Harvey Hey Folks, I didn’t say anything in part one of this post about publishing to paper. Of course, publishing to paper as well as ebooks is a good idea. If you can manage it, publishing to audiobooks is also a good idea. I advocate making your work available in every format. The larger number of formats that are available, the larger your prospective audience. This is a fact. It won’t go away just because someone chooses … Read more
Hi Folks, After two successive SF novels, here’s something completely different. The Rise of a Warrior is the first prequel and book one in the Wes Crowley saga. Wes Crowley and Otis “Mac” McFadden are teenagers in Watson, Texas, a town some distance north of Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle and the heart of Comancheria, the traditional Comanche homeland. As the boys watch, an impressive group of Texas Rangers ride in to the local livery stable … Read more
Hey Folks, I’ve had questions recently regarding whether writers should “go wide” with electronic publishing and distribution or go exclusively with Amazon. There’s also a great deal of talk about this topic on the Internet in various groups at at various websites. Today I’ll add my two cents. Ostensibly, when they talk about exclusivity, writers are talking about distributing only through Amazon’s KDP Select program. Now, you CAN distribute only to Barnes & Noble or Kobo … Read more
Hey Folks, <Character stands up tentatively from a brown metal folding chair:> Hello. My name is Harvey Stanbrough and I’ve become accustomed to the idea that I am a hack writer.<Character resumes his seat.> That doesn’t mean I write stories about taxicabs, but that I write far too fast and turn out so much work that no possible way could it be any good. (grin) Never mind that my poetry and fiction is taught in at … Read more
Hey Folks, Today we have a guest post from USA Today best selling writer Dean Wesley Smith. I’ve added a comment at the end. Enjoy. Dangers of Not Trusting The Creative Voice Things Stop When You Lose Faith In The Creative Voice… I watch this loss all the time and hear about it from hundreds of writers over every year. Not trusting your creative voice is deadly. This came up a couple days ago when I … Read more
Hey Folks, Back to science fiction this week. Today’s offering presents a somewhat horrific future-Earth scenario. Could you mine the bones of your own ancestors? And if so, at what cost? In the early 22nd century, the Earth is governed by the World Equality Organization (WEO). Like all corrupt governments, they not-so subliminally strive to plant imagined problems for the citizenry, then parlay the citizens’ fear into power. The Jewish people, who for centuries have been … Read more
Hey Folks, This is a bonus “extra” post, not in the regular rotation. It’s a short bit I thought you might find amusing and, with any luck, useful. I first saw “The Basic Rules of Flight” in an article by US Navy Pilot Nicole Scherer in the August 2018 issue of Air & Space Smithsonian magazine. The Basic Rules of Flight 1. Try to stay in the middle of the air. 2. Do not go near … Read more
Hey folks, I’ve all but given up on seeking reviews for my work. I never did actively “seek” them, other than mentioning, now and then, that I would appreciate a review if a reader enjoyed one of my novels. But this morning (as I write this) I read Nick Hoffelder’s article “Authors Are Taking Friendly Fire in Amazon’s War on Fake Reviews” (link at the end of this post) and clicked a link in his article … Read more
Hey Folks This time I thought I’d go back to a crime/mystery/suspense novel. In The Implications, a body washes up on the beach in a normally quiet rural town. Naturally, the marshal suddenly finds he has his hands full. But when the body proves to have ties to known mobsters, the marshal’s job gets a lot tougher very quickly. And the coroner’s brand new assistant being a dead ringer for the marshal’s deceased wife only adds … Read more
Hey Folks, Today’s post is a short but excellent guest post I purloined from my friend, Dan Baldwin. It first appeared as a Tip of the Week over at Four Knights Press (http://www.fourknightspress.com/). Enjoy. Tip of the Week: Let Barking Dogs Lie “That damned reviewer hated my novel!” “The boss hated my e-mail!” “I got an F on my essay!” “They rejected my short story!” “They panned my poem!” Regardless of what you write, you will … Read more