Trains, Books, and Toys

Yes, I Was Playing in Our Stores…

Ended up at both of our stores today. (Pop Culture Collectables north and south) Sort of like heaven to me to be honest.

I am a picker and dealer at heart. And both of our stores are just great fun places. At the south store I talked with Billy, WMG’s sales manager about a show we are planning for and also some sales trips.

At the north store I worked with Josh on a collection of digests that had come in from Billy and also we talked about planning the train display. Lionel trains (O-gauge) will circle through all four large rooms of our store high overhead. That is the plan and Josh talked with an expert yesterday about how we do some of the things we want to do.

It is going to be so cool when finished by this time next year. A massive project, though. But watching a train go overhead and through a wall and into another room is going to be such fun.

Then I went out and did some walking with Kris, then back to the WMG offices to work on workshop stuff. Home to cook dinner, nap, e-mail, read stories for the challenge, and then back to the novel by around 2 a.m.

I did two sessions for about 1,900 words. I got a hunch this book is going to be short. And also we are finally going to brand this series and I am going to rename all the books. Their titles are horrid, plain and simple. Allyson did a preliminary cover for the new branding on the series and it is wonderful! I’ll show you all of them when we have them done.

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NEW SPECIAL LECTURE SERIES STARTED

In the post I detailed out the new lectures that I will record in May and through June. One new lecture per week in this special series will be added. Each lecture will consist of between 9 and 15 videos.

These are Advanced, Advanced lectures, taking up where the Business Workshop leaves off. The intent of these is to let writers know this stuff even exists when the time comes.

Special Lecture Series is called ADVANCED BUSINESS FOR FICTION WRITERS

— 1…Corporations for Writers…$50.00

— 2…Taxes for Writers…$50.00

— 3…Movies and Television Negotiations for Writers…$50.00

— 4…Estates and Estate Planning for Writers…$50.00

— 5…Copyright and Control for Writers…$50.00

— 6…IP Valuation Dangers and Possibilities for Writers…$50.00

SPECIAL PRICE

For a week or so only, you can get all six new lectures for $250 subscription or 12 lectures in total for a $400 subscription. (You can bank the extra ones or take any existing lecture.)

All the details and planned new lectures after the business lectures are listed in the post two days ago or under the lecture tab. More detailed descriptions added as the recording starts for each one.

If you want the subscriptions, write me directly with lectures in the subject line. Very short-term offer. After that you can just get them on Teachable for their regular price.

All the available lectures are on (and these new ones will be on) http://wmg-publishing-workshops-and-lectures.teachable.com
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Tracking Running… May 12th, 2017
4 miles. No running.
Weight 195. (Goal 170)
Month to date distance: 53.5 miles
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Tracking Word Counts… May 12th, 2017
Totals For Year 4, Month 10, Day 12 (Year started August)
Writing in Public blog streak… Day 1,331

— Daily Fiction: 1,900 original words. Fiction month-to-date: 10,500 words
— Nonfiction: 00 new words. Nonfiction month-to-date total: 00 words
— Blog Posts: 400 new words. Blog month-to-date word count: 6,700 words
— E-mail: 21 e-mails. Approx. 800 original words. E-mails month-to date: 290 e-mails. Approx. 18,700 words
— Short Fiction Goal: 120 stories (July 1st to June 30th). Stories to date: 38 stories.
— Novel Goal: 12 Novels. Novels finished to date: 5 novels.

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3 Comments

Sean Monaghan

May 13, 2017 at 8:02 pm

When retitling a work, how do you manage flagging the old title to ensure unwary fans don’t end up purchasing a second copy? I’ve done this once, and I put a bold note “Formally titled…” after the copyright notice, just before the contents (and in larger type and well-separated in the print version). Just wondering if there are better ways to do this?

dwsmith

May 13, 2017 at 11:42 pm

Sean, if you have sales, what you did is not a bad idea, on the copyright page. These poorly titled and unbranded books haven’t sold, so I have no worries there. (grin)
- Gnondpom
  
  May 14, 2017 at 1:41 am
  
  Sean, as a reader, I would advise you to add a note at the beginning of the description of your book in online shops as well, on top of the mention after the copyright in the book itself. E.g. something like:
  *** This book was formerly known as … ***
  
  And I guess explaining the rebranding in a newsletter (or other social media) before the relaunch might also warn your hardcore fans – the ones who would feel most cheated if they bought it twice by mistake.
  
  I’ve once bought a new comic book by an artist I really liked; when I saw a brand new cover and title, I just immediately bought it online (there was no preview available). I was very disappointed when I discovered that it was in fact a book that had been sitting in my bookshelf for the last decade! The whole content of the book was exactly the same, only the cover and the title changed. It had been rebranded to look more modern, but the fact that both the cover and the title were totally different was very misleading for me. There was indeed a tiny little note mentioning the former title after the copyright, but it didn’t feel enough to me.
  
  I can tell you that I felt cheated and lost some of my confidence in this author (and I should have lost some confidence in his publisher, but as Dean and Kris say, as a reader I usually only remember the name of the author, not of the publisher). I also left a low-rated review on the online shop, to warn off other fans.
  
  Of course your mileage may vary, depending on the number of readers of your book, like Dean mentioned. In the case that happened to me, the author is very famous locally, so a new book by him is a big event in local bookstores, not something that didn’t sell.

Sean Monaghan

May 13, 2017 at 8:02 pm

When retitling a work, how do you manage flagging the old title to ensure unwary fans don’t end up purchasing a second copy? I’ve done this once, and I put a bold note “Formally titled…” after the copyright notice, just before the contents (and in larger type and well-separated in the print version). Just wondering if there are better ways to do this?
- dwsmith
  
  May 13, 2017 at 11:42 pm
  
  Sean, if you have sales, what you did is not a bad idea, on the copyright page. These poorly titled and unbranded books haven’t sold, so I have no worries there. (grin)
  - Gnondpom
    
    May 14, 2017 at 1:41 am
    
    Sean, as a reader, I would advise you to add a note at the beginning of the description of your book in online shops as well, on top of the mention after the copyright in the book itself. E.g. something like:
    *** This book was formerly known as … ***
    
    And I guess explaining the rebranding in a newsletter (or other social media) before the relaunch might also warn your hardcore fans – the ones who would feel most cheated if they bought it twice by mistake.
    
    I’ve once bought a new comic book by an artist I really liked; when I saw a brand new cover and title, I just immediately bought it online (there was no preview available). I was very disappointed when I discovered that it was in fact a book that had been sitting in my bookshelf for the last decade! The whole content of the book was exactly the same, only the cover and the title changed. It had been rebranded to look more modern, but the fact that both the cover and the title were totally different was very misleading for me. There was indeed a tiny little note mentioning the former title after the copyright, but it didn’t feel enough to me.
    
    I can tell you that I felt cheated and lost some of my confidence in this author (and I should have lost some confidence in his publisher, but as Dean and Kris say, as a reader I usually only remember the name of the author, not of the publisher). I also left a low-rated review on the online shop, to warn off other fans.
    
    Of course your mileage may vary, depending on the number of readers of your book, like Dean mentioned. In the case that happened to me, the author is very famous locally, so a new book by him is a big event in local bookstores, not something that didn’t sell.