Business Musings: Reading and Ebooks (2020 in Review)

Believe it or not, there’s some great news in 2020. Reading became cool again. With all the other distractions shut down and people stuck inside, they picked up the books they had set aside because they were busy with other things. Most publishers and writers made it easy for readers in the early part of the pandemic, by offering a lot of free content to […]

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Business Musings: Trainwreck Fall Edition

I adore a good gothic and a somewhat creepy novel (but not too creepy, mind you), so in June, when a reliable friend recommended Simone St. James’s The Sun Down Motel, I ordered a copy immediately, and read it the moment it arrived. Loved it. It’s in my recommended reading list for July. As soon as I finished, I ordered a copy for my sister, […]

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Business Musings: The Current State of Disruption (Planning for 2019 Part 1)

A Short Series Introduction   For years now, I’ve done a year-end review, examining what happened and where the industry stands. I’ve been having a heck of a time starting this year’s series. At first, I thought it was because I had had such a difficult and disruptive year. But, with the help of my Patreon supporters as well as our annual Business Master Class […]

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Business Musings: 2016 Disappointments

As I write this in early January, fourth quarter numbers for all big businesses are just starting to trickle in. The whining about 2016 has commenced, some of it justified, some of it not.

The numbers aren’t just in for the major publishers; the numbers are in for indie writers as well. And the writers who crunch numbers are having varied reactions, often depending on years of business expertise.

I have a hunch that when all of the numbers arrive toward the end of this month or so, we’ll find out that 2016 was truly a mixed bag….

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Business Musings: Things Indie Writers Learned in 2014

I’d love to say nothing, but that’s not true—if we’re discussing indie writers who have remained in the business for several years. There will always be new indie writers who know very little, and there will always be those with “experience” who turn a year or two worth of sales into a know-it-all platform. However, those indie writers who’ve been at this since the beginning […]

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The Business Rusch: Addendums, Rights Grabs & Agents (Yet Again)

Recently, I got e-mail from another career writer, talking about a rights grab from a traditional publisher. I saw the document in question; it’s egregious. I do not have permission to talk about this particular document nor would I, since it’s proprietary, but it’s the kind of document I’ve seen at least six times in the last two years. These documents are addendums to publishing […]

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The Business Rusch: Book As Event

I finished my second novel (as an adult) on the day my best friend from high school gave birth to her second child. My friend called me from the hospital to tell me the great news and then, because she was a sweet woman and because she was from the upper Midwest, she reflexively asked how things were going for me. Even though I am […]

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The Business Rusch: Four Years

On April 2, 2009, I began what I called an experiment. I decided to write an entire book, section by section, online every week. It took me 18 months of weekly posts to finish the book, which is called The Freelancer’s Survival Guide. By that point, I had thousands of weekly followers who came here for business advice. The Freelancer’s Survival Guide is for freelancers […]

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The Business Rusch: The Logic Behind Self Publishing

Every morning, I read two or three newspapers on my iPad. One of those papers, The Los Angeles Times, has continued to showcase an editorial about the “death” of the self-published author. (I refuse to link to this thing; look it up yourself if you’re curious.) Okay, the article’s not really the death of the self-published author. But the stupid piece, which I have clicked […]

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The Business Rusch: The Death of Publishing

It is the last day of February, 2013, and by now, traditional publishing should have mailed its holiday cards with the gleeful misquote attributed to Mark Twain on the cards’ interior: The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. Not that there were actual news reports of the death of traditional publishing. But if you read the blogosphere in 2010 and 2011, a wide number […]

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