Category: Publishing

  • Purple Neuter Polka-Dot Eater

    It doesn’t matter. The brilliant MC Hogarth sums up. “…and I find… that I don’t care. Because oppression only matters if people have power over you. These days, I don’t have to care if editors don’t like stories by women, or Hispanics, or conservatives. I can just go to Amazon, publish them myself, and find…

  • Lawrence Block

    If you are interested in the publishing world, how it is changing, and what a popular, well-known author has to say about it, you must read this. All Changed, Changed Utterly I don’t know where all of this is going—which gives me something in common with everybody else in the world. The publishing landscape is…

  • Playing with the Big Boys

    A friend (actually, more than one, come to think of it) pointed me at a ranty post made by another writer this last week. I looked at it, shook my head, and went back to homework. But it stayed with me. Not the first part of the rant, which was… well, it didn’t make sense,…

  • Emotional Artifacts

    I get all metaphorical, and as snarky as I ever get, this morning over at Mad Genius Club. I’m the nice one, over there, but really… they are just special, aren’t they? Books are, as this article eloquently puts it, emotional artifacts. GigaOm: “What makes Amazon’s dispute with publishers different from a typical battle between…

  • Writing Roundup

    All right, I’m sitting here with a brain full of recipes and a novella to complete. You probably had enough of the recipes yesterday, and anyway, these I haven’t made yet. So I’m running around the blogosphere collecting quotes and articles I recommend to you as authors/inde publishers/ what-have-you. See you tomorrow! Dean Wesley Smith…

  • Amazon and Pricing

    Good Morning! Yes, I’m going there again. Frankly, I didn’t want to, hadn’t planned to, and really, why am I? Well, because I spent a significant chunk of time last night explaining to two different people the realities of Amazon, and rather than have to repeat myself in the coming days, I’m doing this now.…

  • Formatting for Ebook Publication

    Formatting for Ebook Publication

    I keep getting asked about this, and I think I answered it before, but then again, the requirements keep changing, so I’ll go over it again. Honestly, it’s getting much easier, and I fully anticipate that in a couple of years, it will be mush more plug-and-play than it is even now. Gone are the…

  • Formatting Poetry for Publication

    One of the lovely things about being involved in an online writing community is knowing that should I be asked a question I cannot answer, I can reach out to someone who can answer. Cynthia Bagley was gracious enough to write the following in response to my request, as I know very little about formatting…

  • It’s a Book

    It’s a Book

    Trickster Noir has arrived early! You don’t mind, do you? Look, spiffy Amazon cover linky: and it is live at Barnes & Nobles if you prefer epub format. The print edition will be live later this week, I think, and it will show at at iBooks and Kobo sometime soon. The timing on those is…

  • Monday Morning Musings

    Monday Morning Musings

    I have been allowed to muse at length on scat, parasites, and how they create a fine metaphor not only for the Hugo tempest in a teacup, but also life in general, over at According to Hoyt. I’m putting this here to hopefully remember and explore when I have more time… it has literally been…

  • Technicalities

    Technicalities

    I’m tired. It’s been a long week and it will be a long weekend. But here, have a post!  I go on at length over at Mad Genius Club about tenchical terms, and I want you to contribute, as well.

  • Read all about it

    The era of the newsboy standing in the street attracting attention with his brazen cry is long gone, but the cultural memory that attached to those two words lingers. As does that of the ‘news’ which I will propose is equally past. At one time in my lifespan, I know and have watched the phenomenon,…