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Posts by Amanda

Jun 18

35 Comments

What to do? What to do?

The other day, I was talking with a writer who was over the moon but trying to think like a businessman. Well, businesswoman. She’d finished a book six months or so ago and had been shopping it around. After deciding against going with an agent, she did her homework and found publishers in her genre who would accept “over the transom” submissions. After silence from some and rejections from others, she finally had a contract offer. It wasn’t a big name publisher or even a medium name publisher. But the publisher wasn’t exactly fly-by-night either. But, reading the contract, she had concerns and wanted to talk them out before spending the money to have an IP attorney look at the paperwork.

I’ll admit, my immediate reaction was to tell her to run long and far from the contract. But I was good and I said I’d be glad to meet for coffee and we’d discuss it. But she needed to bring the contract with her so I could see what they were offering and what they wanted from her. Read more

Jun 11

25 Comments

The Publishing Merry (And Not-So-Merry)-Go-Round

Let’s face it, publishing is little more than a legal, and non-lethal, form of Russian roulette. If you want to go the traditional route, you are rolling the dice at so many levels you probably have a greater chance of being hit by lightning. If you go the indie route, will you be able to grab enough of the market to make it worth your while to spend the time writing the book? No matter which route you take, the ride gets even bumpier. But, if you look closely enough, there are high points as well. The only thing that isn’t certain is how it will turn out for you. Read more

Jun 4

7 Comments

Treat It Like A Business Revisited

(I originally wrote this post back in 2016. Here it is again with some additional thoughts–ASG.)

As I was looking for potential topics for today’s post, I came across one of Kris Rusch’s posts and knew I had everything I needed right there. In fact, I considered e-mailing Kris and asking permission to simply repost the blog entry here. I consider what she said in Business Musings: Introductory Remarks (Dealbreakers/Contracts) to be mandatory reading for every writer out there, whether you are wanting to go the traditional route or indie or a mix of the two. My advice to every writer and wannabe writer is to read and then reread and bookmark the post. It is that important. Read more

May 31

10 Comments

We’ll Be Back

The blog will return to normal tomorrow. We’re taking a mental health break today. After all, we are “mad” geniuses. Bwahahahahaha. (Not really geniuses, at least not me, but a mental health day is good for all of us.)

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

May 28

16 Comments

Say What? (Updated)

This post originally appeared on MGC in Feb. 2017. I’m repeating it here, along with additional comments, because I heard a trad published author saying much the same thing not long ago.–ASG

In one of my rare breaks from the keyboard yesterday, I went wandering around the internet in search of inspiration for today’s post. I’ll be honest. I thought the search would be fruitless. Why? Because so much digital space was being wasted on conspiracy theories about Envelope-gate from the Oscars or more screaming about politics. Then, there it was. A story that had me looking at my screen, looking away and then looking back, sure I wasn’t reading what I thought I did. Read more

May 21

25 Comments

Do Your Homework

I’ll admit right off the bat, this post was inspired by the title of a post over on The Passive Voice. But it veers off the path immediately from the Publishers Weekly article that was the basis for the PV post. If I try to write about “cultural appropriation” this morning, the post would wind up being nothing but a string of curses. Not because I believe we should never write anything we don’t know or aren’t a member or part of but because of all the wonderful book that will never be written because authors are afraid of writing a book with characters that don’t look like them, don’t believe like they do, etc. Okay, stopping there before the cursing begins.

Instead, I want to focus on how you have to do your research if you are writing about people, places or things you aren’t very familiar with. For example, some years ago, I was in Philadelphia for a business conference and contacted family friends in New Jersey. We arranged to meet at their home on Sunday. Since I hadn’t been there since I was a child, Ruth gave me directions and told me to look for the simple cottage with hollies out front. Simple enough, right? I mean we all know what a cottage is and what hollies look like. Read more

May 14

13 Comments

Release Day and Events Leading Up To It.

Okay, if there was ever any doubt I am mad, as in insane, these past few months should put those doubts to rest. I knew my production had been down the last year or so. I was still putting out books, but not at the rate I wanted to. So, when this year began, I decided to make a few changes to my routine to see if that changed. It took about six weeks for the changes to really kick in. When they did, everything changed and I swear Myrtle the Evil Muse turned more evil than ever. How so? Starting mid-February, the real work on Nocturnal Revelations began. A month ago, the book went live on Amazon, all 120k words of it. This morning, Battle Flight, a prequel to Vengeance from Ashes, went live. That book is more than 50k words. To say my brain is fried is putting it mildly.

So, what is Battle Flight? Read more

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