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For Writers

Welcome to my blog for writers. Here you’ll find calls for submissions and posts about the business of writing and publishing. Look around, ask questions, and learn!

  


Guest Author: Sam Thorne, Language Architect

Sexy to Go Gay Romance book cover

If you’ve perused my blog or social media accounts, you already know that I adore Sam Thorne. We both recently had stories in the multi-author anthology Sexy to Go Gay Romance. Her contribution, “Rebuilding the Future,” was filled with the things I’ve come to love about her stories: well-intentioned but socially awkward heroes, deep characterization, and a knack for bringing out the humor of everyday situations. Oh, and adorably besotted protagonists. When Sam’s characters fall in love, they fall hard — just like in real life. … Read more

Help Save the Lives of LGBT Chechens

You may have heard that the Chechen government is rounding up and torturing gay/bi men. The New York Times reports at least 100 arrests and three deaths. Yesterday I began encouraging my friends on Facebook and Twitter to donate to the Russian LGBT Network, which is helping evacuate vulnerable LGBT people from Chechnya. I also decided to direct proceeds from my anthology Falling Hard: Stories of Men in Love to the Russian LGBT Network through April 20, and I’ve been encouraging other authors to do something similar. I put together this FAQ to answer some of the questions that have come up. … Read more

Tax Season Is a Time to Keep Cool: A Writer’s Guide to Missing 1099-MISC forms and Unpaid Royalties

person doing taxes

It’s tax season here in the United States, and questions popping up on many author boards is, “What do I do if my publisher didn’t send me a Form 1099-MISC?” and “Can I deduct unpaid royalties as a loss if my publisher closed?” This article covers who needs a 1099-MISC, what to do if you don’t get a 1099-MISC or get one that’s wrong, and how little the IRS cares about your unpaid royalties. It also discusses reporting publishers you suspect of tax fraud. … Read more

Choosing an e-Newsletter Service: An author’s first impressions of SendPulse

If you don’t have an author email newsletter yet, you need to start one. Here, Dale gives a brief comparison of the email marketing services MailChimp and SendPulse for sending newsletters, with a look at ease of use, customer service, options, and price considerations. … Read more

How to Track Book Sales — Even When You’re Not the Publisher

Image of book pile to illustrate tracking book sales

In this article, I evaluate sales tracking systems that are free to any author with an ebook on Amazon, paying special attention to Pronoun and NovelRank. Why these two? I’ve used both of these for a while because they’re user-friendly and can be used by any author whether they self-publish their ebooks or work with a traditional publisher. I also touch on tracking sales of print books—a much more difficult endeavor.

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An author’s review of PayHip as a venue for selling ebooks

An overview of the PayHip platform for selling digital e-books directly to readers, with a look at its benefits and drawbacks compared to retailer ebook stores like Amazon. The platform is fairly easy to use, but it can be cumbersome to manage sales. It’s up to the author to decide whether the higher proceeds from each sale are worth the extra work. … Read more

Samhain is closing … again

It’s been a crazy two months, hasn’t it? Torquere, All Romance, and now Samhain closes. I’d been rooting for them to keep things going after they revamped last year. As a writer, the frustrating thing is not knowing what percentage of these closings are due to poor business acumen, and what are due to Amazon’s … Read more