Each workshop is 6 weeks long and is limited to twelve people. (It will take you about four hours per week to do each of these.) These are the starting dates of upcoming workshops.
All have openings. For sign-up and more information about each workshop, click the Online Workshop tab at the top of the page.
Starting July
Class #22… July 8th … World Building
Class #23… July 9th … Plot Your Novel
Class #24… July 10th … Designing Book Covers
Class #25… July 11th … Designing Book Interiors
Class #26… July 12th … Essentials
Starting August
Class E-1… August 5th... Promotion
Class #27… August 5th … Ideas to Story
Class E-2… August 6th... Promotion
Class #28… August 6th … Openings
Class #29… August 7th … Genre Structure
Class #30… August 8th … Pitches and Blurbs
Class #31… August 9th … Cliffhangers
Starting September
Class #32… Sept 2nd … Essentials
Class #33… Sept 3rd … Plot Your Novel
Class #34… Sept 4th … World Building
Class #35… Sept 4th … Pacing
Class #36… Sept 5th … Designing Book Covers
Class #37… Sept 6th … Designing Book Interiors
Starting October
Class #1… Oct 7th … Pitches and Blurbs
Class #2… Oct 8th … Promotion
Class #3… Oct 9th … Genre Structure
Class #4… Oct 10th … Openings
Class #5… Oct 10th … Cliffhangers
Class #6… Oct 11th … Pacing Your Stories
Starting November
Class #7… Nov 4th … Essentials
Class #8… Nov 4th … Ideas to Story
Class #9… Nov 5th … Plot Your Novel
Class #10… Nov 6th … Designing Book Covers
Class #11… Nov 7th … Designing Book Interiors
Class #12… Nov 8th … Promotions
Starting December
Class #13… Dec 2nd … World Building
Class #14… Dec 3rd … Pacing Your Stories
Class #15… Dec 4th … Cliffhangers
Class #16… Dec 5th … Genre Structure
Class #17… Dec 5th … Pitches and Blurbs
Class #18… Dec 6th … Promotions
Sign-up and more information under Online Workshops tab at the top of the page.
Dean, that’s a silly headline you’ve got there. Kris’s articles are always worth reading
I haven’t actually finished reading that series yet, though. I’ll make a point of getting to the newer posts this weekend.
These are wonderful articles! Dean, she needs to bundle these into an ebook! She’d get one sale here for sure!
The wonderful thing is that her “perfection” article even applies to the “art” writers who aren’t interested in making a living. She emphasizes business/career on the other two, but that one was utterly universal. Every literary writer should read it. (And they should read the others too but they won’t listen.)
Perfection is about being safe and conventional and mediocre, and that is NOT what fine art is about. Fine art is about breaking new ground, where there is no measure for perfection, and lots of messy mistakes to be made.
That aspect really struck me, and inspired me to blog about it as well.
>>I just wish someone would have written something like this when I was starting out.
Ditto. But at least reading these articles now have given me great hope and even more determination to make it. Plus, a place to send new writers that will hopefully help them.
I’ve linked to all three in my own blog over the past week or so. The articles provided great insight.
Agreed. Eye-opening stuff, especially for those of us adrift in a sea of myths. And the comments should also be required reading. Lots of great elaboration and discussion there.
I found your wife’s writings through this blog. Thank you very much. I just finished reading Alien Abductions and the Secret Lives of Cats, and I am putting them on my hubby’s e-reader. Excellent writing.
Thanks to the both of you for the creative and business info of writing. I am not a new writer, but I am new to the business side.
Cyn
Kind of a funny coincidence that I was reading Kris’s business articles and happened on a cool story that I think applies to writers (bear with me).
Tom Cruise just had a movie released a few weeks ago called Rock of Ages. It bombed, but that isn’t the point…. The title of the film is taken from a song by a British Band called Def Leppard. As a 70s kid, I remember the band being famous in the 80s. They are less popular now, bu in their day sold zillions of records.
They have since left their label, but their contract apparently did not specify digital rights because it originated in the 70s/80s. Their label wants to sell their stuff on iTunes etc and wants to take the lion’s share of the profits.
(any of this sound familiar???)
The band is flat refusing to sign any such deal. Period. Their contract is such that while they do not have 100% control of their older music, the record company can;t do anything with it without their permission. The fight is on and neither side is budging according to the article I read.
so what does a world famous band with 100 million record’s sold and a world wide fanbase do?
They are recording exact duplicates of their own music and re-releasing it themselves. So the wise guys at the record company who won’t pay the content creators a fair cut of their product is getting CUT OUT COMPLETELY.
Now I don’t know much about Def Leppard aside from recognizing a few of their songs when they come on the radio, but it seems to me these are guys who don’t let the suits in the business walk all over them. It also sounds like the suits at the record company might have more stubborness than brains.
Make you wonder what would happen if some publisher made a grab for some big name author’s backlist rights. Would that author have the savvy to say ‘no’? If he.she did you he/she also have the smarts to turn their product into their money in the absence of the ‘big guys’?
Better yet, will enough writers see things like this and other things specific to publishing and think before they accept any offer from anyone about what that offer means to their product, their rights and their income?
If Dean is right (and I suspect he is) most writers who trust agents, sign standard contracts and think publishers are god don’t even see any lesson to be learned from what Def Leppard is going for their career right now.
Fortunately, I think the average reader on Dean’s blog might just take something away from this…
joemontana, thanks. Kris and I follow the trends and events in the music industry as well because they tend to be five to ten years ahead of the publishing world and have almost exactly the same issues. Not all exact, but similar. So thanks. Very good point.
Her posts came at the perfect time for me. Whenever I publish a new novel I get a new hater to go along with it, so I stop writing for months at a time. Reading yours and Kris’ blog posts are the ONLY articles that help get me back into the writing. So thank you both very much.