“I’m going to stop doing shows.” It’s a statement a lot of artists have thought, but more and more people I know are committed to stopping shelling out big money on shows when they aren’t even making table fees back. I used to hear rumblings about it once and a while, but I’ve heard it
I suffer from massive depression. Some days it’s all I can do to get out of bed. Some days moving physically hurts. I’m not alone. Almost everybody I know suffers from some form of depression. It feels like this is an epidemic in my generation. Even though we have access to everything, our brains eat
This is a story about money, and how to find it. It starts with a story set in my lean years when I just went to press on a new print run for Wannabe Press’s two most popular books. We spent $8,500 to get 3,000 copies total: 2,000 copies of Katrina Hates Dead Shit and 1,000 copies of
When I started setting real, tangible SMART goals in 2015, my career saw hockey stick, exponential growth. Before then, I had a set of goals that I wanted to attain, but they were usually either too easy or impossibly hard to achieve. Most importantly, there was no way to measure success so I usually abandoned
If you’re thinking about becoming a writer, you might be asking yourself whether you’re “Good Enough” to go professional. The short answer is YES, because quality doesn’t matter. Let me explain: Readers read for content, not quality. Yes, it needs to be clean and edited enough not to be distracting. I shoot...
We spent the last two weeks in Castle Rappottenstein, Austria. It’s hard for either words or pictures to do the experience justice, so in the post I’ll also share some of the less obvious benefits of hosting writing retreats in castles. But first, here’s a video tour with some last minute Nanowrimo tips. I
We’ve been in Burg Rappottenstein for a few days and we love it. It’s an enormous 12th century fortress; it’s comfortable and we’re all getting a lot of writing done. We’ll make a video soon and will share it with the #nanowrimo community, but for now here are some pictures and an introduction to my
What’s Pronoun and what does it matter? Today was supposed to be the day I share testimonials from students and start wrapping up my course launch – but instead it’s important to comment on what’s going on with Pronoun. If you haven’t heard of Pronoun yet, it’s an ebook distribution platform like...
This week I’m launching my new program, Guerrilla Publishing – which I’ve built over the last year while travelling full-time. I made a free “Bookselling Bootcamp” challenge while staying at the 5 star Regent Hotel Montenegro (I wanted to be comfortable going into Nanowrimo, and I also did a 2-week sugar...
Porto and Harry Potter This month we’ve been travelling through Portugal, seeking out JK Rowling’s favorite writing spots for inspiration. Rowling started planning Harry Potter in Porto, and it’s easy to see the connection. The university students wear black capes, and Porto is home to the “most beautiful...
Last week I got the chance to chat with literary agent David Fulgate. I always appreciate David’s advice on publishing because, even though he makes his living representing traditionally published authors, he recognizes that in some cases it’s better for authors to self-publish. The insight I gained from him a few years...
There are some interesting discussions that are happening right now. I’m going to massively paraphrase the situation as I understand it, without naming any of the main players involved. The story goes like this: Some people are cheating by uploading large collections of recycled content and getting people to click through to...
