• Fun Stuff,  On Writing,  publishing

    Tip of the Week #57

    The I’m Not Old Enough Excuse… I was going to do a blog on this, then decided to make it a tip of the week. (For those who do not get the Tip of the Week on Teachable, this is what they are like.) So then I got lazy and decided to just put this up on YouTube instead of doing a blog about it. So here is Tip of the Week #57. Warning to writers: It has the swear word “Practice” in it.  

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    February Workshops About to Disappear

    Still Time to Jump In… The February regular workshops are starting into their second week and will soon be replaced by the March workshops. Nine of them in February and they are a good group. Depth in Writing is the workshop to take first, but this month if you have had Depth, I would suggest either Teams or Endings. Both will really help your writing. I think understanding teams in fiction just makes novel writing so much easier. It gives books almost an automatic structure or bones. And knowing all about endings makes readers want to buy your next books. So anyhow, you sign up on Teachable if interested, or…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Business Workshops Around the Country

    Three… Maybe Four… Worth Thinking About But only on one does the entire focus stay on the upper levels of Indie writing only. That is the Master Business Class WMG Publishing puts on every October in Las Vegas. Details below. What are the others? First off, SuperStars Writing Seminar in Colorado Springs just finished and it is great. Hosted by WordFire Press and Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta, it is a great place to go and network with other writers and learn about all basic sides of the business. Did I say networking. They are great at that. But Superstars spends about half its time on traditional publishing. But if…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Reading as an Editor

    I Have A Lot of Reading to Do… As does everyone else who is attending the 2019 Anthology workshop here in Las Vegas the first week of March. And even better, the stories are all written by writers who sure know what they are doing. This is not slush. This is what Kris and I used to call back in the days (early 1990s) of Pulphouse or F&SF reading, the “pro pile.” Everyone attending the workshop is reading like editors, not readers, or they should be, even though only five of us professional editors will be up front actually buying stories. But I have a real advantage in this reading.…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Some Ideas I Think Might Be Ripe

    This Is Just A Fun Thought Experiment… But I think that some ideas in publishing that have been around for a time and not gotten much traction might be nearing time-is-right place. Just my opinions, and I am sure I am missing a ton of other close, but not ready yet, things. But here are three to think about that I personally think are close. Idea One… Gift Cards for Books Now back in 2011, we did a couple books on credit-card-like cards with a code on the back to download the book. In essence the idea was to give a physical form to electronic books. We mounted the books…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Mentor Program

    Still One Spot… For the Kickstarter campaign, I had opened up two mentor spots, bringing my total of writers I would be working with to 5. I felt good about that number since the ones that started in January seemed to be doing fine, moving along, checking in. And one of the writers who wanted to join the program through Kickstarter doesn’t even want to start until the middle of the year. So why do I have an extra? Some person I had never talked to and who wouldn’t answer my email (so I had a hunch something was wrong) just dropped out in the last hour or so, as…

  • Challenge,  workshops

    Last 24 Hours

    Only One Thing I Can Write About Tonight… Last 24 hours of the Smith’s Stories: Make 100 Paperbacks Kickstarter campaign. You can get regular workshop credits through the campaign to use any time in the future. Get lectures and other stuff as well. And eight of either my mystery novels (Cold Poker Gang) or eight of my sf novels (Thunder Mountain). Not counting the 100 short stories either solo or in three collections. (Every award level gets the three collections in electronic form when I am done.) And, since the campaign made its first stretch goal, everyone gets another large collection of my stories (Stories from July) and a Classic…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    February Workshops Starting

    And Some Other Stuff… First off, the February regular workshops are starting up. Nine of them and they are a good group. Depth in Writing is the workshop to take first, but this month if you have had Depth, I would suggest either Teams or Endings. Both will really help your writing. I think understanding teams in fiction just makes novel writing so much easier. It gives books almost an automatic structure or bones. And knowing all about endings makes readers want to buy your next books. So anyhow, you sign up on Teachable if interested, or if you have a workshop credit you want to use, write me and…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    How I Will Do 100 Paperbacks?

    Figured I Would Lay It Out Here… …since the Smith’s Stories: Make 100 Paperbacks Kickstarter campaign is just a few days away from ending and getting close to its second stretch goal. At that end point I get to start the process of making 100 paperbacks and I have had a couple people ask me how I am going to do all that. So I figured right here, right now, I would lay it all out. Maybe help a few of you on the process. Of course, to do 100 paperbacks of short stories, I need 100 short stories. Actually, that is not a problem. I have about 60 unpublished…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    Making a Challenge Sane (Sort of)

    Restructuring My Writing Challenge… If you have been following along this fall, I decided back in September to try to do 10 novels in 100 days. That was to get me back writing again after a long year of life-rolls, so why not go from zero to light-speed instantly? Yeah, that always works. (grin) So I ran into a number of problems right off. The first was changing my schedule of 35 years, the second was learning to live in Las Vegas. The third was the life roll was far from finished. Those problems just didn’t allow the challenge to get off the ground, so I restarted in October, failed…