…if you haven’t already got a decent flatbed scanner. What kind? As long as it’s tabletop scanner with a decent sized image areas (must be able to at least handle 8.5×11″ image area) with good reviews, you get them in various brands from $40 all the way up to $1000 or more. You’ll pay extra…
Read More Artists: buy a tabletop scannerI finally got the first eleven pieces uploaded to my little piece of SaatchiArt.com! This batch includes glass micromosaics and beaded tapestries, but acrylic paintings and jewelry will follow soon. The link: http://www.saatchiart.com/mariancranedesigns Whether this portal produces sales or not, it’s a great display site for my older work…and hopefully a better venue for new pieces.…
Read More My art on SaatchiArt onlineI wrote this post just over a year ago, and in that time I’ve seen more and more abuses of Twitter’s generally-fun-and-useful pitch contests. It’s become bad enough that in two recent SF and Romance pitch contests I followed, over half of the ‘favorites’ were from brand new and unknown publishers, or worse: from companies…
Read More Twitter pitches in publishing #2My fiendishly talented friend and beta-reader AG Carpenter has a new story out in the self-published wilds: Legacy. Blurb: When a skin-changer looking for passage to Lake Ponchartrain collapses at her feet, Willa Arch finds herself drawn into a conflict between the iron-willed Queen Elsbett of Brittania and Queen of the Dead, Marie Laveau. But survival…
Read More Legacy, by A. G. CarpenterI know two people, both younger than me. One is running from massive credit card debt, skipping from city to city, odd job to odd job and couch to couch, while his potential as an artist is wasted in ennui and his own non-materialistic creed that ‘Hey, the only thing I own is my body,…
Read More Miranda Campbell: ‘Culture Isn’t Free’Over the next week or so, I’ll be finalizing the details on my shiny new sales portal at SaatchiArt.com online. Even though I’m already registered there, I’ve got a lot of background work left: choosing art, deciding whether to offer prints, verifying shipping weight and dimensions for each piece, researching market prices, etc. Why Saatchi?…
Read More Coming soon: online direct art salesAttention, Big-Name authors who feel compelled to tout a writing-related product or service: Stop. Think. Research. At least check to make sure you are not endorsing something well-meaning but clueless, if not utterly predatory. Lesser authors look up to you. They may even believe you. Do you want to disappoint them? Now, if you know…
Read More psst! research before endorsing!When I can afford to, I collect end-blown flutes and similar wind instruments. Occasionally I manage to play them without totally embarrassing myself. This is the most recent acquisition, a lovely little Yamaha recorder in translucent aquamarine lucite. For $.99 at a local thrift store. It needs some cleaning and minor repair, but I’m looking…
Read More Aqua recorderIf you are a writer or a reader – or both! – you need to go here RIGHT NOW and look at this petition. Then please sign it. https://www.change.org/p/amazon-com-amazon-change-the-you-know-this-author-policy Lucky authors might have self-published bestsellers that seem to gain word-of-mouth acclaim instantly, or have commercial publishers bankrolling major marketing campaigns. The rest of us struggle…
Read More Amazon’s review policy (rant warning, adult language)I’ve made myself unpopular before, by suggesting that easy, cheap self-publishing is not the instant ticket to success that many writers dream it could be. The blunt, sad truth is that many self-published authors now publish too soon. In their rush to market substandard or just-good-enough work, they neglect to hone their writing craft.…
Read More Kameron Hurley, on why we are writing