Kate is being held hostage by the internet gods

Poor Kate. She’s traveling right now and has found herself at the mercy of hotel internet, almost non-existent hotel internet. In the message she finally managed to get out to Sarah and me, it had taken five minutes to load email. She was terrified she’d grow old and die, her body not being found for months or longer if she tried to get WordPress to load and then upload a blog post. So I said I’d throw something together. So bear with me as I try to get my uncaffeinated brain to function enough to work.

Over the last few days, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to what Mad Genius Club is. The blog has come a long way since Sarah and Dave started it 10 years ago. (In fact, it has been 10 years and month almost to the day since our first post went live.) In that time, we’ve seen changes in writers and in direction. The template has changed and so has the tone of the blog. That’s all good, at least it is in my opinion. The last thing Sarah and Dave wanted was for the blog to grow stagnant.

When the blog began, it was the early days of indie publishing (as in, I’m not sure Amazon had opened up their platform yet). All the writers were traditionally published. Almost all the original authors were science fiction/fantasy writers. Their goal was to use the blog to help promote their own work while helping new writers navigate the maze of publishing.

Kate and I joined the blog about six months later. Kate was also a published author, having had short stories published in pro anthologies. I was the newbie and Sarah brought me along purportedly to do a weekly “what’s going on in the industry” sort of post (because I was at the phase where I scoured the internet on a daily basis, looking for anything that could help me break into the business.) I really think she did it to keep me out of trouble.

About that time, Amazon confirmed what the rumor mill had been chewing on for a bit–that it was going to open up a platform for indie authors to publish their work. Oh the howls of outrage from traditional publishers and many of their authors. Agents beat their chests in anguish. We were told there would be nothing but trash, pure dreck, put out that way. After all, where was the quality control if there were no gatekeepers?

You know what happened. Amazon once again proved its critics wrong. MGC became a champion for all writers, especially Indies. We’ve done all we can to help anyone who wants to be a writer.

Along the way, some of the faces have changed but the message remains basically the same. If you are a writer, write. If you are a reader, read. We’d love it if you’d buy our books and leave reviews.

All this has been a long about way of getting to the point. After 10 years of blogging, sometimes it is difficult to decide what to write about. So much has been covered. We try to keep in mind that what we wrote a year–or 10–ago might need to be updated. Information and advice change as the market demand changes. We have readers who haven’t been with us for the long haul.

So, do us a favor. In the comments tell us what you would like us to write about. If there is a workshop or clinic you’d like us to conduct, describe it. If you’d like to see a regular fiction offering to be added to the line up, let us know (by this, I mean a regular snippet post or the like).

This is as much your blog as it is ours because we wouldn’t keep doing this if it were for each of you. Now, I’ll go find a cup of coffee and leave it to you.