Tag Archives: novels
DragonCon and Catching Up

DragonCon and Catching Up

I think I am mostly recovered from DragonCon 2011. It was, as always, a wonderful experience. It’s an overwhelming spectacle, with friends everywhere I look. If it weren’t for the need to sleep, I don’t think I’d ever have seen the inside of my hotel room. Without doubt the high point of the convention was […]

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Abracadabra: Books are Magazines

Abracadabra: Books are Magazines

The Magician stands on stage and invites a volunteer from the audience to lend him something. Not a piece of jewelry, or a dollar bill, but a book. The volunteer—an author—hands him a copy of his latest tome. The Magician places it on a stand and waves a hand at it. “Behold, a book.” He […]

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When is Crap crap?

When is Crap crap?

In a recent blogpost, J. A. Konrath addressed the fears by some writers that their quality work will sink unnoticed, unloved and (worst of all) unpurchased in the great “Tsunami of crap” resulting from everyone self-publishing. He quite correctly notes that this fear is nonsense and promulgated by house slaves. He suggests that their predictions […]

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Swimming Lessons for House Slaves: No one will swim for you.

Swimming Lessons for House Slaves: No one will swim for you.

Dean Wesley Smith and Kris Rusch have done some great posts about the economics of digital publishing and turmoil that the independent publishing revolution is causing among writers. As brilliant as the essays are, and they really are must-reading, the comments readers have posted in response reveal two things. First, there are a lot of […]

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Homeland Security Services

Homeland Security Services

I’ve not been blogging much in the last two weeks, but I have a good excuse. Much better than “My dog degaussed my thumbdrive,” or whatever the kids say these days. Here it is: I wrote a novel. This novel is really important for a number of reasons that I’ll go into below. First, let […]

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Talion Challenge Update #2: The New Math

Talion Challenge Update #2: The New Math

If you’ve been reading this blog at all in the last few months, you know I’ve been talking about how digital publishing is really taking off. I mean, if NASA had rockets this good, we’d have colonies on Mars and I’d be spending summers on my asteroid a bit further out. The American Association of […]

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The Way of the Dodo Book

The Way of the Dodo Book

In reading a book about the Cold War, I came across interesting definitions of the types of information groups like the CIA share. Cover stories are designed to make something false appear to be true. Disinformation is designed to make something true appear to be false. Disinformation is, by far, the more pernicious of the […]

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