Columns

The Loss of Joe McKinney

August 19th, 2021

Photo via author's website For readers, fans, fellow writers, publishers, and the entire horror community, the death of author and San Antonio police officer Joe McKinney was shocking and heartbreaking. He was barely into his fifties, and aside from a couple comments online by fellow officers who said he died of liver failure, there was no cause of death officially released anywhere I could find. I was heartbroken at the loss for a variety of personal reasons.

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Prep for Your Interview, Sell Some Books

August 18th, 2021

Don’t you want at least a couple people to see your interview and buy your book? Don’t you want someone to read a profile of you and spend a couple bucks? Don’t you want to be on a podcast and see at least a little jump in your web traffic? Of course you do. Let’s get you prepped with a little program I call Preparation H. The “H” stands for “hella,” as in “Hella Good Interview.”

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A Quick and Dirty Guide to Writing a Book Proposal

August 17th, 2021

When it comes to traditionally publishing nonfiction books, a book proposal is completely crucial. Instead of sending off full manuscripts complete with “THE END,” nonfiction authors usually submit detailed proposals to publishers. (It’s worth noting, though, that while a whole manuscript isn’t part of a book proposal, sample chapters are required. But more on that later!)

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Happy Birthday To Georgette Heyer, the Salty Godmother of Regency Romance

August 16th, 2021

Header image is public domain August 16 is the birthday of Georgette Heyer, a prolific author who is credited with establishing the subgenre of Regency romance in the early half of the twentieth century. She had a split literary personality, alternating between thriller and romance novels, but also seems to have had a fairly salt-of-the-earth outlook on her writing’s success.

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Dear Charles Bukowski

August 16th, 2021

Image via Marika Bortolami Dear Charles Bukowski,

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Literature Is Not Innocent: On Georges Bataille's "Literature and Evil"

August 13th, 2021

Image via Wikipedia Commons I first discovered Georges Bataille – the French philosopher who would help define transgressive literature – through Story of the Eye, his groundbreaking 1928 novel that explored teenage eroticism, mental illness, and eggs, among other things. Reading Bataille, enriching as it is, often makes one’s head hurt, as if he’s dealt a blow to your brain that causes it to swell.

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Why the Term "Literary Fiction" Doesn't Work Anymore

August 12th, 2021

Literary fiction is one of the most misleading terms in the writing world, and I think we need to retire it. Some people use “literary” as a reference to quality. Others use it as a description of the content of a work of fiction without judging how good that work is. In the end this means that a group of people who are purportedly very concerned with words—writers and readers—are using them badly. This causes confusion, pretension, and even an odd separation of groups of young writers. It’s about time we knock it off. 

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Write an Author Newsletter That Sells

August 11th, 2021

For a lot of writers, marketing a book can be an intimidating process. The industry is constantly changing, and keeping up with promotional trends is daunting to say the least. Luckily for you, some techniques are time tested and proven to work. Author newsletters have been one of the most effective marketing tools available to writers for a long time. Most of us think of newsletters as spam, but I'm here to tell you, that isn't true. When utilized correctly, an author newsletter can be a beacon of hope for those struggling for exposure in a saturated market.

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On the Stressful Joy of Rereading Favorite Books

August 10th, 2021

Three and a half years ago, I was in the zone with rereading books. I reread the whole To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before series by Jenny Han (in honor of the release of the first movie); I reread parts of Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series; I was rediscovering books I’d loved years before and finding that I still loved them. Then came a new job, an overnight schedule, a deepening depression, and a years-long reading slump. It was all I could do to read new books I was anticipating, much less check in with past favorites.

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Surviving a Decade as a Full-time Author No One Has Heard Of

August 9th, 2021

Original image via Baihaki Hine To be accurate, I’ve been a full-time author for a little over eight-and-a-half years, and a few people know who I am. If I don’t make it another year-and-a-half or if I become world famous, I’ll issue a retraction.

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