The 21st Century Writer

Toni McGee Causey splashed into traditional publishing a decade ago with her Bobbie Faye series. After some ups and downs, both personal and professional, she’s starting in indie publishing with a new book, a new career, and a new outlook on what makes for success.

Her new book, the dark thriller The Saints of the Lost and Found, will debut in February.

You can read the RT review of the book Toni mentions (and it’s glowing!).

Toni’s series with St. Martin’s Press, the Bobbi Faye series, begins with Charmed and Dangerous (formerly Bobbie Faye’s Very (very, very, very) Bad Day — we talk about the rebranding on the podcast!).

Sandra Schwab is a German author who writes in English (very much like our own Hannah!). Why did she choose that? What has her journey been like from trade publishing with Dorchester to striking out on her own as an indie author?

She’s reissuing her first novel, the dark romance The Lily Brand, on many bookstores.

Since this podcast was recorded, the Ellora’s Cave lawsuit has been settled, and you can read about it on Deirdre Saoirse Moen’s page.

Sandra uses Jutoh software to format her books and sometimes uses an Alphasmart keyboard to write.

Annetta Ribken is an award-winning editor of indie authors — and only indie authors. We discuss what editing is, why writers need editing, and why having a few beta readers is not the same thing.

While she highly recommends working with an editor (and we discuss why on the podcast), she does offer a course called “Content Editing with Netta” that you may want to check out.

HIGHLY recommended by Diane, Hannah, and Annetta: Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself Into Print by Renni Browne and Dave King

You can read the list of some words that Diane checks over when self-copy-editing.

Please Note! The Google Hangout video version of the podcast is NSFW (language). (The podcast on iTunes and elsewhere has been bleeped.)

Robert Gregory Browne joins us to talk about his new book, Casting the Bones: An Indie Author’s Guide to the Craft of Fiction and his thirty-year career as a working author, first as a screenwriter, then as a novelist published with trade publishers, and finally as an indie author charting his own path.

Rob is…opinionated.

Some of his books that he talks about are:

We also discuss:

Susan Kaye Quinn is an author of science fiction and YA (and, under a secret pen name, romance!). She’s also the author of The Indie Author Survival Guide (a guide for new self-publishers to the indie publishing arena) and For Love Or Money (a guide for more experienced indie authors on how not to lose their minds).

She’s also lots of fun to talk to!

Susan highly recommends the book The Practicing Mind: Developing Focus and Discipline in Your Life by Thomas M. Sterner as an aid to developing your ability to focus on what you’re doing in the here and now and really get the most out of your daily practice (of writing, or of anything else).

Diane and Hannah discuss how their writing is going. After many weeks of not getting as much writing done as they’d like, apparently they’ve both been writing quite a lot. They’re enjoying it just as much.

The app Diane uses to keep track of how much she’s writing is HabitKeeper for iOS. Actually, she uses the paid version, because avoiding ads is very important to her.

Stephen King wrote an article for the New York Times on whether or not a novelist can be too productive.

Judith Tarr, a well-known SF/F author, came up with the term “attack novel” that Hannah uses a couple of times.

The Writers Bloc series in Los Angeles: it’s fantastic! Check it out!

Chuck Wendig, amazingly prolific and sometimes foul-mouthed author, can be found at Terrible Minds. He gives great encouragement and advice to writers! Check him out.

Marie Force talks about how important it is to get support systems in place so that you can focus solely on writing.

Diane has been traveling again. Seriously, what’s up with that? But now the summer is over and maybe she can STAY PUT for two weeks at a time. She went to Asheville, NC, so she and Hannah discuss the little hamlet in the middle of the Blue Ridge mountains. Also: writing on planes — is it for everyone?

Books and topics discussed in this episode:

David Gaughran, the author of such seminal self-publishing works as Let’s Get Digital, joins Diane and Hannah to talk about the self-publishing author’s journey, why he’s still bullish on the current market, and what sorts of things newbie authors need to avoid. (Hint: if you do a web search on “how do I get an agent” or “how do I get a publisher”…you probably don’t want to work with any of the results that come up.)

David’s author page at Amazon.

His most famous book about self-publishing is Let’s Get Digital, now in its second edition.

He’s also written Let’s Get Visible, about publicizing your magnum opus.

Other books and media mentioned:

Diane and Hannah discuss their writing and publishing to do lists for the rest of year, while talking about a whole bunch of other stuff as well.

Diane’s To Do List for the rest of 2015

Hannah’s To Do List for the rest of 2015

Also talked about in this episode:

Author A.D. Trosper joins us on the podcast to discuss her unconventional path to writing and what life is like for her as a writer and a mom. Her website is A.D. Trosper: Writer, Mother, Ruler of the world inside my head.

Some of the sites and books discussed on this podcast:

(I’d like to apologize — a couple of times on the recording we get some wicked awesome echoing going on, and none of us can figure out why. I’ve edited most of it out, but a couple of places I had to leave it in.)