In my Pocket Reader app, I stored a September article from BBC News as much for the article’s title as its content. That title? “When Is A Bestseller Not Necessarily A Bestseller?” I think that’s been the burning question in publishing for the past ten years. Bestsellers haven’t entirely lost their meaning, but they’re not […]
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In the course of this insane year, in which the news cycle was on overdrive in every single industry, and the Western world (which is what I mostly follow) spent all of its time splitting into factions and screaming at each other. In a year that had a moment of holy crap, are we really […]
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As I’ve told you many times in the past, I love American Thanksgiving. It might be my favorite holiday. My celebration will be truncated this year, because I caught some kind of cold at 20Books last week. So I had to prioritize. That early morning Thanksgiving run—by which point, I should be pretty much clear […]
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I spent most of the morning trying to start this post. It’s not like me to have trouble writing, particularly a nonfiction post, but I simply couldn’t do what I had planned. What I had planned was simple: Because of all of the news recently and the timing, I had planned to start the Year […]
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I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m tired. Bone-weary, in fact. The last six years or so have been a terrible rollercoaster, filled with disaster upon disaster. There have been some lovely moments, and a few victories for those of us who still believe in the power of the human spirit, but […]
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Writers are curious creatures. We’re a mix of insecurity and ego. The ego is there whether we admit it or not. Why else would we write stories and put them out into the world? Deep down, we believe that other people want to read these stories. For some of us (all of us?), we believe […]
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The title of this post seems obvious. How do writers fail? They quit. Yes, they do. But it’s about more than quitting, really. This post is about when they quit. Let me start with a quote from John Mellencamp that slapped me about the face and neck when I was casually reading the AARP Magazine. […]
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Every time I turn around, someone is talking about advertising. It seems like every news story mentions it. Many of the magazines I subscribe to mention it. When I go on social media someone is discussing it. Right now, every business article that revolves around Hollywood or movies or TV mentions advertising, because it’s changing. […]
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Every year, we buy the Pearls Before Swine daily calendar. When we started into 2022’s daily calendar, I hesitated. Stephen Pastis had written all of the comics in 2020, and he was commenting on the then-current events. I told Dean that I did not want to relive 2020. Dean told me I didn’t have to […]
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You have about two days to get your copy of the new Fey novel, The Kirilli Matter, early. For as little as $5, you can get an ebook of the novel, and several other stories, as well as some motivational videos for yourself or a writer friend. I’m writing this on Sunday because the week […]
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