Well, I’m not where I thought I’d be this week. I was supposed to be in Las Vegas for the Science Fiction/Mystery Craft Workshop Kristine Kathryn Rusch is teaching this week. Instead, I’m coordinating it virtually from my office on the Oregon Coast.
Thanks, (Winter Storm) Heather.
I’m consoling my broken heart by focusing on other hearts instead. The hearts in our Hearts Collide Kickstarter, of course!
We’ve already funded, been named a Kickstarter Project We Love, and hit our first stretch goal. And there are so many great rewards on offer!
There’s the titular projects themselves, of course. One hundred strange romance stories by Kris and Dean Wesley Smith, available in five volumes in ebook, trade paperback or hardcover. (To see more about what we mean by “strange romance,” check out the Kickstarter video and read the story.)
Anyone who follows this blog knows we launch Kickstarters regularly. But one of our favorites every year is the Make 100 Kickstarter.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith have been writing professional short stories for four decades that have won awards and sold millions of copies, plus they have been acclaimed and enjoyed by fans over the entire world. So, we have lots of stories to pull from for these projects.
Those stories cover a lot of genres, including romance. But they write what they call “strange romances.” When they commit romance, it tends to be in just about any genre and on any topic, but always with that underlying feel of a romance.
So, for this year’s Make 100 Kickstarter we’re collecting their “strange romance” stories together into special volumes called Hearts Collide, just like we did with Fantasies Collide last year for the fantasy stories, Crimes Collide the year before for the mystery stories, and Colliding Worlds the first year for their science fiction.
These five Hearts Collide volumes contain 100 strange romance stories, half from Kris and half from Dean.
In addition to such fantastic rewards as the five Hearts Collide volumes in ebook, trade paperback, hardcover, and signed/limited hardcover, we also have lots of other romance book options, including past Make 100 volumes, as well as special workshops for writers and our Buy Everything subscription.
Click here to be notified as soon as the Kickstarter launches tomorrow.
What a lovely way to kick off the new year!
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
It’s been a busy year for WMG Publishing! While we added to some of our most popular and familiar publications and series, we also launched a whole bunch of new ventures.
We ran eight Kickstarters, all of which funded, most of them within an hour of launch. And we published more than a dozen books as a result of those Kickstarters, including two books in award-winning author Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s fan-favorite and bestselling Diving series. Those were The Court-Martial of the Renegat Renegades and Ivory Trees.
We had the annual subscription drive for Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, which was not only successful but also marked the change from six issues a year to monthly! The first monthly issues featured new works from Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Pulphouse regular Annie Reed. Upcoming featured authors include Scott Edelman and Kevin J. Anderson. If you haven’t subscribed yet, it’s not too late! Click here.
In January we participated in Kickstarter’s Make 100 projects with our third Make 100. We started with Colliding Worlds, 120 sf stories in six volumes in 2021; followed that up with Crimes Collide, 100 mystery stories in 2022; and in 2023 we did Fantasies Collide, 100 fantasy stories. Each series has five volumes (with the exception of Colliding Worlds, which has six) and fifty stories each by Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch in every volume.
And we’re planning a new Make 100 project this January! This time, it’s all about Romance…
Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith curated five StoryBundles in 2023, everything from Fantasy/Steampunk, to Cattitude, to Halloween and finally Good Cheer this Christmas holiday season. In addition, in June Kris curated The Write Stuff StoryBundle, and out of that we published the 21st WMG Writer’s Guide, Kris’s How Writers Fail: Analysis and Solutions, the following month.
All of the above-mentioned books and magazines are now available in our new online stores. Designed and put together by our brilliant new Advertising & Accounts Executive, Stephanie Writt, these stores offer all of our publications plus some very cool new merchandise—direct to the reader with no vendors such as Amazon or Apple or Barnes & Noble involved. We can give our readers and subscribers all kinds of discounts and bargains!
In total the four stores have more than 1,000 items for sale, including ebooks and fun things such as mugs and calendars, sweatshirts and blankets, and much, much more. Paperbacks are coming soon!
The Mothership at wmgbooks.com has all things WMG. OK, we are still adding some of the hundreds of individual short stories we publish, but we’re nearly there. With the scores of stories by Kris and Dean, it’s been an exciting challenge to get everything listed!
Pulphouse Fiction Magazine has its own store now, too, with all of the issues of the current iteration of the magazine, plus all of the Pulphouse books and tons of fun merchandise.
Our fourth store to launch is the WMG Holiday Spectacular. It has all the themed anthologies from our very first Holiday Spectacular Calendar of Stories in 2019 through the 2022 anthologies, plus the mega-compilation volumes with every story from every year. There are lots of beautiful holiday items from cozy blankets to mugs for hot beverages to coasters and pillows, all with classic holiday art from the wonderful Giordano Studios. We just wrapped up the 2023 WMG Holiday Spectacular Calendar of Stories today, but if you missed it, you can preorder the annual compilation, which will release in July.
Dean and Kris continue to expand the workshop offerings for writers on Teachable. They started several new series in 2023 including Motivational Mondays, The Decade Ahead, a virtual course where participants could attend the Licensing Expo with Dean as guide, courses such as the Indie Writer’s Guide to Shopify that includes weekly Zoom meetings, courses on creating merchandise for your fans—and lots more.
Very exciting courses and challenges for writers, and there’s lots coming in 2024, including the return of the Anthology Workshop!
So, it’s been a super busy year at WMG Publishing, with lots of new books, products, stores, workshops and magazines!
We wish you all a Happy New Year, and we look forward to hearing from you in the days ahead!
Merry Christmas to all who celebrate! We at WMG are home celebrating this joyful day with our families.
And so, instead of the usual blog, here is a gift from us to you. A delightful free story about Christmas and families by Kristine Kathryn Rusch called “Christopher’s Crummy Christmas.”
First, the2023 Good Cheer StoryBundle, curated by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and featuring 10 story collections perfect for the holiday season.
Here’s a quick overview about the bundle:
Make time for great fiction during the holidays: Read a holiday short story or two. Or three. Or a hundred. The Good Cheer StoryBundle gives you dozens and dozens of holiday stories, all to suit your mood. From mystery to science fiction, from Solstice stories to the traditional Christmas fare, the Good Cheer bundle has something for everyone—even people who only have a few minutes to read.
This bundle features three WMG titles (Jingle My Bells, Winter Holidays, and Stories for the Cold of Winter) as well as three StoryBundle exclusives (Uncommon Holidays, Unexpected Santas, and Holiday Hope).
Speaking of great holiday short stories, for Pulphouse Fiction Magazine #24, editor Dean Wesley Smith gathered some of the best Pulphouse writers and their best fun and unexpected holiday season stories.
This issue also includes a special original holiday story by Annie Reed.
Here’s a look at the table of contents:
“First Chair” by Annie Reed
“Scrooge and Marley” by David H. Hendrickson
“Krampus and His Theoretical Heart” by Rob Vagle
“Santa Sata-ni-fied” by Stephannie Tallent
“Desperate Housewitches” by Dayle A. Dermatis
“The Pain” by O’Neil De Noux
“What Fits” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
“Harsh Expectations” by R.W. Wallace
“It’s a Wonderful Death” by Robert Jeschonek
“Up On the Rooftop” by Kristine Grayson
“Minions at Work” by J. Steven York
Click here to buy this issue of Pulphouse. And click here to check out the holiday Pulphouse merchandise.
Happy reading, and from all of us here at WMG, we wish you a very merry and happy week full of fun and festivities, no matter what you happen to celebrate!
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
These are the last few days for the very special Kickstarter called Never Before Seen: Six Original Mysteries by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. This is the first time Kris has experimented with doing a Kickstarter for her work of this length, and we’re so pleased with the success it has already achieved.
But we’re not done yet. We’ve hit XX stretch goals so far, and we have at least one more special stretch goal up our sleeves.
These six mysteries come with any reward, and we’ve also put together rewards with some of Kris’ and WMG’s other mystery titles, so you have plenty of options to choose from.
Plus, there’s the special workshop— a brand-new DOWN IN THE DETAILS series of classes called HOW TO WRITE PERFECT CRIMES THROUGH THE AGES—and the special BUY EVERYTHING lifetime subscription to every ebook WMG publishes!
We’re launching a very special Kickstarter just in time for the holidays. This one is ebook only and will be fulfilled by Christmas, so if you’re shopping for mystery-lovers, we’ve got the gifts for you!
Kris is known for her award-winning mysteries, and getting six new stories at one time is really special!
Here’s a look at the new covers.
These six mysteries come with any reward, and we’ve also taken the opportunity to put together rewards with some of Kris’ and WMG’s other mystery titles, so you have plenty of options to choose from.
Add in the special workshops, which will be announced when the Kickstarter goes live, and the special BUY EVERYTHING lifetime subscription to every ebook WMG publishes, and it’s a mystery wonderland!
Happy Cyber Monday! I know that’s not a real holiday. It’s a made-up retail holiday. Just like Black Friday and Small Business Saturday. But still. Deals!
We celebrate all of those here at WMG because we are a small business with a series of online stores. And we’re celebrating all that this year with a huge sale and some brand-new holiday merchandise!
Now through midnight PST on Tuesday, Nov. 28, you can save 30% on books, 25% (plus free shipping) on merchandise (US only), and 50% on everything we offer on WMG’s Teachable site.
That 30% off on books goes for every ebook we have for sale (and we have many, from short stories to magazines to collections to novels) at the WMG Holiday Spectacular Store, the Diving Store, the Pulphouse Fiction Magazine Store and The Mothership (wmgbooks.com).
Plus, festive merchandise like blankets, mugs, puzzles, and the newly created holiday stockings and ornaments on all three specialty stores (Holiday, Diving, and Pulphouse) all at a 25% discount and free shipping (US only)!
And gift cards! You can buy gift cards on the Holiday the Diving stores and give them as gifts to be delivered at the date you choose!
And last but not least is an item that is NOT part of the sale but is a hell of a deal that we’re offering for the FIRST TIME EVER!
With the new WMG Books BUY EVERYTHING Lifetime Subscription, you can get access to every eBook on the WMG shelves. EVERY eBook. Now and published in the future. That’s already more than a thousand titles.
I’m all geared up for Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey, check. Sides, check. Pies, check. Heck, I even bought fresh cranberries this year to make homemade cranberry sauce.
But what I’m looking forward to most is the downtime with my family. We’re a quiet bunch (well, my husband and I are, at least), and once we’ve eaten our fill, we’ll be ready to settle in with a good story or two.
And if you love reading as much as we do (and I suspect you do because you’re reading this blog), the WMG Holiday Spectacular Calendar of Stories is the perfect way to enjoy some season’s reading.
A holiday story a day delivered right to your inbox. Holiday romances, holiday mysteries, holiday stories from different places and different genres and different perspectives! Every day from (American) Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day. And it’s not too late to subscribe!
Just click here to go to the WMG Holiday Spectacular Store where you’ll find the calendars, the anthologies, and even merchandise like puzzles to help you pass the quiet time once you’ve read the story each day.
So, gear yourself up for your own holiday quiet time. Happy reading!
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
I got my annual flu shot and Covid booster last week, which reminded me of how much has changed since the pandemic but also how much has settled back into its new normal.
I’ve been getting Covid vaccines since I was first eligible, and the annual booster the past couple of years. But the Covid booster experience was different this year. Gone are those vaccination cards we guarded with plastic sleeves and took with us everywhere a couple of years ago. Now, it’s just another shot in the arm.
The world is different now, but vestiges of the old world sometimes come back to life.
Like the WMG Anthology Workshop for writers, which fell victim to the pandemic (it’s an in-person workshop, so…). We brought back our smaller in-person workshops last year, but this one is much larger: 40 people. So, it took us longer to be comfortable bringing that one back.
But that time has come.
Here are the details:
Back by Popular Demand! The WMG Anthology Workshop!
The annual WMG Anthology Workshop had long been a must-attend event for writers. But it was one of the many casualties of the pandemic. Now, after years of requests to bring it back, WMG has found a way!
So, in July 2024, the WMG Anthology Workshop will return to Las Vegas—now at Resorts World! Write and submit stories to four professional editors for consideration at 6 cents/word and see them live edit the anthologies! There is no other workshop like this out there, which is why WMG worked so hard to bring it back!
For contracting reasons, we can’t finalize the exact week until February, but the workshop will NOT be held over the 4th of July holiday.
The workshop will last four days, beginning early on Monday and ending at noon on Thursday. There will also be a hospitality room for evening gatherings from Sunday to Wednesday.
Writers will write and submit their stories during late April and May.
For logistical reasons, workshop attendance will be capped at 40 people. The fee for the class is $900. Due to the high demand, you must be fully paid to hold your spot. (Workshop fees are fully refundable up to two months ahead. After that, they are transferrable.)
Don’t miss out on this one-of-a-kind workshop! Reserve your spot today by emailing Dean here [dean.wmgworkshops@gmail.com]. (If you have attended an in-person workshop before, simply send the $900 fee to PayPal using this address: dean@wmgpublishingstore.com, then email Dean that you have done so here [dean.wmgworkshops@gmail.com]. He will let you know that the payment was received and that you are on the list.
I can’t emphasize enough how game-changing this workshop is for writers. If as a writer, you want to understand what goes through an editor’s mind when evaluating a story and deciding whether to buy it, there’s no other experience like this out there. It’s such a revelatory experience!
One of the editors you’ll see in action is Kristine Kathryn Rusch. She’s a master editor and a master writer herself. And her latest Diving Universe novel hits shelves on Tuesday, Nov. 14!
If you missed the Ivory Trees Kickstarter, now’s your chance to pick up this fantastic book in ebook, trade paperback or hardcover.
Here’s the synopsis:
Ancient tech draws dangerous unwanted attention in international bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s Ivory Trees, the thrilling new standalone novel in her award-winning Diving series.
When the discovery of a bunker reveals a treasure trove of ancient artifacts, interested parties throughout the Empire—from collectors to academics to researchers—want a piece of the action. But the finds draw attention from outside the Empire as well. Attention from someone willing to do whatever it takes to outmaneuver the Empire and secure the collection.
Set in Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s expansive Diving Universe, Ivory Trees introduces exciting new characters and events to this powerfully written series, while also offering some tantalizing Easter eggs from previous Diving novels.
As suspense builds to a fevered intensity, this tantalizing new novel mixes the best of heist fiction and space opera and proves Rusch’s place as a master of science fiction.
We’re very cheery here at WMG headquarters this week. Not only are we all aglow at the incredible support we received from our Kickstarter backers for the 2023 WMG Holiday Spectacular, but we’re also glittering with excitement at the launch of our new WMG Holiday Spectacular online store!
And gift cards! You can buy gift cards on the WMG Holiday Spectacular store and give them as gifts to be delivered at the date you choose!
Plus, festive holiday merchandise like blankets, mugs, and puzzles, all at a 25% discount and free shipping (US only)!
Click here to go directly to the WMG Holiday Spectacular store.
And for writers (these make great gifts, too) is the 50% off sale on our WMG Teachable site. That discount also applies to the brand-new Shopify Class as well as the 2024 Advanced Craft Classes.
To learn more about the new class and to read more about the Teachable part of the grand-opening sale, click here.
What a great way to check off your holiday shopping to-do list!
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
It felt only appropriate to write my blog this week from a local restaurant called the Coven Café, where I enjoyed a Black Magick mocha and a pumpkin pastie. (Well, I enjoyed those before I wrote this blog because there is no magic spell that can get pastry crumbs out of a Mac laptop keyboard.)
And unlike in the world of Harry Potter, there is no magic spell to knit bones back together. Dean Wesley Smith could have used one of those spells last weekend after he shattered his shoulder in a fall during a race (read more on his blog here), but his orthopedic surgeon worked his own form of magic to fix Dean right up. He’s now on the mend, thank heavens.
This time of year, it feels like magic is all around us. From the darker magic of Halloween to the lighter magic of Christmas.
And this week is your last chance to grab a bounty of fabulous fiction appropriate for each of those holidays.
For Halloween fans, the 2023 Halloween StoryBundle, curated by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, ends this week. It features ten ebooks (including three offerings from WMG—Halloween Harvest, FantasyLife and Other Stories, and Three Sheets to the Wind—plus four StoryBundle exclusives). You can learn more about it here.
For Christmas and other winter holiday fans, the 2023 WMG Holiday Spectacular Kickstarter is in its final days, too. We’ve hit five stretch goals so far, which means in addition to the amazing Calendar of Stories featuring a story a day for 40 days from American Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, all backers also get the following:
Stories:
BY THE CHIMNEY WITH CARE
STILLE NACHT
AND A CUP OF GOOD CHEER
THREE WISHES BEFORE A FIRE
LOSING DOLLY
Writing classes:
1… How to Write Cross-Genre Holiday Stories About Baking, Desserts, and Cookies
2… How to Write Cross-Genre Holiday Stories about Holiday Meals
3… How to Write Cross-Genre Holiday Stories About Holiday Decorations
4… How to Write Cross-Genre Holiday Stories About Family and Traditions
That’s a $600 combined value just for the workshops, and 45 total stories to read: 5 shortly after the Kickstarter ends and 40 throughout the holidays!
Plus, there’s beautiful holiday merchandise, Kickstarter-exclusive writing workshops that will be on every writer’s wish list, and so much more.
