On the bike ride home today, I thought about giving up on publishing. Just telling the whole enterprise to fuck itself. All the haters. All the wonky business people. All the fuckery contract language. All the bullshit. I’d sell the house and load our shit up into an Airstream trailer and we’d disappear off the face of […]
I want to talk a little bit about book numbers here. I have before, but it’s time to do it again, because I’ve been watching a great crop of hungry and talented debut novelists throwing themselves out of the nest recently, and it’s on my mind. I don’t want to talk about the big, bad book
The Cold Publishing Equations: Books Sold + Marketability + Love Read More »
Reading is a very personal experience. And so we start here, with the personal: What would you sacrifice, to achieve your life’s ambition? I know what I’ll sacrifice for mine, because I’ve already done it, and it is this: I will sacrifice everything. All of it. And I will never look back. I didn’t have
What Will You Sacrifice? The Traitor Baru Cormorant Read More »
After finishing the cover for “The Judgement of Gods and Monsters,” my second Patreon-funded short story, I got a lot of compliments on the cover, and a few people asked who had done it for me. I’m still pretty cash poor around these parts, funneling most of my money toward getting out of debt, so I’ve
New Story Covers: Self-Pub/Hybrid/Trad Chat Read More »
Today is September 8th. The sequel to THE MIRROR EMPIRE, EMPIRE ASCENDANT, comes out in 26 days. The first excerpt just went live at Tor.com. Goodreads is giving away 5 free copies to celebrate the mass market release of MIRROR EMPIRE that dropped September 1. I start a social media countdown at 7 days out,
Putting this here for reference because I’ve been seeing a lot of people arguing about useless know-nothing bullshit lately, and falling headfirst into this trap. Listen. The haters are here to keep us hating back, to keep us from doing our work. They are a distraction. You are punching at clouds. You are punching at
Do Your Fucking Work and Fuck the Rest Read More »
As someone who’s adept at using the internet to connect with folks and broaden my audience (I can safely make that statement without disclaimers now), you might think I’m one of those tense, big-eyed folks slavering at the keyboard screaming, “YOU MUST BE JACKED INTO THE MATRIX AT ALL TIMES OR RISK OBSCURITY.” But one
On Social Media Breaks, and the Pressure to Stay Connected Read More »
The mass market paperback edition of the grim, parallel-universes colliding epic THE MIRROR EMPIRE is out today and includes a bonus first chapter of EMPIRE ASCENDANT. READ IT AND WEEP MY FRIENDS. EMPIRE ASCENDANT can now also be pre-ordered from Audible, and will be out the same day as the ebook and paper version, October
Bad Plants in New Packages and Other Cool Stuff Read More »
THE FIFTH SEASON In a land where geological apocalypses recur every 100-300 years, one society has survived by enslaving the planet’s geomancers to try and prevent apocalyptic events from disrupting their lavish society. Get ready for a ruthless, pulls-no-punches exploration of slavery, madness, and betrayal told with some very clever narrative tricks that will leave
Books You Should Be Reading Read More »
Sometime in the last year, the number of requests I’ve gotten to blurb or simply early-read books has gone up tremendously. For folks who can read a book in a three or four hour stretch, this may not be a big deal, but unless I’m in the midst of a gripping made-for-me book, it takes
To Blurb or Not to Blurb: My Book Reading & Rec Policy Read More »