Storytellersunplugged

I've been on the road almost the entire time since my last post here on Storytellers Unplugged. I started out with a quick couple of days in San Diego at Comic-Con International, the biggest pop culture convention in the world. On that Friday (July 25), I rode up to LA for a business meeting. I flew back from there and got home around midnight. The next morning, my wife and I packed the kids into the minivan and set off for the Northwoods ... Read More

-- Bev Vincent I have published something on the order of fifty short stories since I began writing seriously at the beginning of the millennium. Some of the early stories appeared in what are disparagingly referred to as “for the love” (or “4theLuv”) markets. A few were published in “royalty only” anthologies (which are but a smidgen better than 4theLuv markets in that in rare cases some of them have delivered a pittance in revenue—my current record is about $18). Most of ... Read More

As I said earlier, the most basic purpose of book promotion is to let people know that your book exists, why they might want to pick up a copy, and where they can get it. Some authors aren't keen on promotion. They might make a brief announcement on their blog, webpage, or mailing list, then put their noses back to grindstone, focusing on The Work. They rely mostly on the kindness of strangers, friends, and their publishers to get the word ... Read More

by Gerard Houarner  The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side. - James Baldwin Linda and I received a surprise invitation to be author guests at a local Fangoria con. Gordon Linzner, writer and former publisher/editor of Space and Time, Sarah Langan, award winning writer, and David Wellington, who's been using the internet in interesting ways, were all on the panel. The con operation was smooth, the moderator polished, the attendance at our panel was small but ... Read More

The Great Blow-Off-Your-Deadline Award **awarded with bitter grimaces and squeezed buttocks to those writers who fail to read the fine print and fulfill their commitments** For the past few weeks, I've been working toward a May 30 deadline in an attempt to finish a 70,000 word novelization. My publishers are trying to coordinate the on-shelf date with the film's in-theaters date. With four weeks left to go and 26K words under my belt, I thought I was doing swimmingly--which, I guess, means I was ... Read More

Being a cross-genre kind of girl myself, I seem always to be preaching to other authors to think more broadly about other genres their books might fit into, and about how to promote themselves in other genres. This kind of thinking and marketing is particularly important for authors in the horror genre because, let’s face it, horror is not exactly a popular book genre these days. In fact, I’m not sure it could be any LESS popular. ... Read More

By Janet Berliner Since I, too, just finished and turned in a novel, I considered writing about post-book depression, but as two of my fellows have already well covered that issue this month, I decided to find something new. A few weeks ago, I saw the movie “Talk to Me,” the story of Washington, D.C. DJ Ralph “Petey” Greene, an ex-con who became a popular talk show host and community activist in the 1960s. Where I was raised, we had no television, and given ... Read More

by Brian Hodge Get the podcast - or Subscrbe in iTunes This past January 15th, I was glued to the computer screen more than usual. It’s an annual rite. Every mid-January, Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs takes the stage at the Macworld Expo and yanks the sheets off all the goodies the rest of us have been speculating about since last Arbor Day. Yep … I’m not just a Mac geek. I’m one of those Mac geeks. No home runs this year, but you ... Read More

by Wayne Allen Sallee Ah, Huey Lewis, the man too hip to be square. Wonder what's he's doing right now? (Aside from slapping at his ear, buzzing away because he's being talked about). I've spent the week reading Brian Hodge's MAD ... Read More

By Stan Ridgley Words are the stuff of power. Anyone who works with words for a living knows their power. Well, let me issue a caveat. Anyone who works with words ought to know their power. But of course, ensembles of words in various stages of undress are not necessarily created equal. Pause You choked on that for a moment, didn’t you? Maybe reread it to give it a chance, and then rightfully scoffed. It has a sort of squinty-eyed surface profundity that ... Read More