Last week, I got taken to task all over writer communities on the internet (and probably in writers’ group meetings as well) for telling writers with only one or two books out not to worry about promotion. The response I got in the comments to last week’s blog were mild compared to the vitriol my […]
Continue ReadingAs many of you already know, I write out of order. It is, perhaps, the most irritating part of my own writing process—at least to me. Fortunately, this new world of publishing really works for someone like me. Everything I write is not set in stone. I can move the pieces around when I’m done. […]
Continue ReadingRecently, 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 […]
Continue ReadingI was a bit stunned at the response to last week’s blog, not because the response was negative—it wasn’t—but because so many of you said that you had no idea that writing was a career choice. On a gut level, many of you knew that some of us had made careers as writers, but over […]
Continue ReadingThose of us who blog regularly about the changes in the publishing industry do not do so from the place of disinterested observers. Even though a few of us are former journalists, we’re not writing like the journalists we once were. Yes, we’re imparting information, but we’re imparting information with a bias. For those of […]
Continue ReadingThe marvelous Tom Dupree, one of the best people I’ve ever worked with in traditional publishing, wrote a great blog last month. In it, he claims that the biggest news of the summer so far, maybe even the biggest news of the year, isn’t the fact that Apple lost the anti-trust lawsuit the Justice Department […]
Continue ReadingFor the past week, I have stared at an e-mail that I printed out nearly two years ago. I flagged the e-mail and put it in the back of my 2011 paper calendar, and moved the printout with each new calendar. The e-mail is from my former French mystery editor. We exchanged e-mails as she […]
Continue ReadingBecause of this blog, I get a lot of e-mails from writers at various stages of their careers. I also receive a lot of links to other blogs, written by publishing industry people here and out of the United States. I have noticed, over time, several patterns in the way that people respond to the […]
Continue ReadingWriters always panic. They finish a book and expect the world to fall at their feet. At the same time, they worry that no one will notice. And, because all writers who are writing today were raised in the traditional publishing model, they believe that if no one discovers their book now, this minute, if […]
Continue ReadingI 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 […]
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