Category: Stuff I Recommend
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The Pointy Marketing End of Writing Fiction: Old Dog, New Trick
No big secret that I’m working hard on making my fiction a full-time paying gig again — my objective is to earn 50% of my income from fiction, with the other 50% coming from my writing classes. Fiction has been shoved over in a corner for years, because, well — writing good nonfiction is about…
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No Man’s Sky: A Science Fiction Novelist (And Grown-Up Nerdy Girl) Reviews the Game
Before I review No Man’s Sky, you need to know two things about me. Well, three, but if you’re reading my blog, I’m assuming you already know I’m a professional SF novelist. So, two. ONE: Back in 1970 when I was nine, we moved from Ohio — where I’d spent my entire life to that…
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Writing contest sites, and fiction versus the NBA
I never recommend writing contest sites that charge an entry fee. No exceptions. I’ve never entered one, because I was out to make a living from my writing, and contests were an unnecessary diversion from my path. Your mileage may vary. But I received an interesting request from someone building a “perpetual writing contest site”…
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Apple is Fighting for YOUR Right to Privacy
I bitch about Apple being a pain in the ass for not keeping old document formats for me on new systems. I don’t like the Apple store’s “Walled Garden” approach. And I think the newest iPhones are so ugly and crippled that I got a Samsung instead. I disagree rabidly with their “free tech to…
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Tom Vetter Hits #11 on Amazon’s Bestseller List
Tom Vetter holds the #11 spot this morning in Adventures and Discoveries World History on Amazon’s Bestseller List! The book jumped significantly overnight, from the high 300,000s overall to 28,289 right now, and he’s sold most of his first editions. The author’s page with first editions is here: http://www.tomvetterbooks.com/i-read-from-30000-leagues-undersea-authors-intro/ The book on Amazon is here:…
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The Indie Authors’ Advent Calendar? Brilliant!
I think both readers and writers will find this a simply brilliant idea. A group of writers has banded together to create a series fiction advent calendar. Each of the writers has done a series story, and different parts of it will be posted throughout the advent season. You go to the calendar, click the…
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Self-Publishers: New numbers you need NOW
I did that interview with Simon Whistler… http://rockingselfpublishing.com/author/simon/ (link opens in new tab) …that went live last Tuesday, and from doing that interview I bumped into Hugh Howey, and from doing that, I encountered an entire series of links to writers who have done the HARD math on self-publishing. I’m only giving you two. There are many,…
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Published the WARPAINT Soundtrack
It took a while to find the right music for WARPAINT. First, this is the music I have playing in the background while I write, so it has to fit the universe, the characters, and the “feel” of a lived-in place full of real humans, real needs, and the themes of the story. And it…
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Heads Up on the Book That Changes Publishing
Last week, like a zillion other writers, I received notice of the publication of John Locke’s How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in Five Months. I bought it. It fits PERFECTLY with How To Think Sideways and How To Revise Your Novel. I’ve been focusing heavily on teaching the traditional path to publishing because I’m…
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The Writer’s Heart
I’m going to point you at a relatively new weblog I discovered called THE WRITER’S HEART, written by Charles Towne. Towne has a way with wildlife and photography, and has had adventures of astonishing and frightening sorts…and his weblog is a lot of fun to read. Better yet, he’s an opinionated cuss, which I find…