Thank you to those who chose to serve their country, and to those who gave their lives in service. Thank you to those who died defending this country, and to those whose lives were wasted in wars we shouldn’t have fought.
Official announcement: New Title
StandardA Blessing of Monsters has been retitled. Big surprise, right? There’s no way I’d be able to keep that title. Anyway, the new title is: Epic Fantasy With No Dull Parts.
That’s unlikely to be the final title, either, I know. Titles are hard.
In keeping with previous posts about marketing
StandardLet me drop this quick quote on you from a Writer Beware post:
The most financially successful self-publishers write more than their peers, and spend less time marketing. In fact, those self-publishers who marketed the most earned the least.
Authors’ online activity: Mostly good for having fun and maybe letting people know when something new comes out once in a while.
With the summer season about to start…
StandardHow to recognize when someone is drowning.
It’s not what you think.
Selfpubbed author giving other selfpubbed authors a bad name, part one million
StandardHe’s not a self-published author because he does his job as a publisher. Or something.
He also doesn’t seem to understand why people think he’s an ass. But hey, his bad behavior is going to really hurt his sales right? Well, as I have been saying, not so much.
One of the books in question. That sales rank doesn’t exactly scream “self-sabotage.”
Do you wonder what songs my son sings while kicking around our apartment?
StandardWonder no more! Here are the top 3:
Of course that doesn’t include random beat boxing, which is almost constant.
Welcome to my life!
Randomness for 5/19
StandardMore awfulness from Anthony Giangregorio and Undead Press
StandardOnce again, the editor mentioned in my subject header has been accused of rewriting author’s stories without their knowledge and permission, but this time he reportedly offered to let the author buy the story back at an increased price!
Hey, I guess adding rape and bestiality scenes ups the word count, right?
One Thing You Shouldn’t Say To A Writer
Standard“I’ll never buy one of your books!”
Seriously. Don’t say this.
It used to be that, whenever authors went online, people told them “Be careful what you say! Don’t be political! Don’t be controversial! You’ll drive away readers!” And people believed that, too, until it became clear that it just wasn’t true.
The truth is that most writers don’t care about some stranger who pops up and swears they won’t give us money. That just means they’re part of the largest set of human beings on the planet: My non-fans.
What’s more, it just makes a reader look silly. So if you are never going to read some particular author’s work again, go for it. Hey, blog about it or Twitter about it with your friends. But don’t bother telling the author, because they don’t care.
In other news, life has been determined to interfere with my revisions on A Blessing of Monsters but I’m making headway. In fact, I’d be nearly finished with them right now if I hadn’t come up with a startling new idea that really pulls things together.
Tomorrow is going to be another big working day. I’m tempted to go on an internet fast so I can wrap this sucker up.
Just finished the edit letter
StandardAs I mentioned last December, my son has been writing a novel. A few weeks ago he gave me the first revised draft, and I have been working on a copy edit and edit letter for him. Well, I finished it last night and it’s waiting for him to notice it.
He did a fine job, to be honest. His draft came to nearly 10K words and was pretty clean. “Pretty clean” in this case means that, while there were a lot of corrections on each page, they were the same errors over and over. I think that, by the time he reaches page 50 on these edits, he’ll have punctuation around quotation marks down pat.
The title of the story is “The Twin Swords of Zordain” and it’s a comic fantasy. The current plan is that he will do the revisions and I will publish it here, on this blog. For this, he’ll receive a penny a word.
I foresee many Pokemon cards in our future.
Anyway, last week we were walking together to the bus, and we started talking about the edit letter. He was feeling a little anxious about it, because of course he wanted it to be finished for him two or three days after he gave me his manuscript.
And he wanted his money. “See, Dad, I had the money for the booster box I just bought, but I won’t have any new money until you finish my book. So, if you could get that back to me, that would be great.”
So I gave him a hug and welcomed him to my world.
Anyway, the envelope is still sitting on the table waiting for him. We’ll see how long it takes him to notice.
In other news, the book I started at the same time through the same process is going through some pretty heavy revisions. Work work work.