The state of publishing was explained to me early on, when I first started writing. You see, publishers prefer it if you write in a specific way, because they can categorize you much more easily. Likewise, booksellers know just where to put you so that your fan base can find you. After all, you’d never find Bag of Bones in the Romance Section or Duma Key in Men’s Self Help. In fact, if it was up to publishers, your first book would set the stage for everything that came after, thus locking you into a career of writing that very first thing which was published. So armed with this knowledge, I embarked on a writing career.  Continue reading →

Last week, I posted my speech to the Borderlands Boot Camp, entitled On Writing Full-Time (circa 2013). Some folks, like John Skipp and Tim Waggoner, agreed. Some folks, like Dan Simmons and Nate Southard, disagreed. I think all of them raised great points. I stated in the speech that there are many paths, and this was the path I chose, and you might – or might not – want to choose it. It was a cautionary tale. Anyway, the aforementioned Nate Southard was moved to write this rebuttal to the speech, and I think it’s a great essay and raises some exceedingly important things. So here it is.  Continue reading →