Tough Fantasy Thoughts
Cedar doesn’t like fantasy and that’s a problem, because most science fiction is fantasy anyways….
Books Are Forever
Books no longer need to be treated like perishable goods, with e-books and POD, a book can last, and sell, forever.
Interview with Amanda S. Green
An interview with the author of The Road To Digital Publication and the Nocturnal Lives series.
Road to Publication in 2014
Cedar clues us in on a host of useful tips and guides for those who are looking to publish in 2014.
Book Review: Strange Trails, edited by James Palmer
A review of the anthology, Strange Trails, edited by James Palmer and stories of a weird wild west, complete with robots, ghosts and Lovecraftian horror.
Interior Format for CreateSpace
Cedar Sanderson dives into the nitty-gritty of self-publishing with this how-to on formatting with CreateSpace.
Formatting for Createspace: The Cover
Cedar Sanderson gives an insider perspective to designing your cover and the Createspace templates.
World-Building off Ancient Platforms
Information from a discussion about the ancient Mayans and ways of using ancient cultures for world-building.
What You Pay For
Sometimes I see a review on Amazon that makes me do the puppy thing – you know, cock my head and make that little “baroo?” noise. A friend shared a link to a book with […]
Finding Poetry in Prose
I’m in school, taking two literature classes this semester, and in the good class (yes, there is also a bad class) we learned about making ‘found poetry’ a process that I really enjoyed. I came home, looked at my shelves full of eclectic books, and said “hm… I wonder what I could do with some classic SF.”
Fresh Eyes on Cover Art
if you are an indie author, or a small press publisher, you can’t afford a great cover artist to create bespoke art for your cover.
Well-Covered
I’d get more into the topic, but I haven’t got time to plumb the depths of Amazon. Instead I recommend that you do. Look at the genre you picked for your story, and see what the bestsellers are (taking out authors like RR Martin and mega-bestsellers, who can sell on the author’s name alone) and look at their covers. Keep in mind that most ebooks will be viewed at a very small size of image initially, and design yours to look good at thumbnail, then full-size. Stick to the recommended proportions. A square cover image will scream amateur in the bookshop, unless it’s a children’s picture book…
From Locks to Freedom
The problem with the internet is that anyone can write something down, publish it, and present it as fact when it’s not. I have ten titles on Amazon, and another one coming out later this week. Every single one, the default is no DRM, although there is a check-box I can click if I decided I wanted it on my work. Which I don’t. Unlike Big Music and Big Publishing, I don’t think all people are thieves. I also know better than to think that DRM is anything but a challenge to hacker twits who break stuff just for jollies.
World Building: To Market, To Market
I was getting all excited last night over the idea of making my next purse. I can work with leather, and I don’t want something that looks like what everyone else has, so… But as […]
Interview with Archer Garrett
Cedar Sanderson interviews Archer Garrett, author of The Border Marches
Kinetic Stories
Reading is a kinetic exercise, not just sitting in a chair scanning words. Writing is the way we turn the potential energy of ideas into that kinetic energy for the reader.
The Power of Free
Face it, no-one needs to buy a fiction book. It’s not like underwear, or food, or a roof over their heads. It’s entertainment.
Writing on Paper
When you write, capturing the urgency of the moment, your own voice and style, happens in the first contact of pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, and with each re-working of the text,
Endings and Lengths
Turns out that there is no set length for a novel. There are conventions, which changed in the 1980’s, but with the advent of ebooks, they are changing yet again.
Part Two of the Art of Covers
This is part two of Eric Gustafson’s guest post for me on covers. It’s a huge topic, and even if you aren’t responsible for your own covers, you should understand how a bad cover can […]
The Art of Designing Covers
Today I am pleased to present a guest post by Eric Gustafson, an innovative artist and book cover designer. I am still learning so much about cover design, and as Eric has been one of […]
Review: Use Enough Gun
I chose to review this anthology based on the title, which intrigued me. I grew up hunting and trapping, no big surprise from a rural girl with a family that hunted, fished, and trapped. Add […]
The Marinated Writer
I know what you are thinking, and no, that’s not what I was marinating in. We did have a beer with dinner last night, and that’s as much as I’ve drunk in a week, so […]
Writing Gender
The first half to this is here. As I am writing, I check in with my co-writer from time to time, mainly to work out issues like the example that follows. You see, I’m writing […]
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