Grandpa? I wrote this as a start of a blog in 2013… Projecting what I thought might be the future. Wow, took less than thirty years, except in traditional book publishers. Here is what I wrote eight years ago… ——— I can imagine myself in thirty years sitting in a bar, my cane nearby to fight off any unwanted advances from elderly women while Kris sits there laughing at my delusions. Then suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, a young writer walks up to me and asks “What is a print run, Grandpa?” And I’ll have to answer that back in the days before the oceans…
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I’m a Copyright Junkie…
I Know…. Sounds Painful… Today, I found some amazing articles on copyright and trademark. Basically IP. One pretty amazing article was on copyright, bad agents and lawyers, really bad contracts, divorce, and more twists and turns than anyone will be able to figure out because of all the stupidity over the decades. It concerned the Tom Clancy’s estate and Jack Ryan. I am not going to link to it because the copyright and trademark concepts in it will just give anyone who is not a copyright junkie the wrong ideas. A second court case article was posted about Dwight Yoakam suing Warner Brothers for continuing to sell his songs. Actually,…
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The True End of Trade Publishing…
At Least As Anyone Knows It… Trade publishing is what I call traditional publishing. The reason for the word “trade,” very, very, VERY simply put, is that the publishers don’t sell directly to readers, they sell into the trades. The trades in publishing are a distribution system that is an old-fashioned channel to get books from an old-fashioned printing presses to warehouses to distributors to bookstores and then into the hands of readers. (By the way, three of the major trade printers have filed for bankruptcy or shut down. That is another really bad sign that causes books to be extremely delayed.) Trade publishers do not care about readers and…