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: Fear And Publishing
A fascinating thing happened in the two quiet weeks of the holiday season. Dean and I worked on a publishing challenge, and we learned something by doing so. We always learn when we teach. Always. And Dean loves challenges. Me, not so much. I set my own writing challenges because if someone else tells me what to do with my writing, I find a way […]
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 […]
Business Musings: Protecting Your Content and Your Name (Contracts/Dealbreakers)
Most writers check their traditional book contracts for the advance, the payout, and the due dates. They don’t look at anything else. Writer after writer, and editor after editor, have told me this.
I always look toward the editing clauses first. Because if they’re ugly, the rest of the contract usually is as well.
This applies to all kinds of writing for traditional markets, especially for nonfiction and short fiction. I’ve seen terrible editing clauses in those contracts, and what’s ironic is that those clauses often seem to be the most innocuous.
What you want is complete control of the content of your work.
Business Musings: Following The Crowd
We all have those moments when we think, Jeez, if I just write [insert latest trend here], I’ll do so much better than I’m already doing. It doesn’t matter how well we’re already doing. There’s always a better. If you’ve been in the business a long time, you have a follow-up thought: I know how to do [latest trend]. It wouldn’t take much. And if […]
The Business Rusch: Experiments
This morning, on my Twitter feed, a kind gentleman tweeted me with the news that he had just bought the first volume of Fiction River on Smashwords. Then he thanked me for “having good sense to make it easy not to steal.” I know what he meant, even though the tweet was oddly phrased: WMG Publishing has published DRM-free editions of Fiction River, in addition […]
The Business Rusch: The All-Important Fan Base
I spent the holidays seeing movies. I expected to relax. I did not expect to find a blog topic, but I did. Two of the movies I saw, Jack Reacher, and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, came from books. Both films had a different approach to the book’s fan base. In one case, it might pay off. In another, it didn’t. For months, I have […]
The Business Rusch: Changing Times (Overview)
The Business Rusch: Changing Times (Overview) Kristine Kathryn Rusch As I have mentioned many times in the past, my industry—publishing—is changing. I have written a few posts about it, but generally, I have avoided the topic. My reason is simple: this business blog, and the Freelancer’s Guide before it, are geared toward the general business reader, not just toward everyone in the publishing industry. However, […]
Ten Little Fen: A Spade/Paladin Novel
Spade and Paladin find themselves snowed in at a remote sf convention, with a killer on the loose! Get your copy here.
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
All the licensing blogs in one volume. Learn how to think about your writing business in a way that will enable you to work smarter, not harder. Get yours here.
A New Edition of A Dangerous Road
For book clubs and reading groups, complete with questions! Go here to order.
