• Challenge,  On Writing

    A List of Stories So Far

    Even Though No Covers Yet… Thought I would list the short stories I have finished. The titles and their series, if any. I think the first 17 are all in series, so clearly had some stories to tell in my series, although one is a brand new series. More than likely in a few months, I will be telling non-series stories as well, plus maybe even some new series as they come up. All titles came from my title sheets to start, a few got changed as I went along. So here are the 17 stories as of the one I finished a bit ago. Jan 1st… The Curious Reasons…

  • Challenge,  publishing

    Brandon Sanderson Kickstarter

    In the Fiction Section under Publishing… This is huge and great news for all of us writers because finally the fiction section of Kickstarter will start getting some attention. Loren Coleman and I have been trying to get fiction writers to put up Kickstarter campaigns. And put them in the fiction section. Why? To get readers and buyers used to looking in Kickstarter for new books and authors, just as gamers go first to Kickstarter for new games. But just like with the gaming side, it needed a huge name to come in and blow the number out of the water so that the entire category will get more attention.…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff,  publishing

    Getting Close On Holiday Spectacular

    Almost to Our Funding Goal… And we have a lot of backers so far, which is wonderful. In fact, of all of the campaigns we have done, except for the Diving Universe campaign, this has the most backers at this point. That makes us all happy, because we hope to keep doing this every year, make it a tradition going forward. We ended up this first year, as we are learning, putting the Pulphouse campaign and this new one too close together. We won’t do that again. On the Pulphouse campaign, almost everyone now, or by the next day, will have gotten emails with rewards and stretch goals. If you…

  • On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    New Pop-Up Weekender Workshops

    POP-UP WEEKENDER WORKSHOPS WMG Publishing announces a new category of writing and publishing online workshops. Shorter and more intense learning experiences. Kristine Kathryn Rusch and I have a number of workshop ideas we have wanted to do, but they are too long for a lecture and two short for the six week structure of the regular workshops. To remind you… —A Regular workshop goes through seven or so videos each week for six weeks and five homework assignments and costs $300.00. It takes six weeks to finish a class. Full list and descriptions at www.deanwesleysmith.com/online-workshops/ —A Classic workshop is a retired regular workshop that you can go through as quickly…

  • On Writing,  publishing

    New World of Publishing: Control

    CONTROL This is the second post on setting goals and getting ready to write for the new year that I have brought forward from 2012 and redone. The first one was about how to handle failure, which will be a part of your new year. You won’t be able to avoid it completely. Now this post is on dreams and goals. It is critical to know the difference between a dream and a goal. Critical to having a successful and fun year writing. Set your goals only on what you can control. Any business plan you decide to set up for yourself for the new year is made up of goals…

  • On Writing,  publishing

    The New World of Publishing: Why Bad Agent Information Gets Taught

    For decades, the business of publishing fiction didn’t seem to change much. In fact, for a major industry, it stayed stuck solidly in practices decade after decade, with only slow and often minor-seeming shifts. But now something changes daily in this business. The point of this blog is to try to explain why some myths exist and why some bad information gets taught still by very smart people. And I hope the best way to show this is to just show the changes in agents over the years. So let me take on once again the biggest and most powerful myth of all: Agents. And how we writers got into…