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POINT OF VIEW: Amazon vs. Going Wide

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going wide - Deposit Photos

If you spend much time in indie-pub circles, you’ll hear a lot of discussions about “going wide.” This is short-hand for “selling through many/most/all available book vendors. You’d think it would be a no-brainer, right? Put your book in front of as many different audiences as possible? Surprisingly, it’s not. And it’s mostly because of a little thing called Kindle Unlimited. You see, Amazon sells books. Tons and tons and tons of books, along with hoses and candles and snow tires and just about everything else under the sun. But they always want to sell more books, and to find … Read more

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AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT: Carmen Loup

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Carmen Loup

Welcome to my weekly Author Spotlight. I’ve asked a bunch of my author friends to answer a set of interview questions, and to share their latest work. Today, Carmen Loup – Carmen Loup is a serious humorologist, illustrator of Tarot in Space, and author of The Audacity sci-fi series. They write technicolor fun in space for adults with a dedication to optimism and good humor that shines through even ridiculously horrible situations. Thanks so much, Carmen, for joining me! J. Scott Coatsworth: What do you do when you get writer’s block?  Carmen Loup: If I don’t feel like writing, I … Read more

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REVIEW: Knight in Retrograde – Lee Hunt

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REVIEW: Knight in Retrograde - Lee Hunt

Genre: Epic Fantasy Reviewer: Scott Get It On Amazon About The Book Would you trade uncertainty for stagnation, chance for god, invention for inertia, thought for dogma? Four years have passed since the events of Dynamicist and war is on the horizon. Robert, Koria, Eloise and Gregory went to the New School, hoping to change the world. They thought that mathematically based dynamics, the enlightened age’s answer to wizardry, would give them the power to make everything better.Their hopes were naive. Protestors are condemning the creation of a new vaccine. The city is seeing a series of hangings; is it … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Finding the Joy in Writing

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Joy in Writing - Deposit Photos

Sometimes I forget that I got into this whole writing gig because I love writing. No, not just love it. Need it, like an addict needs his fix. I’m not happy if I’m not writing. And yet, lately, I’m not happy when I am, either. I blame a few things: My never-ending agent search, which brings me fresh, usually bland-and-devoid-of-meaning rejections every few days My “other job” workload, which keeps me from concentrating on my writing as much as I’d like to My current slog through the third novel in a trilogy, after having taken a wrong turn somewhere in … Read more

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AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT: Anna Kensing

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Anna Kensing

Welcome to my weekly Author Spotlight. I’ve asked a bunch of my author friends to answer a set of interview questions, and to share their latest work. Today, Anna Kensing – Anna Kensing writes steamy paranormal historical and contemporary romances that flirt with taboo. Her characters are often weird, mostly queer, and always get their happily-ever-after. Eventually. She’s obsessed with octopuses and the tv show Supernatural, listens to flute duets and heavy metal music while writing, and loves her scotch and Irish whiskies. When she’s not thinking about writing, she’s usually thinking about her next tattoo. Thanks so much, Anna, … Read more

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REVIEW: Herald – Lee Hunt

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Herald - Lee Hunt

Genre: Fantasy Reviewer: Scott Get It On Amazon About The Book Robert thought becoming a dynamicist would enable him to change the world, starting with saving all his friends from being slaughtered. He was wrong.  Acts of genuine creativity used to bring mortal punishment. But now, wizardry is dead and Robert, Koria and Eloise live in a world where change and invention is possible. Robert hopes that mathematically-framed dynamics will enable him to change the new world. But he keeps having prophetic dreams where his friends are all murdered by a mysterious cloaked man, and the grain protestors are more … Read more

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ANNOUNCEMENT/GIVEAWAY: Herald Book/Audiobook – Lee Hunt

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Herald - Lee Hunt

Lee Hunt has a new fantasy audiobook out in his Dynamicist Trilogy: Herald. And there’s a Giveaway! Robert thought becoming a dynamicist would enable him to change the world, starting with saving all his friends from being slaughtered. He was wrong. Acts of genuine creativity used to bring mortal punishment. But now, wizardry is dead and Robert, Koria and Eloise live in a world where change and invention is possible. Robert hopes that mathematically-framed dynamics will enable him to change the new world. But he keeps having prophetic dreams where his friends are all murdered by a mysterious cloaked man, … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Feeding My Writer Brain

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Books on a Plate - Deposit Photos

It’s been forever since I sat down with a good book and just read the hell out of it. I’m a compulsive worker bee, and these last five years have not been kind to our business, requiring ever more of my time, focus, and energy just to try to keep things running with my husband Mark Reading is one of the things that had to go. There just wasn’t enough time. It’s funny. Writing a novel used to seem like such a daunting thing. Now reading one does. As writers, we feast on words. We absorb them from the world … Read more

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AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT: Charon Dunn & Sally Smith

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Charon Dunn and Sally Smith

Welcome to my weekly Author Spotlight. I’ve asked a bunch of my author friends to answer a set of interview questions, and to share their latest work. Today, Charon Dunn and Sally Smith: Charon Dunn has experience with a great many things, including deposition summaries, videogaming, forensics, databases, bunny rabbits, fortune telling, secretly sabotaging Oxford commas, multiple flavors of fandom and music. She lives with a massive Ragdoll named The Big Kahuna, whom some believe is the largest cat in San Francisco. Keep track of her at CharonDunnTheBlog@Blogspot.com. Sally Smith is an editor and writer (fiction and non-fiction) who has been … Read more

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Great new Dropnauts review!

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Dropnauts review Anna Butler

The thing I always know I’m going to enjoy with any Scott Coatsworth novel is the worldbuilding because (i) it is my JAM and (ii) Scott is very good at it. Dropnauts is no exception. This is a well-realised, fully-fleshed world he has created here, of a destroyed Earth, thought unpopulated, and the attempt to reclaim and recolonise it from the Lunar colonies that are humanity’s last home. The devil’s in the details, and I just loved the way Scott builds pictures of Martinez base, and the Lunar city Redemption – particularly the latter… …the central themes of redemption and renewal shine … Read more