Author: Lynne Cantwell

Lynne Cantwell grew up on the shores of Lake Michigan. She worked as a broadcast journalist for many years; she has written for CNN, the late lamented Mutual/NBC Radio News, and a bunch of radio and TV news outlets you have probably never heard of, including a defunct wire service called Zapnews. But she began as a fantasy writer (in the second grade), and is back at it today. She currently lives near Washington, DC. Learn more about Lynne at her blog and at her Amazon author page.

Throw Me to the Wolves – or Not

inconceivableA few months ago, I was casting around my brain for a title for a music-related post on my blog, and came up with “Begging the Musical Question” – a play on the well-known phrase begging the question.

But something about the way I wanted to use the phrase nagged at me, so I looked up what it actually meant. I had thought the begging in begging the question meant something along the lines of “posing.” Boy, was I wrong. Begging the question – according to my copy of Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable – is to “assume a proposition which, in reality, involves the conclusion” – in other words, to use circular logic. The entry in Brewer’s provides this example: if you say that parallel lines will never meet because they are parallel, you’ve begged the question. Continue reading “Throw Me to the Wolves – or Not”

The Anatomy of a Box Set

PWC Omnibus 2 FINAL smallOnce you’ve written a series, one of the things you can do is promote the books as a set. You can do this in one of two ways: 1. by lowering the prices on each book individually; or 2. by putting some, or all, of them together in a single file and calling it an omnibus or a box set.

I would have had to charge upwards of $20 per copy for the Pipe Woman Chronicles Omnibus if I’d gone the dead-tree route. But as an eBook, it’s doable, and not much more difficult to format than an individual book. Basically, you open a new document; create (or copy, paste, and edit) your front matter; copy-and-paste the text of each book in the series into your new document, using a “next page section break” at the end of each book; create (or copy, paste, and edit) your back matter; and save the file. Poof, done. Continue reading “The Anatomy of a Box Set”

Your Neighborhood Amazon Brick & Mortar Store

Amazon storefrontThe news broke late last week: the Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon is renting retail space in Manhattan. The retailing juggernaut’s first brick-and-mortar store will be located on West 34th Street, across from the Empire State Building, and just a block from Macy’s flagship store on Herald Square.

But Barnes & Noble can rest easy. The word is that the Amazon store won’t stock books. Instead, it’s likely to be mostly warehouse space for returns, in-store pickup, and same-day order fulfillment for impatient New Yorkers. Inventory will probably be limited, according to the Journal, but eventually the store might carry electronic gizmos such as Kindles, Fire smartphones, and Fire TV devices. In any case, the facility ought to be up and running in plenty of time for the Christmas shopping season. Continue reading “Your Neighborhood Amazon Brick & Mortar Store”

LynneQuisition: Stephen Hise and K.S. Brooks

Interviews by Lynne CantwellWe have two very special guests with us for this IU Blogoversary edition of the LynneQuisition. Direct from the Nerve Center of the Nuclear-Powered DeathStar, and taking a seat in the comfy chairs (we had to bring in a spare from the engine room – it smelled a little funky, but a case of Eysol cleaned it right up!) are our very own Evil Mastermind, Stephen Hise, and his loyal second-in-command, K.S. Brooks. (cue applause)

Thanks so much to both of you for…come on, Kat, let the EM have the original chair….

Um, why don’t we just get started?

Stephen, I know the blog was originally your idea. What made you want to start a blog for indie authors? Continue reading “LynneQuisition: Stephen Hise and K.S. Brooks”