Are You Ready? (To Publish) – with special guest Hugh Howey (who hopefully won’t sue me)

Are You Ready? (to publish…trust me, this joke got old quickly which means you don’t have to see it again anywhere in this book)

Hello. My name is Travis Hill. I’m a self-published author. You might know me from my memorable roles as “That loser that thinks he’s a writer” and “If I published something as bad as Mr. Hill’s book, I would probably cut my own head off and mail it to my worst enemy to let them know I am no longer a threat to them or anyone else.” If that sounds a little brutal and grim, self-publishing might not be for you. Because I’ll be honest, sometimes you’ll run into a pack of wild animals known as ‘reviewers’ who don’t have your best interests at heart. They say they do, but it’s only after they scatter from your bloody corpse when the authorities arrive that you realize they only wanted the marrow in your bones, not the words on your pages.

Now, this book isn’t about how terribly mean and nasty book reviewers can be. If you haven’t published anything yet, you haven’t felt the wrath of a bad review. Maybe you’ve watched other authors have their mountains of gold-plated skulls flattened by a scathing review that went well beyond criticism and almost ended up being evidence in a criminal trial as a threat/promise. Yeah. That’s pretty scary stuff. But you know what? Get used to it. I’m not going to try and say you will get one of these per day (unless you are me, it’s like someone posted a sign on my back that says “SEND ME HATEMAIL AT ANGRYDOUCHE@GMAIL.COM BECAUSE I’M A DOUCHE”), but at some point as a published writer, especially a self-published writer working the flea-market stalls of Amazon, iTunes, Barnes & Noble, and such, you WILL get one of these reviews. And some hatemail.

Thick skin is not only your best friend, it is your ONLY friend as a writer. Let’s take a look at my world, and if it doesn’t scare the ever-loving shit out of you, then you will probably be ready to finally hit that PUBLISH button and rolls your own dices. Continue reading

‘Boycott Starbucks’ Is a Waste of Time

Right. So. I love Starbucks. No, I don’t think they have the best coffee ever. Yes, I’m sure there are other companies and coffee shops who have not only better coffee, but more environmentally sustainable and small-farmer friendly practices as well. But I love Starbucks. I love my Venti Iced Mocha with only two pumps of chocolate and an extra shot of espresso. No whipped cream, stir it good please.

I happened to read THIS today, and while I try decently hard to not be drawn into certain debates, I sometimes forget that I’m a pretty opinionated a-hole a lot of the time (yes I support a woman’s right to choose, yes I support gay marriage, yes I support the legalization of marijuana, yes I support anti-bullying campaigns).

See…here’s my problem with this, and I’m definitely a ‘gun control’ advocate, but I think these ‘Moms’ would be better served taking up their cause elsewhere. Banning firearms in the coffee shop, any place of business really, will never stop a gunman intent on shooting the place up from bringing his weapon in. I don’t believe that if everyone else had a gun they’d stop him either. Continue reading

And now with 100% more mailing list!

So I finally got around to making a mailing list:

Travis Hill – News & Information about upcoming and new releases

If you’d like to get an email from me once in a while when I have some news to give about a new release or an upcoming release, just sign up through the link above. It’s easy and there’s no spam. Plus there’s the fact that I won’t be sending you an email every nine hours. Only when there’s something important to tell you, I promise!

It’s Harder This Way (now with 800% more stitches!)

Hello all. I’ve not really done much this summer, but it is getting time to get back to work. Carly is headed back to work on Tuesday, another school year teaching AP-level classes to another group of walking hormone tornadoes. I tend to spend my summers doing a whole lot of nothing other than spending time with her since we don’t get to see each other much during the school year.

If you really care, we spend most of our summers going to teaching workshops. Or in the case of a couple of years ago, she went to Dartmouth for a whole week and I stayed home and probably played some guitar, some video games, and with some cats. Because I’m wild like that. Anyway, that teaching workshop lasts about four or five days, and we’ll spend another four or five driving around, going places we’ve never been before. This year after we left Seattle, we headed down to Astoria, Oregon. Beyond that, the next ten weeks or so consists of us sitting around playing Borderlands 2 or Team Fortress 2, reading, and catching up on television shows we didn’t get to watch during the school year (Game of Thrones, Dexter, Breaking Bad, Falling Skies for me so I can yell at it a lot, some bridezilla-type show for her that she yells at. It’s good stuff.

Right. So. Rambling a bit.

Two updates today. First is a PSA from me to everyone: Continue reading