Tag Archives: Crown Colonies
Publishing: Coughing Up Blood

Publishing: Coughing Up Blood

Publishing is dying—publishing as we know it anyway. In the past couple of days I’ve tried to show how dysfunctional traditional publishing is with its accounting practices. Traditional publishing has always lagged behind the technology curve, and as the rate of technological change accelerates, there’s little or no chance of traditional publishers ever getting caught […]

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Ebooks: How Many Are We Really Selling?

Ebooks: How Many Are We Really Selling?

It’s no secret that I have been a strong proponent of ebooks. I’ve encouraged every author I know to convert their backlists into ebooks to be sold via their own websites, via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and any other site that makes a reasonable offer. In one post here, I even lined-out the Nine […]

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Book Returns—Insanity Incarnate

Book Returns—Insanity Incarnate

Yesterday I mentioned two things in my discussion of royalty statements that I wanted to talk a bit more about today. One was returns: Returns are a crucial part of the current book publishing model; and are one of the reasons it’s collapsing in on itself. Back during the Great Depression, book publishers started making […]

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The X-wing Books are Out of Print

The X-wing Books are Out of Print

Usually when an envelope arrives from your publisher during royalty time, it’s a happy event. This time, not so much. A quick glance at the statements revealed that Bantam Spectra chose, during the second half of 2010, to let my Star Wars™ X-wing novels go out of print. Getting the news that such a decision […]

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Why New Worlds: Markets

Why New Worlds: Markets

In early 2011 I was going through a novel of mine, Eyes of Silver, cleaning up a scan from the paperback version. I’d not looked at the book in thirteen years, save for finding a couple of references that I used in my Age of Discovery novels. (Yes, the books are linked.) Cleaning up the […]

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Changing Hands Book signing on Thursday

Changing Hands Book signing on Thursday

This Thursday evening at 7 PM I’ll be doing a book signing for At The Queen’s Command at the Changing Hands bookstore in Tempe, AZ (6428 S McClintock Dr., Tempe, AZ 85283, (480) 730-0205). Changing Hands is an outstanding bookstore. Their schedule is just jam-packed with events. I’ve taught a number of writing classes there, […]

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Happy Birthday: the Do-over Year

Happy Birthday: the Do-over Year

If how a birthday goes is any indication of how the year will go, I am really looking forward to this next year. I got to spend time with my favorite people, got some work done, had a lot of fun, and escaped it all without bodily injury or an arrest record. If that’s how […]

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