traditional

7 posts

Guest Post: Deciding What’s Important

I’m hosting guest authors through most of April and May, as I am swamped with Awesome Con DC and welcoming Baby Boy Brightley into the world. This guest post was written by LJ Cohen, the author of The Between and Future Tense.  Deciding What’s Important I came to writing relatively late in my life, after a successful 25 year career as a physical therapist. It’s not that I had never written before. Even during my health care career, I wrote, though most of my work was non-fiction, including research papers and text book chapters. However, I did find time for […]

Writers and Authors Beware!

If you’re considering self-publishing, you’ve probably been doing some research about how to avoid the various scams and predatory “services” and vanity presses out there fighting for your attention and money. It’s a rough world… there are a lot of people and businesses who are eager to take advantage of authors. Before you give any money to anyone for any service, please check out the following links as appropriate: Preditors and Editors Writer Beware, and here’s the page on vanity presses and scam warning signs, along with an extensive list of other places to check out any publishing house you […]

Writing a Book vs. a Writing Career

I just read this fantastic article by Kristine Kathryn Rusch on A Career vs. Publication. If you’re an author, a wanna be author, a just-for-fun writer, or have ever thought about writing, go read it. You might have noticed that the publishing world is changing pretty quickly these days. Among other upheavals, indie publishing has become not just an option, but a good option. As writing blogs, conventions, and advice proliferate, both online and in the real world, there is a lot of advice out there. Have you ever tried to parse through that advice to find what will work […]

Writing Lessons from Martial Arts

Some of you know that I’m a martial artist. I’ve been training in martial arts for over 19 years as of this writing. I started in taekwondo when I was 12 and earned my first black belt in the now-defunct International Taekwondo Council (ITC). I trained for about two years in a Japanese Karate Association (JKA) Shotokan karate school before heading to college at 17, where I trained for a year in judo. When I transferred colleges, I ended up in a Chidokwan karate (basically Shotokan + escrima sticks + street-style self-defense) university club, where I trained for two years […]

Self-Publishing vs. Vanity Publishing

But wait, you say. Isn’t self-publishing just vanity publishing? Not exactly. Self-Publishing is not Vanity Publishing Self-publishing is when an author pays for the expenses of having their work published – editing, cover art, formatting, etc. That’s a pretty broad category, and it includes a number of classic works. You see, publishing has always been subject to the whims of a number of gatekeepers – agents, editors, publishers, and bookstore owners, to name a few. Sometimes those gatekeepers hit a homerun – they identify and back a truly worthwhile book by a magnificent author. That’s great! But sometimes, for whatever […]

Comments on: Joe Konrath/Barry Eisler on Digital Denial

Joe Konrath hosted Barry Eisler on his blog recently for this article: A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing: Eisler on Digital Denial. Joe’s comments are at the bottom of the article, and they’re worth reading too. It’s reassuring to me that formerly traditionally published authors are now choosing to publish their own work. Yes, the barriers to entry are lower, and yes, that means less-than-impressive works reach readers. But it also means that authors have many more choices, and many more opportunities to shape their own careers. Generally, I believe choice and options are beneficial, and for far too long, authors have […]

Forbes Article – Publishing is Broken…

This is a really interesting article on the tension between traditionally published authors and indie authors. Link here. I chose to self-publish for a variety of reasons. My first book, The King’s Sword, was rejected by a number of agents before I decided to self-publish. While I’m sure it’s not perfect (what book is? We all have things we can improve in our writing, and I hope I continue to grow as a writer throughout my life.), I believed it was worth sharing. The comments I got from beta readers ranged from fangirl squeals (literally) to “Wow, I’ve never seen […]