I could spend the next seven days on promotion and feel like I’m working at my writing full time. Seriously. I have the Fiction River Kickstarter to promote. I’m in a Storybundle with a Diving novella that might get more readers to the next book in the series, which will appear in mid-September. I have a brand new story in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine that’s […]
Business Musings: Because…September
I’m great with schedules. I have a dozen calendars, all with great purpose. I have a computer calendar that notifies me of deadlines and future projects.
It all works—when I have writing deadlines. I set it up for traditional publishing writing deadlines. I have never put promotion on my calendar. Ever. Because I do the minimal amount.
But this fall, failing to put even the most minimal promotion on my calendar has led to a series of problems.
Business Musings: What Market?
This past week, I’ve talked with a lot of writers about writing to market. Not just because of last week’s blog post, but because I had done a group author signing at Powell’s on Sunday, and the topic came up again. At dinner after the signing, one of the writers asked, “What market are indie writers writing to?”
Business Musings: Writing to Market
Marie Force wrote a lovely blog post this week on the five-year anniversary of her major success as an indie writer. She busts a few myths about her career in the post, and she’s very clear about her numbers, and the events that came together to launch her success. She’s written something similar before, but not in quite as organized a fashion. Take a look […]
Business Musings: Getting in Touch
Writers miss opportunities all the damn time, because writers are hard to reach. I don’t know why they think they need to be hard to reach, but they are.
Business Musings: Whining
I hate it when other people whine about the work that they have to do, especially because of this new world of publishing. The extra work has encroached everywhere. There’s social media, newsletters, website management, blogging (for some of us), podcasting (for some of us), video blogging (for some of us), and on and on and on. Seems like you could spend hours and hours […]
Business Musings: Things I Learned (Or Relearned) in 2014
In the past two weeks, I wrote two year-in-review posts, “What Traditional Publishing Learned in 2014,” and “Things Indie Writers Learned in 2014.” Those two posts came after I started this one. I’ve been writing bits of this one off and on since October, as the year has become clearer in my brain. Usually, I do a year-end analysis just for me, and there’s a […]
Business Musings: What Kind of Writer Are You?
Writers are lucky. Our various communities share information. Some of those communities are online, and some are in person. They’re all subject to horrid infighting (I think writers love to fight more than they like to write), but they can also be very supportive as well. Observant writers will note that we all seem to “grow up” with the same types of writers. And by “grow up,” I mean that new writers will find communities of other new writers and befriend those writers. You might be different ages, but your careers will start at the same time.
Business Musings: What Is Discoverability? (Discoverability Part Oooops I Left This Out)
WMG Publishing has Discoverability, the book based on the posts I was writing from November to April, on the schedule for the fall of 2014, which meant I had to get off my butt and assemble those posts into something coherent. I write the pieces, and then I build the bridges to hold them together. This post is one of those bridges…
A New SF Story
Part of the tribute issue for former editor Gardner Dozois, “Transport” is a standalone sf story. Go here for your copy.
A Brand New Diving Novel
A New Edition of A Dangerous Road
For book clubs and reading groups, complete with questions! Go here to order.
The Author-Preferred Edition of FantasyLife
Get yours now!Sample The Diving Universe…
…with the novella that started it all, Diving Into The Wreck.Neil Clarke’s latest, Final Frontier. You can read it and lots of other wonderful space opera in
A New Adventure SF Story
Read “Once On The Blue Moon,” along with some other wonderful fiction in Jonathan Strahan’s newest Infinity anthology.
Get Early Copies of the Thursday Business Blog and More!
A New Kris Nelscott Novel
My latest Kris Nelscott novel begins a new series, following the adventures of three strong women as they protect their world, one person at a time. A crime novel set in 1969. Available in ebook, trade paper, hardback, and limited edition. For more information, click here.
Best Mystery Stories of The Year!
“The heroine of Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s ‘Christmas Eve at the Exit’ struggles to make the holiday meaningful for her 10-year-old daughter while the pair are on the run….There isn’t enough Xanax in anyone’s medicine cabinet to calm the jitters these 20 skillful stories will unleash on a worried world.” —Kirkus