In today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * Subscription Drive * YouTube Semi-Swan Song * Of Interest * The Numbers See StoneThreadPublishing.com for all your fiction and nonfiction needs. Buy Direct! Quote of the Day “Page 98 will never be as “good” as page 1 because it has a ton of context supporting it. Page 1 stands alone.” Harvey Stanbrough (see Of Interest) Subscription Drive I was going to run this yesterday, but I had a tussle with Stripe. They didn’t “recognize” the physical address I’ve lived in for the past 15 years. But it’s all ironed-out now, so … Read more

In today’s Journal * An Excellent Question * I Was Going to Finish-Up on Payhip * Of Interest * The Numbers An Excellent Question I received an excellent question about Payhip yesterday in a comment, and it’s about something I haven’t discussed here yet: websites. The writer mention she doesn’t have a website yet, and wondered whether she should set that up before going to Payhip. Payhip stresses that if you have a website, you can imbed Payhip on your site, or you can link items on your site to Payhip (that’s what I did). But here’s the thing: If … Read more

In today’s Journal * Organizing Your Book Files * A Little More on Payhip * Of Interest * The Numbers Organizing Your Book Files Thanks to Vin Zandri for this topic. See Of Interest. As always, I can only share what I personally do and why. What you take from it or do with it is up to you. I’ve always found it most convenient to keep everything for each book in a file folder (on my laptop and in my Dropbox) for that book. The folders are “nested” so every aspect of every novel is easy to find. In … Read more

In today’s Journal * Bradbury Challenge Writers Reporting * YouTube * Two New Books * An Amazon Hack * More on Payhip * Of Interest * The Numbers The Bradbury Challenge Writers Reporting To take part, write at least one short story per week (or add to your novel), then submit the story title, word count, and genre to me each week for publication in the Journal on Monday. The whole point is to have fun and grow as a writer. You can join or rejoin the challenge at any time. There’s no cost. During the past week, in addition … Read more

In today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * Reminder * Confirmed: Payhip Is Hyper-Easy * About the Promo Doc * Of Interest * The Numbers Quote of the Day “Write hard and clear about what hurts.” Ernest Hemingway (This bears repeating.) Reminder Remember I’ll go Live from the Hovel this afternoon at 1 p.m. Arizona time. Drop by if you can. Not sure yet what I’ll talk about, but I imagine I’ll get around to Payhip for at least part of the time. Confirmed: Payhip Is Hyper-Easy Okay, here you go. Probably everything you need to know about Payhip. … Read more

In today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * Correction * TJ Blackwell: The Origin Story * A New Short Story * Reminder * PayHip Etc. * Yesterday * * * Of Interest * The Numbers Quote of the Day “Write hard and clear about what hurts.” Ernest Hemingway Correction In Numbers, with the completion of the novel yesterday, I now have 6 novels on the year, so I’m on track to reach my annual goal of 24 novels by December 31. TJ Blackwell: The Origin Story is also my 88th overall novel since October 19, 2014. TJ Blackwell: The … Read more

In today’s Journal * Comments Save Lives * The Novel Wrapped, and Days Off * Of Interest * The Numbers Comments Save Lives Okay, not quite that serious, but almost. Often, folks email me about something they saw in the Journal. That’s perfectly fine, and I enourage you to email me, especially if there’s something you want to keep confidential. But occasionally someone emails me with a comment that I wish they’d put the comment box for so other readers could see it. In those cases, PLEASE leave your comment in the comment section, either by clicking the Leave a … Read more

In today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * Competing with the 2024 Write Stuff Storybundle * More on Marketing via PayHip * Of Interest * The Numbers Quotes of the Day “When people ask me if I went to film school, I tell them, ‘No, I went to films.’” Quentin Tarantino Hmm. So like reading and then writing instead of going to writing school. I like it. “[T]echnology’s essence is a way of seeing, grasping, and comprehending What Is and What Matters.” Matt Perryman (see Of Interest) Competing with the 2024 Write Stuff Storybundle DWS and KKR just announced … Read more

In today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * Shopify? * PayHip? * Of Interest * The Numbers Shopify? Do any of you have direct experience with Shopify or with PayHip or other similar storefronts? I encourage you to check them out for yourself, but I’ve written my personal thoughts, for my personal situation, below. In Dean Wesley Smith’s previous post (Fiction Branding… Part 6) he touted the benefits of Shopify. Over the years, I’ve come to trust him on almost every matter about writing and marketing. (He also wrote a second post on this topic. See Of Interest.) But … Read more

In today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * Writing “Fast” and Quality * Of Interest * The Numbers Quotes of the Day “Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.” Carl Sagan “Seriously, that master class on writing should be mandatory listening to on the first day of every writing class at every college or university. Extremely valuable and inspiring.” Tim Weller, in a comment via email to me re the YouTube vid I livestreamed on Sunday. (grin) … Read more