Today I discovered a trove of ‘writing men’ advice for female authors. This is a nice ‘flip side’ of the story I started a couple of years ago when I pivoted Mike Sierra Echo away from my original idea ‘Cinderellavator.’ Inclusivity is a great idea for everyone – that’s why I was glad to find…
Let’s talk signs your scifi story sucks. If Jeff Foxworthy were a scifi nerd, he’d do a ‘your scifi story might suck’ bit on the Blue Collar Comedy tour. But he didn’t so, somebody’s got to protect nerds and geeks’ hard-earned dollars and geek time. I’m always looking for well-told, undersung scifi stories to champion…
This moment in the Author Journey is about wild publishing stories – indeed the kind of swill that makes a grown man weep and reach for the freelance writing gigs on Upwork. I have no use for suppositional arguments on the subject of writing. The work of storytelling and publishing is enough to tax the…
Happy News – submitted Newlyweds, a scifi short story, to Clarkesworld to begin the rounds for consideration. It’s been a while since I submitted a short story to a magazine, and it feels good to get back into the game. You’ll enjoy Jakob and Yasmine, jumbled up versions of people I’ve known who are ordinary, anything…
SECRET – I made a new Youtube channel tag but you can only see it if you decode the message. Pyvpx urer gb frr gur arj punaary gnt: uggcf://lbhgh.or/GDdo-7CvLUH #scifi #secret #Cipher #codes #Thursday — Inkican Books (@inkican.bsky.social) February 13, 2025 at 7:07 PM People are already coming in with their solutions: Hurry up and…
Click here to read some Toxic Scifi Fan Hate Mail I got in Part I. Sometimes you have to ‘hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats’ – authors are no exception. I think their comments speak for themselves, so let me get right into my response – posted as follows: Listen up, Dingus. I…
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Incoming Toxic Fan Hate Mail – wasn’t planning on that on a Tuesday morning but, hey – that’s why I’m an author. Nothing better to do than be somebody’s punching bag, right? Part of me says ‘ignore/block’ but another part of me is like ‘they aren’t attacking me, they’re attacking everyone – Somebody’s gotta stand…
Welcome to 2025 – let’s take a moment to discuss lessons learned from Smashwords. Drumroll please – final score from Smashwords is …. 353 books! That’s right, I gave away 353 books this month – over double what I gave away last time. Huzzah! Some interesting takeaways from the experience before I move onto the…
Some quick notes out of Sony via Linkedin – Critics don’t kill movies – movies kill movies. The narrative ABOUT a movie is just as important as the narrative OF the movie. Know what that means? It means that you and I – writers / authors / aspiring creatives that we are – need to pay…
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Recent predatory literary trade show experiences bring us back to the idea of ‘predatory creatives.’ For every author looking to strike it rich with their book, there’s three hucksters making bogus claims about influence, promotion, and audience engagement. Let this be a lesson to you. Forget all that for a moment – a first-class emergency…
