On being a hybrid author, and: Apocalypse Seven is coming!

Earlier this year, I decided to sell a book to a publisher. I’m not talking about a book I’d already published. Dutiful readers of this space will recall that I’ve already done this once, in 2018, when John Joseph Adams Books (an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) bought the rights to The Spaceship Next Door,…

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There will continue to be stories like this

A new scandal has put a spotlight (again) on the way indie publishing operates these days, and let me just say, this one’s a doozy. Why? Well, it has a little of everything, and it’s being amplified by the righteous anger of a traditionally published author who (commendably, for the most part) takes no prisoners.…

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Perspective From the Other Side

As I write this, I’m two months away from seeing The Spaceship Next Door re-released by HMH/Adams* and available for the first time for a whole lot of people who don’t read ebooks and/or don’t read indie/self-published books, and/or just never heard of me before. The last couple of months has been an education, and things haven’t really…

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The Next Logical Step

Here’s the big news: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has acquired the print and ebook rights to The Spaceship Next Door! Their edition, which you can already find available for preorder online, will be released on September 4th, 2018. The current editions will remain available until that time, and since I’m retaining audio rights, there will be…

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Recent Misconceptions

I follow an extremely famous genre fiction author on Tumblr, and a few weeks back this author answered a question from his inbox. It went something like this. Q: I have finished my first novel, had it professionally edited and even commissioned cover art. I haven’t been able to get an agent to represent me…

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The collective insanity of the publishing industry

Unless you’re a writer, I imagine you haven’t been paying quite as close attention to the publishing industry and all its weirdness as I have, and that’s a shame, because it’s been really entertaining. Actually, entertaining isn’t the right word.  It’s been insane, but the kind of insane that’s unreasonably fun to watch from a safe remove.…

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