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Just A Few Thoughts…
The Agent Theft News Has Me Thinking… I am sitting here in a beautiful condo high over the city of Las Vegas, staring at this screen on my little iPad and wondering where I would be if I hadn’t fired my agents and then found this new world of Indie Publishing. I might be here in Vegas somewhere, but I would not be writing. Of that I have no doubt. I was fed up with all the crap with agents and baby editors and lack of respect. I was done with writing and always hurrying up to hit some deadline or another then only to wait until someone got around…
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Product Focused vs Process Focused.
A Nasty Problem of Early Writers… I hear this all the time. Writers, especially indie writers the last few years, have focused on the finished product. And I must admit, that is how we keep score in this new world. Numbers of books and stories equals more readers and more money and so on. But in most of our workshops, except a few of the business ones, we focus on the process of writing. To long-term professionals, the process of writing is where the focus is, or at least in a balance on both sides. We would all have not made it for 40 or more years of writing without…
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Some Reasons To Avoid Traditional Publishing
There Are So Many… I mentioned that I had taught at a wonderful writer’s seminar called Superstars. Put on by Kevin Anderson, Rebecca Moesta, Eric Flint, Dave Farland, Brandon Sanderson, and a fantastic staff. I was a guest instructor on the writing side. I had a blast and the conference ran perfectly from my perspective. There were also industry guests like Mark Coker from Smashwords, a New York agent, some editors, and other fun people. The conference tries to help everyone and I was, of course, on the indie publishing side of things, even though I have published over a hundred novels with traditional publishers. The conference really does attempt…
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Another Day of No Answers
No More Answers Today Than We Had Yesterday… This entire thing will take time to settle out. I see three paths: Data Guy and Hugh can make changes, they can go on as they plan, or someone large could shut them down. No telling. But here is what I heard today. Also great stuff in the comments on Passive Guy and on my posts over the last two days. Thanks, everyone, for the comments. Too bad Data Guy didn’t feel up to responding. What I heard through the day (in letters and on private lists) from lots of writers was that they felt betrayed because they had given Data Guy…
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Earnings
I Have Wanted To Write About This For A Long Time… And now, with all the stuff with Data Guy and the new Author Earnings report and him starting up a new business to sell our business sales information to the highest bidders, I figure it was time. As many of you know, Kris and I spend a decent amount of time each week with workshops, helping writers move forward after their dreams, both on the business side and on the craft side of fiction writing. It helps us keep learning and we enjoy listening and engaging with both new writers and writers who are a ways down the road…
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Curriculum Updated and More Information
Finally, After A Year, the Curriculum Updated… The Curriculum now includes all the new writing and publishing workshops from the last year and the new Pop-Up Weekender workshops we just announced. No workshop doubles up information. All of them are unique and focused in an area of fiction writing and business. The curriculum is divided into a number of categories to help you decide, but I will always answer questions if you are unsure. ————————— I’m Still Working On Marble Grant Novel Actually, making a little progress. And I am still working on getting back the responses to the last short story challenge that ended on December 1st. That is…
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Getting Ready for 2018
Sort of a Look Forward… A Really Long Post Part of this is new, part of this is an older post from 2012 that I thought still made sense today. So once again, the way back machine strikes again. Every time I do this post, or talk with writers at the end of the year, I hear goals being set that are seemingly impossible when you do the math. I’ve set a few of them myself, to be honest, over the decades. I honestly have no problem at all with impossible goals. None, as long as the person setting the goal understands that the likely failure can also be deemed…
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Writing Focused Tonight
Getting Rested and Working On Starting Novels… What I do to get ready to start novels is actually clean the area around my writing computer. When writing I have yellow legal pads and sticky notes and books scattered everywhere around me. So when I go a time (like the last few weeks) without writing and then are ready to go back, I clean up. Sort of telling my mind it’s time to get back to playing. So that felt good tonight after doing the assignments for the workshop. No idea what I will write, but my little voice kinda wants to write a Cold Poker Gang mystery. No idea why.…
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Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing: Beta Readers Help You
This chapter came from me just hearing over and over about how writers are using multiple beta readers. And I honestly just got tired of shuddering every time I heard that stupidity. Chapter Six Beginning writers have a belief that the more people who read their work, the better their work will be. Of course, that flies in the face of any creation of art by an artist. But the fear is great among young writers, most of who are indie writers these days. Long term pros? What do they do? Maybe have one first reader, maybe not. Most not. Why? Because creating original fiction is not a group effort,…
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How to Run a Bookstore in 2017
Some Top of My Head Tips… On ThePassiveVoice.com (a fantastic resource for all us indie writers) bookstores get slammed a bunch. I finally got sort of tired of the slamming of bookstores in general and decided to make a point that it is the bad management of bookstores that kills them, not bookstores in general. There was even a comment that bookstores are like a boat, a place to throw money. Well, if you run them wrong for 2017, yes, that is correct. If you run them correctly, with an open mind, no. So I got asked by two people in email what it took to run a modern bookstore…