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Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Publishing: #9… Writing is Hard
Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Publishing will be out later this winter with an introduction. And then it will be followed by a book called Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Indie Publishing. But first I wanted to put each myth or “Sacred Cow” up here again as I promised. The Myth: “To be Good, Writing Must Be Hard.” —- This myth comes in many forms and has many faces, but let me put it as plainly as I can to start. Myth: To be Good, Fiction Writing Must Be Hard. (And it can’t be fun.) Total hogwash, of course, yet it is stunning how many new…
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Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Publishing: #8… You Can’t Make a Living with Your Fiction
Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Publishing will be out later this winter with an introduction. And then it will be followed by a book called Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Indie Publishing. But first I wanted to put each myth or “Sacred Cow” up here again as I promised. The Myth: “You Can’t Make a Living With Your Fiction.” (Note: This post introduces the Magic Bakery idea and it caused a lot of stir when it was first posted.) — This myth “You can’t make a living writing fiction” is so clearly hogwash, I shouldn’t have to include it as a chapter in this book. All anyone has…
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Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Publishing: #7… To Sell You Must Write What Is Hot
Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Publishing will be out later this winter with an introduction. And then it will be followed by a book called Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Indie Publishing. But first I wanted to put each myth or “Sacred Cow” up here again as I promised. The Myth: “To sell either to editors or readers, you must write what is hot.” This myth stops thousands and thousands of book sales and destroys careers. And it’s just stupid, even though the myth seems to have a logical base in publishing. This myth spouts like a bad cold out of the mouths of top professionals…
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Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Publishing: #6… Selling to a Big Publisher Insures Quality
Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Publishing will be out later this fall with an introduction. And then it will be followed by a book called Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Indie Publishing. But first I wanted to put each myth or “Sacred Cow” up here again as I promised. — Very few of these chapters will deal with the editor and publisher side of publishing. I know that in fiction publishing there are lots of problems with publishers, and right now picking on them just seems to be like kicking dirt onto a person who is struggling to even figure out how to stay alive. Besides,…
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Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Publishing: #5… Book as Event
Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Publishing will be out later this fall with an introduction. And then it will be followed by a book called Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Indie Publishing. But first I wanted to put each myth or “Sacred Cow” up here again as I promised. — The myth of Book as Event, put as clearly as I can. Myth: All books need to be events, need to be something special. Hogwash, of course. All books must be written as well as the author can write the book, but just because the author spent blood and sweat on the book, or the author wrote it…
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Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Publishing: #4… You Need an Agent to Sell a Book
This series of posts will turn into a book called Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Publishing later this fall with an introduction. And then it will be followed by a book called Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Indie Publishing. But first I wanted to put each myth or “Sacred Cow” up here again as I promised. This fourth Sacred Cow article (topic) was published here in 2009. Wow, has the world changed since 2009. Indie publishing was only a glimmer then and traditional publishing was turning ugly, so ugly that at that point, I was about ready to walk away completely and go back to playing…
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Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Publishing: #3…Rewriting
This series of posts will turn into a book called Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Publishing later this fall with an introduction. And then it will be followed by a book called Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Indie Publishing. But first I wanted to put each myth or “Sacred Cow” up here again as I promised. This third Sacred Cow article was published here in 2010 and I redid it once in 2011, but now it is slightly redone for the world of 2013/2014. However, this third incarnation hasn’t changed that much. On many of these posts it is amazing to me as I redo them…
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Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Publishing: #2
This series of posts will turn into a book called Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Publishing later this fall with an introduction. And then it will be followed by a book called Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Indie Publishing. But first I wanted to put each myth or “Sacred Cow” up here again as I promised. This second Sacred Cow article was published here in 2010 and I redid it once since, but now it is slightly redone for the world of 2013/2014. However, this third incarnation hasn’t changed that much. On many of these posts it is amazing to me as I redo them how…
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Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Publishing: #1
This series of posts will turn into a book later this fall with an introduction. And then it will be followed by a book called Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Indie Publishing. But first I wanted to put each myth or “Sacred Cow” up here again as I promised. This first Sacred Cow article was published here in 2010 and I redid it once since, but now it is completely redone for the world of 2013/2014. On many of these posts it is amazing to me as I redo them how far my beliefs have changed in a few short years. And how far publishing has changed as…
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A Bunch of Stuff
You Ever Wondered What Happened To?… For example, I started this book here on the blog about Self Sabotage. Basically it was subtitled “Fiction Writers and the Art of Self Sabotage.” I had a decent first chapter on it. Then I wrote the second chapter and the third chapter and got about halfway through the fourth chapter, intending to put the chapters up as blog posts when I realized that Debbie Downer didn’t begin to describe what I was writing. I like being encouraging to writers because we all face the same basic fears and problems along this fiction-writing road. But in those chapters I wasn’t being positive. Not in…