by Allyson Longueira | Nov 12, 2018 | blog, News, Publisher's Note
I’m a schedule-driven person. I need deadlines and organization. Without them, I’ll procrastinate indefinitely. But give me a deadline and I’ll move heaven and earth to meet it.
This year, however, has been chaotic (to put it mildly). Some business years are more challenging than others, and this was one of the more challenging. Because of a couple of unexpected life rolls, we made a lot of changes to some aspects of our business (the retail and teaching side of the business primarily), and I found it was impossible to maintain a schedule.
So, I did what any effective leader does, I adapted. I realized part way into the year that a rigid schedule wasn’t possible, and I would need to be very flexible with handling projects on the fly. The more people involved in a project (and some of our projects, like Fiction River, involve a lot of people), the harder that is, but thanks to our amazing staff, we managed.
The most difficult part of steering a ship through rough waters, as I’ve done this year, is time management. So, how do you manage when there literally is not enough time in the day?
It means knowing that you’ll get overwhelmed and being honest with yourself about how long you can continue working at that pace. It means controlling what you can and recognizing what you can’t but leaving room in the day/week/month for the unexpected. It means, if you’re a schedule-driven person, staying as organized as you can to keep your sanity.
It also means recognizing when you can’t do any more and speaking up.
Sometimes, effective time management means taking time off.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch wrote a wonderful piece called Time Management (it is part of her Freelancer’s Survival Guide as well as a standalone short book). I find it a handy book to help remind me of best practices during challenging times.
You can find it here.
Speaking of helpful books, don’t forget that there’s another Freelancer’s Survival Guide Short Book called The Secrets of Success in The 2018 NaNoWriMo Writing Tools Bundle on StoryBundle, which, along with 11 other informative books, is available until the last week in November for National Novel Writing Month.
You can learn more about that bundle here.
But hurry. Time is running out on this one.
And while you’re there, check out the new Valor: Military SF Storybundle. I’ll have more information about that one in next week’s Publisher’s Note.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer.
by Allyson Longueira | Oct 1, 2018 | blog, News, Publisher's Note
I was reminded recently how incredible fast childhood goes by. My daughter has suddenly reached the very beginning stages of puberty.
“Mommy, I’m becoming a little woman,” she said when I finally accepted and acknowledged the signs.
“NOOOOOOOOOOO!” I screamed silently.
Time, it seems, moves faster and faster. And childhood, for us adults, is gone in the blink of an eye.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
But when it comes to thrillers, things should move fast. And our latest volume of Fiction River doesn’t disappoint.
Here’s the synopsis for Pulse Pounders: Countdown:
The relentless ticking of a clock as time slips away marks the breathless pace of these remarkable stories. In Fiction River’s third edition of its Pulse Pounders series, these sixteen authors push the envelope of the thriller form. From a man desperately searching for his missing little girl to a chef racing to finish a cooking competition to an airship captain facing a deadly adversary, these stories will keep your pulse racing until the very end.
Table of Contents
“Payback is a Bitch” by Diana Deverell
“Death-Blind” by Robert Jeschonek
“The Airship Adventures of Captain Jane Fury” by Anthea Sharp
“Fifteen Men on a Dead Man’s Chest” by Henry Martin
“The Tomb of Arisel” by Bonnie Elizabeth
“Goodnight, Madison” by Lisa Silverthorne
“Romancing the Puffin” by Louisa Swann
“Dominant Species” by Dayle A. Dermatis
“Three Seconds” by T. Thorn Coyle
“Blood Chase” by Leah Cutter
“Caterpillar Boot Man” by Valerie Brook
“The Case of the Dead Son” by Laura Ware
“Breakfast at Luigi’s” by Thea Hutcheson
“Black Phantom, Gray Op” by Stefon Mears
“The Last Ramekin” by Liz Pierce
“The Princess, the Huntsman and the Monster” by Erik Lynd
We can’t control time, but we can put it to good use. And the countdown to this latest volume of Fiction River is now over. You can buy it here.
Or and let Fiction River show up in your inbox automatically. Now, that’s a real time-saver.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer.
by Allyson Longueira | Jun 18, 2018 | blog, News, Publisher's Note
School ended for my daughter last Friday, which for me marks the official start of summer.
As a now third-grader (when did that happen???), we’re shifting from viewing summer as a time for full-time daycare to a time of summer camps and sports camps and sundry other activities. More planning for me, but also more fun for her.
Some of the activities she has coming up: cheerleading practice, theater camp, volleyball camp, art classes, and even some science classes thanks to our proximity to the Hatfield Marine Science Center.
And because I’m thinking about summertime adventures for my school-age child, I thought this would be a good time to remind you about a fantastic young adult novel by Dean Wesley Smith that involves sun and sand and lots of heart-stopping adventure.
Here’s the synopsis for The Adventures of Hawk:
USA Today bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith takes us on a thrill-ride adventure in some of the world’s most exotic places.
In search of his missing father, Danny Hawk must survive against all odds and a long way from home.
In 1970, Egypt breeds danger for Hawk and his friends. Hawk’s only hope to find his father rests in staying alive and ahead of the dangerous men chasing him.
Sometimes only a half-step ahead.
You can pick up a copy of the ebook or trade paperback here.
Now, I must go plan more summer adventures for my daughter—but hopefully none quite so thrilling as those in Dean’s book <grin>.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer.
by Allyson Longueira | Apr 2, 2018 | blog, News, Publisher's Note
We had quite the adventurous cat week here at WMG. But first, some background.
On the publishing side of the business, we are decidedly cat people (and based on the sales of our cat-related fiction, many of you are, too). Every single publishing employee has at least one cat. Most of us have two or more. And that leads to a lot of cat-person bonding.
So, when one of us has a cat in distress, we all feel their pain.
For example, Dean drove the cats from the Rusch-Smith household from Lincoln City to Las Vegas on Tuesday to join Kris in their new digs. If you’ve never driven that far with cats, let me tell you it’s one of the more stressful things one can do.
When it came time to load the cats in the car, Gwyneth and Josh headed over to help. Once everyone was settled, Dean started the drive of great distress.
But they all made it safely, thank goodness, and Dean is still in one piece, so mission accomplished. Now comes the cat-adjustment-to-new-home period. But by the end of this week they should be right as rain.
Meanwhile, I had scheduled a dental cleaning for one of my cats that morning (I have a pair of 14-year-old brothers and an unrelated 12-year-old male Maine Coon). Sydney and Truman (the brothers) don’t act at all like they are 14, but the fact is that they are, so I worry more now than I did about procedures that require anesthesia. But Sydney’s bloodwork came back great (he has the numbers of a toddler cat, the vet said) and he made it through the procedure just fine. I dropped him off at home and headed back to work.
Not 10 minutes later I got a text from my husband, John, saying Truman hurt his back leg. Truman. Not Sydney. Confused, I rushed back home.
As we hurried off to the vet (who got us in 10 minutes after we called, thank goodness), we tried to piece together what happened. Sydney had been wandering around the house a bit disoriented. John heard a hiss, a thump, and a yowl, then Truman came limping around to the living room from the stairs and lay down unable to move further. Our best guess is they had a tiff (not uncommon when one cat comes home from the vet) and Truman tried to jump on the banister but missed and fell awkwardly on the stairs.
Whatever happened, it became apparent from the first X-ray that Truman had broken his back leg. Badly. His right hind femoral bone was in pieces.
Lincoln City is a small town, so no one here could handle that kind of injury. Our vet sent us to Portland to an emergency vet, who then sent us on to Vancouver, Wash., because the Portland clinic didn’t have an orthopedic surgeon available soon enough. Truman needed surgery ASAP if there was a chance of saving his leg. (And once again, it was Gwyneth to the rescue, coming over to sit with Sydney as he recovered from his anesthesia while we were 2.5 hours away.)
I won’t go into all the gory details but amputation and euthanasia were all on the table as potential outcomes at one point.
Thank goodness, Truman is as healthy as his brother and the surgeon (who was amazing) successfully repaired the break with a long bone plate, 17 screws, and a surgical pin.
Truman is back home and has begun the long recovery process. At least 6 weeks in human time (that’s like four months in cat time).
Thus concluded our cat adventure-filled spring break.
I hope your week was decidedly less traumatic.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer.
by Allyson Longueira | Mar 12, 2018 | blog, Publisher's Note
We humans are obsessed with time. It’s a fickle creature. As children, it seems to pass with maddening slowness. As we age, time passes more and more rapidly until we wonder where it all went.
Perhaps that is why we are equally obsessed with time travel. If we could just control it…
And we do, kind of. We manipulate our days with Daylight Saving Time, for example, like we did just yesterday.
(Was it intentional or a remarkable coincidence that the movie version of A Wrinkle in Time released on Daylight Savings Time weekend? Hmmm…)
Time is my most precious resource. I would far rather spend money (which I thankfully have as an option) to save time. I hire a housecleaner for that purpose, for example.
Still, there never seems to be enough time.
Hence, the aforementioned obsession.
And while I can’t offer you a real-world solution to our problem of time, I can certainly offer you some fictional escapes that involve time travel.
While we have many titles that use time travel as a plot point, the most prominent one is the Thunder Mountain series.
If you haven’t read this series yet, you’re missing out. An innovative series that defies genre classification, USA Today bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith’s Thunder Mountain Series offers a compelling mix of science fiction, time travel, historical fiction set in the Old West, and even a dash of romance.
Your most economical entry into this series is through The Thunder Mountain Starter Bundle, which includes the first three books in the series: Thunder Mountain, Monumental Summit, and Avalanche Creek, and is available in ebook for $7.99.
The series totals 12 books so far, and all are available in ebook and trade paperback. Additionally, the first 8 books are available in audiobook.
So, go ahead and give yourself permission to lose track of time for awhile. That’s better than losing it, to be sure.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer.
by Allyson Longueira | Dec 29, 2017
Cold Poker GangMystery Available in:ebook, $3.99trade paperback, $9.99Hardcover, $29.99ISBN 978-1561460366 Get the ebook! Get the ebook direct from WMG! Get the trade paperback! Get the hardcover! Burn Card:A Cold Poker Gang Mystery Dean Wesley Smith Retired Las Vegas...
by Allyson Longueira | Mar 13, 2017 | blog, News, Publisher's Note
The year 1991 was a very important year for me. It’s the year I graduated from high school. It’s the year I started college. It’s the year I turned 18. Really, it’s the year I became an adult.
It was an important year in US history, too. The Cold War ended. The first Gulf War began. We watched a videotape of LAPD officers beating Rodney King, and police brutality became a national discussion topic.
And in the publishing industry, a publication called Pulphouse: A Fiction Magazine, edited by Dean Wesley Smith, was launched.
Now, 26 years later, I’ve found myself reconnecting with classmates I haven’t talked to since high school and college. Topics such as the Cold War, the Gulf War, and police brutality continue to make the news. And Pulphouse Fiction Magazine will soon return to print.
And although time changes all things, many aspects of Pulphouse will remain. Dean remains editor, so the tone of the magazine will remain very similar to its original incarnation. And Kristine Kathryn Rusch, who edited Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine, is tied to this new project, too.
Despite the fact that WMG didn’t exist during the magazine’s first run, we will honor all unfulfilled Pulphouse subscriptions with either a four-volume ebook subscription (no need to figure out how many issues you had left…you’ll automatically get a full year) or a lifetime ebook subscription (for lifetime subscribers). Just email us at subscriptions@wmgpublishingmail.com.
We’ve been working on this for a while, and I’m thrilled to add this magazine—a three-time Hugo Award finalist—to our product line.
The first release will be a limited edition Issue Zero, which will be available only via Kickstarter later this year. So, stay tuned.
And if you read this blog regularly, you might remember me mentioning I was surrounded by some amazing authors and editors a couple of weeks ago. Well, while other WMG editors bought stories for seven new volumes of Fiction River, Dean bought stories for five issues of Pulphouse.
See, I told you it was exhausting and exhilarating around here. My brain is still recovering, but I couldn’t wait any longer to tell you about Pulphouse. You can read more about the history and future of Pulphouse in Dean’s blog here.
And really, you should.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer.
by Allyson Longueira | Dec 12, 2016 | blog, News, Publisher's Note
In book publishing, we, the publishers, purchase the rights, from authors, to publish their creations. This involves negotiation. These rights can be all-encompassing in form (ebook, paperback, hardcover, audiobook, reprint, etc.) and in region (worldwide version region) or they can be parsed out. For a few WMG books, we have the ebook rights only. For some we have ebook, paperback and hardcover but not audiobook. We usually have worldwide rights, but for three books, we had only partial regional rights (not North America, for example, but most of the rest of the world regions).
(And if you’re interested in learning more about how this whole rights thing works, you should read Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s invaluable Closing the Deal…on Your Terms.)
But we received an early Christmas present here at WMG. The North American rights for those three books reverted to the author. And WMG has contracted with that author to publish those books worldwide.
This would be exciting news for any project. But it’s particularly exciting because I’m talking about Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s wildly popular first three Diving novels: Diving into the Wreck, City of Ruins, and Boneyards.
Now, our North American readers can buy those first three novels (we already publish the fourth and fifth worldwide) from this amazing series. And I can show you the amazing covers the wonderful Philcold did for these books (he creates the art for this entire series).
If you haven’t read this series yet, now is the perfect time to start. And if you have, you still might want to pick up the paperback versions of these beautiful books.
As a reminder, The Falls—the fifth novel in this series and one from the Diving Universe rather than featuring Boss, Coop and the rest of the main crew—came out this fall. And Boss returns next fall in the sixth novel, The Runabout.
I wish you happy holiday reading full of exciting space adventure.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer.
by Allyson Longueira | Nov 30, 2016
Browse more Books Search for: The WMG Newsletter Get advanced notice of new releases, bonus content, and so much more. Subscribe Now Fiction River Available in: ebook, $6.99 Trade paperback, $15.99 ISBN 978-1-56146-764-8 Buy Now! Fiction River: Last Stand Edited by...
by Allyson Longueira | Nov 21, 2016 | blog, Publisher's Note
The world seems to be on tilt lately. But now it is time for us to be thankful.
And we need that goodwill now more than ever it seems.
As for me, I am thankful for many things, including you, dear readers.
So to say thank you, I offer you this humorous time warp to a time gone by…
Click here to read for free (this week only).
Click here to buy (if you wish to keep this story on hand for a rainy day).
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer.
by Allyson Longueira | Oct 31, 2016 | blog, Publisher's Note
Monster-themed pumpkins lurk on my front porch, candy fills various bowls in my kitchen, and costumes hang at the ready. Bring it on, Halloween.
I’ve always loved Halloween. As I’ve mentioned, I’m not a big fan of horror or spooky things, but Halloween is just the right amount of creepy. And I love seeing the kids’ costumes.
Halloween is also a great time for reading, with plenty of ghosts and vampires—some scary, some not—haunting the pages.
So, as a treat for you this Halloween, I’m making a few reading recommendations and telling you where you can read a free story this week.
If you want a good dose of horror, try:
Sins of the Blood by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Façade by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
The Devils’ Churn by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Fiction River: Haunted
If you want some paranormal activity mixed with a little romance (and perhaps some humor), try:
Heaven Painted as a Poker Chip by Dean Wesley Smith
The Slots of Saturn by Dean Wesley Smith
Simply Irresistible by Kristine Grayson
Fiction River: Christmas Ghosts
And if you want that treat I mentioned, read Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s “Victims” for free this week on her website. Click here.
See, no tricks.
Happy Halloween!
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer.
by Allyson Longueira | Mar 14, 2016
Browse more Books Search for: The WMG Newsletter Get advanced notice of new releases, bonus content, and so much more. Subscribe Now Ghost of a Chance Fantasy Available in: ebook, $3.99 Trade paperback, $7.99 ISBN 978-1-56146-753-2 Buy the Ebook now! The Cop Car A...
