Publisher’s Note: Anything but Haunted this Halloween
Last weekend, my family and I got our Halloween on. Every year, we go pumpkin picking and hay riding and start decorating for this spookiest of seasons. And this year, we’re adding a new level to our Halloween celebrations.
On October 1, I began my term as president of the Kiwanis Club of Lincoln City, and my first official act was to bring about a board vote to take on sponsorship of a local Halloween event that is very special to me and very important to our community.
This event began in 2008 when the late Kip Ward started hosting The Haunted Hotel at the Historic Anchor Inn. The early years were held at the hotel and featured events for the very young as well as those more inclined to the spooky side of the Halloween Street.
When the event outgrew the hotel, it was renamed the Spooky Spectacular and moved to Taft Elementary School. Last year saw the biggest turnout yet.
I was involved in the inception of the event, and when Nola was born, it was where she spent her first Halloween. We have gone every year since (except for the one year we were in Eugene).
As long-time readers of this blog (or any writer who has attended one of our past Lincoln City workshops) know, Kip was like family to me and a very close friend of Dean and Kris. His sudden death in February 2018 was a shock and a blow to many. We miss him very, very much.
To be able to start my Kiwanis presidency by honoring Kip… Well, let’s just say I know he’ll be with me in spirit.
It’s also one more reminder that life is short, and we must spend as much quality time with our loved ones as we can—while we can.
This was the inspiration behind one of my favorite rewards in the WMG Holiday Spectacular 2019 Kickstarter. Those who pledge this reward (at $60 or more) can share the joy of reading the 35 calendar holiday stories with two friends. It’s a great way to celebrate the season together, especially if your friends don’t live nearby. Click here to learn more.
Friends, fun, holidays. All of these things remind me of Kip (with whom I spent many wonderful holidays). And you can bet I’m going to be sure to enjoy this holiday season with my family and friends as I help keep Kip’s memory alive.
I know he’ll be with me in spirit.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
Publisher’s Note: New Year’s Resolutions
It’s that time of year again when we’re supposed to be full-on into our New Year’s resolutions. And we’re totally on that, right?
Well, maybe not. Thanks to Omicron, the gym’s out. We can still try to improve our eating habits, although I just got the annual call to order Girl Scout cookies, so….
And given everything that’s going on in the world, you can take your Dry January and, well, you know. (I mean, if you want to commit to that, go for it. I’m proud of you. But I will not be joining you.)
But there’s one aspect of life that I think is primed for resolutions: taking charge of your work life.
I mean, the pandemic has caused all sorts of unpleasant disruptions, but it has also caused a much-needed revolution in the working world.
So, if you’ve ever wanted to take charge of your career and start your own business—or find a way to turn that side-hustle you actually enjoy into a full-time gig—you need to read Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s Freelancer’s Survival Guide. And we’ve just made that even easier.
For the first time, the Freelancer’s Survival Guide bundles—A Freelancer’s Survival Guide to Starting Your Own Business, A Freelancer’s Survival Guide to Reaching Your Goals, and A Freelancer’s Survival Guide to Maximizing Your Success—are available in trade paperback (of course, they’re still available in ebook, too).
Here are the synopses of the three books:
A Freelancer’s Survival Guide to Starting Your Own Business
This insightful bundle includes three books from the Freelancer’s Survival Guide by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
Getting Started
Everyone says they want to be their own boss, but very few people know how. This book will help you learn how to think properly about owning a business. It gives you guidelines in setting up your office (in or out of the house), setting your schedule, and establishing your priorities. Getting started properly will put your business on the road to success.
When to Quit Your Day Job
The biggest dream all freelancers have is to work for themselves. They want to ditch the day job. Many freelancers quit their day job too early. Some wait too long. Some never do quit. And some should return to a day job for a few years while they fine-tune their business.
A step-by-step survival guide to the decisions you need to make to become and stay a freelancer in any business.
Networking in Person & Online
Networking sounds hard—and it is, if you’re trying to do it “right.” Instead, do it your way. International bestseller Kristine Kathryn Rusch offers her tips on networking in person. She solicited the help of great online networkers like bestsellers Neil Gaiman and Michael A. Stackpole to give online networking tips. This short book teaches you everything you need to know about networking—and more!
A Freelancer’s Survival Guide to Reaching Your Goals
This essential bundle includes three books from the Freelancer’s Survival Guide by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
Time Management
Being your own boss means setting your own schedule. Sounds easy, right? Instead, it’s one of the toughest parts of freelancing. In this short book, international bestselling writer Kristine Kathryn Rusch shows you how to create a schedule, meet deadlines, take time for vacation, and cope with illness. The perfect guide for freelancers who can’t find enough time in the day.
Goals and Dreams
Everyone has dreams, but most people don’t know how to achieve them. Goals help people achieve their dreams, but how do you know if you’ve set the right goals?
In this book-length excerpt from the massive Freelancer’s Survival Guide, international bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch will help you set the right goals to achieve your dreams. She also has tips for staying positive and remaining patient while you’re on the road to success.
Turning Setbacks into Opportunity
Setbacks happen to everyone. Surviving them is hard. Surviving failure is even harder. But every successful person survives at least three failures before finding that success. So how do you turn failure to success?
The answers lie in this book-length excerpt from the massive Freelancer’s Survival Guide by international bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch, who will show you how to turn those inevitable setbacks into opportunity.
A Freelancer’s Survival Guide to Maximizing Your Success
This fabulous bundle includes three books from the Freelancer’s Survival Guide by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
How To Make Money
Celebrities like Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson prove that you can always spend more money than you earn. Want to know how to make money while self-employed? Learn how to manage the money you do earn. In this short book, international bestselling writer, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, shows you how.
The Secrets of Success
Once you’ve become successful, you never have to work again—or so many people believe. But becoming a success is just the start. Staying a success is the hard part. This short book will help you both become a success and remain one. International bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch will show you the secrets to success that will change your life.
How To Negotiate Anything
Most people hate negotiating. Instead of learning it themselves, they hire someone—an agent, a lawyer, a manager—to negotiate for them. But negotiators often do not have their clients’ best interests at heart. In this short book, international bestselling writer Kristine Kathryn Rusch shows you how to negotiate anything from buying a car to buying a house, from handling a book contract to handling a negotiator. If you have ever negotiated anything—and who hasn’t?—then this book is for you.
You can find buy links to each of these books (including the Big Book) here:
A Freelancer’s Survival Guide to Starting Your Own Business
A Freelancer’s Survival Guide to Reaching Your Goals
A Freelancer’s Survival Guide to Maximizing Your Success
The Freelancer’s Survival Guide: Third Edition
So, go on. Get resolute!
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
A Freelancer’s Survival Guide to Maximizing Your Success
Freelancer’s Survival GuideBusiness Available in:ebook, $9.99trade paperback, $15.99 Add to cart Get the ebook! Get the trade paperback! Get the ebook from the WMG store! A Freelancer’s Survival Guide to Maximizing Your Success Kristine Kathryn Rusch This fabulous...Publisher’s Note: New Possibilities
Parts of Oregon, including Lincoln County, started opening up last week as we moved into Phase 1. Hair salons, retail stores, gyms, restaurants for sit-down dining, and a few other things are open again. But not the same way they were before, of course. A lot of rules and recommendations to observe—masks, social distancing, sanitation rules, and more. This will be our new normal for some time, I suspect.
Now, we’ll see who actually reopens. It’s been like Schrödinger’s cat. We couldn’t know what businesses were dead or alive until we opened up again.
So, a lot of folks will be starting over. Perhaps even changing careers.
And although I’m sure you’re all well aware of Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s writing books, you might not remember that her first nonfiction series was geared toward freelancers of all stripes.
So, when we decided to bundle together the WMG Writer’s Guides in our latest Kickstarter, we also decided to do a bit of bundling to the Freelancer’s Survival Guide series.
We didn’t need to worry about a paperback bundle, because the Freelancer’s Survival Guide already contains all of the short books, plus a bit more.
But we hadn’t yet bundled any of the short books together. So, starting tomorrow, you can get not only the individual short books and the big book in ebook and paper, but also three new ebook bundles:
A Freelancer’s Survival Guide to Starting Your Own Business
Includes:
When to Quit Your Day Job
Getting Started
Networking in Person and Online
A Freelancer’s Survival Guide to Reaching Your Goals
Includes:
Goals and Dreams
Turning Setbacks into Opportunity
Time Management
A Freelancer’s Survival Guide to Maximizing Your Success
Includes:
The Secrets of Success
How to Negotiate Anything
How to Make Money
Each of these bundles is available for $9.99.
But if you’ve signed up for our Stay Inside and Chill newsletter, you’ll be getting a discount code this week for 50 percent off. That’s like getting three Freelancer short books for the price of one!
If you haven’t signed up for the Stay Inside and Chill newsletter, click here.
And if you also want some writer-specific advice from Kris and a slate of other fantastic authors, don’t forget about the Write Stuff 2020 StoryBundle, which includes the Bundle on Craft: A WMG Writer’s Guide Bundle, Rethinking the Writing Business, and a WMG online lecture called “Writer’s Block and Procrastination,” as well as seven other helpful tools for writers.
Click here for more information.
Continue to stay safe out there, even as we begin to navigate this newest reality of ours.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
Publisher’s Note: Bundles of Bundles
If you read this blog with any regularity, you know we’ve been doing a lot with bundles lately. We have two main bundle partners at the moment: Storybundle and BundleRabbit. And this week, I have news about both.
First up is a writing bundle with three WMG titles that ends Thursday (i.e., act quickly). It’s called The Write Stuff 2016 and is curated by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
This bundle contains Stages of a Fiction Writer and Heinlein’s Rules by Dean Wesley Smith and How to Negotiate Anything by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. The first two books are part of the WMG Writer’s Guide series. The latter is part of Kris’ Freelancer’s Survival Guide series. Getting all three, plus seven other books, for one low price is, well, priceless.
Need one more reason to buy this bundle: Together, the authors of the books in The Write Stuff 2016 Bundle have more than two-hundred years of writing experience, and have contributed more than five hundred award-winning and bestselling books (fiction and nonfiction) to the world of literature.
Enough said, I think.
Next up is a BundleRabbit bundle and an experiment.
To buy the latest BundleRabbit bundle, Not Only Humans, you need to act fast. It ends tomorrow, June 14. Then (and here’s where the experiment comes in…), the bundle will be available for five weeks only at retailers such as Amazon, Kobo, iBooks and the like.
Here’s a bit on the bundle from the BundleRabbit site:
From galaxy-spanning alien cultures to the discovery of Bigfoot, these page-turning novels feature gripping stories where humans and non-humans work together, fight each other, and even fall in love.
Twelve fantastic books—including Alien Influences by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Star Rain by Dean Wesley Smith—for one low price. Summer reading list: check!
So, get reading. And maybe even writing. Great deals. Great books. Donations to charity. What more could we ask for?
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer.
The Freelancer’s Survival Guide
Freelancer’s Survival GuideBusiness Available in:ebook, $9.99Trade paperback, $29.99ISBN 978-0615756295audiobook Get the ebook! Get the ebook direct from WMG! Get the trade paperback! The Freelancer’s Survival Guide Kristine Kathryn Rusch Most people...Freelancer’s Guides
Freelancer's Survival Guides Reading Order The Freelancer’s Survival Guide When to Quit Your Day Job: A Freelancer’s Survival Guide Short Book Getting Started: A Freelancer’s Survival Guide Short Book Turning Setbacks into Opportunity: A...Alphabet EJ
Browse more Books Search for: The WMG Newsletter Get advanced notice of new releases, bonus content, and so much more. Subscribe Now Contact Us Name Email Address Message 14 + 15 = Submit EFGHIJ E-Male Earth Day Echea Elegy for Piano and Three Voices Elites Elvis at...The Freelancer’s Survival Guide
Most people become freelancers without any idea of how to run a business. They learn in the school of hard knocks. Kristine Kathryn Rusch has taken the school of hard knocks and made it into one of the most useful business books written in years. Included are these indispensable topics:
•How To Negotiate Anything: Freelancers must negotiate everything from the rent they pay to the contracts they sign. Here’s how to negotiate on your own—and when to hire someone to negotiate for you.
•Online Networking: In addition to tricks and strategies for online networking from Rusch herself, this Guide also includes advice from such online networking experts as Neil Gaiman, Michael A. Stackpole, and Mitch Wagner.
•The Importance of—and the Difference between—Goals And Dreams: Freelancers often confuse their goals with their dreams. Rusch offers practical advice on how to meet your goals, and the importance of dreaming big
•How To Survive Failure—and Success: Success, more than failure, derails many freelancers. Rusch explains how to turn your failures into successes—and how to optimize the success when it finally happens.
…And so much more.
“The bible for the self-employed.”
—John Ottinger III,
teacher and editor of Grasping for the Wind
“A soup-to-nuts guide for business. Don’t be without it.”
—Virginia Baker,
President, Indigo Ink Communications
“The Freelancer’s Survival Guide is packed with all the practical info they don’t teach in business school. I’m recommending this guide to all my small business clients.”
—Tonya Price,
Internet consultant, Cornell MBA
“For anyone who has been cast adrift by the recent financial crisis, this book is your life raft. Rusch takes you step-by-step through the process of owning and running your own business. A great guide for new and long-time freelancers alike.”
—Pati Nagle,
author and owner of Mandala Graphic Design
“Kris Rusch is an old pro and she knows her subject backwards and forwards. There is a wealth of valuable information here for anyone trying to go it on their own down the freelance road. Worth the cost and then some.”
—Steve Perry,
New York Times Bestselling Author
“Essential reading for anyone considering a career outside the domain of corporate America. Along with decades of experience as a freelancer herself, Kris Rusch brings unique and vital insight to the question of how to succeed as a small business owner.”
—Steven Mohan, Jr., writer
Available from Audible or in electronic form for $9.99.
Amazon, B&N, iTunes, Kobo, Smashwords and others.
————————————————————————————————-
FREELANCER SHORT BOOKS
The Freelancer Short Books are excerpted, in part, from Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s longer work, The Freelancer’s Survival Guide. If you need advice on a particular subject, and don’t feel the need for the full-length guide, then these short books are for you.
The biggest dream all freelancers have is to work for themselves. They want to ditch the day job. Many freelancers quit their day job too early. Some wait too long. Some never do quit. And some should return to a day job for a few years while they fine-tune their business.
A step-by-step survival guide to the decisions you need to make to become and stay a freelancer in any business.
Available from Audible or in electronic form for $4.99.
Amazon, B&N, iTunes, Kobo, Smashwords and others.
————————————————————————————————-
Top | Bottom
Everyone says they want to be their own boss, but very few people know how.
This book will help you learn how to think properly about owning a business. It gives you guidelines in setting up your office (in or out of the house), setting your schedule, and establishing your priorities.
Getting started properly will put your business on the road to success.
Available from Audible or in electronic form for $4.99.
Amazon, B&N, iTunes, Kobo, Smashwords and others.
————————————————————————————————-
Top | Bottom
Setbacks happen to everyone. Surviving them is hard.
Surviving failure is even harder. But every successful person has had at least three failures before finding that success.
So how do you turn failure to success? The answers lie in this short book by international bestselling writer, Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
Available from Audible or in electronic form for $4.99.
Amazon, B&N, iTunes, Kobo, Smashwords and others.
————————————————————————————————-
Top | Bottom
Everyone has dreams, but most people don’t know how to achieve them.
Goals help people achieve their dreams, but how do you know if you’ve set the right goals?
In this book-length excerpt from the massive Freelancer’s Survival Guide, international bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch will help you set the right goals to achieve your dreams. She also has tips for staying positive and remaining patient while you’re on the road to success.
Available from Audible or in electronic form for $4.99.
Amazon, B&N, iTunes, Kobo, Smashwords and others.
————————————————————————————————-
Top | Bottom
Most people hate negotiating. Instead of learning it themselves, they hire someone—an agent, a lawyer, a manager—to negotiate for them. But negotiators often do not have their clients’ best interests at heart.
In this short book, international bestselling writer Kristine Kathryn Rusch shows you how to negotiate anything from buying a car to buying a house, from handling a book contract to handling a negotiator.
If you have ever negotiated anything—and who hasn’t?—then this book is for you.
Available from Audible or in electronic form for $4.99.
Amazon, B&N, iTunes, Kobo, Smashwords and others.
————————————————————————————————-
Top | Bottom
Once you’ve become successful, you never have to work again—or so many people believe. But becoming a success is just the start. Staying a success is the hard part.
This short book will help you both become a success and remain one. International bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch will show you the secrets to success that will change your life.
Audiobook available from Audible and iTunes. Available in electronic form for $4.99.
Amazon, B&N, iTunes, Kobo, Smashwords and others.
————————————————————————————————-
Top | Bottom
Celebrities like Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson prove that you can always spend more money than you earn.
Want to know how to make money while self employed? Learn how to manage the money you do earn.
In this short book, international bestselling writer, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, shows you how.
Available from Audible, in print or electronic form from $4.99.
Amazon, B&N, iTunes, Kobo, Smashwords and others.
————————————————————————————————-
Top | Bottom
Networking sounds hard—and it is, if you’re trying to do it “right.” Instead, do it your way.
International bestseller Kristine Kathryn Rusch offers her tips on networking in person. She solicited the help of great online networkers like bestsellers Neil Gaiman and Michael A. Stackpole to give online networking tips.
This short book teaches you everything you need to know about networking—and more!
Available from Audible, in print or electronic form from $4.99.
Amazon, B&N, iTunes, Kobo, Smashwords and others.
————————————————————————————————-
Top | Bottom
Being your own boss means setting your own schedule.
Sounds easy, right? Instead, it’s one of the toughest parts of freelancing.
In this short book, international bestselling writer Kristine Kathryn Rusch shows you how to create a schedule, meet deadlines, take time for vacation, and cope with illness.The perfect guide for freelancers who can’t find enough time in the day.
Available from Audible, in print, or in electronic form from $4.99.
Amazon, B&N, iTunes, Kobo, Smashwords and others.
A Reading Resolution
I love fall. It’s my favorite season.
Even on the coast of Oregon, where seasons are more abstract concept that experience, there’s something about the back-to-school excitement, the crisp air and the anticipation of the upcoming holiday season that just makes anything seem possible.
This is the time of year (not New Year’s, not the approaching summer) that I tend to make resolutions—and actually see them out.