When I wrote my year in review for 2021, all seven posts of it, I was going to write a single post on copyright, highlighting all the interesting things from the year. Copyright issues dominated the news in 2021…and I was taking the first half of the entertainment law class that I’m finishing up this semester. I was all about copyright. (If you want to […]
Business Musings: Time and Licensing (Licensing/Contracts)
I’ve spent much of the past week on licensing for my Diving Universe. Some of this is because of the Kickstarter we’re running right now. Kickstarters can garner a lot of attention for a project, the kind of attention you can’t get anywhere else. (If you want to know more about that, and what else Kickstarters can do for your writing, then sign up for […]
Business Musings: Lockdown Licensing Partnerships
Somewhere around the middle of March, I got an email from one of the television producers I’ve worked with for three years now. He asked for an extension of our agreement, which expires in June. A little background. As of January 1, we had a script. We had interested parties. He was going to start filming the pilot sometime in the summer. Whether or not […]
Business Musings: The Trainwreck
I’m sure you’ve all gotten the question lately: How are you going to survive as a writer with the crisis in the publishing industry? Every news outlet —well, at least every news outlet that reports news other than the latest virus statistics—has done at least one story on the decimation of the publishing industry. And let me be honest here: The traditional publishing industry is […]
Recommended Reading List: February 2019
I’m starting this at the beginning of the month, but I can already tell this will be a spare version of the list. I’m reading 1.3 million words of fiction this month, since I didn’t have time to start last month for the Anthology workshop which starts (started) on March 1. So the bulk of my reading time is reading manuscripts, some of which you […]
Business Musings: Learning, The Future, and CES (Contracts/Negotiations)
In November, 2007, the members of the Writers Guild of America (East & West) walked off the job as part of a contract negotiation with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. (AMPTP) That strike was consequential for a variety of reasons. But what caught me at the time, and catches me now, was how prescient that strike was. The writers walked off because, […]
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 […]
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?
Business Musings: Control, Control, Control
I am fully aware of the fact that the problems I’m having are problems I would have traded up for thirty years ago. I’m also fully aware that these problems aren’t really problems at all.
They’re opportunities.
I’m hardwired to jump at opportunities. One of my biggest complaints about my agents, back in the days when I had agents, was how many opportunities those folks failed to jump at. Or screwed up. Or ignored completely.
And yet…
I’m a writer first, and as a writer first, anything that puts me behind on getting to my fictional worlds irritates the hell out of me.
Recommended Reading List: July, 2013
Considering how busy I was in July, I’m surprised at how much reading I managed to get done. It’s that chair, I’m sure of it. 🙂 I also read a lot of books not on this list, some truly awful books from some of my favorite writers. I realized that I loved one writer because she was doing something unique back when she started 30 […]
Ten Little Fen: A Spade/Paladin Novel
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The Chase
The Chase, the latest Diving novel, answers a lot of your questions about the series. It also might cause you to ask a few more. Click here to find out more.
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Rethinking The Writing Business
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A New Edition of A Dangerous Road
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