• Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Fun Day

    Errands and Meetings and Fun Conversations… Day started off with errands since it was my first full day back in town. Then meetings at WMG and some planning out at the bookstore. Then a fun dinner with writers. Then a fun business meeting with even more writers. Then I worked in my office at WMG cleaning up business stuff until after 1 a.m. Home to watch some television and get some sleep now. I will answer email tomorrow. Damn I have a tough life. (grin) ———– (Blog Streak Day 2,180) ———- Found… The picture below is on the wall of my office that I am tearing apart. I will move…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Things Always Change

    And There Is Always a Lifespan… Over the decades, I have been involved in numbers of groups and writer’s events. I helped start a workshop in Moscow, Idaho. Kris and I started a group and workshop in Eugene, Oregon. And we started a publishing company named Pulphouse Publishing that, by its nature, had a limited lifespan built into its DNA. (When we started WMG Publishing we made sure it did not have that fatal flaw.) Then twenty-three years ago we moved to the Oregon Coast. We had no desire to start anything here, but as the years went by, it just sort of happened. Workshops, Sunday lunches, and over the…

  • Challenge

    Back In Oregon

    So Tired Tonight…. So this will be one of those filler posts to keep the blog streak alive. Kris knew I was going to be tired when I finally stopped, so she reminded me to do this on the phone as well as sent me a message. That folks, is the value of having your family involved with a streak and having them help you at times keep it going. Thanks, Kris. And wow do we have some great stuff coming up to announce. We are all really excited. How is that for vague? (I’m tired and been working on the new stuff all day as I traveled, on the…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Being Behind Is Normal

    I Love Being Behind… (I put up this article over a year ago, thought it made complete sense then and I needed to hear it after the last few months. So here it is again, updated to summer 2018. Just for me. I hope the rest of you get a little something from it.) In indie publishing, what I hear over and over from indie writers everywhere is that they are behind. Always behind. A simple reason for this. There is too much we all want to do, need to do, feel we MUST do. And we have to have it done YESTERDAY. I am no exception to this. I…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff,  On Writing,  publishing

    Number One Continues…

    Twenty-four Hours Later From Last Night’s Post… For the last 40 plus hours, my novel Kill Game: A Cold Poker Gang Novel has been #1 in the free books on Amazon, as well as a bunch of sub-categories for mystery. Normally a book with a Bookbub promotion like this hits near the top or the top for a few hours and then fades off. Lots of books have churned under my book in the last almost two days, but none have knocked me off the top spot yet. It will happen shortly, when the Bookbub promotions hit on Monday morning. But what a fun run. And yes, the free part…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Still Number One

    After Sixteen Hours… Wow, what fun this Bookbub promotion has been on Kill Game: A Cold Poker Gang Novel. We put Kill Game free for this promotion. (You can still get it on Amazon US and Kobo around the world and other sites. You can get information on it and the other books in the series here.) Now I understand that all the downloads are not sales. But there are six more books in the series plus a bundle. All of them cost money and all of them are selling well. Called a halo affect. We are so far beyond making money on the halo just from Amazon, it is…

  • publishing

    Cold Poker Gang: Kill Game

    Doing A BookBub Promotion… Not often you click on a page of one of your books on Amazon and the rankings are #1 all the way down the lists. This is an example of how to use “free” correctly. We made Kill Game: A Cold Poker Gang Novel free for a Bookbub promotion. It is the first book in the series. At the moment (Noon Saturday) it is featured as the top book in the Free Books on Bookbub. On Amazon it is #1 in all the free books on the entire site. Now, we are not making a dime off of that book, but nice that people are downloading…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Pulp Speed Time Again

    Got Some Questions So Wanted This Up Front… (I wrote this post about four-and-a-half years ago, then brought it forward over a year later. Then again for 2017 start. Now it is the middle of 2018. Time for this one again just to remind some or at least let you know what some people talk about when they say “Pulp Speed.” I have updated it this for today, July 2018.) ——– Not at all sure why this idea of writing at Pulp Speed sort of hits me right. I think because it flies in the face of all the myths. A writer has to have all myths under control to even…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Research and Study

    We Study In All Sorts of Ways… Normally I don’t say much about my reading or other activities except when I am detailing out a few days while writing a project in a challenge. Like the five day novel challenge. I do a little more detail on the short story challenges about the life around writing them. But not all of it by a long ways. But tonight I’ll tell you what I did for a few hours. I found myself studying a puzzle mystery form. Castle, the very first season when it was great, was a great puzzle mystery series pretending to be set in a police station. Not…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    The Secret To Being A Long Term Writer

    This Post Brought Forward and Updated Some… (I thought this would be a fun topic to bring up again. This is from a bunch of years back and was only part of a daily report post.) I got a question from a writer about what full time writers there were and if I would recommend some of them to study to see how full-time writers did it. Well, I am about the only long-term full-time writer who does this level of honest blogging about my life. But my way of doing things is not the only way by a long, long ways. I tell writers to find their own way.…