How to: Author Central

Every author should set up their Amazon Author Central page in the lead up to their first publication. This is true if you are a traditional author, not exclusive to Amazon, or if you only have a short in an anthology coming out. Eventually, your book will be on Amazon, one way or another. Having... Continue Reading →

Building Better Blurbs

I'd finally got progress on The Chapter of Stuckage (it went a lot faster once I sat down, and said "who is with whom this chapter? Ah, and what issues are there that they'd need to resolve between them, while they're out of the way of Main Plot Movement?") Before I could finish it, though,... Continue Reading →

Creative truths

Or 'It's the absolute truth, we swear... we just left out a few details, context etc.' Anyone who ever dealt with publishing is probably well aware that sometimes the author can mislead, but he's a piker compared to the average industry insider. The big five/four/three etc... have been in court telling everyone how little they... Continue Reading →

Genre Isn’t Always Obvious

Peter's getting close to publication on another book... I'm calling it a western. This one isn't a western by strictest definition, because it's set in the civil war naval battles, instead of out west. Which is going to interesting to market, because the most likely readers will be the western genre readers, even though it's... Continue Reading →

Release Day for Destiny from Ashes

As noted in this morning's post, today Destiny from Ashes is live on Amazon and will soon be live on the other major storefronts. Release days are always a mixed emotional bag for me. I'm excited to see the book go live. I'm terrified about what readers will think. I'm exhausted from the final push... Continue Reading →

Cost/benefit

Cost / benefit analysis... from an author? Well, that should make you laugh, anyway. Seriously, it's profession for mugs, if you look at it from the straight 'work / earnings' (cost / benefit) point of view. That of course rests on 'all work is equally hard or pleasant or possible' which is plainly false. The... Continue Reading →

Goodreads may be perilous territory for authors

Ever since I began publishing independently in 2013, friends and fellow authors have warned me, "Don't get involved with Goodreads.  It's poison for authors.  There are people there who take pleasure in destroying writers - and the platform does nothing to stop them." I wondered about that, but life, the universe and everything has kept... Continue Reading →

TulKon 2022

Tulkon: great con. Small enough to be relaxed and get to talk with authors and other guests, but large enough to have an interesting programming track and overflow from the dealer's room with lots of interesting things to catch your eye and your wallet. Theoretically this should be an AAR (After Action Review), except I... Continue Reading →

The Boring Bits

Recently, a bunch of friends and I got into one of those conversations - the kind where everyone reveals that they think they're the boring one, and doesn't know why the others put up with 'em and let 'em hang around. The fun part is, most everyone thinks this, and this group includes people that... Continue Reading →

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