Business Musings: Taste (or Blaming The Writer)

When I teach craft workshops, one of the things I work on the hardest is teaching writers the difference between taste and “good fiction.” I put “good fiction” in quotes, because there seems to be this belief among most writers and readers that “good fiction” is something quantifiable. Certain books are “good” because they have elements that professors approve of, or elements that the culture […]

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Business Musings: Expand Your Target Audience 3: Aggressive Growth (Branding/Discoverability)

  Here’s the surprising post. Many of you who read this blog regularly probably think that I’m opposed to major marketing campaigns. I’m not. I’m opposed to them when they’re done incorrectly. What’s incorrectly? Pretty much everything you see from traditional publishing to most indies. You have to look outside of publishing to see how to do a smart, aggressive growth campaign designed to grow […]

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Recommended Reading List: June, 2017

Wow. I didn’t even have a reason to start up this list until mid-June, and I’ve been reading a lot of stuff. Most of the magazines I’ve read have been of the entertainment or self-help variety; no great articles in any of them. The books, well, the books were a disaster until June 15 or so. I read about a writer who had published a […]

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Business Musings: Brand Image (Branding/Discoverability)

The 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 I’ve said all along, we writers must accept that we’re […]

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