Awhile back, Mark Lawrence invited me and a bunch of other fantasy writers to share book numbers for an informal poll on the relationship between Goodreads ratings and actual sales. Being a numbers nerd, I was happy to participate, as were some other authors, many of whom shared hard numbers. I missed the final result, […]
Do Goodreads Ratings Correlate to Sales? Read More »
Note: Writerly process navel-gazing ahoy I wrote the last scene, and the last line, of my next book, The Stars are Legion today. That doesn’t mean the book is done, mind you – it just means I finally know where all the disjointed tens of thousands of words are actually going. So now I get
Everything is Not Awful Read More »
I’m knee deep in writing. Maybe hip deep. Ok, maybe neck deep. Which is a nice change from a very long year of being “on” pretty much 24/7, with constant Living Out Loud on top of the writing, and the day job. There was the Hugos stuff, the calls from NPR, and The Atlantic, and
I Was Never in This for the Parties Read More »
I am very pleased to say that I’ve taken up a new position as a Content Marketing Manager at a local advertising agency that I had the pleasure of working with when I was still a baby writer five years ago. I admit that after doing five years of in-house work, it’s fun to be
A Few Life Changes, and a Break in Service Read More »
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 »
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,
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 »
I woke up this morning and read this essay “Why Your Rent is so High and Your Pay is So Low” and nodded and sighed as I read it. It blows away a lot of assumptions held by older people in particular about “kids today” and “how they don’t work hard enough.” The joke I
The Future of Work is Here – and It Sucks Read More »
So I wanted to talk about this phenomenon that I and many other writers experience right before a book drops. I felt this most when I wrote RAPTURE, and I’m here again with EMPIRE ASCENDANT, because these were books I wrote and rewrote massively right before deadline. It meant I didn’t have time to sit
Do Pro Writers Really Not Know if their Work is any Good? Read More »