There are a range of sites that all follow the same model for selling book promotions to authors. The core of the business is that they get an email list of readers who are interested in free or discounted books. These readers specify the genres they’re interested in. Each of these sites sells spots in […]
Wacky Writing Idea #17: Blue Collar Monster Hunters
For this, and any other Wacky Writing Ideas, I happily release them into the wild for anyone to use. If you like the idea and want to write it up, do so with my blessing! If you want to change it or use it for something else, have at it! If you really want to do […]
The Windmill Method Released
I’ve been working on a real estate investing book called “The Windmill Method” and it’s now been released. It’s an approach for finding a good deal in most markets by putting in aggressively low offers on multiple properties. I’ve written previous posts that discussed ideas that this book expands on. The biggest issue with this […]
Writers’ Lifts Are A Waste Of Everyone’s Time
Goodhart’s law is stated as “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”. It was originally articulated in the context of British monetary policy but has become universal. For faculty at universities, metrics that measure the impact of research, then used for hiring and promotion decisions, are quickly gamed and […]
Historical Changes In Paid Fiction Writing
I’m a bit of an anomaly as someone who has written extensively about personal finance (as Mr. Cheap) and currently is focused on writing books, many of which are fiction. Many writers are self-confessed math-phobic, while others are clearly uncomfortable with business and money based decisions. I’m comfortable with all of this and am often […]
What Does It Mean To Be A ‘Published’ Author?
I’m often fascinated by the wide range of what a particular word means to different people, while amazed at the expectation people have that they all share the exact same understanding of that word. ‘Feminism’, ‘capitalism’, and ‘retirement’ have vastly different meanings to just about everyone, but somehow we all think there’s a standard, absolute […]
Amazing Blog Post Series On Modern Challenges Facing New Writers
I just finished reading an incredible series of blog posts by Dean Wesley Smith. I didn’t know his name, but he’s been a working fiction writer for decades and has some incredible insights into the tradeoffs between traditional and indie publishing and the transition that’s currently happening in the writing industry. These could be bundled […]
AI Generative Art Scandal
I’m one of the 300 entries in #spfbo9, which is quite exciting. I’m happy to be a part of it this year, but in the interest of full disclosure: being an entry is more about meeting the deadline than any particular merit. Nevertheless, I’m in and happy about it! #spfbo is one of the few, […]
Come On, Baby, Don’t Fear The AI
AI writing is a huge concern for writers. The current WGA strike has a ban on AI writing as one of their main demands. Indie authors are in a panic that in the near future AI generated novels will crowd them out of the marketplace and they’ll no longer be able to sell books. Why […]
Writers Who Stop Writing
There’s a vast horde of people who desperately want to become writers. They’ll dream about it, read advice books, and badger published authors for tips. If such people ever achieved success as an author, you’d expect that they’d spend their days writing in a bliss-filled reverie. Instead, you find that at every step, people drop […]