• Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Making a Living With Short Fiction 2021

    Back By Popular Demand… Actually, I am bringing this forward from 2014 and then May 2016 and then again July 2018. It is mostly unchanged. I will put in BOLD ALL-CAP ITALICS when I have changed something. A note: I used to say it was possible to make a living writing novels in traditional publishing. I made a great living in traditional with novels for 15 years. That is no longer the case for novels for all but a tiny few in traditional publishing in 2021, but novels indie published you can make good money. ———— Can You Make a Living Writing Only Short Fiction? Every year or so I…

  • 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: Making a Living with Your Short Fiction Updated 2013

    Way back, over three years ago now, I did a post in my Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing series called “Myth: You Can’t Make Money Writing Fiction.” And then I wrote the basis of this post about one year ago right now. And things have changed so much, I wanted to update this now, and then I will follow this with another short fiction post on a slightly different area of short fiction. But in this post, I want to go after a saying that used to be almost 100% true before four years ago. “You can’t make a living writing only short fiction.” Not so true anymore. Why…