Yeah, yeah, we’re in the middle of a series on branding. But I just sat down at my computer for the first time today, at the time I usually quit writing. It’s the only day this week when I can write my blog, and while I have two in the can (and you can get […]
Continue ReadingThe publishing industry has been shifting since 2009. Indie publishing has become a force since 2011 or so. At first, we writers made our work available, but the things that worked six years ago don’t work now. The problem is that the marketing gurus for writers are just other writers with an okay idea. As […]
Continue ReadingI’m tired. Emotionally tired. My world is changing, and personally, I wasn’t prepared for it. That my world is changing while the greater world—the real world—is also changing is just serendipity, I guess. I’ve blogged about the larger changes, just a bit, talking about how to write in dark times, but some of that post […]
Continue ReadingA lot of the stories I read this past year had wonderful plots. They had great characters and lovely twists. The stories were published, remember, and so they all had something unusual, something strong.
But that something generally wasn’t voice….
Continue ReadingI 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…
Continue Reading
Once upon a time, a writer taking on a big publisher like that remained secret, partly so that the writer could sell another book. (Even then, the large publisher would often bad-mouth the writer in private to any other publisher who would listen.)
Times have changed.
Continue ReadingToward the end of a pretty good Entertainment Weekly article about the romance side of the publishing industry, this sentence appears: [Bella Andre]’s a naturally fast writer — on average she churns out four to six books a year — and she released the first one in June 2011. Before we get to the reason […]
Continue ReadingAs expected, I couldn’t answer e-mails or work long on my blog last week. I may take that tactic this week as well, because you folks had a much better conversation in the comments than you would have had with me involved. Besides, I don’t like talking about pricing. Yet here I go with the […]
Continue ReadingLast 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 ReadingI am currently writing three books at once. I know, I know, some of you believe that’s not unusual for me, but it is. Usually I focus on one thing and wrestle it to the ground before moving onto something else. These three books are one thing. They’re in one of my series, and for […]
Continue Reading