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POINT OF VIEW: Amazon vs. Going Wide

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going wide - Deposit Photos

If you spend much time in indie-pub circles, you’ll hear a lot of discussions about “going wide.” This is short-hand for “selling through many/most/all available book vendors. You’d think it would be a no-brainer, right? Put your book in front of as many different audiences as possible? Surprisingly, it’s not. And it’s mostly because of a little thing called Kindle Unlimited. You see, Amazon sells books. Tons and tons and tons of books, along with hoses and candles and snow tires and just about everything else under the sun. But they always want to sell more books, and to find … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Feeding My Writer Brain

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Books on a Plate - Deposit Photos

It’s been forever since I sat down with a good book and just read the hell out of it. I’m a compulsive worker bee, and these last five years have not been kind to our business, requiring ever more of my time, focus, and energy just to try to keep things running with my husband Mark Reading is one of the things that had to go. There just wasn’t enough time. It’s funny. Writing a novel used to seem like such a daunting thing. Now reading one does. As writers, we feast on words. We absorb them from the world … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Launching a New Thing

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Liminal Fiction

I’ve always had my head in the stars. One of my early memories is when we went to our neighbor’s back yard to watch the lunar eclipse, and to stare in awe as the moon became blood red. As a kid, I wanted to be one of two things – an astronomer or an astronaut. Those dreams lasted into my teens, until I realized a) astronomy requires a helluva lot of math, not just staring at the heavens, and b) I wasn’t nearly enough of an athlete to be an astronaut. I hade a brief rekindling of hope when I … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: At Pride

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Davis Pride

Last week I talked about personal pride. This week it’s all about the capital kind of “Pride” – in this case, Davis Pride. Davis is a college town about 1/2 an hour West of Sacramento. It has an adorable downtown, and at this time of year, lots of college students. This year, for the first time, our local author group – the Queer Sacramento Authors’ Collective – decided to set up shop there for their pride festival in Central Park. Kim Fielding, S.A. Stovall, Mike Lopez, Kelly Haworth, and I all ran the booth, with help from my hubby Mark … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Hope and the Holidays

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Grandma Hazel - 1937

Hey all, I am not going to say much about the events of last week for the moment. I am still too angry. But I will say this. Vote. Get everyone you know to vote. Phone bank and text and email. Because women matter in this country. And a price has to be paid for what happened this week. *deep breath* This is still a writing blog, though. I remind myself of that, just like I remind myself that I have to take care of myself and my husband Mark. That we have to sometimes shut off the TV. Take … Read more

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Point of View: My Writing Plans For 2016

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Scott

Hey all, Last week I reviewed my writing year in 2015. I thought I’d flip things around this week and look ahead to my writing plans for 2016. So here are some of the things I hope to accomplish: 1) Publish My First Novel: Or at least get it scheduled. Those who know me well know that I wrote my first novel in my early twenties, like twenty five years ago (I know, right?). But it never went anywhere – it was roundly rejected by ten mainstream publishers. In my more recent writing life, I’ve stuck exclusively to short stories … Read more