My Writing Year: A Look Back And A Look Forward

The year 2020 is gone, and I'm sure none of us are sad to see it go. Hopefully 2021 holds out more promise with vaccines and the chance to live our lives fully once again. Here in Madrid we had worse lockdowns than most, but that didn't affect my writing. In fact it helped, because I had fewer distractions. Nothing like writing to stave off boredom and cabin fever!

This was a good writing year for me. My ghostwriting career has taken off with a great new client, the return of an old one, and the regulars staying with me. Demand for ebooks has gone up massively this year and because of that I'm getting more work than ever before. The sales on my own books rose as well. It's never been a better time to be an indie writer.

While my income has risen, my word count is almost the same as 2019. I set myself an annual goal of a million words. I've never made that goal, but having a tough goal makes me work harder. I got 947,000 words written in 2020. Not bad but still well shy of the million mark. I'll make it some year!

I also reached the milestone of writing my 50th novel. I'm now hard at work on numbers 52 and 53. There's no secret to this. I just keep plugging away every day and the novels pile up. I know a lot of writers who have written far more than I have.

The increased demands of my ghostwriting career has meant that I haven't gotten as many of my own books out in 2020 as I would have liked. At least I added a fourth book to the Masked Man of Cairo series, The Case of the Karnak Killer. I also added a short story collection to the Toxic World series, Tales from the Toxic World.

Both series will see new novels in 2021. I'm also researching a new mystery series set in the Weimar era, and have various other projects in the works. You can check my progress in the right-hand column of this blog and stay in touch via my newsletter.

I hope you all are staying well through this pandemic. I've gotten off easy, not having lost any loved ones or my job. So many others have it worse. Stay safe and get vaccinated as soon as you can!

My Writing Year: A Look Back And A Look Forward

Happy New Year to all of you who use the Gregorian calendar! I just got back from Tangier, where today is just another day except for all the fireworks on the news. I had a nice two-week writing retreat that I'll tell you about in the next post. Right now it seems like a good time to take stock of my writing career and where I'm going.

As I predicted in a year-end post last year, 2014 was my fiction year. I published four novels and two novellas, evenly split between my Toxic World post-apocalyptic series and my World War One Trench Raiders action series. I also wrote some short stories and got a couple accepted.

Nonfiction has been doing OK as well. I'm currently under contract for another military history book with Osprey Publishing, done pretty well with getting writing gigs on Elance, and broke into a couple of new magazine markets. Being a full-time freelancer is always a struggle, though.

So what's in store for this year? I'll be publishing at least two novels in each series, as well as a long-awaited sequel to A Fine Likeness, my Civil War horror novel. There will be a few other goodies coming down the pike too.

I also need to get in gear with promotion. I have yet to figure out how to market my books effectively. This sort of thing doesn't come naturally to me, and I don't want to be "that guy" who's always flogging his books. As a result, I tend to remain more quiet than I probably should. Any advice along those lines would be highly appreciated.

For my writer friends out there, how did your year go? What will you do different in 2015?

Happy New Year!!!

Back from Worldcon!

As regular readers of this blog know, this week I was at Loncon3, aka the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention. I made lots of friends and ended up on the Iron Throne! It's good to finally get the recognition I'm due.
It was a great five days of panels, parties, readings, and meeting fellow fans. I did a signing of Radio Hope and A Fine Likeness on the 16th (my 45th brirhday) and was on a panel on refugees in fiction. For more on the con, check out the Worldcon report I did for the Black Gate blog.

Thanks for Jerome Finn for the photo!

Why I'm not concerned about my ebooks getting pirated

A few days ago a fellow indie publisherwas fuming on Facebook that a Russian ebook pirate site that had put up all her books without her permission. I checked it and found all of my books up there too, both my indie published fiction and the electronic editions of my military history books written for Osprey Publishing.

This isn't the first time. Radio Hope is on at least two other pirate sites, and Osprey titles get pirated all the time. I used to get mad, but I don't anymore. First off, there's no way to stop it. DRM is easily removed and only acts as an inconvenience for honest readers. I don't bother putting DRM on my books. I'm not going to waste my time chasing down pirate sites and threatening them with legal action either. Yeah, like I'm going to win a lawsuit against some dodgy company in Russia!

Some writers, such as Neil Gaiman, have made the point that piracy is actually a form of free advertising. I'm not sure I'm convinced, but really, if someone goes to a pirate site for his reading material, he's probably not going to cough up money for my books anyway, so in effect I haven't lost a customer. So I'm left in the situation of shrugging my shoulders and not worrying about it. I have more important things to do with my time. Writing, for example.

A lot of indie writers don't share my view. My Facebook friend was irate, as were many of the people on her feed. Several said they contacted the site and were either ignored or (gasp!) were treated rudely. Hello, these people just stole your intellectual property, did you think they'd be apologetic? Now several of them are talking about how to take down the site.

I can't be bothered. There will always be pirates, and it isn't clear how much or even if they reduce sales. I'm going to focus on the one thing about my career I can control--the quantity and quality of my writing.

What do you think about piracy? Drop me a line in the comments section!

Image of the flag of pirate Chrisopher Moody courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Refugees from the Righteous Horde out now!

Book Two of my Toxic World post-apocalyptic series is out now! Refugees from the Righteous Horde picks up where Radio Hope left off. Here's the blurb:

When you only have one shot, you better aim true.
In a ravaged world, civilization’s last outpost is reeling after fighting off the fanatical warriors of the Righteous Horde. Sheriff Annette Cruz becomes New City’s long arm of vengeance as she sets off across the wildlands to take out the cult’s leader. All she has is a sniper’s rifle with one bullet and a former cultist with his own agenda.
Meanwhile, one of the cult’s escaped slaves makes a discovery that could tear New City apart. . .

Refugees from the Righteous Horde continues the Toxic World series started in Radio Hope, an ongoing narrative of humanity’s struggle to rebuild the world it ruined.

The book is available on all the Amazons and will soon have a print edition. If you could help me out by tweeting, blogging, and sharing this info, that would be awesome!

Publishing is vast!

When I was in Madrid last week I saw a bunch of fellow writers from my old writers group. I had just finished Hugh Howey's Wool and was raving about it. This post-apocalyptic tale was indie published and went on to become a bestseller. Howey signed a juicy print-only contract with a major publisher, keeping control of the ebook rights himself. Smart man. Now there's talk of a film in the works.

I'll be writing a review later in the week so at the moment let me just say it deserves every bit of its success. I was surprised, though, when two writer friends said they had never heard of it. Both of them are science fiction writers, one of them with several publications under her belt. They're both well-read too, and certainly read a lot more in this genre than I do. Yet they hadn't heard of such a major success story. I bet I'm ignorant of many similar blockbuster science fiction novels.

Publishing has become vast. There was once a day when the majority of well-read people were familiar with any particular bestseller. Those days are long past. Now the market is fragmented, with fan bases that often don't overlap and may be entirely ignorant of each other.

How can a writer cut through this horde of new books out there and get noticed? I have yet to figure that out. The standard practice of blogging, tweeting, and networking only seem to go so far. I'm not sure anyone in this new publishing world has really figured out a magic formula.

I know one of the ingredients, though. An awesome book, like the one Hugh Howey wrote. I'm looking forward to reading the sequels.

Ten things I've learned from writing ten books (part 2)

Yesterday I wrote about five basic truths I've learned from more than a decade in the publishing industry. Here are another five.

Keep your eyes open. Regular gigs fall through. Publishers tighten their belts and cancel series. Even if you’re comfortable for the moment, look at the job boards regularly. Make sure your network knows you’re on the lookout. Then they’ll be looking out for you.

Write what you love. You’re signing up for a life of underpaid work and uncertainty? Then at least do it because you love it! A few years back a business magazine offered me some articles. I said no. Business writing bores me. I wrote some history articles for another magazine instead. I had fun and advanced my career. Focusing on your passions will get you further than writing about any subject available.

Keep an eye on your editors. Just because they’re paid to polish your work doesn’t mean they know what they’re doing. I’ve had great editors and I’ve had lousy ones. Once an editor even introduced errors of fact! Good thing I was paying attention to the page proofs and caught the potential disaster before it went to press.

Be available, but don’t let people waste your time. Once you begin to get known, people will email you. Interacting with your readership is rewarding and fun. A large percentage of correspondence involves the same questions, however, and can be dealt with by the glorious invention of cut-and-paste. Plus there’s nothing wrong with setting boundaries. I’ll give you tips on how to pitch my publishers, but I won’t read your manuscript. I don’t have the time.

Persistence pays off. You’ve heard it before and it really is true. Keep at it every day, stay realistic, research your genre and market, and don’t give up. If you do that, you’ll succeed in the end.

For advice from other professional writers, see my article The Midlisters: Backbone of the Publishing Industry.

Ten things I've learned from writing ten books (part 1)

I’ve been a writer for eleven years. In that time I’ve had ten books professionally published. My career started small—co-authoring an update of the Insiders’ Guide to Phoenix. That gave me the credibility to get my first solo title: Byzantium: An Illustrated History and I’ve been under contract for one or more books ever since. Currently, my main sources of income are writing military history books for Osprey Publishing and blogging for Gadling.com, the most popular travel blog on the Web. How did I do it? By quickly learning the following ten facts.

Networking is essential. I got my first book because a colleague recommended me. I got my blogging gig because a colleague recommended me. My recommendations have gotten other colleagues work. What goes around comes around. Of course you have to be a hardworking professional before anyone will recommend you, and you have to network with other professionals. Writers’ newsgroups and discussion boards are good support for beginners, but once you start writing professionally they aren’t so valuable.

The publishing world isn’t collapsing, it’s changing. Publishing is always changing; this just happens to be a bigger change. The major publishers aren’t going away. They have the capital and the clout and the bestselling authors. Magazines and newspapers aren’t going to all disappear either, although they’re losing a lot of market share to websites, like the one that pays me to write travel articles. Change means opportunity.

Steady work is essential. Constantly hustling for freelance gigs is exhausting. Find something that offers steady work and steady income. For me that’s blogging at Gadling. They pay me on time every month. Manna from heaven! Some publishers like having house authors who do one or two books a year. Focus on pitching those publishers.

Much of your work day is consumed by tasks other than writing. Networking, answering emails, editing, sending queries. . .the list goes on and on. Sometimes I think unpublished writers with day jobs actually have more time for writing than professionals! These tasks are essential, however, and can’t be ignored.

Work for hire is a good thing. My first guidebook and all my books for Osprey were work for hire. Some writers shun such contracts, but if it pays decently and advances your career, why not take the job? Elsewhere I’ve discussed the advantages of work for hire, as well as a surprising benefit of work for hire.

Tune in tomorrow for five more things I've learned from more than a decade in the publishing industry.

Visiting the Madrid Book Fair

This weekend I visited the Feria del Libro, Madrid's annual book fair. Last year I had a great time and so of course I went back! Sadly, my friend and successful novelist Claudia Gray didn't make it this year but hopefully I'll pass through Chicago sometime and see her.

Despite the economic crisis the book fair was packed and there were hundreds of stalls for publishers and bookstores. My son got rewarded with a bilingual story book about an alien and I picked up a few things for myself.
One publisher was selling beautiful reproductions of rare medieval manuscripts. I love these things but have never coughed up the money for one.
The comics pavilion was well attended. There was some excellent art on the walls that only the adults were looking at. The kids were busy with the free video games and candy!

I got an egoboost at two military history stands that carried my Osprey Publishing titles. Now I just have to convince my publisher to translate them into Spanish. The Medieval Handgonnes book is an obvious sell, and the American Civil War Guerrilla Tactics would probably do well too. People are interested in the American Civil War over here.
I hovered around the stall of my favorite Spanish small press, Ediciones Escalera, which has an interesting list of translated Beat Generation works and other oddities, including El Mismo Río (The Same River) an Estonian novel I picked up and am currently enjoying. I and one of the owners commiserated over the demise of Entrelíneas Librebar, my favorite literary cafe where I first discovered this publisher.

While the economic crisis may have killed a great bookshop/cafe, publishing will survive. It's a rocky road at the moment, to be sure, but people like to read. As I discussed in my series on the London Book Fair, these shows simultaneously give me hope and leave me feeling daunted. So many books, and they all have to be written by someone like me! So many books, how does one get noticed?

Working on page proofs for my next book

One of the nice things about being back in Oxford is that I'm only a short bus ride away from Osprey Publishing, who have published some of my most recent books. I went to the office yesterday to pick up the page proofs for Armies of the Adowa Campaign, due in stores in September. The art looks great and the layout is excellent as usual. I love working with a team that actually cares about the product!

While I was visiting Harar, Ethiopia, Osprey's blog published a couple of guest posts of mine about writing this book. Part one was about researching in Ethiopia, and part two was about researching in Rome. Check them out for insights into the ups and downs (and even dangers) of researching military history!

While visiting the office I also got to sit down with the editors and brainstorm some more book ideas. Hopefully I'll have an announcement here in the coming weeks about more contracts!

Interview with fantasy author A.J. Walker

It's nice to meet fellow writers who share your interests. I met A.J. Walker on an archaeology discussion group and discovered he's just published a novel with Double Dragon Publishing, one of the top two ebook publishers that does something other than erotica. His work is called Roots Run Deep and that's what we're talking about here today.

So, how does it feel to have your first novel published?
Exciting and exhausting. It's been six years in the making and it's a thrill to see it finally out there. That said, I'm learning that publishing isn't the last step. There's a lot of promo work to do for an unknown writer to get noticed. So many ebooks come out every week it's easy to get lost in the flood.

Tell us a bit about Roots Run Deep
This is the tale of Kip Itxaron, a goblin thief and sorceress trying to make her way as a second-class citizen in a kingdom dominated by humans. When the human King Roderick is deposed, they are thrown together by fate. Roderick offers her people equality if Kip rallies an army to help him take his throne back. Kip must struggle with her own self doubts, her mistrust of humankind, her fear of battle, and the divisions among her people in order to lead them to a better future.

One thing that's interesting about Kip is that she isn't really good at anything except getting into trouble.
I like having flawed characters. Yes, she's a bit of a mess at the beginning of the book, but she gets better!

I've noticed Roots Run Deep has a lot of anthropological detail. I had fun playing "spot the reference". You seem to put a lot of your academic research into your work. What are your main inspirations?
I am a Medievalist by profession and so my writing is deeply rooted in that era. My archaeological training exposed me to lots of different cultures. Readers of Roots Run Deep will find aspects of Native American, Pacific Island, Neolithic Switzerland, and contemporary American culture in my work. And yes Sean, your email is right, those statues were inspired by the Kurgan culture!

Why did you choose to epublish rather than going the traditional route?
Impatience with the traditional houses, mostly. They take a year to get back to you and don't want you to simultaneously submit. Now with all the belt tightening they are taking fewer books, far fewer from first-timers like me. I really feel that epublishers are the way to go to establish a fan base.

What's next for you?
I'm working on a sequel to Roots Run Deep called The Maze of Mist. It follows the adventures of Kip and Roderick's biracial son as he tries to deal with being part of neither race while being expected to rule both. I also have a couple of other books in the works, including a mystery/thriller and a collection of fantasy short stories. Check out my writing blog to keep up to date on what's happening!


Thanks for being here, A.J., and be sure to check out his blog for an interesting feature he's doing called Medieval Mondays. I learned something about Viking navigation!

Writing links: travel writing contest and getting published with academic presses

It's Monday and I'm in my usual post-book slump, having finished Ride Around Missouri: Shelby's Great Raid 1863. It's my latest American Civil War book for Osprey Publishing and as you can see from the link it's already available for preorder and at least one fine person has already preordered it! I've discussed here before why readers preorder books. It's a sign of loyalty and interest, and I'm glad they show that!

Enough blather about this Midlist Author. I promised some writing links. Transitions Abroad is running a travel writing contest that's well worth a look if you are a student writing about travel. You can win up to $500 plus publication!

The other link comes from fellow writer Dianna Graveman, who recently attended a panel on getting published by the academic press. She gave a link to a post by Beth Mead, Lindenwood University's MFA Program Director took notes on the publishers' panel that are well worth a read for anyone writing literary fiction and thinking of submitting to an academic press.

Two interesting articles about ebooks

Sorry to be so quiet for the last few days, but I'm on deadline for my next military history book and busy planning my trip to Ethiopia.

Anyway, I've come across a couple of important articles on ebooks. The first is a USA Today article noting that in the first week of 2011, 19 out of the top 50 bestsellers sold more electronic copies than print copies. All of the top six did this. Various industry pundits weighed in on the significance of these figures. The main reason for the spike was that about 3 to 5 million ereaders sold over Christmas. Will people tire of their new toy or will it become a regular part of their reading experience? Only time will tell. The article also noted that while ebooks sales are going up, so are print sales. People are reading.

For some predictions on ebook development in the coming year, check out publishing CEO Michael Hyatt's Six E-book Trends to Watch in 2011. I won't steal his thunder, but if you're a writer or a reader (and I assume you fall into at least one of those categories) then you should check it out. He disproves the common mantra in writing newsgroups that traditional publishers don't "get" ebooks.

While it looks like ebooks have a bright future, I don't think print will die as quickly as some people are saying. Print sales still outstrip ebook sales by a considerable margin, even though that margin is narrowing. A sizable percentage of buyers are over fifty (a group less likely to embrace new technology) or only buy a few books a year, making them less likely to cough up more than a hundred bucks for an ereader.

The thing that will really save print, however, is POD. Print on Demand machines are getting faster and cheaper. They're already appearing at retail outlets and it's not hard to imagine them showing up in malls, train stations, airports, or other locations. If connected via the Internet to distributors, they could print just about any title. Some people will always prefer print, and POD machines make it cost effective for the publishing world to provide them.

Guest Midlister: Jennifer Cloud

Today we have a guest post from one of my fellow midlist authors at Damnation Books, publishers of my historical horror story. So without further ado. . .

My name is Jennifer Cloud. I’m a genre writer. I dabble in suspense, horror, and the paranormal. I’ve had more than a dozen short stories published, many novellas, and many novels. So far I’ve had two agents, both AAR members and successful. Neither was able to do much for me. Most of my work is in electronic format. My most recent title is Magic Rising, released by Damnation Books.

Writing is a difficult business. The marriage of art and business is not an easy one. To be a good writer, you have to write what you love but sometimes that isn't what sells.

The normal route for a writer is to write a novel. (Keep in mind this is write, rewrite, edit, trash it, start over, rewrite, bang your head against the desk, hope you've written something good, then start over again.) Next an author searches for an agent. Once they've bagged one, most authors relax expecting a book deal in the near future.

That isn't what always happens. Marketing departments decide what gets published. With large publishers, an acquisitions editor may fall in love with a work only to have marketing kill the proposal. It’s back to the business side. Is the genre oversaturated? How did the last novel perform that happened to be similar to yours? Who are you? What will make people buy your book over the dozen or so similar titles on the shelf? If you get the deal, will you sell enough copies to please your publisher or will you be dropped?

We've all heard the nightmares: acquisitions editors fired and books left in limbo, contracts canceled, major publishers becoming electronic only, authors not being picked up at box stores thus hurting their sales and chances of future book deals.

Of course this has also opened up the playing field for the smaller publisher. Smaller publishers can take a chance on an author or subject simply because they love the work. Technology has made it easier for the little guys to compete with the big publishers. Prices for ebook readers have dropped and people have become more accepting of the technological advances.

Do your homework before signing with any publisher. Small publishers generally have lower sales numbers, smaller marketing dollars, smaller staffs, and can fold without notice. Some publishers can actually be a mark against you. I won't mention names, but listing a credit from a known scam operation will not get you noticed.

I landed my first agent years ago. I won't go into the details but we parted ways. At the time, I didn't understand how my agent could love my work and not find a house for it. I ended up on my own again. Meanwhile, the publishing landscape was changing. I fell in love with ebooks. For me, there was a wider selection with plot lines that seemed to hold no limits. I strived to be published by one of the big boys but any chance of reaching a person would do. I went with a small electronic/POD house.

I found I wasn't alone. I did my homework, networked and met a wonderful woman who had been dropped by her major publishing house. Why? Midlist crunch and a strike had her novels sitting in boxes with no chance of being sold. On paper, she sold nothing and was gone. She's now a POD/electronic author. She isn't alone. Many talents would go unheard if it wasn't for the small press.

I've met authors who thought electronic/POD books were nothing more than an outlet for the talentless. Times change. Even the larger houses are using POD and electronic mediums. Acceptance still isn't complete but at least I know there are readers out there who enjoy my work.

The Indie Press: Saviors of the Midlist?

It's tough being a midlist author these days. The big six New York publishers are cutting back and demanding every publication be a hit. They no longer want to invest in an author who can only sell 10,000 copies in the hopes that she'll either become famous with time or (horrors!) keep a loyal following that ensures she'll sell 10,000 copies of each of her next dozen books. It's feast or famine with the big boys these days.

But now small and independent presses are stepping up the the plate. Publishers Weekly has had some interesting articles about how midlist authors are being saved by the smaller guys.

An article titled Smaller Presses, Bigger Authors reveals the big six want 20,000-30,000 sales per book or you'll get dropped. Established writers, even famous writers, are having a tough time selling books that are a bit out of the box, a bit too experimental. Alice Walker went to indie press New World Library to publish a collection of her poems. It sold out its 7,500 copy first printing. Great sales for an indie, a financial flop for a big publisher.

Oh great. I have a hard enough time getting my books published even at indie presses, and now I have to compete with Alice Walker!?

But seriously, this is good news for the midlist too. Small and indie presses are more open to unestablished authors and experimental work. If they think a book can sell 5,000 copies they'll give it a shot. Some really small presses are happy with less than that. Your advance will be much lower, but you'll generally get a bigger percentage of the royalties and you'll be under less pressure to become a big name. It appears the smaller houses have a more realistic view of the marketplace. That's why they're blossoming right now.

Indie presses report seeing more manuscripts from established authors, as well as debut literary fiction from unknowns. This has been going on for some time. Back in 2007 PW profiled Night Shade Books. In that article they tell how the company has done well with good choices of authors, good distribution, and taking on sf/f books that are cool but not bestseller material. Even successful sf author Liz Williams moved from Bantam to Night Shade after her sales weren't good enough for such a large publisher.

Night Shade has a solid reputation, pays an advance, and can sell thousands of copies. Not hundreds of thousands, or even tens of thousands, but thousands. That's realistic, and they won't dump you if you "only" sell 7,000 copies. I met the owners at World Fantasy Con a few years back and they're very approachable and down to earth. That's a big plus too.

So maybe this isn't such a bad time to be a midlister after all.

Shifting focus as a writer

I've been a bad blogger. I haven't written for a few days, and even skipped my regular Monday feature Websites for Writers. This was partly due to going on a Jesse James road trip around Missouri. I'm writing a series called On the Trail of Jesse James for Gadling. Check it out if you want the real story of America's baddest bad man.

The other reason for my silence is I've been getting deep into a new book proposal. It's a travel narrative about Harar, a medieval walled city on the border between the Ethiopian highlands and the Somali desert. I had an intense experience there and I'm writing a proposal in order to drum up funds to go back. I miss Ethiopia!

It's been a while since I've written a travel book that wasn't a guidebook. My very first book proposal back in 2001 was about my time spent at the Hindu pilgrimage of Kumbh Mela. I landed an agent, but she wasn't able to sell it and eventually dropped me. She was young, a very junior partner in an established agency, and I have a feeling she was in over her head. She certainly had piss-poor communications skills with yours truly, so I can't imagine she was much better with the publishers.

Despite this disappointment, I steadily climbed the writing ladder, writing a couple of guidebooks and then landing a regular history gig and a job as a travel blogger. Not a bad bunch of work, but I'm not content. Never be content as a writer or you're doomed. I've been wanting a change for a while now and was wondering why my fiction wasn't flying out of my brain like it usually does. Now I'm going back to what originally got me into this business: creative nonfiction about travel.

As writers we need to be flexible. Not only do we need to move with the market (if we're doing this as a living) but we also have to be flexible with our sources of inspiration. Right now my well of ideas for fiction is a bit parched, but I'm full of ideas for the Harar book. Instead of fighting it, it's best to embrace it. I suspect that I'll have several more shifts in the course of my career.

Historical research in Missouri

As you might have guessed from my previous post, I'm back in Missouri researching my next book for Osprey Publishing. It's for the new Raid series and will be about Confederate General J.O. Shelby's 1863 raid into Missouri. This was one of the longest raids of the war and an important chapter in the history of the war west of the Mississippi.

Osprey is one publisher doing well in the recession thanks to its strong hold on the military history niche and its willingness to expand into new territory. Another new series, Weapons of War, includes my latest book.

I'm based in Columbia, a city in the center of the state that has the State Historical Society of Missouri and the Western Historical Manuscripts Collection, two great sources of information with very helpful staff. They're used to me and my endless questions by now! The two institutions are on the University of Missouri campus, where I took this shot of Thomas Jefferson thinking great thoughts. His leg warmers are courtesy of a local underground knitters group that likes decorating telephone poles, parking meters, and anything else they fancy. They haven't yet been named a terrorist group, but in this political climate that might be coming soon. I was surprised Jefferson's leg warmers actually lasted a whole two days before being removed!

Besides working on the book I'll also be going on a Jesse James roadtrip for Gadling. That should go online near the end of the month. My first stop will be this weekend when I visit the site of the Centralia Massacre, one of the bloodiest episodes of Frank and Jesse's war years.

Writing advice from William S. Burroughs

While hiking the East Highland Way this month I carried The Western Lands by William S. Burroughs in my backpack. Every good hike needs a good book! One passage struck me as good advice for writers, told in typical Burroughs style.

"Cheat your landlord if you can and must, but do not try to shortchange the muse. It cannot be done. You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal."

Well put!

Websites for Writers: Ian Allan Publishing

This week on Websites for Writers we're looking at the homepage of specialist publisher Ian Allan Publishing. I've never worked for Ian Allan and probably never will, but like any writer familiar with them I'm impressed by their success.

First off, they're long-lived. They've been around since 1942. They're also successful, with thousands of books in their backlist, excellent brand recognition, good distribution, loyal readership, retail stores, and dominance in several genres.

So what do these guys publish? Nothing you'd have ever heard of unless you have the right obsession. Do you have a copy of London Transport in the 1960s on your shelf? How about Messerschmitt Bf109 at War? Maybe a subscription to Bus & Coach Preservation Magazine?

Ian Allan does not publish bestsellers. They don't even try to publish bestsellers. Instead they focus on transport, aviation, military hardware, modeling, and Masonic books. Why? Because there are a lot of people out there who love these subjects, and they loyally support companies that publish books about their enthusiasms.

So even if Ian Allan doesn't sell a lot of copies of A Dictionary of Passenger Ship Disasters, they'll have published something that someone really wants to read. And the sheer number of their books shows just how many of these micro-genres there are. Hundreds of titles on UK steam engines. More than a hundred on canals. Books on buses. Books on helicopters. Books on collecting WWII medals.

So check out Ian Allan's website to be reassured that no matter how obscure your subject, there's a publisher for you.


Image courtesy Martin Faulks via Wikimedia Commons.

Another advantage of work for hire

A while back I did a post on the relative merits of work for hire vs. getting an advance on royalties in publishing contracts. If you're unclear on these terms check out the link.

After being a Gadling travel blogger for more than a year I've discovered another advantage of work for hire--when you sign away your rights you don't have to defend them. Gadling, or more precisely AOL Media, pays me a flat fee and then owns total rights to my posts. I agree to this because their flat fee is good and they have the most popular travel blog on the web. Once my posts go live, they are their property.

What a relief! With so many people stealing stuff from online sources I'd spend half my day tracking down copyright violations. For example, one blogger reused a photo of mine without permission, others have taken articles, and the Somaliland Times, a weekly English newspaper, reprinted my entire Somaliland travel series. Actually I don't mind that last one, because how many people in Hargeisa read Gadling?

So I can sit back and watch the plundering of my work with a serene detachment. Sure it's wrong, but it gets me more readers, and if AOL Media's lawyers want to do something about it, that's their job. I hope they don't go after the Somalis, though. The Somali people showed me so much hospitality they deserve to get my articles for free.