Step one of selling your crap (not that it’s crap, just that you’re likely to think it must be crap when you’re trying to sell it) is to go from “I’m going to pressure my connections into buying this based on who I am” to “Tempting, isn’t it?” So: identify three things that your audience […]
Most people hate most surprises most of the time. It’s only when you secretly suspect that there’s going to be a surprise, and the surprise will be exactly what you wanted but didn’t have to ask for, or what you would have wanted if you had known that it was a possibility, that a “surprise” is
Some plots are simple. Plots based on a Joseph Campbell structure are simple. Each step follows directly from the last. “Once upon a time, there was a dude who was wrong about something. He went on an epic journey to teach him humility, which made him right—and being right made him strong.” There is one
You’re Only One Bad Assumption away from an Elegant Plot Twist Read More »
Yesterday I held a cooking party. (I’ll get the final recipes up soon, I promise.) People came over, drank, cooked, ate, talked, had fun. Every one of these I do, they get better. More fun. It takes a lot of work, a lot of hidden prep to make these things go off. An understanding of
Finally, I work through how much your long fiction is worth. I’m using the most of the same bases of guesstimation as two weeks ago (traditionally published) and last week (short indie fiction). I want my indie books to pay for my time within five years. Why five years? I don’t know. I heard a local
Note: Forgive me, I have checked and rechecked my math, but I made so many errors the first time through that I can’t be sure I’ve caught them all. Sheesh. All right. This is another tense topic for me, because I suspect I’ve been doing something that makes me happy in the short term but
When you write a story, how much should you sell it for? Whatever the market will bear, right? It’s a capitalistic society, so we can make a ton of money! Huzzah! Well, it turns out that a lot of writers (including me) will sell a story for whatever the market will give us, not what
I have to get materials to the PPWC committee by the 13th, so I better finish this up pronto. I had intended to include how to submit to other types of markets than short story markets, but I am OUT OF TIME. I had no idea that writing about short story submissions was going to
Since the last time I posted in this series, I jumped into ebook publishing (which I said in the last post that I wasn’t sure I was ready for). Things are changing so fast in publishing right now, I don’t know how to keep up. But anyhoo, ebooks are beyond the scope of this series,
How to Fail, Part 9: Mailing, Rejections, Acceptances. Read More »
Last time we talked about how to select the genre for your piece. Now, we’re going to talk about how to select your market. You may be tempted to send your work to markets you know you can get into. I don’t recommend this. I believe you should always send your work to the markets
How to Fail, Part 8: Submitting, continued. (Getting Paid) Read More »
