King Brandon

Audible Bows the Knee to King Brandon

At the beginning of this year, we covered Brandon Sanderson's dispute with audio book monopolists Audible. The epic fantasy king and neopatronage pioneer announced his intention not to publish the audio versions of his $40 million crowdfunded books through Audible. His stated reason? That the Amazon subsidiary failed to offer…
March 6, 20244 Comments
Reagan Thaatcher Clancy

Set Yourself up for Success

Most folks in newpub unconsciously stumble out of the gate by calling themselves "indie authors". I know I did. But newpub means more than writing. If you go indie, you accept all the responsibilities of an author AND a publisher. As a result of indies' author-centric focus, a lot of…
May 1, 2023
Selling Books, Negocios Rentables

How to Write Blurbs that Sell Books

I'm glad for the help, because as I've said here before, a good product description is one of the most vital elements of newpub success. Newpub is always changing. That means your knowledge of the field has to keep growing if you want to succeed. Conferring and collaborating with brilliant…
April 24, 2023
sales

Everything Is Sales

When aspiring authors come to me for career advice, the first question I ask them is why they're writing. Making a decent supplemental income is one thing. Making a living is a related, but different ballgame. Publishing a book just to scratch it off your bucket list and impress your…
April 17, 20238 Comments
mongoose

3 Days Left for Mongoose & Meerkat 3

Just 3 days left to back Cirsova's Tales of the Mongoose and Meerkat: The Redemption of Alness. Two years have passed since the fall of Alness. And two years have passed since the brash young sellsword Mangos teamed up with Kat, the mysterious Alnessi rogue. Together, they have made a…
February 17, 20232 Comments
mentor

The Charity Principle

One of the first things you learn from working around creatives is that we're passionate folk. We kind of have to be, since the main demand of our job is maintaining the conviction that our artistic vision is worth charging people money for. That is to say we tend to…
February 14, 202311 Comments
A.I. Art 4

Anti-A.I. Astroturf

As I mentioned last time, the upsurge in anti-A.I. art sentiment doesn't seem entirely organic to me. People had been talking about art algorithms like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion for a while. My friend, author David V. Stewart, even did some videos on A.I. book cover design. Sure, these algos…
December 19, 20228 Comments
A.I. 2001

The Great A.I. Art Debate

As you read this post, a debate is raging on author Twitter about A.I.-generated book covers. Some are hailing these art algorithms as the best publishing innovation since Gutenberg. Others are ... denouncing A.I. as demonic? Or something. To be honest, I can't get a read on the most emphatic…
December 16, 202246 Comments
AI Writing

A.I. Writing

The same eggheads who said the internet would end censorship, Bitcoin would end state coercion, and Google thermostats would end global warming have also been telling us the A.I. revolution is 10 years away for 50 years now. But the advent of A.I. drawing algorithms like MidJourney and Stable Diffusion…
October 17, 202211 Comments
Newpub Talk

Return of Newpub Talk

Until a little over a decade ago, you couldn't go online without being inundated by talking points from the popularly called New Atheists. In contrast to past popularizers of godlessness like Russell, Shaw, or even Sagan, the New Atheists largely dispensed with the genteel intellectual routine and waged constant rhetorical…
September 26, 202212 Comments