The Business Rusch: Time and the Writer Kristine Kathryn Rusch Recently, I got an e-mail from a writer whose name you would recognize. She has written dozens of novels, maybe a hundred or more. Her career stretches back more than thirty years. She has jumped into indie publishing whole-heartedly and cannot imagine going back to […]
Continue ReadingThe Business Rusch: Competition Kristine Kathryn Rusch Just a few years ago, traditional publishers had a monopoly. They controlled the distribution of books. This meant that the publishers dictated terms to booksellers and they dictated terms to writers. What resulted was what happens whenever anyone controls a marketplace: lots of nasty business practices, lots […]
Continue ReadingThe Business Rusch: How To Make Traditional Publishing Writer-Friendly Kristine Kathryn Rusch A few weeks ago, Sebastian Marshall raised eyebrows throughout the writing community by writing an open letter to Carolyn Reidy, CEO of Simon & Schuster. Marshall identifies himself on his blog as a former entrepreneur who wants to become “the most skilled strategist […]
Continue ReadingThe Business Rusch: The Writer’s Guide To Evaluating A Traditional Publishing Company Kristine Kathryn Rusch About once a week, I get an e-mail from someone asking me to recommend a traditional publisher for them. I can’t, not because I don’t believe in traditional publishing, but because I have no idea what that person wants in […]
Continue ReadingThe Business Rusch: How Traditional Publishers Are Making Money Kristine Kathryn Rusch Of course, this past week has been just as busy in publishing as the last several weeks. The changes are amazing, especially considering how stable the industry used to be. Third quarter earnings have come in, and the publicly traded publishing companies must […]
Continue ReadingThe Business Rusch: Professional Writers Kristine Kathryn Rusch I warned you guys in some of my other posts that I have what I call aw-f*ck-it moments. (Forgive the vulgarity; I know some of you don’t like that. But that’s what I call it, and that’s what it is. The little asterisk is there because my […]
Continue ReadingThe Business Rusch: Deal Breakers Kristine Kathryn Rusch For the bulk of my thirty-year career in publishing, the industry has remained the same. In fact, the industry hadn’t changed much since the end of the Second World War. Oh, there were changes—the rise of mass market paperbacks, the decline of the slick magazines, the introduction […]
Continue ReadingI’m deep into the post for Thursday and realized I don’t have the space for the information I’m going to put here. So this is a special midweek post for writers with agents. It’s a follow-up to the “Surviving the Transition” posts. The Passive Guy, who is a retired attorney, is doing a series of […]
Continue ReadingThe Business Rusch: Plan For The Future (Surviving The Transition Part Four) Kristine Kathryn Rusch For the past month, I have geared my blog toward established writers. Starting with the post, “Writing Like It’s 1999,” I have discussed the rapid change that the publishing industry is going through, change that most working professional writers haven’t […]
Continue ReadingThe Business Rusch: Agents (Surviving The Transition Part Three) Kristine Kathryn Rusch I had a dream, as recently as six months ago, that agents would help writers through this transition in publishing. I believed that agents would band together and fight to the death for the best possible terms in a contract for every […]
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