Old writer back from the dead…
A Conversation with Claude So there I was yesterday morning, staring at my growing pile of Lost Pages manuscripts and wondering how the hell I’m supposed to get people to actually discover these books once they’re published. At 77, chasing a bestseller dream with a three-year deadline, I can’t exactly rely on word-of-mouth and hope … Read more
Every time someone mentions indie publishing success, two names come up like clockwork: Hugh Howey and Amanda Hocking. And every time, the conversation goes the same way. “Oh, they just got lucky.” “They hit at the perfect time.” “Lightning in a bottle–can’t be replicated.” Well, let me tell you something: I’ve spent considerable time studying … Read more
Here’s a number that’ll either inspire you or make you want to take up woodworking instead: authors earning over $20,000 per month have published an average of 61 books. Sixty-one books! That’s not a typo, and it’s not an accident. Meanwhile, most aspiring authors are still polishing their first manuscript, convinced that if they just … Read more
So there I was last week, staring at Amazon’s publishing dashboard for my latest Lost Pages collaboration with Claude, when I hit that moment every indie author faces: the decision regarding Amazon royalty rates that’ll determine whether you get 70% royalties or 35% royalties from Amazon. Most new authors think this is a no-brainer. “Obviously … Read more
In my last post I shared some brutal income data relevant to us indie writers that was eye opening, to say the least. More like a poke in the vitreous humor! Well, today I want to dig deeper into something that might sound even more discouraging at first: your first book is almost certainly going … Read more
So there I was last week, deep in research for a crazy bestseller quest I keep fantasizing about at 77, when I stumbled across some indie author income numbers that made me put down my coffee and stare at the screen for a good five minutes. Not because the numbers were encouraging–hell no. Because they … Read more
So there I was yesterday, deep in the weeds of website optimization for CasaDay Press, when I stumbled across an Amazon royalty calculator that made me stop and think. Not about header images or color schemes this time–I’ve had enough WordPress wrestling matches for one week–but about something more fundamental: the math behind this whole … Read more
A Cautionary Tale of Square Pegs and Round Holes So there I was this morning, feeling pretty damn pleased with myself. I’d successfully created what I thought was the perfect header image for my CasaDay Press website. Beautiful literary archaeology theme, elegant typography, the works. ChatGPT had knocked it out of the park on the … Read more
Last Tuesday night, deep into working on our latest Lost Pages project about romance writers, I found myself asking my AI buddy Claude something I’d never asked before. We’d just finished crafting testimonies from literary figures like Sappho and Keats about love’s authentic power versus its commercialization, and I was struck by how well my … Read more
A Writer’s Journey Look, I’ll be honest with you. Cover design used to terrify me more than a blank page on deadline day. But not anymore. You see, with help from my AI buddy Claude, I’ve learned how to use AI for Kindle cover design. For years, because I didn’t have the money, I created … Read more