Manuscript Complete! Next Project
Tinker's Justice Well, I've just wrapped up the manuscript for Tinker's Justice, the final book in the Mad Tinker Chronicles. It still needs all the editing, cover artwork, and ebook formatting, so it's not ready to put in people's hands yet, but from my perspective,...
Amazon Pre-Orders for Self-Published Authors
Late last week I got the following email from Amazon: Hello, We're excited to announce that you can now make your new books available for pre-order in Kindle Stores worldwide. With a few quick and easy steps you can create a pre-order page up to 90 days in advance of...
Book Readers’ Ponzi Scheme
There's always someone telling you about a book they read, how great it is, and how you should read it too. Have you ever stopped to consider how that works? The person who gets you to read a book is ... ... more up-to-date than you. ... better read than you. ... just...
If Book Releases Were Like Software Releases
The software industry is a strange animal. Most software isn't considered done when it gets released; people expect there to be changes, improvements, and fixes for the inevitable bugs that weren't fixed (or often even found) before it got into the hands of users. Can...
Never Made it Out of the Shire (Pacing in Fantasy)
The Lord of the Rings is a seminal work of fantasy, but if it suffers from a fault, that fault would be pacing. For those who have read it, how long to you think the story spends in the Shire at the very beginning? Twenty pages? Fifty? My copy has this line on page...
Ask an Author: I published my book on Amazon. Now what?
Well, for starters, the question you should have asked is "I'm going to be publishing my book in the next few months, what do I need to do to be ready?" That's OK though, because one of the advantages of self-publishing is that you have no shelf-life (in the literal...
What Being an Author Means to Me
Watching a show the other day, there was a character who had been told she had six months to live. Where was she? At work in a nice tidy office job. She wasn't changing the world or saving lives, she just had work to do, and kept showing up to do it. It made me wonder...
Why Reviews Matter
Amazon is big. Really big. It's a Walmart the size of Rhode Island, with a flea market out back the size of Texas. You're welcome to set up a table at the flea market; Amazon doesn't mind since it costs them nothing and they get a cut. You place a little stack of...
Author Update: 7/2/14
Well, I missed my scheduled Tuesday blog post this week, but I'd like to think it was for a good cause. Last night I finished the manuscript for World-Ripper War and sent it off to the editor. Next up: working on the detailed outline for the final book in the Mad...
Ask an Author: Do I need a writing outline?
I've been self-publishing for close to a year and a half now, and while that might not make me an expert, it is an ever-evolving landscape, and current knowledge is the most valuable. I'm active in the Reddit community and always available on Twitter, ready to answer...