Prices Slashed on Audio Courses

Hi Folks, Just a brief mid-cycle post for an announcement. If you find this post of value, please consider pinning it or otherwise sharing it with your friends. As I’m endeavoring recently to build a new publisher website for myself and my personas, I decided to slash the prices on all of my Audio Courses on Writing. Every course now costs $5 per session. So if there are only two sessions in the course, that course … Read more

Write What You Know — Seriously?

Howdy Folks, How many times has some pundit told you to “write what you know”? Uh, no. That is bad advice. Maybe the baddest advice ever, and I mean that in the old sense of “baddest,” before we started dumbing down the language. I mean “worst.” It’s bad advice because the connotation is that you should write ONLY what you know. So what? You’re supposed to write what you DON’T know? Yes. Of course. You should … Read more

Brave New World of Publishing

Hi Folks, Man things change quickly in this new world of publishing. On the first of this month, so just over two weeks ago, I devoted an entire blog post to telling you why I was no longer going to publish and distribute my books through Smashwords. And then this morning, I uploaded and published ten new titles to Smashwords. It seems Smashwords recently signed a contract with Gardner’s, a massive book distribution agent in Great … Read more

The Infamous Gave

Hi Folks, Note: Many  beginning writers still believe they can publish a novel and make a living. Nope. Not even through traditional publishing. One of the best quotes I’ve ever seen on the topic is from Dean Wesley Smith: “Here is the thinking if you expect to make a living from one book. Put $2,500 in the bank and then wonder why you are not living off the payment from the interest.” Think about that. Okay, … Read more

Are You a “Real” Writer? (Humor)

Hi Folks, This topic doesn’t really fit with the current series of how-tos I’m posting here, so I thought I’d slip it in as a bonus. Just some things to think about. A couple months ago on Facebook, which as we all know is a fount of absolute wisdom, someone posing as a professional fiction writer posted that writing is a “deliciously tedious travail” or some such nonsense. Yeah, I’m not kidding. Being who and what … Read more

Farewell, Smashwords, and Why

Hi Folks, First a couple of announcements— 1. On September 23, Author Earnings released a new report that ALL writers should see. Especially if you’re locked into traditional publishing or if you’re on the fence. The previous report I mentioned talks about market share in ebooks from traditional publishing vs. indie publishing. So it was kind of abstract. But this report shows the actual distribution of income to individual authors who choose to publish traditionally vs. independently. This probably … Read more