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Decade Ahead
A Crazy Thing… Right now, one of the main conversations I am having with writers is how is this year going to turn out? No one has a clue. And we are all afraid to try to forecast anything in 2020, since this year started here in the States with an impeachment that didn’t hold and then gave free run for the same president to really screw us with this pandemic. So at the moment the States are a dangerous place to be as almost a thousand people a day are dying from this virus. That’s right… Every day. So it was a great, great idea in January of 2020…
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Changes In Publishing
A Glimpse of a Future As many of you know, I have been around and working in publishing and fiction writing professionally since 1987. Sold my first two short stories in 1974. Over the years, I have watched publishing change numbers of times. I knew the distribution collapse of the 1990s, caused by Safeway and invoicing, would alter publishing forever. And it did. And I watched as the Kindle changed everything in publishing and created the indie movement which is now the major part of publishing (even though traditional writers and publishers don’t want to think so.) And I have watched and wondered how this pandemic was going to change…
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More Organization
We’re Having a Sale… Everything on WMG Publishing Teachable site, including Lifetime Subscriptions and challenges, is half price. Simply hit purchase, then put in the code word… SummerSchoolSale and you will get what you want at half price. Lasts only until July 7th at 5 pm West Coast Time. While that is going on, I thought I would spend some days trying to give order to all the massive number of workshops, classic workshops, lectures, classes, and Pop-Ups we have. And the order I am trying to get this all into I decided to sort by areas of learning. So two nights ago I listed the top twenty workshops to…
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An Order To Workshops
Craft Courses First… I have a workshop curriculum that has been posted for a while, but since we are doing a half-price sale right now for everything on Teachable (see last post for details), I thought I would revamp the curriculum some and help writers decide what class to take next. Today I will do the foundation courses for craft. Tomorrow I’ll update the foundation courses for publishing, genre, and attitude. And the numbers are my suggestions on the order to take these workshops because many of them build on others. (Two types of workshops are included. Regular and Classic. It is a regular workshop offered monthly unless noted as…
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Recorded Yet Another New Pop-Up
I Should Have Both Posted by Wednesday… The one I recorded a few days ago is called #21… Fear of Success, maybe the largest trigger of the critical voice there is outside of making a book important, and also a major reason many writers stop writing. The Pop-Up I just finished recording is called #22… Dealing with Toxic People. Sort of a how to recognize them, how to fix the problem, or how to get away from the problem. Sadly, often the most toxic people are friends or family who have your best intentions in mind. So I figured people needed some help on that. Now Kris and I have…
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Recorded a New Pop-Up
Not Live Yet… But will be next week. In fact, I am going to record a second one as well and put both up at the same time next week. The new Pop-Up I recorded is called Fear of Success. We are doing right now the first time through a Killing the Critical Voice workshop (that we will offer every month) and fear of success is often so much of the reason for not being able to fight critical voice. And it is amazing how many writers have vanished or held themselves at a certain level because of this fear. Critical voice always comes out in fear, by the way.…
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Just Eight Hours Left!!
Cold Poker Gang Kickstarter Campaign… Almost to the fourth stretch goal. If we manage to hit that, everyone will get 5 extra books, plus $35o in lectures, Pop-Ups, and Classic Workshops. Plus, remember that the only place to get into the special Writing Mystery Series workshop is in this campaign. It is a three week workshop and the reward level is $150. You have your choice of taking it in July or August. And there are discounts on lectures and regular workshops as well. Ends at 6 PM tonight, West Coast Time, so not much time left. Here is the link to the campaign… Cold Poker Gang Kickstarter
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Wow! It’s June!
We Made It Through May… Actually, unlike April which seemed in a time sense to take forever, May flashed right past. And I do understand that a lot of people did not live through May. I got that. But the rest of us out here, trying to do what is right, stay safe, keep working and writing and taking care of families. We made it through another month of the craziness. Another month closer to whatever point all this is going to end. Who knows what the rest of 2020 has to offer. Like Kris, I just want to flip to the end of this book. But we can’t, so…
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Why Am I So Against Traditional Publishing?
I Published 106 Novels Traditionally. But that was a different time, different companies, different contracts, different level of respect for authors. I would be a distant and faint memory in writing now if not for indie publishing. Never would have continued to work in the current traditional publishing environment. Never. So let me list a few reasons why I try to keep writers with dreams away from traditional publishers. THE SHORT VIEW… TRADITIONAL Most early-stage writers have a very, very short view of being a writer. They think that just selling a few short stories and then getting a novel sold to a major publisher will make their career. Nope.…
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Card Sharp Silver… Day 20
Normally Would Be Finished in Twenty Days… But nope. Just sort of puttering along, no fault of the book, just too many distractions and work outside of the book and writing time. I bet most of you know this feeling exactly. I am not worried or bothered or anything by the slowness of this. Just noting it, and that every book is different from every other book in the creation process. So today I made it here around 10:30 am, early for me because I needed to go out into the wilds. So a little after eleven I headed out, masked, gloves and excessive hand sanitizer. I was way, way…