Totally insane month with a lot of legal reading—maybe 500 pages—which I find fascinating, but you won’t. I added Grisham’s latest to that, but it’s emotionally cold and didn’t have much of an impact on me. Okay, yes, all of Grisham is emotionally cold, but usually that suits the story. It didn’t here. I enjoyed the read, but not enough to recommend. Mostly, I’ve been […]
Recommended Reading List: April 2019
Workshops and visitors, plus a business emergency, marked April. I did a lot of manuscript reading, and even more reading for a course that I’m taking. You’ll see some of the manuscripts that I worked on in a special project we’re putting together in December. I’m enjoying the heck out of that. Some of the reading that I did earlier in the year you’ll find […]
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?
Recommended Reading: July 2017
Unlike June, which started so slowly I couldn’t even start the reading list until the middle of the month, July started off with a bang. I enjoyed almost everything I read, and I was reading a lot. One day per week, I started accompanying Dean on his trips to find stuff to stock the stores. He’d head off to a Goodwill or a charity shop, […]
Business Musings: How To Build A Brand 2: The Intermediate Stages (Branding/Discoverability)
So when I write these posts, I feel a deep frustration. Because my brand, in almost all of its forms, is extremely messy.
These posts, as I said from the beginning, are for me, writing to myself about all the various things I can do to improve my branding or, in most instances, take control of it.
If I were in the lucky position that most of you indies are in, I could define my Rusch brand from the beginning as something that spans genres, that uses a multitude of styles, that promises quality of a certain type, but never compromises on some things….
Business Musings: Brand Loyalty 2 (Branding/Discoverability)
Marketing firms, economics departments in universities, and many high-end retailers spend a lot of time thinking about how to build brand loyalty. As I researched this piece, I found articles that promised 11 ways to build brand loyalty! 15 ways to build brand loyalty! 5 ways to build brand loyalty! And so on. Most of these ways are completely different from each other, and have little to do with each. Most of the people writing about brand loyalty online are doing so to get you to hire them to build your brand. Ignore all that. I’m going to.
Instead, I’m going to focus on a few ways that show up in all of the articles, and then I’ll tailor those ways to writers.
Business Musings: Brand Loyalty 1 (Branding/Discoverability)
Brand loyalty—name loyalty—is something that we writers desire, but it’s not something that we can simply will into being. And it certainly doesn’t come about by bribing your reader.
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: Authors Guild 2016 Letter
I want to support what the Authors Guild is doing here. I really do. I believe this “conversation” needs to commence. Writers—particularly writers of the Take Care of Me school—need to understand that their publishers and their agents are not their friends. Those two entities are in business for themselves and will devise contract terms to benefit them. But…
Recommended Reading List: January, 2015
Wow, when I get behind, I get behind. I ran out of time to write about books as I finished them, and figured I could do it in February. Yeah, right. With two workshops, and a bunch of deadlines, February has proven to be a nightmare of scheduling—which is why this thing barely squeezed in before the month ended. I read a lot in January. […]
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