In today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* A New Tool for Discoverability
* Workshop Recommendations
* Still working
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quotes of the Day
“There should be nothing in the world more benign than Goodreads…. What should be a cosy, pleasant corner of the internet has become a monster.” Sarah Manavis of NewStatesman
“PG has seen enough publishing contracts to assure one and all that there is no ‘Standard Publishing Contract’.” The Passive Guy
A New Tool for Discoverability
My friend Sam T. forwarded me an article about Goodreads, how practically unusable it’s become, and why Amazon has no apparent desire to fix it. It’s a good article. It’s linked in “Of Interest” today.
Toward the end of the article, the author mentions what might well be a viable alternative. The StoryGraph, founded by Nadia Odunayo, is in beta right now. The perfect time to jump in.
I recommend reading the original article about Goodreads for yourself.
If you’re interested in jumping into the beta for The StoryGraph — and I strongly urge you to do so — see https://beta.thestorygraph.com/ofy_survey.
You’ll have to sign up with the typical email, username and password. After you do that, the first page talks about importing your data from Goodreads. You can accept or decline.
I declined because my Goodreads account barely exists at all. But if you have a Goodreads account, I recommend you import data.
So I signed up for the beta, but I’ll also ask my wife to sign up since she has a more active Goodreads account than I do. And I’ll recommend she imports her Goodreads data. (It contains a lot of my books.)
The survey isn’t long and it leaves some things to be desired (for example, Western isn’t listed as a genre). You’re allowed to select only 5 genres that you like. On the other hand, you can select as many as you want that you Don’t like. Of course, the program is in beta, so I assume the survey will improve.
Only two of my books are currently listed: Beyond the Masks (a poetry collection), and Punctuation for Writers. Yay. But I look forward to seeing lots of my fiction listed too. My hope is that this will become a major new tool for discoverability.
Workshop Recommendations
Okay, yesterday I wrapped up the four pop-ups I got as freebies for backing Kris Rusch’s Boss Kickstarter, and I have some recommendations.
If you got in on the deal, watch all four (of course). Chances are, you’ll learn something you didn’t know before. Seriously.
But even if you didn’t get in on the deal, I strongly recommend buying and watching
* Pop-Up 26: Living in Space
* Writing Science Fiction classic workshop
* Ideas to Story classic workshop.
And yes, my friends, I recommend these even if you don’t write SF. They are filled with great gems that you can apply to pretty much any story in any genre.
I also recommend the eye-opening Pop-Up 23: How to Write a Novella. Same reason. It’s excellent.
As long as I’m recommending things, I also recommend taking the Writing with Depth workshop and then Advanced Depth.
I still plan to buy and watch the Tags classic workshop. Somehow I missed that one. From what I can tell, I already have all the others I want.
Each classic workshop and each pop-up is valued at $150. Regular workshops are $300. Or you can wait to try to get them by backing a future Kickstarter.
Or you can run your own Kickstarter and use part of the proceeds to buy the courses you want. Just an idea. And you can enroll in the FREE “Kickstarter Best Practices for Fiction Writers” by going to https://wmg-publishing-workshops-and-lectures.teachable.com/.
Still working to get my new schedule under control and get back to writing (regularly) and doing all the other things I was doing before I took a break. Today we’re visiting estate sales.
Talk with you again when I can.
Of Interest
See “Why Goodreads is bad for books” at https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/social-media/2020/08/better-goodreads-possible-bad-for-books-storygraph-amazon.
See “Don’t Do Business with Incompetents” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/dont-do-business-with-incompetents/. You can skip down to For Authors if you want. Read the comment too. (grin) All about publishing and publishers.
See “The End of the Story…” at https://killzoneblog.com/2020/09/the-end-of-the-story.html. Not about writing, but some great writing in my estimation.
See “The Need For Cat Pictures” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/the-need-for-cat-pictures/.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………………… 720 words
Writing of Body on the Beach (novel, working title)
Day 1…… 1135 words. Total words to date…… 1135
Day 1…… 1409 words. Total words to date…… 2544
Total fiction words for the month……… 7817
Total fiction words for the year………… 323100
Total nonfiction words for the month… 8470
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 146040
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 469140
Calendar Year 2020 Novels to Date…………………… 5
Calendar Year 2020 Novellas to Date……………… X
Calendar Year 2020 Short Stories to Date… 12
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 50
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 208
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31