It took me a long time to learn that negotiation is all about strength. If you say, My agent or my lawyer too many times in the middle of a negotiation, the person on the other side of that negotiation won’t want to talk to you. You’re not the one with power.
Business Musings: What It Feels Like To Have An Agent
If your agent is stealing from you and still paying some of the money, then you might be making a small boatload and to you it feels like a ton of money. If the agent wasn’t there, you would be making a fleet-of-yachts money. But to most writers, most of whom have been poor, a small boatload is a great deal.
Business Musings: Confidential Business Information
So…in this world of celebrity and the internet and data at our fingertips, should we even try to keep our business information confidential? The big companies do so. Smaller companies do as well.
Smart business-oriented writers do.
Business Musings: Sustainability
If you want to sustain your writing and publishing businesses, you have to stop thinking like a manufacturer.
Business Musings: Stealing Intellectual Property (Contracts/Dealbreakers)
I just had the most illuminating conversation. I had been consulting with someone about one of the TV deals I’m currently negotiating. I had run into a situation I had never encountered before, and I needed help evaluating it. No one I knew personally could help me. Either my good friends had not done a TV deal in years or they had let their agent […]
Business Musings: Subsidiary Rights For Indies
One of my traditional publishers paid me in September. I was surprised. Not because I didn’t know about the money. I did. It was an advance for rights in translation for an entire series of books. I was surprised because the contract called for payment to arrive within 60 days of the contract’s final date…and lo and behold, the payment arrived just like it was […]
Business Musings: The Third 2017 Process Blog
My cat died in June. He wasn’t just any cat. He was what Dean and I call “a heart cat.” We have cats whom we love and cherish, and then we have special cats—the ones who simply take over our hearts and hold them hostage. Galahad was the best of the best, and we had him for fifteen years.
I’m telling you this not to get sympathy, but because Gally’s death factored into my process this summer. I knew he was going to go at some point, but he went fast. Fine one week, gone the next. Not as fast as our Ella, who literally died in an instant (vet thinks heart attack or stroke) in February, but still, faster than expected.
That, on top of the deaths of several friends since the first of the year, some close and some not as close as they once were, left me reeling. I hadn’t realized how down I was until I figured out that my writing had nearly ground to a halt.
In fact, the one thing that kept me going was the schedule I had drawn up earlier in the year…
Business Musings: Types of Brands (Branding/Discoverability)
I’ve been talking to myself lately. Actually, I’ve been talking back to podcasts, vlogs, and emails. Ever since I said I would be doing a series on branding, I’ve gotten links to great branding tips. (Please, keep them coming.) Every single link I received that dealt with branding from a writer’s perspective talked about cover branding. Lots of great information in each and every one […]
Business Musings: All Romance Ebooks & Visions of The Future Part Two
I’m not here to discuss the merits or lack thereof of Booktrope or ARe. I did that in other posts. What I need to discuss here is the future.
You see, these closures were right on time. And several other closures will follow in the next few years.
Some of the upcoming closures will be predictable. And others will catch us all by surprise.
Why am I saying this?
Because …
Business Musings: Running A (Writing) Business In Uncertain Times
To do modeling for the next year of your business, you need to be as clear-eyed as possible. You should research trends for your business for similar economic times, if you can.
Then you figure out as best you can what your future will be.
Here’s how you do it.
A New Coop Story in The Diving Universe
Want to know what Coop was like before he became captain of the Ivoire? Read this.
This is a great bundle that will disappear on 8/22. Go here to get your copies of all 10 wonderful books.
Get Early Copies of the Thursday Business Blog and More!
A New Kris Nelscott Novel
My latest Kris Nelscott novel begins a new series, following the adventures of three strong women as they protect their world, one person at a time. A crime novel set in 1969. Available in ebook, trade paper, hardback, and limited edition. For more information, click here.
Best Mystery Stories of The Year!
“The heroine of Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s ‘Christmas Eve at the Exit’ struggles to make the holiday meaningful for her 10-year-old daughter while the pair are on the run….There isn’t enough Xanax in anyone’s medicine cabinet to calm the jitters these 20 skillful stories will unleash on a worried world.” —Kirkus
The Year’s Best Novellas
I am honored to announce that Paula Guran chose my novella “Inhuman Garbage” as one of the best novellas of the year. To order some wonderful novellas, click on this sentence.
The Year’s Best Science Fiction
I am honored to announce that Gardner Dozois chose my novella “Inhuman Garbage” as one of the best science fiction stories of the year. To order the novella and some wonderful fiction, click on this sentence.