There’s so much in this newsletter I hesitated offering a musing.
Two conversations this morning tipped me towards writing one.
How do we know someone’s real reasons for their actions?
It’s quite simple. Ask them “…because…?”
Ask someone “You did A because…?” and let’s say they respond “Because B.”
You respond, “Fair enough. You did B because…?” and so it goes until they get to some point, let’s say G, where their responses either circle back to a previous response, G is repeated, or they become defensive, hostile, or otherwise not forthcoming.
I’ve been asked to take part in negotiations several times. Two times stand out in memory because they demonstrated the power of this technique.
In both cases, the parties at the table were diametrically opposed. There was no obvious common ground and the parties took part to put on a show for the folks back home and not much else.
In both cases, I got the parties at the table into separate rooms to hear their sides.
Most such conversations start with wants. If you think of a petulant child whose never been taught boundaries, always has their hands out, and doesn’t know the meaning of the word “no,” and you have the idea.
I listened on two levels, analog and digital (take a class with me if you don’t know what those terms mean in negotiation practice). My goal was to get the analog and digital signals to match as closely as possible. This is done by becauseing. I never offered a because, I always let the parties involved provide their because, and because I did, the parties involved – in completely separate rooms, remember – began to offer the same “G.”
Back in the main hall, I asked them both if “G” was their baseline goal. They agreed.
Now I used a mathematician’s and magician’s solution strategy. Know the desired outcome, take one step back from it. Explain the last thing which has to occur before G occurs.
Lather, Rinse, Repeat. A negotiation stalled for six months resolved in three days.
Sometimes negotiating involves determining G because none of the parties present know what it is. They know what they want, but what they know they want isn’t their real goal, they simply haven’t thought through to the real goal.
Again, listen to the entirety of their communications, wait for congruity (again, if you’re not sure what the term means in negotiation practice, take a class with me), and now offer slight rephrasings of their wants. Nothing major, truly minor rephrasings. Change one word. Pay attention to their reaction. Change another word, pay attention to that reaction, so on and on and on. Think of listening carefully as you turn the tumblers on a lock and you have the idea.
Does a rephrasing cause them to pause, to blink, to inhale? You’re finding out what G is even when they don’t know.
Discover G, share it, and your work is done. In this case, three weeks of argument and dickwaving resolved in an afternoon.
So find out someone’s real reasons for what they’re doing. It’ll help you a lot.
January 2026 Announcements
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RoundTable 360° – Our 29 Jan 2026 RoundTable 360° session is Getting Familiar – The horse made me do it
Creatives interact with animals differently than non-creatives, and their inspiration ranges from Son of Sam’s dog to Ed’s Wilbur, and are sometimes considered as the mage’s familiar. But who gets the royalties and who gets the blame?
Reserve your seat. |
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Publisher of Record/Vendor of Record/Headache of Record – A few newsletters back I asked if any self-pubbed authors were experiencing ISBN issues when submitting their books to multiple platforms (Amazon, D2D, Ingram, …).
For the first time in ten years, I couldn’t publish a book through Ingram which I’d already published on Amazon, and ditto D2D. Several other, previously released titles are available on more than one platform, what’s changed?
It turns out nothing’s changed in the law, only in the platform’s wallet.
It goes like this:
- You purchase an ISBN from Bowker (in the US, for example) and you own it. It’s your ISBN, and you can assign it to a publishable project once. One ISBN, one project. For that matter, radically change the project (create a new edition with updated information or radically alter the content) and it’s considered a new project requiring a new ISBN.
- You assign the ISBN to a project with Bowker (or whoever). Voila! You’re the Publisher of Record. Everybody in the world knows you published that book. Congrats, champagne, ticker tape parade, all that good stuff.
- You release that project through Amazon or some such. You are giving them the right to sell your project to interested parties. They are, in essence, your project’s vendor, as in Vendor of Record.
- This is where it gets interesting. The purpose of being a Vendor of Record is so interested parties purchasing your project know who to pay for your project.
- It seems using a single ISBN to release a project across multiple vendors causes accounting confusion. Interested parties won’t know who to pay for your project. You may be the unique publisher of your project, but you’re not the vendor when some platform is releasing your project to the public.
- Think of it this way; You make jam. Your jam is for sale at J’s, B’s, and L’s corner markets. Each corner market gets a percentage of each sale in their store. J doesn’t get a percentage from jam sold in B’s or L’s stores, B doesn’t get a percentage from jam sold in J’s or L’s stores, et cetera. Each vendor – J, B, and L – gets a percentage from the sales of your jam on their shelves.
- Print on Demand screws this up because Amazon, Ingram, whoever, doesn’t warehouse your books anymore. I don’t think anybody’s books are warehoused anymore. This means there’s an “infinite” supply of jam on each store’s shelves, which leads us to the kicker…
- The kicker (to me) is Vendor of Record concerns apply mostly to government purchasing because such purchasing must go to bid, is usually in bulk (not a book, but 5,000 books), is bound in enough red tape to ensnare the sun, and shit rolls downhill. No idea why this is becoming an issue now, only know it is, so PHPHTTT! on the way things were, this is how they are now, bucco.
- The are a few ways around this if you wish to release your project on multiple platforms. The big hammer method is to assign a different ISBN to your project on each different platform. Individual ISBNs are not cheap and don’t approach cheapness until you buy 100 or more at a time. The smaller hammer method is to limit distribution on each platform. Using Kindle Direct Publishing as an example, at the top of the Paperback Rights & Pricing page is “Territories.” You can use your ISBN elsewhere if you limit the territories you’re in. According to Hailey Schumacher, Bowker Publisher Relations Agent, you can use your ISBN across platorms “As long as you haven’t elected to do global distribution. If you are getting an error message when providing the correct details and the correct ISBN from your publisher account, you can use the bookwire link to help troubleshoot.
A fully assigned ISBN will reflect in Books in Print, as well as on our site www.bookwire.bowker.com (you can search the ISBN number without the dashes). You can provide the link via their customer support to address the issue with their platform rejecting your correct information.”
PS) you don’t have to worry about this is you use vendor supplied ISBNs |
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Brother Dale Phillips knows 87 Ways to Sell More Books – Gather any group of indie and small pub authors together and within minutes the conversation goes into how they don’t know something. It can be about publishing on a particular platform, how to format, image requirements, approaching talk shows and bloggers, whatever, there’ll be stuff they don’t know how to do and they’ll go into full-bore “wisdom of the crowds” mode.
The problem with that is the same as what’s happening with AI and the web; the lack of knowledge feeds on itself and nobody’s any wiser, they only think they are, and they experience the same problems again and again and again.
Long time indie author Dale Phillips has been in the game long enough to experience what those new to the game – and many times those old to the game – are going through and here’s the difference; he’s learned and done better. and when I respond “I wrote a book on that to help,” not a single person asked about it.
Truth in advertising; I contributed to the book. |
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Writers’ Month Long Workshop – February 2026’s writers’ workshop covers many if not all phases of craft and storytelling. The workshop is on Wednesdays, 4-25 Feb 2026, morning and evening openings available. Sign up here.
You can an idea of what craziness (and learning!) will ensue on my Experiments in Writing posts. |
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Brother Fabrice Rigaux’s The Stars Your Legacy -I’ve known Fabrice for many years and am always impressed by the accurate (and brilliant) use of science in his books. His latest is The Stars Your Legacy
Erel is, with his clan of players, just hours away from smashing the all-time record in Razam, the ship’s most immersive RPG, when an urgent message from the ship’s AI interrupts their mission. After generations of travel, the massive generation ship has finally reached its destination—but it’s in critical condition. All passengers must disembark immediately.
There’s just one problem: the real world is far less exciting—and far more daunting—than the VR, and no one answers the call.
What if the only way to convince passengers to make their way to the planet requires Erel to transform this challenge into a game?
You can get a taste of The Stars Your Legacy on Stephan’s site. |
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Talk with the Editors – Wilderness House Literary Review EIC Steve Glines and I (Senior Fiction Editor) hold monthly open chats with authors interested in a) writing for us, b) improving their craft in general, and/or c) increasing their chances of being accepted by other markets.
Meetings are held via Zoom on the last Friday of each month from 9-10amET.
So, want to know how to write for us? Want to know what gets our attention? Want to know how to write better for whatever market you’re interested in? Join us for our next “Meet the Editors” Zoom session. Seats limited! Sign up and talk with us. We’re relatively easy going and fun to be with. |
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Glamour Gyrl Bonnie D Dished Me – Imagine being dished by someone with a genuine glamour.
No, not the modern usage, the original meaning as in possessing unique, recognizable, often mystical qualities. A person wore their glamour much like a cloak and sometimes like armor. Modern language prefers the term “aura,” and aura is only half the meaning. A thing can possess a glamour and also be possessed by a glamour.
However you want to phrase it, the glamourous Bonnie D dishes me. You can catch the action on LinkedIn, YouTube, and on Facebook at both ReadMyLipsRadio and The Future of Now. |
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Brother Greg Hickey’s Big Guns Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Greg spent over twelve years as a forensic firearms examiner. He worked in a laboratory analyzing guns, bullets and cartridge cases from crimes in and around Chicago. Needless to say, he became pretty familiar with how guns work during that time. Read more about how he combined his existing knowledge about firearms mechanics with a little research to create the weapons in Carver’s future.
In Guns of the Future, Greg discusses
- The real-life gun that was transformed into one of sci-fi’s most famous weapons
- What makes current firearms extremely effective
- The constraints on gun design that manufacturers and writers must account for—now and in the future
- Developments in materials and technologies that will influence future guns
If you’ve read one of Greg’s previous Marcus Carver stories, you’ll recognize many of the details he discuss in this article.
Read Guns of the Future. |
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Recovery Triptych needs first readers.
In a bizarre nightmare world, Gerrold is relentlessly attacked by grotesques who thwart his every attempt at escape until an angelic being appears and offers him a way out. The being, Acquiesce, does not do the work of escape for Gerrold and instead guides him to make his own discoveries about escaping and what it means to be free. With Acquiesce’s guidance, Gerrold realized escaping the nightmare means challenging the source of that nightmare and understanding how hells are made.
Gerrold travels to the nightmare’s source and faces its creator only to discover he has constructed the nightmare himself. Can Gerrold destroy the part of himself which has imprisoned him, set himself free, and heal from the things he’s let happen?
Fans of Guillermo del Toro’s and M. Night Shyamalan’s work will appreciate this dark psychological fantasy which forces the reader to recognize their own hells and offers paths out of them. Read it now and learn if Gerald finally escapes his self-constructed nightmare or succumbs to the doom of his past. (Warning! Graphic Content). – Graphic novel (Warning! Graphic Content)
Book I : The Echo
Book II: Welcome to My Sandbox
Book III: The Stone in God’s Sling |
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Sister Martha Lavallee’s An Only Child No More
This poignant, uplifting memoir describes the emotional journey of a middle-aged woman who receives an unexpected email, and suddenly learns that her now-deceased parents had kept secret from her the fact that she has an older half-brother.
Raised as an only child, the revelation occurs without any DNA testing of anyone in the family. This true story describes her coming to terms with this shocking information, as she remembers vague clues that had been presented to her during her youth.
It also details her quest to meet her brother and his family, and to make this family her own, despite the logistical challenges of different languages and continents. If you enjoy reading historical fiction, you’ll love this book!
I was “inspired” to write this memoir (compelled is more like it) when I unexpectedly received an email at work from a stranger in another country. At first I thought this was just a spam email, and I nearly discarded it. But something in my gut told me to cautiously respond. As this adventure progressed, I knew I had to share my story with the world.
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Graphic Artist Needed!!! I mention Recovery Triptych needing first readers above.
That book and the metahuman anthology Tales of the Northern Clan are planned as graphic novels.
Right now the big challenge to that plan is finding a graphic artist, so please send any graphic artists familiar with that format to us. Thanks. |
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Sister Sally Chetwynd’s Brass Castle Arts Literary Services Sally Chetwynd has played with words since she could hold a crayon. Her earliest works, Great American Novels written between age eight and her early teens, were heavily plagiarized from her favorite horse stories. Since then, her work has improved in both quality and originality.
She has worked as a land use planner, a pipefitter building Navy ships, and a drafter for many engineers. In side pursuits, she reenacts American history events, performs fife and drum music, and serves on the board of a non-profit that supports first responder families in crisis. Oh, yeah, she writes, too. (Duh!) These vocations and avocations give breadth, perspective, and insight to her wordsmithing, including editing her clients’ fiction and nonfiction.
Sally has published profiles, essays, research articles, and poetry in various periodicals, and two novels. Bead of Sand, set in rural 1990s New York State, came out in 2013. The Sturgeon’s Dance followed in 2018, a 1980s story that reflects her Down East Maine heritage.
Besides her newsletter – “Natterings & Noodlings” (a no-politics zone) – Sally’s current writing includes a historical novel set in Jerusalem in the days of Jesus and a non-fiction work assessing police families surviving line-of-duty deaths.
You can reach Sally via email, Brass Castle Arts, and LinkedIn |
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A Little Game – Consider the parallelopiped below
A parallelopiped is a shape whose faces are all parallelograms.
Can you construct a parallelopiped given sixteen identical squares? (No building a cube. Yes, a cube is a parallelopiped and that, as they say Down Under, is too easy).
The first five people to get back to me with a correct answers a signed Tales Told ‘Round Celestial Campfires Volume 2 ebook. The first person to get back to me with answers that make me laugh gets a signed print copy (and no looking it up on the internet, folks!). |
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That’s it for January. See you next month!
Enjoy!
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