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A nice interview of self-publishing fantasy success David Dalglish over on David Gaughran’s blog. It includes some nice insights on “hybrid publishing” as well as a harrowing lesson about signing your rights away.
Coping with your Critique
Editors.
As the saying goes, you can’t live without ’em…and you can’t live without ’em.
A good editor can make all the difference between an amateur manuscript that goes nowhere and a highly polished gem that you can be proud of. But the process of working through the criticisms of an editor’s letter can often be a soul-smushing experience, one that often drains your energy to even work on the manuscript.
Fear not! There are ways to keep from taking your critique to heart. Check out this guest blog post I wrote for The Rockville Eight on strategies for coping with your editor’s letter, and maybe even getting more mileage out of it than you had previously.
Turn Music (and Books) Into Money
I just came across this intriguing article in The Atlantic via the singer John Owen-Jones’s Twitter feed (how’s that for a tenuous connection?): How You Turn Music Into Money in 2012 (Spoiler: Mostly iTunes).
As fellow creative types, it behooves writers to pay attention to how artists and musicians are monetizing their careers online. Although the industries and distributions are different, take a gander at how avant garde musician Zoe Keating sees her six-month income rolling in.
My takeaways: distribution diversity is good, assumptions are dangerous, and the digital landscape if far from being predictable or settled. None of that is a surprise, but it’s good to see concrete numbers to back up some of my thinking.
What did you get out of the article?
Adventures in Advertising: Can self-published writers advertise effectively?
Before the holiday season derailed my progress here on the blog, I was tackling a critique of the various advertising channels I’ve tried to bolster my self-publishing sales. I started with my adventures with Goodreads self-serve ads, but I realized after writing those 2,000 words that what I should’ve done is give an overview of all of the services and outlets I’ve tried first, then delve into the specifics of each outlet. This post is that summary.
2012 – A Writer’s Year in Review
Happy New Year, everyone!
Like so many others, I thought I’d do a 2012 year-in-review post to see where I’ve come from, what I’ve done, and where I hope to go in the future. Part ego-trip, part reminiscence, it’s a good way to get a running start on the new year.