I had a long, involved email exchange recently with some writer friends scattered around the world: print authors, digital authors, authors working for commercial contracts, authors who’ve gone almost exclusively to self-publishing. We all came to mostly the same conclusion: We think the future, or at least the near-future to five or ten years out,…
Read More Self-publishing and Hybrid Authors, pt 1Twitter is a wonderful tool for writers. It creates interactive communities and allows extremely customized newsfeeds. Twitter also opens doors between authors, agents, and publishers, through intermittent pitch contests like #pitmad (Pitch Madness), #AdPit (Adult fiction pitches), or #SFFpit (science fiction & fantasy pitches). In general, contests like these allow participants to post their novels’ short…
Read More Twitter pitches in publishingThis morning I was delighted to listen to a Publishers Weekly webcast about the history, current state, and future prospects of digital publishing as it relates to LGBT and M/M romance and related genres. Brief (personal) definition: M/M is simply a romance or other story with a romance subplot featuring male homosexual relationships. LGBT fiction…
Read More Three digital M/M and LGBT romance publishers sound offFilmmaker Dan Perez has some great comments about how damaging that one word can be to an artist’s career. I’ve included the LinkedIn discussion as well, because it continues the conversation. In short, if you are any kind of creative person trying to make a living at your art – even just enjoying it as…
Read More ‘Exposure’ comes in many flavorsIn honor of Day Two of the Romantic Times conference, and for all the commercial print, e-pub, and self-pub authors in my genres, here’s a link to a great article by a friend of mine, Vera Nazarian. Your mileage may vary, but she brings a dose of reality to the promotion process that I find…
Read More Secrets of Book Promotion (link)I’m not talking about would-be writers who haunt workshops, conventions, and online forums; usually while talking about the writing they are doing, or about to do, or have set aside for a little while so they could commune with their Inner Genius some more. Today’s hint-o-madness concerns the people who actually, day in and day…
Read More Writers are crazyA lot has happened in the world since I last chimed in on this blog. I could talk about gun violence and mental health, in the wake of numerous high-profile and tragic shootings. But many people are already doing that, to far better effect. I can shake my head at the political gamesmanship over the…
Read More ‘My Turn’ and the end of an era