In my early writing days I believed that it was just me and the words. No one else would ever be involved. I was totally alone. I’ve since learned that writing doesn’t need to be so solitary. True, there are times when it should be just you and the keyboard, but there are many times when you should be around and involve other people. For example. critiquing and feedback of your work – I have heard the opinion that a writer must write a million words before they have anything worth sending out. I would argue that a million words without any outside scrutiny doesn’t improve one’s writing much at all. The feedback around what works and what needs work […]
Read moreCategory: Books
This section contains new books and reviews of books I’ve read.
The Changing Landscape of Books
The fact that the book industry is changing has never been driven home quite as clearly as it was in the last few days. The first epiphany was when I read a post by my publisher, Lorina Stephens of Five Rivers Publishing. She wrote about how Indigo (the 500-pound gorilla in Canada for book sales) is now pushing the small and indie presses around (post found here). Essentially, the book chain has made the decision to supplement their waning book sales by selling giftware. Fair enough. If it helps them survive, all the power to them. But, and here is where the bullying comes in, they are also basically pushing the small presses out. Lorina says it better than me by far, so I […]
Read moreWhy Publishing is Slow: the Experience
As you probably know, I’ve been working towards the goal of getting published for several years now. Last year I had some success with my short stories, managing to get three of them accepted by various e-magazines and digital sites. That success only encouraged me to work harder to get my books in front of publishers to try and get them published as well. Then, in October, I received my first book contract for my YA Superhero novel, “Mik Murdoch, Boy Superhero”. The book is the first in what I expect to be a six-book series. I was (and still am) very excited about this development, but, as I have said many, many times, publishing is slow. I know where […]
Read moreDealing With the Dreaded Negative Feedback
When I made the decision to write and podcast “GalaxyBillies”, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was getting myself into. Would people like the story? Would they hate it? Would I be able to pull it off at all? But, since without risk there can be no reward, I decided to take a stab at it. As we all do, I watched eagerly for any feedback I could get. And I watched… and then I watched some more. I eventually started to see some positive feedback trickle in and I was relieved when nothing bad was forthcoming. So far, so good. Unfortunately, the amount of feedback was almost zero which, to me, meant the story wasn’t really worth commenting on. […]
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