Old writer back from the dead…
Personal musings, random observations, and honest reflections from a 77-year-old writer who’s still figuring things out. This is where I park the thoughts that don’t fit neatly into publishing categories but feel too good to keep to myself. Think of it as the literary equivalent of that drawer where you keep batteries, rubber bands, and other useful stuff that doesn’t belong anywhere else.
TL;DR: The White Whale is a 105,000-word modern thriller adaptation of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, written by 78-year-old horror novelist Chet Day in transparent collaboration with Anthropic’s Claude AI. It preserves Melville’s characters, themes, and ambiguity while cutting the digressions that make the original the most frequently abandoned classic novel in English. Available now from CasaDay … Read more
In the previous two posts I wrote about why most authors shouldn’t blog and when blogging actually works for the few who do it right. But there’s a third angle to this whole conversation that I’ve been wrestling with since I started this series: what are the hidden benefits of author blogging that have nothing … Read more
In the previous post, we had a dose of reality about author blogging–where I basically told most of you to skip it entirely–and if I allowed comments on these posts I suspect we would have seen a predictable mix of responses. Half the messages might have thanked for saying what needed to be said. The … Read more
Let me start with something that might sting a little: most of you reading this shouldn’t be blogging. I know, I know. That’s not what you expected to hear from a guy who’s about to spend three blog posts writing about author blogging. But here’s the thing–and this comes from someone who’s been at this … Read more
Market Intelligence or Where Dreams Meet Spreadsheets? If r/writing is a support group for people who think they might want to be writers, then r/selfpublish is a business seminar for people who’ve decided to take the plunge. The difference hits you immediately when you scroll through the posts. Instead of “How do I know if … Read more
Or a Literary Circle Jerk? So here I am on an early Monday morning, scratching my old head while pondering a question: Is Reddit’s r/writing forum valuable? I’m not scratching because of writing. Heck, I’ve been pushing words around for fifty years, so that particular form of insanity is well-established. No, I’m wondering about my … Read more
A 77-Year-Old Author Learns the Real Mechanics of Amazon Advertising (So You Don’t Have To) After our conversation yesterday about whether Amazon ads actually work for ebook marketing, I found myself staring at my coffee this morning with a nagging thought: if I’m serious about this bestseller quest, maybe I need to understand exactly how … Read more
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