Business Musings: Art (Rethinking The Writing Business Part Six)

The eagle-eyed among you will note that we changed the cover of the brand-new Kristine Grayson release about two weeks after the book came out. Allyson Longuiera, the publisher of WMG and our designer, discusses the reasons why in her blog of a few weeks ago. The short version is really simple: the art on the cover appeared on another book first. Another fairy tale […]

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Business Musings: Here It Comes

I didn’t mean to go down the rabbit hole this afternoon. I blame Led Zeppelin. Seriously. I blame them. In mid-May, I flagged an article on Rollingstone.com titled “The Eternal Revenue Stream of Led Zeppelin.” I had no real idea what the article was about, but I figured it might be important for writers, because the music business is always way ahead of the next […]

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Business Musings: Patreon, Copyright, And Personal Choice

On February 9, The Passive Voice published a piece titled “The Beginning of the End for Patreon.” [link] As he so often does, the Passive Guy linked to another blog post, and then did his own riff on that post. The other blog post is worth reading. It’s by Nate Hoffelder of The Digital Reader, and discusses Patreon’s viability. As the Passive Guy investigated the […]

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Business Musings: Audio (Planning For 2019 Part 4)

Initially, I started this post as a highlight reel of things that we need to pay attention to in 2019, but which I don’t have the time to explore deeply. I started with audio, and although I don’t have the time to explore audio deeply even in this post, just explaining where we are took more words than I had planned. (Please note that I […]

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Business Musings: More Negotiation Advice From The Hardass

One of the major reasons I write a lot about contracts and negotiation is because in the entertainment field, which is where we writers work, contracts are a nightmare. They’re often written by people who are not lawyers (agent contracts with writers) or negotiated by people who are not lawyers (publishing contracts negotiated by an agent for a writer) or are based on “accepted practices” […]

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Business Musings: Writers, Publishers, And The Peter Principle

You all have been so wonderful in keeping me up to date on the new stuff that’s happened since I moved. I’m going to get to a bunch of the tips you’ve sent me, but I’m still doing more catch-up than I want. So some future posts will be analysis-heavy and some won’t. Some of the things you’ve sent me have already had others weigh […]

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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 […]

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Business Musings: My Day in Negotiation

In dealing with movie and TV producers, and foreign rights publishers, and pretty much anyone who wants subsidiary rights to my book, I hold all of the power in the negotiation.

I know, I know. A bunch of you just did double-takes. How can I have more power than a Hollywood studio?

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Business Musings: A Small Post on Negotiation

Yeah, yeah, we’re in the middle of a series on branding. But I just sat down at my computer for the first time today, at the time I usually quit writing. It’s the only day this week when I can write my blog, and while I have two in the can (and you can get them if you support me on Patreon), I don’t want […]

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Business Musings: Writers, Scam Artists, Agents, And More (Sigh)

Just when I thought it was safe to get back into the water… I’m editing a lot these days. I only edit short fiction projects. Anthologies, anthology series (Fiction River), the occasional nonfiction book, and some magazines. I’m also consulting with the fine folks at WMG Publishing, because they’ll be handling the contracts for the revival of Pulphouse next year. Dean’s vision for Pulphouse includes […]

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