Tag: Top Ten List

The Top 10 Ways to Prevent Being Scammed by a Publisher (by someone who did the opposite!)

Predatory Publisher Month at Indies UnlimitedGuest Post
by Sophie Jonas-Hill

Suddenly, after months, or years, of feeling like you were getting nowhere, a publisher wanted me. I jumped right in when I should have asked myself – do I want them? I should have looked that gift horse in the mouth, because it turned out to be a donkey. Yes, I made the mistake of publishing with an indie publisher without doing my research first, and boy, did that go wrong for me. Here’s some simple advice I’d urge you to consider before signing up. Continue reading “The Top 10 Ways to Prevent Being Scammed by a Publisher (by someone who did the opposite!)”

Write short stories? But I’m a Novelist!

Get your short stories published, win a couple of contests, then reference them all in a query letter to convince an agent to convince a publisher to take a chance on your novel – that is the path to a traditional book deal, said all of the articles I read.

But don’t they require different skill sets, I wondered: generating an experience in a few hundred words vs. building a world over several hundred pages? What if you’re good at one and not at the other? What if you have limited time to write? Don’t you need to choose?

Fast forward six or seven years to today’s bigger and braver world of indie publishing, and the idea of selling a novel with a portfolio of short stories can seem like an archaic and unnecessary paradigm—and worse, a waste at the expense of the World’s Greatest Novel. But writing short stories can be a good use of time for novelist, budding or otherwise. Below are ten reasons why: Continue reading “Write short stories? But I’m a Novelist!”

I Love You

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain... Time to die." © Blade Runner, 1982

Here, in reverse order, are ten things I like that are related to writing. Sort of. This is a completely random list and may possibly be an early sign of my eventual and catastrophic disintegration. Actually, I’ve reread it and it makes a very abstract kind of sense, after all. If you’re a surrealist. Or a nutbar. Or a strange gelatinous creature from the Aldebaran system.

10. I like hats. Not to wear. Very rarely, in fact, do I wear hats. I am far too proud of my flowing golden locks to hide them. I run my fingers through those locks while mimicking the sound of gentle lovemaking in haylofts. Anyway, hats. I will write about hats until the cows come home. And if, upon arriving home, those same cows eat all the hats, I will create more hats from whole cloth. Only, not. I’ll create them from nothing but thoughts, like Lewis Carroll embracing Khalil Gibran while on acid. The flowing golden locks part was a lie, incidentally. It’s normal guy hair, short and greying, but I still like it. Continue reading “I Love You”