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Got Behind… So A Product…
Late on Writing and Workshops Tonight… So nothing here as I had planned. But I have to post something to keep my daily blog streak alive. Yup, the power of a streak. So instead I am going to post a fun merchandise thing I have had since the early 1990s and never used. It is a note pad about 3 inches by 3 inches and 3 inches high of blank sheets of paper. About a thousand sheets of thin paper I am guessing. It is called a “Note Cube.” No idea what this would cost today, or if it could be done POD, but I thought it was cool when…
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Direct Sales
Been An Interesting Journey… I came into traditional publishing as a young writer almost 50 years ago. 49 to be exact. And that traditional publishing that was in place at the time was the system I learned very, very well, until the system itself became so corrupted I could not longer stomach working in it. Thankfully, indie publishing started up just about the time I was headed to do something else, and I fell in love with the freedom of being able to write what I wanted and publish it when I wanted and just let readers decide instead of gatekeepers. Problem is that it has taken me years to…
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AI Not Protected Under Copyright…
Decision Upheld on Friday… Here in the States, and in different forms in Europe and other countries as well, all forms of AI generated art and text cannot be protected under copyright law and the Berne Convention and thus hold no copyright. You can’t own it. No one does. Last March the copyright office issued decisions on that, and a Federal judge on Friday stood with the copyright office. This is an oh-oh of major proportions for any of you using AI for art or text. To own a piece of work, it must have human creativity. You have an AI cover on one of your books and yet you…
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Trademark Silliness
Jane Friedman Post… I have gotten numbers of questions about this post. Basically what happened is that Jane Freedman, one of the great traditional publishing apologists in her Hot Sheet, had some of her own books up indie on Amazon and someone copied her name and the titles of the books and did some poor AI books and put them up for sale. The books were put up under another account, so any sales would go to the other account. Jane wrote Amazon and asked them to be taken down. Amazon wrote back and asked if her name was a licensed trademark. Jane said her name was not trademarked under…
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Advertising and Building Fans…
Kris and I Went to An Aces’ Game Tonight… Great fun, great game. And then at the half, I was out in the huge lobby that circles the arena and every 100 paces or so was another booth selling swag. And a lot of them had long lines and a lot of stuff was sold out. And then I really looked around and it seemed I was one of a very few people out of the 9,000 there that didn’t have an Aces’ shirt or hat or something. Kris even wore her Aces’ t-shirt. And so I watched with that vision in mind starting the second half. Everything, and I…
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Some Questions About Details Classes…
First Two In Each Series Now Available… In fantasy, the first two Down in the Details classes are 1) Magic Shops and 2) Portals. In mystery, the first two available are 1) Unsolved Crimes and 2) Locked Room. In science fiction, the first two are 1) Invasion stories and 2) Exploration stories. Each class has a prompt for a story to write and send it to me for original anthologies in each genre. But I have gotten questions as to why I tell writers to not send the stories to me first. Yes, I pay 6 cents per word, and yes it will be original anthologies, and yes the writers…
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Why Do Streaks?
Day #4,031 of This Blog… Never missed, as I said yesterday. So why do this, or any other writing streak for that matter? The answer is simple… FOR YOURSELF You do it for yourself. Last year I wrote over 100 short stories in 100 days. Why? Because I wanted to. Thought it would be fun, and it was. Over the last few years WMG has had challenges we offer to writers on Teachable. A no-lose challenge. If they miss, they get what they paid in credit in workshops, if they hit the challenge, they get a lifetime subscription of their choice. Story a week, novel every two months, novella a…
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11 Years Plus…
Twelve Years Ago Bill Trojan Died… He was a sf and mystery fan, a collector, a hoarder, and a great friend. I spent most of a year taking care of his stuff after he died and settling his estate. 11 years ago on August 1st I started a blog streak, saying something here every night. 11 Years Have Gone By… I have never missed. Power failures, internet failures, computer crashes, being in the hospital, I never missed a blog. As of today, this is blog 4,030 in a row. I was 60 years old when I started this. In the last 11 years I have also written about 14 million…
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Some Updates…
Thanks, Everyone… For the support of our grand opening sale for the Pulphouse Fiction Magazine new Shopify store. It was great and we got the store off the ground. Just wonderful! Thanks!! A couple of updates… I will turn off the sale for the workshops around noon when I get up. I would imagine the folks at WMG will be shutting off the sale for the bookstores as well around that point. So if you are up before noon West Coast Time, you can still grab a workshop at half price (see the last number of posts for details.) SPECIAL PULPHOUSE WORKSHOPS I got really delayed this weekend and will…
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Last Full Day of the Sale…
LAST DAY ON THE SALE!! 50% off All WMG Writing classes and Workshops… Everything. The code to get any class, workshop, subscription on WMG Teachable 50% off is: GrandOpen Just hit purchase on anything you want and on the next page put in the code and hit apply and you will have it for half price. Everything is available, including the lifetime subscriptions and the bundles to the new DOWN IN THE DETAILS classes. BRAND NEW CLASS SERIES… The brand new series is called DOWN IN THE DETAILS series and it has eight fantasy classes, eight mystery classes, and eight science fiction classes. There is no deadline to take the classes or to turn in a…