Category: Newsletter

First a little housekeeping. LA ComicCon, back in September 2025, was an amazing experience. Four days of book selling, meeting vendors on the con circuit, cosplay, and very long days on my feet. The winner of the drawing for the bookshelf-sized demon claws was Billie Orr of Anaheim, CA. As a mechanism for expanding my newsletter’s numbers, it seems to have been a success. I think I’ll continue to do it with book fairs and cons going forward. It’s been a minute… Can’t believe it has been almost nine months since my last newsletter. I sit down to start a…

The long silence It has been a minute since my last update. The reasons for the silence are many. And each unto itself could have provided a major challenge to writing. Combined… well. My bout with COVID and its treatment cycle resulted in health issues that became a distraction in our little corner of the world. That lead to a surgical procedure to correct the issue, only to exacerbate things further. It is now being managed by medication, but it was a difficult few months. Couple that, with the demands of my most recent consulting engagement — originally projected to…

RAVE 2024 I’ll be at RAVE, again this year, on November 15th in Las Vegas, with 200 of the biggest indie authors in the business. I’ll be sharing a table with Stan C. Smith, author of the Across Horizons, Bridgers, Resonant Dust series, and many others. I just got word the conference, Author Nation, is offering free tickets to the signing event. The ticket will get you: Access to the Book Signing Exposition with 200 incredible authors 12 Author Panels featuring 50 star-studded authors sharing their insights and stories The chance to meet, mingle, and discover your next favorite book…

And just like that… …there goes September. When last we left our intrepid writer he was laboring away… in his lonely writers garret. At the end of August, I reported I was twenty chapters into Genesis Alone. Alas, with the end of September in our collective rearview mirror, I’m just five chapters further along. Going into this project I had anticipated it being easier that past stories. I had a short story, that had expanded nicely into a screenplay. That screenplay should provide a solid outline from which to build a richer world… should. I’m not sure if it is…

How can it possibly be September 1st? I’ve been playing with the idea of rewriting the Don Williams song, covered by Clapton a few years later — Living on Tulsa Time… … living on COVID time, living on COVID time gonna set my watch back to it ‘cuz you know that I’ve been through it, living on COVID time… Apologies to Danny Flowers, the songwriter, but it seems to fit my circumstance. That’s called foreshadowing folks! You all know Oaths and Odysseys dropped in late July, as you got a quick note of the launch with a promise of more…

When you hit publish on Amazon it pops up a notice that says it could take three days for the publication is live in the store – or something to that effect. I hit publish last night, and both the kindle and paperback versions are live today. So much for getting a note out to my subscribers before it dropped. I’ll write more about the process that lead to the delays and finally hitting publish soon, but I wanted to let you all know that Book 2 in the Genesis Renewed Saga is available in Kindle, Paperback, and on Kindle…

First, The Good My annual pilgrimage to the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, which took place from June 9th to the 16th, was a great week. Being among fellow lunatics is always restorative. The sessions where I was on a panel had engaged audiences and great questions. The three panels I was on, discussing my path in Indy publishing and self-promotion, were video recorded. Once I have copies, I’ll put them up on a YouTube channel and share the slide deck I prepped—should you be interested. I was asked to sign a book (always a thrill), and the evening keynotes were…

Oops… This morning, I was reminded that even draft documents should be grammatically sound if shared publicly. In this case, the draft cover attached to my most recent newsletter wasn’t ready for prime time. The blurb in that file was thrown in as a place keeper — a brain dump, if you will. Because it was a class project for the graphic design class, I took in the spring, I was focused on the layout and imagery. And because that particular cover wasn’t used in the final submission, I completely forgot about the blurb. Lesson learned, and I now have…

SBWC less than a month away Hard to believe it is May already. As SBWC has refined their schedule, things have adjusted a little. I will still be sitting in with Marla Miller’s afternoon workshop, but my day has been bumped to Thursday. Wednesday afternoon, I’ll be part of a panel of publishers discussing the spectrum of options available to authors today. Demystifying Publishing Options will be from 1-3:30p. The following morning from 9-11:30a the same panel will be doing Publishing Options – A Deep Dive. And Friday, I’ll be on the Author’s Platform Panel, discussing the marketing side of…

I’ll be at SBWC There are a couple of exciting developments relating to the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. Yes, I will be attending this year, and the organizers have asked me to reprise my Indie Author Q&A table. So I’ll have a table in the main room, with a signup sheet, for 15-minute sessions. I’ll block out whole mornings and afternoons to provide opportunities for folks. But, because I’m also a working writer, I’ll want to attend some workshops myself. Thus I won’t be there 100% of the time. Check-in at the table for availability; there will be a limited…