The Weblog Backstory

So... About that publishing thing

The hard, cold publishing numbers

Rebel Tales is on its way to real

Rebel Tales Writers' Guidelines now posted

Rebel Tales -- My War for the Midlist

 

More Than Words

Yeah, if you've been around a while, you'll recognize that as the title of Extreme's big hit.

And we're words. Lots of them. Hundreds of thousands of them in every season.

But we're more than words here, too.

You'll get live interviews, movies, maps, illustrations, and everything else we need to bring the down and dirty on the making of good fiction to you, and make sure you "get it."

I wanted to publish good fiction

Not my own...I've done fine getting my work published.

But I had a clear idea of the kind of books I wanted to read, and I wanted more of them.

I like working with writers, I like being in the position of presenting good work to people, and though this is probably a bit odd, I not only like making money, but I like helping other folks make money. I enjoy being in the position of paying writers for their work.

I wanted to break the Internet Fiction Barrier

The majority of fiction posted and published on the internet is awful.

The majority of all fiction is awful, frankly, but once it's gone through an editor filter, you do get a better class of awful.

So people don't read fiction on the Internet.

A lot of that is because reading from a screen is no fun. A lot of it is that nobody can find anything worth reading. A lot of it is that books are traditional.

Getting people to read fiction online is an uphill battle.

I wanted to help writers write better

Getting writers to read writing information online, however, is pretty easy. And I have a lot of short courses, e-books, and big courses out there to teach writers how to write better.

But sometimes you really need to look at publishing from the inside. It's one of the biggest requests I get---"Can you create a course that gives writers an inside look at publishing?"

But that's something you learn a whole lot better by doing than by reading about.

So...
I Figured Out A Way
To Combine
Publishing Good Fiction and Benefitting Writers

On the surface, every season of Rebel Tales is about the fiction. It has to be good before I'll publish it. And if you just want to read the fiction, you can read a whole lot of it for a phenomenal price.

But if you're a writer, you need to understand fiction, to see how it's put together, to dig through the pieces that caused it to be created. You want to see exactly what makes a particular piece of fiction work. So at the Backstage Pass level, you'll be able to discover how editors edited each part of each story, how we selected the stories we chose, how the writers presented their work that got our attention, how they came up with their ideas in the first place.

You'll hear them talk about their work, ask them questions, get to know our editors, and get one detailed breakdown by me every issue on why I chose that month's feature story, what made the story work... everything.

Whether you're a reader or a writer, we have something you'll love. And we're so sure of it, you can try out the fiction version of the first installment of EVERY season of Rebel Tales for free.