Happy New Year!

I’m actually a little excited (and terrified that I’m excited) for 2023. All of us involved with WMG Publishing are starting the year at a full run. We’ve made a lot of changes and progress in December, and we have great plans for this new year.

First, let me tell you Diving fans that I’m nearly done with a surprise Diving novel. I decided to write a side Diving novella for two reasons: the first is that Sheila Williams at Asimov’s asked me for something longer. The second is that next week, I’m teaching an in-person class all about combining the caper subgenre with fantasy. Yes, I know. Diving isn’t fantasy, but I figured I’d practice in a world suited to a caper (Diving) and then I’d write a fantasy caper before the class. Realize I made this decision in October, and figured I could get it all done. Instead, I ended up writing a surprise Diving novel, with some side stories. And I haven’t even gotten to the caper yet! I’ll keep you posted on news of that novel, as well as some other fiction I’m working on. (If you want to study fantasy capers, it’s too late to join the in-person class, but you can take the study-along…if you want to do a lot of prep work this week.)

Speaking of workshops…well, let me talk to the readers before I get to the rest of the workshop news. That’ll be at the bottom of this post, not because it’s unimportant, but because some of you won’t get that far.

Today, we launched our Shopify store. You can order ebooks directly from us. I’ll have more to say on that as time goes on, because we’re still uploading books. (We have a thousand books now through WMG. Isn’t that a stunner?) Right now, we have gone live with four of our major series. Diving, The Fey, and Dean’s Cold Poker Gang in fiction, and in nonfiction, all of our writing guides. With more—much more!—to come. The staff at WMG Publishing has done an amazing amount of work to get this together, and I hope you’ll be able to use it for our stuff.

And, as you can probably tell from the header, we’ve started a new Kickstarter. Every year in January, Kickstarter hosts projects under the banner “Make 100.” If you make 100 of anything and run a Kickstarter on it, Kickstarter will promote it. We tried that a few years ago with Year of the Cat (which we were planning to do anyway). It worked out well enough that we decided to do collections.

We’ve done two large collections so far. Five collections with 20 stories each—ten from Dean and ten from me. Since we did sf and mystery the past two years, we decided to do fantasy this year. As you can see from the header, Allyson Longueira at WMG designed some truly lovely books. With every backer reward, you will get the five books in ebook.

The rewards give you all kinds of things, from discounts on the previous collections (in case you missed them) to signed hardcovers to a variety of fantasy novels by me and Dean to workshops. This is a great deal of fun, and a lovely grouping of stories.

Oh, and the book topics run from Weird to Urban Fantasy to Dark Fantasy (with two other fun categories). Watch the video below to learn more. And writers…scroll down for workshop information promised above.

So…the workshops. First, we have a new website that’s easily searchable. If you want to learn anything about writing or business or craft, then put in the topic. I have a hunch you’ll find a workshop to suit your needs.

The workshops that I’m most excited about are these:

Bite-Sized Copyright: Writers license copyright. They don’t sell stories. And licensing includes games and toys and movies and all kinds of other things. While Dean and I aren’t lawyers or accountants, we have licensed our copyrights for decades. We know how to talk to writers about this. We’ve tried to hold this class in different formats for years and no one takes the class. Now, we’ve come up with a new format. One little nugget of copyright knowledge per week for the entire year. Yep, you read that right. 52 short explorations of the ways writers can use their copyrights to increase their income. The class is really worth taking, folks.

The Decade Ahead: Yeah, we tried that in 2020 and guess what? We got derailed by…well…2020. Now, we’re back with a focus on making it through and planning, even when the world throws a surprise at you. Like Bite-Size Copyright, this is a weekly class, filled with all kinds of information.

Advanced Craft Classes: We have a lot of classes. Some are for beginners. Some are for writers with a lot of experience under their belts. But these classes go to the next level. They will take writers into techniques only a handful of writers know and use. Classes cover everything from Pacing to Voice to Viewpoint, and more. You can buy all of the classes together (and get a slight discount), or sign up for them one at a time.

So, as I said above, we’ve started the year at full speed. I hope you will join us on one or all of these projects.

And I wish you the very best in 2023!