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The New World of Publishing: The Impossible is Now Possible
The impossible in publishing really is possible these days. This new world of publishing has allowed a ton of new things to be possible that would have flat been impossible in traditional publishing. And one of the best illustrations of just one of these now possible things just finished yesterday. Kristine Kathryn Rusch, my wife, published the last six books of an eight book science fiction saga, one per month starting in January and ending in June. Now, these are not short books. They range from 60,000 words up to almost 100,000 words long. And they all got reviewed in one place or another and all were up for pre-orders.…
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Stages of a Fiction Writer: Chapter Six
(Almost done with this short book. One more chapter after this. Patreon supporters, you will get the full book sent to you when it is all done. Please note: This is advanced reader copy. This has not been proofed. That will be taken care of when I turn in the final book to WMG Publishing.) STAGES OF A FICTION WRITER Chapter Six Stage four in writing is hard, at best, to describe because for most writers, it is a level of craft that is impossible to see. So how do you move through stage three and get to stage four writing? Mostly, the answer boils down to one simple thing:…
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Stages of a Fiction Writer: Chapter Five
(Every day or so, sometimes longer, I will put another chapter here of this book. Patreon supporters, you will get the full book sent to you when it is all done. Please note: This is advanced reader copy. This has not been proofed. That will be taken care of when I turn in the final book to WMG Publishing.) STAGES OF A FICTION WRITER Chapter Five Starting into stage four, the top stage. I got a question after the last chapter when I put that chapter on my blog. “How many writers are in stage four?” Think of stage four as a decent-sized town. Selling stage three writers could fill…
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The Top Five Dumbest Business Practices in Publishing
The Top Five Dumbest Business Practices in Publishing From the real world perspective, publishing is really, really, really known for its head-shakingly stupid business practices. But inside of publishing, these practices have become so common and set in “the way things are done” as to be defended by otherwise sane business people. So I figured I would honor Dave Letterman’s departure with a quick top five list. I’ll give the real world equivalent of the publishing practice, then the actual publishing practice, working down to the most stupid publishing practice of them all. There are many others. I try to deal with a lot of them in the Killing the…
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Stages of a Fiction Writer: Chapter Four
(Every day or so I will put another chapter here of this book. Patreon supporters, you will get the full book sent to you when it is all done. Please note: This is advanced reader copy. This has not been proofed. That will be taken care of when I turn in the final book to WMG Publishing.) STAGES OF A FICTION WRITER Chapter Four Almost all writers reading this will be in stage three. If you see yourself in stage one, all focused on the writing and polishing of words, you can move quickly out of that once you understand the location you are stuck in. And then start making…
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Stages of a Fiction Writer: Chapter Three
(Every day or so I will put another chapter here of this book. Patreon supporters, you will get the full book sent to you when it is all done. Please note: This is advanced reader copy. This has not been proofed. That will be taken care of when I turn in the final book to WMG Publishing.) STAGES OF A FICTION WRITER Chapter Three As we move into stage three, it’s time I bring in the poker analogy I promised earlier on in the book. As I said, I have always had cards in my life. I paid most of my way through college with cards, and also played professional…
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The Stages of a Fiction Writer: Chapter Two
(Every day I will put another chapter here of this book. Patreon supporters, you will get the full book sent to you when it is all done. Please note: This is advanced reader copy. This has not been proofed. That will be taken care of when I turn in the final book to WMG Publishing.) STAGES OF A FICTION WRITER Chapter Two Stage two of commercial fiction writers is again a stage we all go through. I was no exception, never met a writer who missed this one. However, many writers can go through this stage quickly, often in a year or so. But at the same time, this…
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The Stages of a Fiction Writer: Chapter One
(Every day I will put another chapter here of this book. Patreon supporters, you will get the full book sent to you when it is all done. Please note: This is advanced reader copy. This has not been proofed. That will be taken care of when I turn in the final book to WMG Publishing.) STAGES OF A FICTION WRITER Chapter One There are four basic stages of commercial fiction writing that are pretty clear. For this book, I just number them one through four. I kind of think of them as places where writers live. Basically, I’m an early-to-middle stage four writer. So is Kris. And we’re working to…
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The Stages of a Fiction Writer: Introduction
(Every day I will put another chapter here of this book. Patreon supporters, you will get the full book sent to you when it is all done.) STAGES OF A FICTION WRITER Introduction About twenty-five years ago, I was struggling to figure out where I was on the path to becoming a fiction writer. I had sold novels, lots of short stories, been an editor, owned a publishing company, and had readers buying my books. But honestly, none of that mattered to me. I liked it, sure, but my goal was to be a better writer, a better storyteller, actually. And I had no idea at all where I was at…
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New World of Publishing: What is a Print Run, Grandpa?
(I was cleaning up some old posts tonight and found this one from 2013. It applies even more today, so thought I would give it new life. I updated it just slightly for 2015.) I can imagine myself in thirty years sitting in a bar, my cane nearby to fight off any unwanted advances from elderly women while Kris sits there laughing at my delusions. Then suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, a young writer walks up to me and asks “What is a print run, Grandpa?” And I’ll have to answer that back in the days before the oceans came up… back in the days when writers had to trek…