(Crossposted from Jennifer Brozek)

I love it when stories from my anthologies win awards. It validates me as an editor.

I recieved an email today from Pete Kempshall. He had good news. His story, "Someone Else to Play With" from my anthology Beauty Has Her Way (Dark Quest Books 2011), just made it into the Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2011 book.

Woot! That's awesome. And something else to add to my Awards page.

(Crossposted from Jennifer Brozek)

Just a reminder, this is a link to my Origins convention schedule.

Grants Pass review by Felicia Dowker. It is always nice to get one of these unexpectedly. I love the fact that we are still receiving reviews years after publication. 

Industry Talk review by the “Shroud of the Ancients” Avocations website. The first review for this book in the wild. I’m pleased with it. I should be. It’s a 9/10 review.

(Crossposted from Jennifer Brozek)

Here is my Origins schedule. If I’m not in one of these panels, I’m in The Library at my table in Exhibit Hall C (PDF), top left corner near concessions. As Cherie Priest likes to say, there is a “No Shyness” zone around me. Come up and say Hello! I’m happy to chat while I sell books. I’m bribable—take me out to lunch or for a drink and I’ll talk your ear off.

THURSDAY

3 p.m. Flash Your Fiction: In how few words can you tell a story? Flash fiction has been gaining in popularity, but it’s not an easy art form. Brevity is tough to tackle, but if you can master it, there are markets for your scant words. Learn the secret to “Kissing Your Fiction.” KISS . . . keep it short, sister. Then consider entering our flash fiction contests Friday and Saturday.

Donald J. Bingle, Jennifer Brozek, Kelly Swails

4 p.m. Writing For Games: Writing opportunities about in the game industry for persistent and talented freelancers. Our panelists found success writing for various game companies, and they provide helpful hints for landing work amid the dice and battlemaps.

Jennifer Brozek

FRIDAY

3 p.m. The Care and Feeding of Your Editor: Award-winning editor Jennifer Brozek has published dozens of authors in her many anthologies. She explains what it takes to get an editor’s attention and respect, offering suggestions that will move your submissions higher in the slush pile and closer to publication.

Jennifer Brozek

4 p.m. Write What You Don’t Know: We remember English teachers lecturing: “Write what you know.” Well, we think you ought to write what you don’t know. How else can you write about space travel and alternate history and fire-breathing dragons and vampire detectives? We’ll discuss how a little research and common sense can give you just enough background to really write what you don’t know.

R.T. Kaelin, Jennifer Brozek, Bryan Young

6 p.m. Reading: Jennifer Brozek: Award-winning editor Jennifer Brozek offers up a serving of one of her favorite fantasy tales.

Jennifer Brozek

SATURDAY

10 a.m. Slaying Writer’s Block: There’s debate whether there is such a beast as writer’s block. We’ll not argue that point here. Rather, we’ll show you what you can do to knock down the barriers that are keeping you from typing away at your keyboard. Writer’s block . . . or whatever you want to label it . . . we’ve faced it and beat it to a bloody pulp.

Aaron Allston, Jennifer Brozek, Bryan Young

11 a.m. Practice Makes Perfect: How can you tell if you’re getting better as a writer? How can you judge your progress? And what does it take to get to that next level of expertise? We’ll talk about benchmarks, writer’s groups, and how to analyze your fiction. You have to grow as a writer to compete in the marketplace; we’ll teach you how to measure your skills and to improve them.

Kelly Swails, Jennifer Brozek, Brad Beaulieu, R.T. Kaelin

(Crossposted from Jennifer Brozek)

Here is my Origins schedule. If I’m not in one of these panels, I’m in The Library at my table in Exhibit Hall C (PDF), top left corner near concessions. As Cherie Priest likes to say, there is a “No Shyness” zone around me. Come up and say Hello! I’m happy to chat while I sell books. I’m bribable—take me out to lunch or for a drink and I’ll talk your ear off.

THURSDAY

3 p.m. Flash Your Fiction: In how few words can you tell a story? Flash fiction has been gaining in popularity, but it’s not an easy art form. Brevity is tough to tackle, but if you can master it, there are markets for your scant words. Learn the secret to “Kissing Your Fiction.” KISS . . . keep it short, sister. Then consider entering our flash fiction contests Friday and Saturday.

Donald J. Bingle, Jennifer Brozek, Kelly Swails

4 p.m. Writing For Games: Writing opportunities about in the game industry for persistent and talented freelancers. Our panelists found success writing for various game companies, and they provide helpful hints for landing work amid the dice and battlemaps.

Jennifer Brozek

FRIDAY

3 p.m. The Care and Feeding of Your Editor: Award-winning editor Jennifer Brozek has published dozens of authors in her many anthologies. She explains what it takes to get an editor’s attention and respect, offering suggestions that will move your submissions higher in the slush pile and closer to publication.

Jennifer Brozek

4 p.m. Write What You Don’t Know: We remember English teachers lecturing: “Write what you know.” Well, we think you ought to write what you don’t know. How else can you write about space travel and alternate history and fire-breathing dragons and vampire detectives? We’ll discuss how a little research and common sense can give you just enough background to really write what you don’t know.

R.T. Kaelin, Jennifer Brozek, Bryan Young

6 p.m. Reading: Jennifer Brozek: Award-winning editor Jennifer Brozek offers up a serving of one of her favorite fantasy tales.

Jennifer Brozek

SATURDAY

10 a.m. Slaying Writer’s Block: There’s debate whether there is such a beast as writer’s block. We’ll not argue that point here. Rather, we’ll show you what you can do to knock down the barriers that are keeping you from typing away at your keyboard. Writer’s block . . . or whatever you want to label it . . . we’ve faced it and beat it to a bloody pulp.

Aaron Allston, Jennifer Brozek, Bryan Young

11 a.m. Practice Makes Perfect: How can you tell if you’re getting better as a writer? How can you judge your progress? And what does it take to get to that next level of expertise? We’ll talk about benchmarks, writer’s groups, and how to analyze your fiction. You have to grow as a writer to compete in the marketplace; we’ll teach you how to measure your skills and to improve them.

Kelly Swails, Jennifer Brozek, Brad Beaulieu, R.T. Kaelin

(Crossposted from Jennifer Brozek)

I’ve been doing this social networking thing on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Livejournal for a while. I consider all of it to be an investment in my career. There is nothing more annoying about looking up an author or editor and finding nothing about them. Right or wrong, it makes me think that they either aren’t very good at the business or marketing aspects of being in the publishing industry.

That said, I always try to temper my business side with remaining a real person. I chat with people. Talk about stuff that isn’t work. Or talk about where I am in what I’m doing—the easy parts, the hard parts. I do like to be social.  Some of the social stuff is play and I do like to play. I think I’m pretty successful at balancing the two.

About a week ago, after talking about work I’m doing on the Battletech web series, a stranger on twitter pinged and asked if I was open for a gig. I get this question a lot and my answer is always: “It depends on my schedule, the subject matter, and the pay rate.”  Then we shifted to email for the rest of the conversation.

Short story still short, Robin Fitton has hired me to work on the fiction part of Gruntz. “Gruntz is a dedicated 15mm fast play wargame designed for skirmish level play with between 10 to 40 figures per side using combined arms (squads, support vehicles, tanks, VTOL's and artillery).”

I’m excited about this because I get to make up a lot of canon information about the Gruntz universe. Every faction will have signature leaders, houses/groups/etc.  With 11-12 stories to come up with, I’m still deciding on how this will happen. But believe me, there will be a variety. I’ve got permission to go wild and nothing is off limits.

I love jobs like this.

I also love getting jobs like this because I’m just being me on Twitter.

As an aside, there is an Indiegogo fundraiser for an Gruntz Army Builder App that is already funded and is into stretch goals.

(Crossposted from Jennifer Brozek)

http://www.sfrevu.com/php/Review-id.php?id=12890

"...Greenberg and Brozek have put together a nice balanced mix of happy, sad, funny and bittersweet stories. Also, unlike many themed anthologies, in Human For A Day, the theme of the title is consistently carried out in all sixteen stories. For readers who enjoyed the stories and want to read more by authors with whom they may previously have been unfamiliar, the anthology helpfully includes contributor bios that reference websites and other stories and books by the authors. Human For A Day is definitely worth reading. Highly recommended."

Ian Tregellis, Seanan McGuire, Laura Resnick, Jody Lynn Nye, and Tanith Lee called out.

(Crossposted from Jennifer Brozek)

I’ve been a fulltime freelancer for over five years now and the business of freelancing still surprises me. I think one of the biggest surprises is how many publishers—RPG or fiction—have asked me to supply them with a contract for a writing gig.  The conversation usually goes something like…

“We have this work we want you to do.”

“What’s the details?”

“Due date, word count, pay rate.”

“All of that is doable. I’m in.”

“Alrighty, send over your standard freelancer contract.”  (Or)  “Do you have a standard contract you’d like us to use?” (Or) “We don’t have a standard contract. What details would you like in yours?”

All of these have happened to me. It was shocking the first time a publisher asked me to provide them with the contract. I had no idea what to do. I ended up telling them, in my most professional-please-don’t-think-of-me-as-a-hack email voice, that I “preferred to start with the contract the publisher usually used and we would modify it from there.”

I chickened out in other words.  And we did work with their contract and modified it and everyone lived happily ever after.

However, I suddenly realized that I needed to create my own boilerplate contracts. Ones that would be legally binding. Ones that wouldn’t screw me or the publisher.  I ended up going to back to the contracts I already had and modified them. It’s surprising the number of contracts I now have to keep track of.

As an Author:
•    RPG – set number of fiction words for a project
•    RPG – RPG book as author
•    Fiction – short story in an anthology
•    Fiction – short story for the web

As an Editor:
•    Anthology – buying a short story for an anthology
•    Anthology – buying a reprint story for an anthology
•    Anthology – selling an anthology to a publisher
•    Anthology – commissioning art for the book cover
•    Anthology – licensing art for the book cover
•    Webzine – buying a short story for web
•    Editing – Novel consulting
•    Editing – Short story editing

That’s a lot contracts right there that I’ve had to create specific to me and make sure were fair, legal, and appropriate.

But wait, there’s more.  Invoices are a type of contract between the freelancer and the person who hired them. It used to be that my employer would tell me how to log my hours and get paid. As a freelancer, you frequently provide your own invoices. This means they need to be clear, concise, and specific to the project so you don’t lose track of who has paid you and who hasn’t.

If you plan to freelance at all, you need to be prepared to provide your own contracts. You need to make certain they are legal and appropriate. Documentation is part of a freelancer’s world. I knew this from the start. I just didn’t know that I would be the one providing the contracts as well.

(Crossposted from Jennifer Brozek)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

INDUSTRY TALK PRESS RELEASE MAY 2012

Industry Talk; Your guide to breaking into games, editing anthologies and managing your career

Release Date: May 10, 2012.

“Want to write for games? Want to navigate the dark labyrinths and endless mazes of freelancing? Let Brozek be your guide.”

 – Chuck  Wendig, author of Blackbirds and 500 Ways to be a Better Writer


Apocalypse Ink Productions brings you INDUSTRY TALK, by award-winning editor and veteran freelancer Jennifer Brozek, a collection of her previously published columns Dice and Deadlines and The Making of an Anthology. This insider’s guide for freelance game writers and editors contains brand-new content addressing frequently asked questions like "How to pitch an anthology", and includes advice on managing a freelance career.


“If you’re going to make that leap, though, and come over to the freelance side to join us, don’t go blind. Do your research. Ask questions. Read this book.”

– Matt Forbeck, author of Amortals and Vegas Knights


Available: May 10th, 2012

Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Industry-Talk-Insiders-Anthologies-ebook/dp/B0081WAGEE/

Drive Thru Fiction: http://www.drivethrufiction.com/product/101746/Industry-Talk%3A-An-Insider%27s-Look-at-Writing-RPGs-and-Editing-Anthologies

Nook and ePub forthcoming.

For more information, please contact: Apocalypse.ink.productions@gmail.com

(Crossposted from Jennifer Brozek)

Cover design by Ivan Ewert

Industry Talk is a collection of two previously published columns by Jennifer Brozek, Dice & Deadlines and The Making of an Anthology. The collection also contains brand-new content including step-by-step instructions on how to pitch an anthology and advice on managing a freelance career.

Published by Apocalypse Ink Productions.

(Crossposted from Jennifer Brozek)

I'm over at editor Gabrielle Harbowy's blog talking about Five Truths About Publishing that Nobody Told Me.

My life would have been better had I known them.

(Crossposted from Jennifer Brozek)

The Hole Behind Midnight by Clinton J. Boomer is best described as a fist fight between Richard Kadrey, Warren Ellis, and Neil Gaiman. It is brutal, profane, magical, surreal, and entertaining. Did I mention profane? And vulgar. Sometimes too much so for my taste but not in a way that is completely gratuitous. I enjoyed the book immensely. It’s worth buying as long as you are thick-skinned about bad language, gross descriptions upon occasion, demonic she-males and goat boys. There is a neat little mystery mixed up in it all that comes to a satisfying end—even if it is clear there is a sequel to a dangling plot.

(Crossposted from Jennifer Brozek)

Some days, working in the publishing industry is tougher than others. What’s an author to do when that happens? Blog, of course. Today, I thought I would talk about why I rarely get sick during or after conventions.

Why I don’t get sick anymore comes from three bits of advice. The first is from Seanan McGuire, a good friend whom I shared a hotel room with in Australia for Worldcon and discovered her secret. The second is from someone I read on the internet… unfortunately I just can’t remember who but this person has some spectacular convention germ avoiding advice. The third is one I picked up while my best friend was in the hospital. A nurse told me about it.

Tip #1: Start taking Sambucus a couple days before the convention and take a dose of Sambucus every morning and night you are in the hotel. Made with a base of elderberry extra and virologist tested, Sambucus is a miracle. I haven’t been sick during or after a convention since before August 2010 and I’ve gone to a LOT of conventions.  Heck, any time I start to feel ill, I take this awesome elixir and I either feel better immediately or my cold is shortened.

Tip #2: I really wish I could remember who posted about this but the first thing you should do every single time you enter your hotel room while at a convention is to wash your hands well. I’m talking warm water, lots of soap, and a minimum of half a minute. This gets the grim off your hands before you relax and touch your face and accidentally infect yourself with whatever is lingering on your hands.

Tip #3: Keep your hands as clean as possible when you are in public. Cleaning your hands frequently with a sanitizer helps. It may only last a bit but it kills a lot of what is already on your hand especially after handling something like a hotel menu. Avoid touching door handles and elevator buttons. I’ve found that I tend to use the outside of my sleeve for those jobs.

And that’s it. Sambucus, wash your hands, protect your hands. Your body will thank you and all of the people you don’t get sick will thank you.

(Crossposted from Jennifer Brozek)

Blog: New small press - Apocalypse Ink Productions - http://t.co/8cwCqL6w @apocalypseink

Just announced the new small press company owned and operated by me and the Husband. The website is live. It is a brand new shiny. I hope you'll come along for the ride.

(Crossposted from Jennifer Brozek)

I am not manning a table this year. So, if you want to meet up with me, ping me before the convention or give me a call/text during the convention. Do not be afraid to come say hello or to ask me questions.

Thursday 8 pm Cascade 11
Big Press, Small Press, or Self-Publishing?
Each publishing method has pros and cons. Come find out what they are and share your experiences.
Patrick Swenson (M), Jennifer Brozek, Donna Barr, Bruce Taylor

Thursday 9:30 pm Cascade 1
Jennifer Brozek reads The Lady of Seeking in the City of Waiting
Crossed genre fantasy-horror Rated PG
Jennifer Brozek

Thursday 10 pm Cascade 7
Writing Tie-In Fiction
Many video games today have accompanying fiction which often provides a more detailed storyline of current events as well as past or future action. Many role-playing games have companion novel series expanding their worlds with characters, cities, and events that become canon. Join our panelists as they discuss how a game’s setting is translated into a novel that, in turn, gives back to the game.
James L. Sutter (M), Jennifer Brozek, Erik Scott de Bie

----------------------------------------

(Crossposted from Jennifer Brozek)

Occasionally, I talk about people I admire. Today, my admiration goes to author Ken Scholes. Ken is the author of two fabulous book collections, the Psalms of Isaak novels, and numerous other fiction stories and non-fiction articles. He is also father to two lovely girls and husband to a lovely woman.

Ken has been through a number of tragedies in the last couple of years. These tragedies have affected him as a person and as an author. It was rough going for him but he was still always a kind and considerate man.

That is not the only reason I admire him.

I watch his posts and one thing Ken does so well is to do “a little bit every day.” He does this in his writing, his exercise, and caring for his girls. (Well, okay, the girls keep him very busy.) It is this determined consistency that I prize and admire.

He had serious physical injury that laid him up for a bit. However, when he was able to start exercising again, he did. A little bit every day. I follow him on Facebook, I am used to his posts where he said things like, “Got 2.5 miles on the stationary bike today.” He doesn’t run marathons or bike incredible amounts but what he does is get up on that bike and exercise regularly, consistently, and persistently.

Ken also does this with his writing. During some of the rougher times in his life, he was not able to write. However, when he was well enough to start writing again, he did. 300 words here. 600 words there. 500 words there. This is not a huge amount of words. I can drop 500 words in an hour when I’m writing. But, again, he has been consistent. As he’s gotten better, his word counts have gone up. But I still see the occasional 700 or 800 word day and all I can think is “You go, Ken.”

It’s this consistent determination to succeed in all that he does that I admire. He works hard for his words, his family, and his health. This is something I notice every single time he makes a post.

(Crossposted from Jennifer Brozek)

This is not the post you are looking for.

Move along.

(Blog crossposting test.)