Dan Moren

  • Ten years of Inconceivable!

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    This week’s episode of The Incomparable’s Game Show podcast—its 250th!—also happens to mark the tenth anniversary of my game show, Inconceivable!. In fact, we recorded this episode ten years to the day of the first episode’s release, which was also, coincidentally, the first episode of Game Show. Fun how that all works out.

    To celebrate, I assembled the six most frequent panelists on the show—Steve Lutz (15 appearances, including this episode), Erika Ensign (15), Liz Myles (13), Kathy Campbell (12), and Tony Sindelar (12)—who were gracious enough to lend their time while not letting the momentousness of the occasion preempt them from indulging in the time-honored pastime of heckling the host.1

    More than any of my shows, this one is a labor of love—emphasis, perhaps, on labor. It takes a lot of work to construct the rounds and to make sure that the answers are both achievable and not too easy (a sentiment that my panelists may not agree with). I’ve been lucky enough to get contributions from a number of friends and listeners over the years, which has made my life considerably easier, but I generally still write the bulk of the shows myself.

    Still, as someone pointed out when I first remarked upon this milestone, I originally had the lofty goal of producing one episode per month of the show, a pace that quickly proved itself unsustainable. (Had I tried, we’d now be celebrating episode 120 of the show and I would probably be dead.) Instead, we’ve averaged 3-4 episodes a year, albeit with some bigger gaps here and there. Not too shabby.

    Sporadic as it may be, I continue to love doing this show and intend for it to continue for the foreseeable future, though I’m not going to unwisely promise any change in our release schedule. I’d like to sent heartfelt thanks to all of my panelists over the years (51 of them, by my count!) as well as my dedicated scorekeeper Lex Friedman and his occasional substitutes—Jason Snell, Tony Sindelar, and Glenn Fleishman—who have all generously stepped into that role when called upon. I also want to credit listener and unofficial Incomparable Archivist Spol for his work in tracking the show’s history on our periodically updated wiki.

    Inconceivable! means a lot to me; below I’m reprinting the blog post I published when it debuted, and I especially want to once again highlight the influence of the radio quiz show Says You!, which finally wrapped up in 2023 after an amazing 26-year run. Since I wrote that post, which was also shortly after Says You! creator and host Richard Sher passed away, we’ve lost a couple of the other contributors to the show, including long-time panelist Arnie Reisman in 2021 and, more recently, occasional panelist Flash Wiley. I’m not really sure if we’ll ever see the likes of the show again2, though I hope Inconceivable! keeps its spirit alive in some small way. And a final thanks to all of you who have listened and supported the show throughout the years—I’m so glad you enjoy it, and I hope it continues to bring you some joy and some laughs throughout times good and bad.

    Inconceivable!

    (Originally published February 13, 2015).

    This is a special one. I’ve always loved game shows, especially ones that involve puzzles or trivia. As a kid, I loved watching Jeopardy! at my grandmother’s house, and I’ve been to several recordings of shows like Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!. A couple years ago, I even fulfilled a dream by appearing as a contestant on a show, NPR’s Ask Me Another. And over on The Incomparable, we’ve done a couple game show episodes in which I took part.

    But I’ve also long wanted to host a show, and after years of vaguely mentioning ideas about it to my partner-in-crime Jason Snell, I finally got off my keister and sat down to write and organize one. You now have it before you, in the form of Inconceivable!, the first episode of which aired earlier this week. I describe it as a game of nerdery and nonsense, in which two teams compete to demonstrate their knowledge of obscure and useless details about things like comic books, sci-fi and fantasy, gaming, and more. (Like all good panel shows, however, that is merely a thin veneer—an excuse for people to get together, joke, and laugh.)

    Writing the show ended up being less harrowing and way more fun than I’d worried. I concocted five rounds, with everything ranging from identifying terms from franchises like Star Trek, Star Wars, and Harry Potter to figuring out mashed-up movies from their combined plots. Every time I re-read my questions in the days leading up to the recording session, I found myself thinking alternately “These are too hard! Nobody’s going to figure these out!” and “These are way too easy! This isn’t a challenge at all!” Which makes me think that their difficulty was just about right. A big part of the fun in shows like these is listening to the panel try to figure out the answer (and, naturally, coming up with hilarious-if-incorrect explanations along the way).

    I was a bit anxious leading up to our recording session, but it went spectacularly well, thanks in no small part to my fantastic panel of veteran Incomparable participants: Scott McNulty, Georgia Dow, Lisa Schmeiser, Tony Sindelar, Erika Ensign, and, of course, Jason Snell himself. None hesitated to embrace the spirit of the game, diving in headfirst, and a lot of fun was had. Special thanks as well to my good friend Lex Friedman, who served as the scorekeeper and announcer. (Which I did indeed pitch to him as being the Carl Kasell to my Peter Sagal).

    I’m now in the process of writing episode two, which will hopefully record in the next few weeks. The panel will probably rotate a bit over the next few episodes, though I expect a lot of the existing panelists to recur—I’d like to eventually create a regular pool, because what I love about so many of these shows is the camaraderie that builds up amongst the participants over time.

    But the launch of this show is a bit bittersweet for me. Perhaps the biggest influence for Inconceivable! was a radio show called Says You!. Most people haven’t really heard of it; it’s somewhat less prominent than Wait Wait and Ask Me Another, but it’s been running since 1996, during which it’s basically had the same panel. (Most of them were Boston-based media personalities when they started, and I believe it began airing locally in Boston first.)

    Says You! revolves around wordplay, with the teams competing to figure out the derivation of popular phrases, figure out the definitions of obscure words, and, yes, decrypt mashed-up movie titles and books. But what I love about is how much fun they always seem to have.

    I used to listen to the show with my folks when I was younger and I’ve been to a half dozen tapings since 2003, most recently this past January. (It was one of the major impetuses to getting me to sit down and finally write Inconceivable!) If you’ve never listened, it’s well worth your time, though you can only catch it on the radio when it airs or by buying specific shows from their store. (Now is the point where I admit my not-so-secret aspiration has long been to be a panelist on the show.)

    The day after the first episode of Inconceivable! aired—in fact, right as we were in the middle of recording our marathon Star Wars: Episode III show for The Incomparable—I saw that Richard Sher, the host, writer, and producer of Says You!, had passed away after a battle with cancer. I found myself a bit blindsided—I’d seen him perform just last month, and though I’d never met him personally, Richard’s been a part of my life for well over a decade. Every week, he and the rest of the panel came into our living room or kitchen, as much a part of our evening as anybody sitting around the dinner table. My family refers to him by first name. Even now, I can hear his deep, somewhat raspy voice in my head.

    I don’t expect that Richard would ever have had reason to hear Inconceivable!, but I hope that if he had he would have been pleased and flattered. To put it bluntly, Inconceivable! wouldn’t have existed without Says You, and I hope that in some small way it lives up to that august standard—I consider it a loving homage to the show that I’ve enjoyed for more than fifteen years.

    Says You will, apparently, go on without Richard’s presence, though it will of course never be quite the same. But I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge everything Richard Sher brought to my life, from the bluff and bluster to the words and whimsy. And if the show I’ve created can bring even a fraction of the joy and laughter that Says You brought me, well, that’s the best way I can think of to honor his memory.

    Thank you, Richard.

    1. It also happened to be Super Bowl Sunday, a fact of which a few of my panelists pointedly reminded me.↩

    2. Alas, my dreams, noted below, of ever being a panelist will probably never be fulfilled.↩

  • Award eligibility for 2024

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    It’s been a while since I put up a formal awards eligibility post, but it’s a new year and, if not a new me then at least a mildly updated me, so let’s do it.

    In 2024, I published two works: the final Galactic Cold War novel, The Armageddon Protocol, and a Galactic Cold War short story, “Sleeping Wolves”. Both of these are eligible for a number of awards, generally in Best Novel and Best Short Story categories. That includes the Hugos (open to any members of WSFS—see below on how you can become one!), the Nebulas (open to members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association only), the Locus Awards (open to all), the Dragon Awards (open to all), as well as more that I may not be aware of. In short, if it’s an award for best novel or short story in 2024, these works are probably eligible.1

    However, there’s one particular place that I think I might have a shot at picking up a nomination, and this may be the last time it’s an option: the Hugo Award for Best Series.

    Here’s the description of the award:

    Best Series: Awarded for multi-installment works appearing in an least three installments with a total of at least 240,000 words. Installments of a series can be of any length; that is, installments of a series do not have to be novel-length works. A qualifying installment must be published in the qualifying year. Once a Series wins the Award, it is no longer eligible even if further installments appear in the series. If a Series is a finalist and does not win, it is no longer eligible until at least two more installments consisting of at lest 240,000 words total appear in subsequent years.

    Given that The Armageddon Protocol drew the Galactic Cold War series to a close, this could be its last year of eligibility.2

    So, how do you nominate something for the Hugos? All you have to do is become a member of the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) before January 31, 2025. This membership is included if you have a virtual or attending membership in this year’s Worldcon in Seattle or were a member of last year’s Worldcon in Glasgow. But you can also just buy a WSFS membership alone for $50, which gives you full ability to contribute when nominations open (probably soon!), as well as letting you vote on the location for the next open Worldcon bid (in this case, 2027). If you’re an avid reader/gamer/watcher of media, this is a way to actually have some ability to get your favorites some recognition!

    I do think it would be an honor to be nominated and to get to throw “award-nominated author” into my bio. Who doesn’t like a little recognition? I’m not above it, is what I’m saying.

    The actual number of nominations to get a work on the ballot is lower than you’d think: for Best Short Story in 2024, the story with the least number of nominations that appeared on the ballot had just 27 votes. For Best Series, that was 79. For Best Novel, it was 91. (Here’s the full data from last year’s nominations and votes, if you’re that kind of nerd, which I am.) None of those are terribly high numbers; in fact, nominations in general tend to have even lower threshold than the actual award ballot itself.

    So if you enjoyed either of my works for last year or are a fan of the Galactic Cold War series as a whole, I’d greatly appreciate your nomination. Even if it’s as simple as having a Goodreads account and helping get The Armageddon Protocol onto a list of eligible books. Thank you!

    1. Honestly, I would love to get A Complicated Profession nominated for a Hugo, but its rules around podcasts and generating income off them are particularly arcane and annoying.↩

    2. Though looking closely here, I guess I could publish a future Galactic Cold War short story and it would still be eligible? What even is a series, I guess?↩

  • My writing finances, 2024

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    January? In this economy?

    I don’t have a lot of new year’s rituals, but the one I have done the best job at sticking with over the past several years is that every January, I look back over the past twelve months and run down my finances for the no-doubt millions of you who are interested in the vagaries of one random dude on the Internet’s career.

    So here I am again, but this time with a big milestone: hard as it is to believe, this past fall marked ten years of being out on my own, which is several years longer than I’ve held any other job in my entire life. But it also means, hurray, a full decade of data about income and my business. As always, I’m indebted to folks like Jim C. Hines who have been sharing their own financial information for many more years than I have.

    Without further ado, let’s dive in.

    (more…)

  • Ten years of writing the future

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    Ten years ago today I was at Macworld‘s San Francisco office, having flown in to cover the announcement of the iPhone 6 and the original Apple Watch the previous day. Mid-morning, as I was still working on some pieces about the event, I was summoned to an all-hands meeting with most 1 of my colleagues, and told that my job had “been impacted.” By like an asteroid or something, I guess?

    From this vantage point, a decade later, it’s kind of wild to think that such an incredibly formative part of my career ultimately lasted less time, from beginning to end, than this ongoing chapter. The last ten years have been jam-packed in both personal and work realms: getting married, buying a house, having a kid on one side; on the other, ten years worth of podcasts and continuing to write about Apple (including for my old employers at Macworld, for whom I’ve written almost 400 columns in the last decade).

    Writing for Macworld had been a dream job—one that I’d coveted since I started reading the magazine as a young teenager. I’m glad that I had that experience, and I don’t think I’d be where I am today without it. But, as I optimistically said in my post-layoff piece (reproduced below in full because it fell off the internet), getting laid off was an opportunity to pursue some of my other dreams.

    And I did! At the time I left Macworld, I’d been banging away at novels for years. I’ve now published five, and my sixth comes out in just two weeks. The next one is in the works.

    I don’t want to make it sound like it’s been all cake and ice cream. At the time I got laid off, I was also struggling with burnout—ten years on, I’m not sure that lingering feeling ever totally goes away so much as it ebbs and flows depending on circumstances. Between being ten years older and having a small kid, my energy levels are not what they once were, so I have to be more judicious about what I take on.

    But overall, I wouldn’t trade the last ten years for anything. As for the next ten years, well, I’ve been reasonably successful in writing my future so far, so why stop now?

    Writing the Future

    (This piece was originally published on September 11, 2014.)

    Writing about Apple has long been one of my dream gigs. When I was thinking about leaving my old career in IT and web development circa 2004, I made a list of jobs I’d love to have—no matter how outrageous or unlikely. Film director, writer for The Daily Show, and perpetual game show guest were all on that list—and so was writing for Macworld. I even emailed editor-in-chief Jason Snell out of the blue to ask how one gets started in that field. He was kind and took the time to reply thoughtfully, and I totally did not follow his advice.

    In 2006, having plunged into unemployment, I got the opportunity to turn that dream into a real-life paying job. After cornering Jason at Macworld Expo, I eventually convinced him to hire me to write for the MacUser blog, and within eighteen months, I started as full-time editor at Macworld. For someone who’d graduated with a degree in English only a few years before, and had basically no training in journalism, it seemed like the best con ever pulled. (Somewhere I’ve still got screenshots of the first time my name showed up on the Macworld homepage.)

    For the last eight years, I’ve devoted most of my waking moments to following Apple coverage. To say that I’ve loved every moment would be an overstatement: like any job, there are plenty of ups and downs; for every triumph, there was an opportunity to learn from mistakes. But I had the privilege of working alongside folks who I’d been a fan of from afar—Jason, Chris Breen, Dan Frakes, Jim Dalrymple, Peter Cohen, Rob Griffiths—folks who worked just as hard, even if their names didn’t always come to the forefront—Scholle Sawyer-McFarland, Philip Michaels, Dan Miller, Jon Seff, Jackie Dove, Jim Galbraith—and folks who I met along the way—Roman Loyola, Serenity Caldwell, Lex Friedman—as well as more freelance contributors than I can name. (Not to mention being the editor of the Macalope—whoever he is—which, among other things, gave me an opportunity to talk to Stephen Fry. Stephen Fry!)

    In my tenure at Macworld, I’ve had a lot of different responsibilities, from writing breaking news to working with freelancers, putting together reviews of iOS, recording podcasts, and, of course, covering Apple live events, like the one earlier this week. Some of these challenges were more satisfying than others, but all of them were, in the end, part of a job that was—if I can veer into the schmaltzy for a moment—a dream come true.

    That said, I’ve also spent plenty of time in the last few years dealing with feeling burned out and overwhelmed, especially as our editorial staff dwindled. That’s perhaps been the biggest challenge I’ve faced to date, and it’s a quiet and troubling one that so many folks encounter and don’t know how to talk about, me included.

    So while leaving Macworld definitely falls into “challenge” category, it’s hard not to feel a certain amount of weight lifted from my shoulders. There’s opportunity here, too. A chance to get back to what I’ve always loved the most: making things. Anybody who’s followed me for any length of time on Twitter knows that I’ve been hammering away on novels for years now, and I’m looking forward to being able to devote to those projects the time they deserve.

    Like the endings of all my favorite stories, this one is bittersweet. It means saying goodbye to friends and colleagues, and stepping away from something to which I’ve given years of my life. But it also means a chance to pare away the things that often take the most out of us. That said, it’s hard to imagine being absent from the Apple and technology scene for too long; it’s too much a part of me.

    But anyway, here we go: Part III, Chapter 1, Scene 1. Etienne Volk reminded me of a line from one of my favorite movies, Lawrence of Arabia, and I can think of no place that it applies more than here: “For some men, nothing is written unless they write it.”

    Here’s to writing the future.

    1. Weirdly not *all*, which probably should have been a sign?↩

  • My writing finances, 2023

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    With apologies to one of my favorite public radio hosts, it’s time to do the numbers.

    Yes, every year around this time I compile a bunch of information about my writing (and podcasting) finances from the past twelve months and post them online for all to see. Why? Self-indulgence? Morbid curiosity? Some deep-rooted issue with numbers that goes back to my kindergarten class when a teacher told me I was bad at math? Maybe all of the above!

    Anyway, tradition means continuing to do a thing that I’ve been doing for the better part of a decade and not really questioning it, so here we are again.

    This originally started out as inspired by a number of other writers; I think Jim C. Hines remains the most consistent among them, but it’s possible others are still posting them these days.

    My usual disclaimer applies: this is my specific career and isn’t broadly applicable to any other freelancers in any of my industries, so don’t try to extrapolate, you’ll just drive yourself up the wall.

    Also as in the past, I don’t disclose my overall dollar figures, but I will say that once again my total gross income for the past year was well under six figures. The below numbers apply only to income generated by my business, not any investments or retirement accounts, nor does it include my partner’s income.

    With that said, here we go—and buckle in, because this is a bit of a long one. It was a year.

    Big picture

    Income vs. expenses over years

    On the broad side, 2023 was another down year for me, which was a bit of a disappointment, though it wasn’t as down as 2022 was from 2021: my overall income declined 5 percent from 2022, almost all of which is attributable to a specific factor (more on which below), which may not seem great, but given that 2022 was down 16 percent from 2021, hey, not too shabby.

    Percentage change of income chart

    Percentage of income by business

    As I concluded last year, freelance life is full of big swings, and rarely seems to grow in a linear fashion (at least for me). So it’s useful, now that I’m closing in on a decade’s worth of data, to consider the big picture by establishing a baseline. 2022’s performance was only 1 percent less than my median income from the past nine years; this year was thus 6 percent below that baseline. Not great, but not terrible. Since striking out on my own in 2015, I’ve been as far as 13 percent below median and as high as 23 percent above.

    The mix of income also changed a bit this year: in 2022, my podcast and freelance tech writing businesses were about even, each accounting for a little less than half my income. Not so in 2023, where tech writing jumped to 53 percent, and podcast income fell below 40 percent—more on which in a bit.

    Honestly, from a qualitative standpoint, looking back at this year tells me that things could have been considerably worse than the way they ended up.

    Podcasts

    Podcast income breakdown

    There was one big factor that contributed most to this year’s overall decline: the podcast ad market was bad. I have two shows that partially rely on advertising, Clockwise and The Rebound, and both had many episodes without ads for big chunks of the year. But this wasn’t unique to my shows; the podcast market overall was down this past year, and they certainly aren’t what they were four or five years ago. I have started to hear optimism about the year ahead, I’ll believe it when I see it.

    Ads have always been a variable business, though, which is one reason that a lot of podcasts—mine included—have moved to direct member support. The good news is average monthly income from members was up, especially for Rebound Prime, which has proved to be very popular—the bad news is that it’s not up enough to compensate for the loss of advertising. But membership has become an increasingly important source of income, and if ads don’t come back, it will be even more so. So, thank you to everybody who directly supports the podcasts you listen to and love: it does make a difference. More importantly, if you’ve been waffling on whether or not to support that podcast you love, do it!

    Freelancing

    The interesting nature of the year doesn’t stop at podcasting! My freelance tech journalism career also underwent a little tumult this year, as one of my biggest clients cut back my regular column to bimonthly (it had previously been cut back from weekly to all-but-one-week-per-month1).

    That was a bit of a hit to be sure, but it didn’t happen until halfway through the year, and thanks to a late-in-the-year freelance project for another site, and a better average monthly rate for my other major client, my tech writing income went down less than 1 percent overall.

    That certainly leaves a lot of questions for next year, but I’m hoping a combination of more freelance client work and lots of interesting stuff to write about in the Apple sphere will keep that chugging along.

    Fiction

    Finally, on to the reason most people tune in: fiction writing. (Well, I think? I don’t really know, but it is the idea this whole thing is predicated upon.)

    It was a really interesting year in my fiction writing career, for a few reasons. As I’ve mentioned in the past, fiction writing income varies widely from year to year, depending on things like new contracts signed, sub-rights sold, or advance installments paid.

    Fiction accounted for a solid 8 percent of this year’s income, compared to just 3 percent in 2022—though keep in mind, as detailed above, overall income being down doesn’t make that an apples-to-apples comparison. Still, it was a good year, my third highest in the time I’ve been writing, and well above both my mean and median yearly fiction income.

    Percentage of income by business over years
    That income was driven by three predominant factors: first, I signed a new contract with my publisher for two books, including the next Galactic Cold War installment, which comes out later this year. My agent also sold the audio rights for that book, which accounted for some decent income.

    Second, royalty income for my existing published books was actually pretty solid.2There’s a bit of a lag between sales and payouts and I think last year’s debut of The Nova Incident bolstered sales of previous volumes in the series. Here’s hoping this year’s sales of The Armageddon Protocol impart a similar boost! (I will note that Nova is the only of my books not to earn out its advance yet, though it’s pretty close, so if you haven’t already bought it, *bats eyelashes*…)

    But wait, you might be saying, didn’t you publish another book this year? Why yes, I did! All Souls Lost is the third factor, but it’s a bit more of a mixed bag financially because it was put out under a different model than my previous work.

    Since my agency published the book, it meant some upfront outlay for me: I essentially fronted money for the cover art, copyedit, and some additional costs (technically, my agency paid them then recouped said costs from my earnings). But, on the upside of this structure, I stand to make a bigger percentage of sales on the back end: around 60 percent on ebook sales, as opposed to the standard 25 percent that most traditional publishers offer.3

    I also only got one payout for sales from All Souls Lost before the end of the year, and that did not include the store from which the bulk of purchases were made, Amazon. (Why? Because Amazon pays people roughly two months after sales, rather than 30 days, like most of the other ebook stores. Thanks, Jeff!) Had that payment been made, I think it would have materially bumped up my overall fiction revenue.

    Interestingly, 2023 could have been an even bigger year: due to the paperwork shenanigans and the usual slowness of the business, two other substantial payments I was expecting didn’t materialize before the end of the year, but will probably show up in January.

    Now, I’m sure there are those among you who wonder: Wait, if you stand to make more from this book published by your agency, why not publish all your books that way?

    Well, there are a few reasons: for one, though I sell way more in ebook than in print, I admit to still having some nostalgic ties to print books. And if you want to get a print book that’s not from a traditional publisher into bookstores, it’s more complicated (but not impossible) this way.

    It also certainly seems to make other things dicier: for example, All Souls Lost got zero reviews in trade publications like Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Kirkus, and so on (even despite the fact that PW gave my previous two Galactic Cold War books starred reviews).

    And if making your traditionally published book stand out is hard—and I think I can say confidently that it is!—it’s even harder without a full marketing department at your back. For a little while, social media seemed poised to help authors spread the word about their work, but in the wake of Twitter’s self-destruction and subsequent fragmentation, it’s gotten that much more difficult to find your audience—not to mention the now built-in expectation that authors will flog their works on social media, which some publishers seem to feel abrogates them of any responsibility for marketing. In short: it’s tough out there for authors.

    But the larger financial issue is that, as I said above, we’re talking upfront costs and then waiting to make them back on royalties. Yes, you have to earn out an advance from a traditional publisher, but at least there money is coming in before (probably) you write the book. If my agency publishes a book and it doesn’t sell (or doesn’t sell to expectations), I could easily end up losing money. In a traditional publishing model, I might not make additional money, but at least I’ve got that advance in the bank: lower potential rewards, but lower risk.4

    For now, I think I’m most likely to continue with a hybrid model of doing some traditionally published books and some agency-published books. It lets me continue to diversify my income and allows me to work on different schedules.

    Wrap up

    So that’s 2023 in a nutshell. On to 2024! I’ve said in the past that my goal has been to steadily increase my fiction writing income, but as I wrote last year:

    I think I’ve realized after six years of detailing my finances that this isn’t going to be a linear sort of affair. Some years are up, some years are down, just as with my overall freelancer income, and while I’d like to see that fiction trendline move more consistently upward over time, I have to resign myself to realizing that it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

    I’m excited about what 2024 has in store on several professional fronts, and I’m hoping that I can devote more time to things that I enjoy doing, and not just the things that bring in the most income.

    I also continue to value the flexibility my career provides: It’s worth noting that pretty much all of last year I was working effectively a 3-4 day week and watching my kid the other days, occasionally squeezing some work in during naptime (his, not mine). As of this month, the kiddo is now in daycare five days a week, so I’m basically back to full time. 5

    As ever, I do want to thank everybody out there who has made this career possible, most especially those of you who support me directly as members of my various podcasts or via my work at Six Colors, as well as every single person who has bought one of my books. This fall will mark 10 years of me being out on my own, an idea that is kind of unfathomable: it’s by far the job I’ve had the longest, and I’m gratified that I can keep doing it—that’s all down to the support of people like you.

    With all that said, I hope you and yours are having a good start to 2024 and what do you say we do this again sometime, maybe January 2025? Great, it’s a date.

    1. There’s really no good word for that, is there?↩

    2. Let’s be clear, though: “pretty solid” means I earned a few hundred bucks per quarter.↩

    3. I’m discounting print and audio here for a couple reasons: a) All Souls Lost print copies weren’t available until the ebook came out, and they’re only for sale via Amazon, which has its own arcane structure for print-on-demand (I’ve been informed the print books are actually available elsewhere!). Plus, ebook sales vastly outweigh print sales. A lot. And b) the audiobook still isn’t out (though it should arrive in just a few weeks), and royalty rates on audio generally have their own weird structures, thanks to things like Audible credits and Spotify’s new Premium streaming service.↩

    4. And, sappy as it may sound, money isn’t everything. If I wanted the biggest return on my books, I could do the publishing myself, as I did for my Galactic Cold War short stories. But then you get into calculations of how much your time is worth; for me, it’s more than worth the commission to have my agency take on some of the work.↩

    5. Which means my revenue automatically goes up 20-40 percent, right? Right? 😅↩

  • One week until ALL SOULS LOST

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    All Souls Lost

    The leaves are changing, the pumpkin spice is flowing, and hard as it is to believe, there’s just a week left until All Souls Lost is out. It’s always a little bittersweet when, after years of working on a project, you reach the moment when it’s no longer just a story that lives in your head, but one that’s out there in the world, subject to all the slings and arrows1 that might get thrown its way. Fly, little story! Be free! Watch out for that hawk!

    Anyway, as we count down the days, I had a couple of tidbits I wanted to throw your way. (Readers of my newsletter will know most of this already, which is a good reason that you should subscribe right now.)

    Paper, please

    Electronic books aren’t everybody’s thing, I get it. There’s something about wood pulp that’s just more aromatic than, uh, electrons. Well, good news: All Souls Lost will be available in print! However, the print copy won’t be on sale until release day (next Tuesday), and it will be available exclusively from Amazon. I know that may disappoint some folks who were interested in getting a signed copy, but or now you’ll have to track me down at a public event if you want your copy autographed. (I’ll also have to see about getting some more appropriate bookplates.)

    Now hear this

    Audiobook fans can also rest easy: there will be a version of All Souls Lost piped directly into your ears. It’s narrated by the excellent Mirron Willis and you can currently preorder it in a few places, including Apple Books and Barnes & Noble. And yes, it should be available on other services, including Audible, hopefully in the near future—I’ve still got my fingers crossed that will be the same time as the print and ebook versions, but I unfortunately can’t guarantee it as some details are still being worked out.

    All Souls Lost: The Soundtrack

    Weirdly, I’ve been writing more in silence lately, but in the past I’ve usually put on movie scores for some background music: much of the Galactic Cold War series owes its inspiration to the likes of Daft Punk’s TRON: Legacy album, the many and varied Mission: Impossible scores, and of course the voluminous oeuvre of John Williams.

    But something about the feel and tone of All Souls Lost called out for something a little different. So allow me to present, for your enjoyment, a (slightly whittled down) version of the playlist I built while working on this novel. It’s a bit eclectic2, like much of my musical taste, but if you want to whet your appetite for the book, you could do worse than putting this on. I’ve embedded the Spotify version below, but it’s also on Apple Music if you’re so inclined.

    I do wish these services would let me annotate the tracks with my own notes about which scenes they go with, but perhaps that’s a project for a little later this fall, once the book is out.

    Anyway, just keep it on repeat until next week, and you’ll be fine. And don’t forget to tell your friends, relatives, and local bus driver to preorder All Souls Lost—it’s the perfect read for spooky season.

    1. Or one-star reviews.↩

    2. A polite of saying “what is wrong with you?”↩

  • All Souls Lost, a brand new novel, coming this October

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    All Souls Lost cover cropI’m going to give myself a finally on this one.

    Back in the summer of 2014, I was still working full-time as an editor at Macworld and I hadn’t yet sold my first novel, but having written the first two Galactic Cold War books, I felt like I needed to take a break, cleanse my palate with something totally different. So inspired by my love of classic hardboiled detectives and the supernatural mysteries of Mike Carey and Ben Aaronovitch, I set out to write a quick little story about a spiritual consultant who works out of an office in the city of Somerville, Massachusetts (where I happen to live). I figured I could dash it off and sock it away to sell after my sci-fi series took off.

    Not unlike my debut novel, it ended up taking way longer than I expected. I actually teased the book in a blog post seven years ago called “Finishing Things”1 and I think I mentioned it in my newsletter once or twice.

    Still, persistence is the better part of valor, or something like that, and now, after nine years, I’m delighted to announce that All Souls Lost is coming out at last, thanks to the tireless effort of the team at JABberwocky Literary Agency. You can check out the full cover and an excerpt over at FanFiAddict for a taste of the book, but here’s a quick description for you:

    Say hello to Mike Lucifer, Spiritual Consultant. He’s back in town to take care of business. Unfortunately, when business is good, things must be very, very bad.
     
    After two years trying to run away from his past, Mike Lucifer’s back in his office less than ten minutes when a persistent young woman shows up asking for help: her boyfriend’s been possessed by a demon.
     
    That’s exactly the kind of mess that drove him from his hometown of Boston to a sunny beach—and the bottom of a bottle—in the first place. But there are some problems that even booze can’t drown, and while Lucifer may be no hero, his dwindling bank account provides a thousand reasons to take the case.
     
    No sooner is he back in the game then the complications and corpses start to add up. The boyfriend’s not possessed—he’s dead. The tech company where he worked is looking shadier by the second. And Lucifer’s client definitely knows more than she should…about everything. The deeper Lucifer digs, the more he wonders if whatever sinister entity lurks behind this case wants him to be the last to die…

    I know authors are supposed to love all their books equally, but I admit to this novel having a special place in my heart. It’s spooky, funny, and even has a little bit of heart baked into it—plus it’s literally close to home. I’m so glad that I finally have a chance to share it with all of you, so I hope you’ll check out Mike Lucifer’s first(?) adventure.

    All Souls Lost will be available on October 17 as an ebook and (fingers crossed) the audiobook should arrive at the same time. You can preorder the ebook today from all the usual suspects; audiobook preorders will be at a later date.

    1. Ha ha. Good one, past me.↩

  • My writing finances, 2022

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    It’s that time of the year once again: the time when we talk about numbers.

    Wooo! Numbers! Nothing gets the crowd riled up like good old math, especially when it comes from someone whose specialty is nominally words. But what, I ask you, are words but equations with letters?

    Don’t answer that.

    Anyway, every January I post details about my finances for the past year. I’ve been doing this since 2018; it originally started out as a way to talk about the business of writing fiction, but since that has historically been a small chunk of my income, it’s more about how I earn my living as a freelance writer and podcaster.

    As per usual, I’ve been inspired by several other writers, most notably Jim C. Hines, who’s been documenting his writing income for much longer than I’ve been in this game. And, as is also custom, I want to make it clear that this is just my personal experience, and all self-employed individuals (by nature) differ wildly. So don’t bother using this to extrapolate what your favorite writer or podcasting personality makes, because I guarantee you, it won’t hold water.

    On to the math!

    I don’t disclose dollar figures but, as in the past, I will say that my total gross income was well under six figures, and that this doesn’t include income from any investments1, just the freelance work I do. Nor does this include my partner’s income.

    Income and expenses, 2016-2022

    Broadly speaking, 2022 ended up being kind of a down year for me financially, which comes down to one key (and very positive) reason: in July, my partner and I welcomed our first kid and I took roughly six weeks off from everything. That primarily affected my tech writing income, since my podcasts continued airing in the meantime, thanks to my co-hosts and some excellent guest hosts.2 Ad income from those shows also lags behind a couple months, so I continued earning some money from earlier shows even while I was off.

    But, largely as a result of taking that time off, my overall income was down 18 percent from last year.3 This was my second lowest amount of yearly income since I’ve been self-employed, and my lowest since 2016. But again, all of that comes with an asterisk since I voluntarily took a month and a half off from work. Had I worked during those six weeks at my usual pace, I probably would have been almost exactly where I was in 2020.4

    Percentage of income from various sources, 2022.

    Two other major factors influenced my overall income drop in 2022. First, podcast advertising definitely took a hit in the last quarter of the year. My two shows with significant ad support had several months with very few ads at all. The good news is that membership support of my shows accounted for about 40 percent of podcast income, which helped me ride out the low ad sales.

    Second, I signed no new contracts for fiction work in 2022, which also explains why the chunk of my income from fiction (just 3 percent) was the lowest its been since 2016, when I only had one published book under my belt.

    Indeed, the bulk of my fiction income in 2022 came from royalties, both from my traditionally published books, as well as the short stories I’ve self-published. In fact, I made more from my self-published sales than from any individual novel’s royalty payments, and only a hair less than all my traditionally published novel royalties combined. That’s not exactly a high water mark, as, to be clear, neither brought in a lot: we’re talking a few hundred bucks.

    It is, however, a reminder that for all but the most successful traditionally published authors, advance payments are what primarily drives income.5 I had just one last advance payment in 2022, for The Nova Incident, which accounted for the largest single payment I got from fiction writing this year.

    It’s also worth noting another factor: I got hit by foreign exchange headwinds. The publisher of the Galactic Cold War books, Angry Robot, is based in the UK, which means I get paid in British sterling, and the pound dropped considerably against the dollar this year, as you may have heard. So all of my income from those books was less than it might have been in more favorable macroeconomic conditions.6

    My foray into self-publishing hasn’t exactly filled me with enthusiasm: there’s money to be made there, for sure, but it seems to be a case of spending upfront with a return on investment—and that’s a tough sell, as returns are never guaranteed. To be fair, I didn’t do a lot of marketing for my self-published work, mainly trusting to my existing channels, including my mailing list and social media7. As of this writing, the story I published in 2022, “Homecoming”, sold just over 700 copies, netting me a few hundred bucks. Less than I probably would have been paid if I had sold the story to a publication outright.8 But them’s the breaks.

    Miscellaneous income contributed a tiny portion to my overall bottom line—just 2 percent—from merchandise sales and a small amount of affiliate income.

    Expenses were also back up to 2020 levels, primarily driven by once again traveling for work and buying some new equipment, though they remain largely lower than my pre-pandemic levels (changes in my home office and healthcare situations, as detailed last year, account for some of that as well).

    Income and expenses, 2016-2022

    Looking forward, I’m hopeful that 2023 will be an upswing for fiction work—I’ve got some stuff in the works that I’m excited about (more about which when I can share information) and I’m hoping to get back to doing some of the podcasts that I’ve let lie fallow while adapting to my life changes.9 But there’s a lot of uncertainty nonetheless.

    Percentage of income from various sources, 2016-2022

    As always, my goal has been to grow the percentage of my income from fiction writing, but I think I’ve realized after six years of detailing my finances that this isn’t going to be a linear sort of affair. Some years are up, some years are down, just as with my overall freelancer income, and while I’d like to see that fiction trendline move more consistently upward over time, I have to resign myself to realizing that it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

    But a big thanks to everybody out there who’s supported my work, whether it’s by becoming a member of one of my podcasts (The Rebound, Clockwise, or The Incomparable), subscribing to Six Colors, or buying my books. It all helps me continue cobbling together this weird existence I’ve made for myself, and I’m immensely grateful that I get to keep doing it for another year. We’ll see you back here in twelve months to see what’s what.

    1. Which, in my case, are pretty much just retirement accounts and some savings.↩

    2. Amazingly, thanks to a fairly recent law in my home state of Massachusetts, self-employed individuals are eligible for paid family and medical leave, meaning I got a small amount of income to compensate for my time off work. Very cool, and something all states (and the federal government) should be doing.↩

    3. Ironically, 2021’s income was up 18 percent from 2020, so I made…about a little less than I made in 2020, despite taking six weeks of leave.↩

    4. Just to be clear: I’m very glad I didn’t work during that time and even more grateful that I didn’t *have* to. Not only because being able to spend all of those weeks together as a family was wonderful, but also because my brain was pretty much mush.↩

    5. In some cases there’s also good money to be made from secondary rights sales, like audio, film/TV, or translation deals, but carve outs for the first are getting much harder to find in contracts, the second aren’t worth what they once were, and the last is extremely hit or miss.↩

    6. Years of listening to Apple earnings calls is finally paying off! I’ve got the jargon down cold. Just don’t ask me for any more color.↩

    7. Speaking of things that are going to be dicey this year.↩

    8. Or, more to the point, if a publication paying that rate would have bought it.↩

    9. I’ve already got one on the books for a few weeks hence!↩

  • “Homecoming”: A new Galactic Cold War short story coming next week!

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    Homecoming cover

    A couple years ago, I decided to dip my toe into the world of self-publishing by making ebooks of a few deleted scenes from my books that seemed like they’d work as standalone short stories. The response to those was pretty positive and I learned a lot from the experience, so in August 2020, as I was finishing up work on The Nova Incident, I decided I’d take a stab at writing a totally original Galactic Cold War short story to lead into that novel.

    The result: “Homecoming”, a roughly six thousand word short story that will come out next week, three months to the day before Nova‘s release (and, perhaps more importantly, two days before my birthday). You can—and, naturally, should—pre-order it now, from your preferred ebook store. I’d much appreciate it if you would. (You’ve already pre-ordered your copy of the Publishers-Weekly-starred-review phenomenon that is The Nova Incident, right?)

    So, what’s “Homecoming” about? Glad you asked:

    Visiting your family can be stressful. For Commander Natalie Taylor of the Commonwealth Navy, it’s doubly so, since it means traveling across enemy lines to her homeworld of Centauri, occupied by the Illyrican Empire for the last twenty years.

     

    And when you’re a spy with a job to do, well, it can be downright deadly.

    I’ve had more than a few readers clamor for more time with Nat, who first appeared in The Bayern Agenda1; it’d always been my intention for her to take a more prominent role, but sometimes there’s only so much room in a story.2 I also wanted to visit Centauri, a planet that’s been referred to a number of times, starting in The Caledonian Gambit, but has yet to take center stage. This seemed like a good opportunity to do both!

    But I also harbor a few ulterior real-world motives for publishing this story. First up, as I discussed in a recent Twitter thread, I currently have no other books under contract, though I have proposed a couple more Galactic Cold War installments to my publisher with the hopes of concluding the story3. (If you’re looking for the best way to help ensure those books happen, you probably already know: pre-order your copy of The Nova Incident, and make sure that all your friends do the same. Chances of a follow-up book greatly increase with the success of this one!)

    Secondly, in the past I’ve talked on this blog about the business of writing, and how I manage my various sources of income. The previous ebooks I put out did very well in terms of downloads, but they were also free (in the majority of regions), so the money I make from them is negligible4. But I’d hoped that even a fraction of those people who downloaded free ebooks might be willing to pay a small amount for brand new content, thus potentially turning it into yet another of the diversified income streams I cobble together to make my living.

    As a follow-on to which, I’ll say that traditional publishing is a tough field at times—and lately, it seems even more so than ever. Even when you pour your heart and soul into a project, there’s no guarantee it’ll find a home. And while I don’t want to give up on it entirely, because I appreciate much of what it has to offer, I would be remiss in not exploring other ways to tell stories that might otherwise languish in a drawer. Metaphorically. It’s not like I’m printing these things out. Trees are our friends, people!

    Anyway, I’m glad to find a way to share this story with readers. I hope you’ll consider checking out “Homecoming”; I love this little story and I think you will too. And who knows: maybe it means more Galactic Cold War stories in the future.

    1. Eagle-eyed readers will notice, however, that she’s first mentioned in what seems like a throwaway line in The Caledonian Gambit, but was actually me planting the seeds of her eventual appearance. *evil laugh*↩

    2. That said, I do have plans for her in a future book, assuming it comes to pass…more on which below.↩

    3. Or, at least, this chapter of it.↩

    4. I won’t beat around the bush: I’ve made $50 on them. In two years.↩

  • Cover Story: The Nova Incident

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    We’re six months out from the debut of my next novel, the latest installment in the Galactic Cold War series. The Nova Incident is a departure from the previous books: without getting too much into the details, it’s the first book in the series to lean more heavily on what’s come in the preceding volumes, and the action takes place entirely on one planet.1

    One thing that isn’t different from its predecessors is the excellent cover art, this time courtesy Tom Shone.

    However, long-time readers know that I often do my own sketches2 when discussing cover art with my publisher. This time was no different there, either.

    When I started thinking about what I wanted on the cover of Nova, my mind was drawn immediately the book’s opening scene, where a bomb explodes in the Commonwealth capital city of Salaam. It’s a big, jarring action scene that sets the plot in motion, and I felt like it really emphasized what Kovalic and crew will be dealing with as the story unfolds.

    So, emboldened by Angry Robot Managing Editor Gemma Creffield, who made the dubious decision of telling me that she loved my drawings, I took my usual crack at it, picking up my iPad and Apple Pencil and attempting to represent the idea that was so vivid in my head: a futuristic city on fire, a space station hanging far overhead, and our hero caught unaware.

    The Nova Incident cover sketch

    I don’t know, I think I’m getting better?

    Anyway, I got a very kind response from both Gemma and AR’s associate publisher, Eleanor Teasdale, who declared “I love this sketch with all of my heart.” The way, I can only assume, one loves a misshapen cake in which one has accidentally swapped the amounts of baking soda and baking powder.3

    Naturally, the final result puts mine to shame and I’m delighted with how it turned out. But I’ll reserve a small amount of pleasure that most of the elements from my sketch made their way into the actual cover (albeit with the acceptable loss of our little stick-figure pal down there for scale). And, of course, the very perceptive amongst you might notice that the book had a different title at this point, the result of some input from my agent, Joshua Bilmes.4

    As ever, I appreciate the willingness of the Angry Robot team to indulge my burgeoning artistic habit. Here’s hoping that I haven’t ruined my chances of sketching ideas for any future installments in the series, should they happen. (Not that I expect it to make up any percentage of my writing income, ever.)

    Just a reminder: The Nova Incident debuts six months from today, July 26! You can pre-order it now, which you should absolutely do, especially if you want another book.5 Pre-orders remain the best way to show your support for an author, as I’m sure I’ll be reminding everybody out there for the next, oh, half a year or so.

    Update: And, as of the day this was posted, Barnes & Noble is offering 25% of all preorders, both ebook and paperback, so there’s never been a better time to get yours in!

    1. See if you can guess from the title which one it is 🤔.↩

    2. Terrible, terrible sketches.↩

    3. Don’t ask me how I know.↩

    4. I’ve yet to have one of my working titles survive to publication, but there’s always next time.↩

    5. I haven’t hit the end of the story yet…but it’s rapidly approaching is all I’ll say.↩