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  • Episode 327: Libraries & Indie Authors

    Episode 327: Libraries & Indie Authors
    2026/11/02
    In this week's episode, I discuss whether or not it is worthwhile for indie authors to pursue selling their books to libraries. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Ghost in the Mask, Book #8 in The Ghosts series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store: CAINAMASK The coupon code is valid through November 16, 2026. So if you need a new audiobook this fall, we've got you covered! Links mentioned in the show. Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Libraries/comments/1vaexhe/librarian_need_what_from_authors_wanting_to_speak/ Ingram Spark: https://www.ingramspark.com/hubfs/Print%20Book%20Setup%20Guide.pdf TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 327 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is October 29th, 2026 and today I'm discussing whether or not indie authors should try to get their books in libraries. Before we start with that, we will have Coupon of the Week and a progress update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Ghost in the Mask, Book #8 in The Ghosts series (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store. That coupon code is CAINAMASK. That coupon code will be valid through November the 16th, 2026, so if you need a new audiobook for this fall, we have got you covered. I also have an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. My main project right now is Blade of Rifts, and I am 58,000 words into it as of this recording, hoping to get to 60,000 tomorrow. I think that puts me roughly halfway through. I think the rough draft will end up being around 110-115,000 words, but we will see when we get there. I'm hoping to have that out before American Thanksgiving at the end of November, if all goes well. My secondary project is Cloak of Silver, which will be the 16th book in the Cloak Mage series. I believe I am 5,000 words into that at the moment. Once Blade of Rifts is finished, Cloak of Silver will take over as my main project. That's probably going to end up being my first book of 2027, though if it's possible to get it out in December, I will do so, but we'll just see when we get there. In audiobook news, Leanne Woodward will soon be narrating Elven-Warlock. Hollis McCarthy has started work on Cloak of Frost, and Brad Wills is working on Blade of Visions, so we should have some new audiobooks before too much longer. The way these things tend to go is I'll go a long period without any new audiobooks and then they suddenly all arrive at once, but that is part of the fun of the experience. So that is where I'm at with my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. 00:02:09 Main Topic of the Week: Libraries and Indie Authors Now let's move on to our main topic, libraries and indie authors. Writers love to talk about one of their big goals being able to get their books on a shelf in the library. Many writers feel like libraries are crucial to their success and spend a lot of time courting the attention of librarians. As it happens, the transcriptionist for the podcast was a librarian for quite a long span of time, so she offered to share her opinion on working with libraries as an indie writer. First, we're going to talk about interacting with libraries as an indie author and what makes sense and what's not worth your time. Then we're going to talk about the logistics of making your audiobooks available to library services like Hoopla and Libby. What are the pros and cons of making your ebooks available to the library? So let's start off with a [former] librarian's opinion on working with libraries. [Her opinion will be marked in italics in the transcript.] This section is wholly the opinion of our transcriptionist who offers her thoughts as a former librarian, but is not speaking on behalf of any of the libraries where she has previously worked. Her thoughts can be divided into three categories. #1: You're welcome to ask, but we can say no. One thing to understand immediately is that even librarians at smaller libraries are contacted multiple times a day by authors or publishers. We may not have the time to respond to every single request individually because we are busy. It's becoming less common that a library will buy a book for the sole reason that was written by someone in the community. Even a small town can have many local authors and with library budgets ranging from stretched to non-existent, it's probably not possible to buy all of the books written by local authors. Emailing every single person on staff at one library is a waste of time and is considered a bit rude. If you feel compelled to cold email libraries, you should just contact the acquisitions librarian or the librarian who specializes in your area (for example, the children's librarian for picture books) and you should not contact the library director with purchase requests unless it's a small ...
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    16 分
  • Episode 326: 6 Lessons For Indie Authors From STAR TREK

    Episode 326: 6 Lessons For Indie Authors From STAR TREK
    2026/10/26
    In this week's episode, we examine six business lessons indie writers can learn from the long-running STAR TREK science fiction franchise. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Ghost Exile series at my Payhip store: FALLEXILE The coupon code is valid through November 16, 2026. So if you need a new ebook this fall, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 326 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is October 22nd, 2026 and today I'm discussing six things that indie writers can learn from the long-running Star Trek science fiction franchise. Before we get into that, we will have Coupon of the Week and a progress update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. First up, it is time for Coupon of the Week, and this week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Ghost Exile series at my Payhip store. That coupon code is FALLEXILE. As always, you can get the coupon code and the links to my Payhip store in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code will be valid through November 16th, 2026, so if you need a new ebook to read as we exit fall and head into winter, we have got you covered. Now let's have an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. I am very pleased to report that Elven-Warlock, the seventh book in the Rivah Half-Elven Thief series, is now available and you can get it at Amazon. It's also available for Kindle Unlimited, (excuse me, Kindle Plus subscribers because one of the indie publishing news items this week is that Kindle Unlimited has been renamed to Kindle Plus and contains some audiobooks. So you can read more about that in the news.). But for me, Elven-Warlock is now out in Amazon and Kindle Plus and it is doing well. So thank you all for that and thank you all for enjoying the Rivah series. Now that Elven-Warlock is out, my next main project will be Blade of Rifts. I'm pleased to report I reached the 30,000 word mark just before I started recording this episode. I think the book will be about 100,000 words long, so I am about 30% through the rough draft. If all goes well, I'm very much hoping to have it out before American Thanksgiving at the end of November, if all goes well. We'll see if I can pull that off or not. My secondary project is now Cloak of Silver, which will be the 16th book in the Cloak Mage series. I am 1,000 words into it as I record this. It will be my new main project once Blade of Rifts is done and it will probably end up being the first book I publish in 2027, but we'll see how the next two and a half months go. In audiobook news, Brad Wills is still working on Blade of Visions and we should have some more updates on that before too much longer. So that is where I'm at with my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. 00:02:32 Main Topic: Lessons From Star Trek Now let's move on to our main topic, which has been part of a series, which has been six things indie writers can learn from large media companies. We did Disney two weeks ago. Last week we did Nintendo. This week we're doing something slightly different, a long running science fiction franchise, specifically the Star Trek franchise. I'm not going to talk about specific plot points for the most part or the creative highs and lows of the franchise. I think everyone can agree that the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode The Inner Light was among the best of the series along with Deep Space Nine's In The Pale Moonlight and the episode in Voyager where Janeway and Tom Paris turned into giant lizards may have been among the low points. However, once you have 60 years of Star Trek movies and TV shows, some of them are going to be really good and some of them will be less good, but we're not going to focus on that. We're going to instead focus more on the overall business decisions that Star Trek as an intellectual property has made in its 60 years, which are applicable to indie authors in many ways. #1: Continuity Lockout One of the most common criticisms of modern Star Trek is that it's too difficult for new fans to find a good entry point and that even new series rely heavily on references to older ones in a way that make new viewers feel confused or left out. A good example of this would be how The Doctor from Voyager returned in Starfleet Academy on Netflix. While The Doctor is a great character, to fully understand his character in Starfleet Academy, you need to remember him from Voyager in the '90s, which was a long time ago. Another example would be Strange New Worlds, which is considered to be among the best of modern Star Trek, but it calls back to Kirk and Spock and Captain Pike and a lot of other characters from the original series. This can make new viewers feel confused or left out. I talk about the idea of continuity lockout more in Episode 274 of this podcast, which is entitled Avoiding Marvel Continuity Lockout Syndrome...
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    16 分
  • Episode 325: Six Lessons For Indie Authors From Nintendo

    Episode 325: Six Lessons For Indie Authors From Nintendo
    2026/10/19
    In this week's episode, we take a look at six lessons indie authors can learn from the successes and failures of Nintendo. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobooks in the Half-Elven Thief series, (as excellently narrated by Leanne Woodward) at my Payhip store: ELVENFALL The coupon code is valid through November 9, 2026. So if you need a new audiobook this fall, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 325 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is October 16th, 2026 and today I'm discussing six things that indie writers can learn from Nintendo, both good and bad, which is kind of a follow-up to last week's episode, which was six things indie writers can learn from the Disney Corporation, both good and bad. Before we get into that, we will start off with Coupon of the Week and then a progress update on my writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. So first up is Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code (in anticipation of the upcoming release of Elven-Warlock) will get you 50% off the audiobooks in the Half-Elven Thief series (as excellently narrated by Leanne Woodward) at my Payhip store. That code is ELVENFALL. This coupon code will be valid through November the 9th, 2026, so if you need a new audiobook for this fall, we have got you covered with the Half-Elven Thief series. Now for an update on my current writing, publishing and audiobook projects. I am very nearly done with the first round of editing on Elven-Warlock. The cover is ready as well. If you're on my website or my social media, you should be able to see it. As soon as I finish recording this podcast, I'm hopefully going to be able to finish up the first round of editing and then start on the second. I believe this episode is going live on the 19th of October and hopefully Elven-Warlock should be out on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited a day or two after that, if all goes well. In any event, I definitely want to have it out the week of the 19th of October. Once Elven-Warlock is out, my secondary project right now is Blade of Rifts, which will get promoted to my main project and I'm currently 13,000 words into that. In audiobook news, as we mentioned last week, Cloak of Summoning and Ghost Armor Omnibus Two (both of which are narrated by Hollis McCarthy), are now available at their respective audiobook stores. For new projects, Brad Wills is now recording Blade of Visions and if all goes well, that should be out sometime next month. So that is where I'm at with my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. 00:02:12 Main Topic: 6 Lessons Indie Writers Can Learn From Nintendo Now let's move on to our main topic this week, six lessons indie writers can learn from Nintendo. Last week, you might recall, we did the same thing with Disney Corporation looking at lessons indie authors can learn from Disney Corporation, both good and bad. We're going to do the same thing with Nintendo, which is one of the biggest entertainment companies in the world. I thought today about six ways writers can learn from Nintendo's best and worst corporate decisions. Admittedly, while there are things to criticize about Nintendo the way there are about Disney, I do on a personal level like Nintendo more than Disney, and I do have a fairly long history with Nintendo stuff. In the '80s and the '90s, I had an NES and a Super Nintendo, and so played quite a few Super Nintendo games. I actually beat Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past back in the day. I'm not entirely sure what happened to that Super Nintendo console. My brother told me a while back that he sold it, but I don't think that's what actually happened, but it was 30 years ago and I don't remember what happened, so it really doesn't matter. So from about 1998 to 2019, I did not play a console game at all. Whenever I played games, it was PC games or nothing. However, in 2019, to reward myself for publishing my 100th book, which was Dragontiarna: Knights, I got a first generation Nintendo Switch and really enjoyed it. As you know, buying a Nintendo Switch in 2019 was probably a good idea because next year was COVID. So I finally beat a bunch of games on the Switch that I never had the chance to beat the first time around. I finished Skyrim. I beat Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, which was a pretty good Metroidvania. I beat Metroid Dread. Then with the Nintendo Online stuff, I went back and played a lot of the old NES games and Super Nintendo games I never had the chance to beat back in the '80s and '90s. I beat the original Marios. I beat Super Mario World, all four of the original Castlevanias from Nintendo and Super Nintendo. I thoroughly enjoyed the Switch. In 2025 when the Switch 2 came along, I got one when the opportunity presented itself and have been playing it pretty regularly when I have time (which is less and less these days) ever since. So while I didn't play any console games of any ...
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    20 分
  • Episode 324: 6 Lessons For Indie Writers From the Successes & Failures Of The Disney Corporation

    Episode 324: 6 Lessons For Indie Writers From the Successes & Failures Of The Disney Corporation
    2026/10/12
    In this week's episode, we take a look at lessons indie authors can learn from the successes and failures of the Disney Corporation. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Ghost in the Ashes, Book #7 in The Ghosts series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store: FALLASHES The coupon code is valid through October 26, 2026. So if you need a new audiobook this fall, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 324 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is October 9th, 2026 and today I am discussing six things that indie writers can learn from the Disney Corporation, both good and bad. Before we get to that, we will have Coupon of the Week and a progress update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Ghost in the Ashes, Book #7 in The Ghosts series (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store. That coupon code is FALLASHES. As always, you can get the coupon code and the link to my Payhip store in the show notes for this episode. That coupon code will be valid through October 26th, 2026, so if you need a new audiobook as we head into fall, we have got you covered. Now let's have an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. I am pleased to report the rough draft of Elven-Warlock is finished. That will be the seventh book in the Rivah Half-Elven Thief series. I've also finished the bonus story that I will release with it called Paladin and Commander. Newsletter subscribers will get a free ebook copy of Paladin and Commander when Elven-Warlock comes out. So I should mention this is an excellent time to subscribe to my new release newsletter since I give away free short stories quite a bit. If all goes well, I am hoping to have the book out before the end of the month. I am going to start editing immediately after I finish recording this episode, so hopefully that won't take too long. My next project once Elven-Warlock is finished will be Blade of Rifts, the seventh book in the Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series. I'm currently 10,000 words into that and I'm very much hoping to have that out before American Thanksgiving, which is at the end of November, but we will see how the rest of October and November go. Quite a bit of audiobook news this week because it seems that ACX has sped up their quality assurance process. So Cloak of Summoning (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) is out and you can now get it at all the audiobook stores, I believe- Audible, Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Kobo, Chirp, Storytel, Spotify, the works. It's 13 hours long, so it should be a good nice listen if you wanted to listen to it. Also Ghost Armor Omnibus Two is now in audiobook as well. That is again narrated by Hollis McCarthy and that combines Ghost in the Assembly, Ghost in the Corruption, and Ghost in the Siege into one 37-hour audiobook bundle. So if you get it today, it should be able to tide you over for the week and you get that at Audible, Amazon, and Apple. So that is where I'm at with my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. 00:02:42 Main Topic: 6 Things Writers Can Learn From The Disney Corporation So now let's smoothly segue over to our main topic. Our main topic this week is six things writers can learn from the Disney Corporation. I have to admit, whenever someone mentions Disney to me, the first thing that pops into my mind is not Mickey Mouse, it's not Disneyland, it's not Marvel, it's not cartoons. It's a warning against the dangers of corporate consolidation. However, all that corporate consolidation means that Disney is the largest company in the theme park industry and one of the largest in the entertainment industry, which means there's a lot to learn about the actions of the Disney Corporation, both good and bad, especially since they have gone through some public controversies in the 2020s. Since writing is part of the entertainment industry, it's wise to learn from the successes, struggles, and outright failures of a large organization like the Disney company and apply it to our own writing careers. So today I think we will talk about six specific things that writers can learn from the successes and the failures of the Disney Corporation. #1: Be fair to the customer (or to put it more cynically, don't nickel and dime the customer). One of the things that Disney has gotten a lot of criticism for and negative publicity in the past few years for is the massive price increases to its theme parks and the Disney+ streaming service, which is at a time of, as we all know, economic turmoil when many people can't afford extras like entertainment or travel. Doing it now is especially tone deaf. Many people feel like a Disney vacation is no longer attainable or they take on a frightening amount of debt to go to Disneyland. There is a recent online ...
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    15 分
  • Episode 323: Five Things To Consider Before Writing Full-Time

    Episode 323: Five Things To Consider Before Writing Full-Time
    2026/10/05
    In this week's episode, I take a look at five potential problems to consider before becoming a full-time writer. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobooks in The Shield War series, (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store: FALLSHIELD The coupon code is valid through October 19, 2026. So if you need a new audiobook this fall, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 323 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is October 2nd, 2026, and today I am discussing five things to consider before becoming a full-time writer. We will start off with Coupon of the Week and then a progress update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off all the audiobooks in The Shield War series (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store. That coupon code is FALLSHIELD. As always, the coupon code and the link to my Payhip store will be included in the show notes for this episode. The coupon code is valid through October the 19th, 2026, so if you need a new audiobook this fall, we have got you covered. Now let's move on to an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. It was not as productive a week as I hoped. There's a lot going on and I went onto my porch and my foot went through a deck board, so I will be buying lumber later today. Despite that, I am up to 59,000 words of Elven-Warlock, which I think puts me about three quarters, maybe 70% of the way through. I'm very much hoping I can finish it this coming week, if all goes well. My secondary project right now is Blade of Rifts, which will be the seventh book in the Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series. I am currently 6,500 words in it, so that'll take over as my main project once Elven-Warlock is complete. In audiobook news, some exciting news: Cloak of Summoning is out. You can get it at Audible, Amazon, Apple Books, and as of right now, Google Play, Kobo, and my own Payhip store. It went live a lot faster than I anticipated, which is a good thing, so the links to the various stores are still going live, but you should be able to get it at all your favorite audiobook stores before too much longer. So that is where I'm at on my current audiobook, publishing, writing, and ebook projects. 00:02:02 Main Topic: Things to Consider Before Becoming a Full-Time Writer So with all that in mind, let's now proceed to our main topic. So as of September 2026, I have now been a full-time writer for 10 years. And in honor of that, I thought I would do an episode today on five things you should consider before becoming a full-time writer. First of all, I am so thankful for all of my readers and all my listeners who make it possible for me to write full-time and even hire on other people as needed, like my transcriptionist, my narrators, and my accountant who all do things that I would not be able to do by myself. I'm very grateful to them and more importantly, I am very grateful to all of you who have read the ebooks and listened to the audiobooks because you make all of this possible. So with that in mind, here are five things you should consider before going full-time as a writer. #1: Your larger financial picture In his memoir Sometimes the Magic Works, epic fantasy author Terry Brooks recounted a conversation he had with his editor, the legendary Lester Del Rey, told him that before he would even consider going full-time, he needed to make sure he had a year's worth of salary in the bank and since Terry Brooks (before he became a full-time writer) was a lawyer, that was a significant amount. So he did that and he decided it was time to start thinking about writing full-time. This is something that's going to be unique for everyone and everyone's situation is different. Before you consider writing full-time, you need to think about your larger financial picture. This is a decision that shouldn't be made from the heart, but from the brain and specifically with a spreadsheet in mind. Since changing jobs is a very heavily financial decision, you need to take a hard look at your finances. Are you carrying a significant amount of debt such as student loan debt, housing debt, medical debt? Do you owe a lot of money on your car or cars? Things of that nature. Do you have large fixed expenses every single month that you have to meet such as rent, car payments, student loan payments, insurance payments, and so forth? Do you live in a high cost of living area? Are you financially responsible for children or other relatives? Do these children have medical conditions that require a lot of care and therefore are expensive? As I always mention when I talk about financial and legal stuff, I am not a lawyer and I am not a financial planner. You obtain legal advice by hiring a lawyer licensed to practice in your jurisdiction and you obtain financial advice by hiring a licensed financial ...
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    20 分
  • Episode 322: BLADE OF VISIONS, Rhamnousia Pendragon, and Bad Leadership

    Episode 322: BLADE OF VISIONS, Rhamnousia Pendragon, and Bad Leadership
    2026/09/28
    In this week's episode, I take a look at the characters of Rhamnousia and Zelos Pendragon in BLADE OF VISIONS, and what they say about bad leadership. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Ghost in the Forge, Book #6 in The Ghosts series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store: FALLFORGE The coupon code is valid through October 12, 2026. So if you need a new audiobook this fall, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 322 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is September the 25th, 2026 and today we are discussing my new book, Blade of Visions, and how it portrays bad leadership in the character of Rhamnousia Pendragon. Before we get to that, we will have Coupon of the Week and a progress update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. So let's start off with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Ghost in the Forge, Book #6 in The Ghosts Series (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store. That coupon code is FALLFORGE. As always, you can get the coupon code and the links to my Payhip store in the episode notes for this episode. This coupon code will be valid through October the 12th, 2026, so if you are in need of a new audiobook for this fall, we have got you covered. Now let's have an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. As you might guess from the episode title, Blade of Visions is now out and you get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, bookshop.org, and my own Payhip store. Initial response to it has been very strong and people seem to be enjoying it. As I mention later in the episode, I even had someone email me and say it was one of my top 10 books, which is pretty impressive out of 176 books. So thank you all for that. Now that Blade of Visions is out, my next main project is Elven-Warlock, which will be the seventh book in the Half-Elven Thief series. I'm currently 36,000 words into it, hoping to get to 40,000 by the end of the day, if all goes well. I'm hoping this will be out towards the end of October, if all goes well. My secondary project will be the follow-up to Blade of Visions, which will be the seventh book in the Blades of Ruin series, specifically Blade of Rifts. I am 3,000 words into that. So that's my secondary project right now. Once Elven-Warlock is finished, it'll be full speed ahead on Blade of Rifts. In audiobook news, we are very nearly done with Cloak of Summoning, which is narrated by Hollis McCarthy. So hopefully we will have that available to you all to listen to sometime in October along with Ghost Armor Omnibus Two, which I'm going to start setting up before too much longer and if all goes well, Brad Wills will start recording Blade of Visions as an audiobook next week. So that is where I'm at with my current writing, audiobook, and publishing projects. 00:02:34 Main Topic: Rhamnousia Pendragon and Bad Leadership Now let's move on to our main topic this week, which is Blade of Visions, Rhamnousia Pendragon, and Bad Leadership. As I mentioned earlier in the episode, a surprising number of people have written in to say nice things about Blade of Visions, for which I'm grateful. As I mentioned, a few have even said someone my best books, which is also very nice. And I think the character of Rhamnousia Pendragon helped a great deal to inspire that reaction along with the fundamental problem many people, organizations, and indeed societies face: where do we find good leaders? As I've mentioned before, I based Rhamnousia and Zelos Pendragon off two historical bad leaders, specifically Empress Maude and King Stephen from the English civil war of 1138 AD through 1153 AD. I say "loosely based" because Rhamnousia and Zelos are half siblings while Maude and Steven were cousins. For that matter, as the Blade of Ruin series has gone on, Rhamnousia's and Zelos' respective characterizations have taken on a life of their own that increasingly diverges from the source material. To be fair to Maud and Stephen, unlike Rhamnousia and Zelos, they did not have disguised evil sorcerers actively giving them deliberately bad advice. For Rhamnousia, I basically thought of all the worst traits from the incompetent female managers and leaders I've encountered over the years, combined them into one character, made her both extremely intelligent and highly vindictive, and we ended up with Rhamnousia Pendragon. This isn't to say that women cannot be effective leaders. Many thousands of years ago (or so it feels) when I worked in big box retail, I devised a metric that turned out to be highly effective for gauging whether a new manager, whether male or female, would be competent or not. The metric: the more boring the manager is in the first meeting, the better he or she will be at the job. The boring ones who introduced ...
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    10 分
  • Episode 321: Audiobook Sampler Platter, the Sixth Course!

    Episode 321: Audiobook Sampler Platter, the Sixth Course!
    2026/09/21

    In this week's episode, I provide an update on my current writing projects, and I share four samples from the sixth book in some of my fantasy series.

    This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Cloak Games series at my Payhip store:

    FALLGAMES

    The coupon code is valid through October 5, 2026. So if you need a new ebook this fall, we've got you covered!
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    20 分
  • Episode 320: How I Learned To Write Fast

    Episode 320: How I Learned To Write Fast
    2026/09/14
    In this week's episode, I take a look back over the last fifteen years and recount how I learned to write quickly. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Ghost in the Stone, Book #5 in the The Ghosts series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store: FALLSTONE The coupon code is valid through September 28, 2026. So if you need a new audiobook this fall, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 320 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is September 11th, 2026, and today I'm discussing how I learned to write fast. Before we get to all that, we will have Coupon of the Week and a progress update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Ghost in the Stone, Book #5 in The Ghosts series (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store. That coupon code is FALLSTONE. As always, we will include the links and the coupon code in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code will be valid through September 28th, 2026. So if you need a new audiobook this fall, we have got you covered. Now let's have an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. For Blade of Visions, which is my main project right now, the rough draft is done, the first editing pass is done, and I'm hoping to start on the second editing pass as soon as I finish recording this episode. So if all goes well and nothing unexpected happens, I very much hope that the book will be out a week from when this episode goes live. So a week from whenever you listen to this, check your favorite ebook store and hopefully Blade of Visions will be there. And of course you can always listen to this podcast and watch my website and social media for other announcements. My secondary project is Elven-Warlock, the seventh book in the Rivah Half-Elven series. I am currently 16,000 words into that. As soon as Blade of Visions is published, Elven-Warlock will then be my new main project and if all goes well, I hope to have that out in October sometime. In audiobook news, as I mentioned last week, Blade of Thieves and Cloak of Worlds should now be available at all the different audiobook stores. Hollis McCarthy is currently recording Cloak of Summoning and we should have some updates on that soon. In a bit of exciting audiobook news from that or related to that, I should mention that Hollis McCarthy was announced as a finalist for Narrator of Distinction for the Professional Audiobook Narrators Association for her work on Cloak of Embers, which was Cloak Mage #10. So if you get a chance, be sure to congratulate Hollis for that if you hang out on my social media pages. So that's where I'm at with my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. 00:02:25 How I Learned to Write Fast Now let's move on to my main topic, how I learn to write fast. Occasionally I will see a new indie author looking with dismay at how much time it takes to write and expressing the opinion that it must be impossible to write a million words a year without the aid of generative AI. Ha, no. I should point out that I wrote a million words in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 and back then the current AI tech bros were still searching for the big scam that would one day make them rich. They tried crypto and NFTs in the interim. ChatGPT would not be inflicted upon the world until the end of 2022. Admittedly, I didn't write a million new words in 2021, 2022 and 2023, but that was from a combination of personal issues taking up time and illness. I still hit between 800,000 and 900,000 in those three years. In 2024 and 2025, I wrote a million new words. I might or might not hit a million new words in 2026, and it largely depends on how the rest of the year goes. I had to take a lot of time off in spring and summer, and that really slowed me down. I did hit 700,000 words once Blade of Visions was done, so we'll see what happens the remaining four months of the year. But yes, if you're writing full-time, a million words in a year is certainly achievable, though as with all things it takes practice and can be subject to events. With that in mind, I thought I would explain how I was able over time to ramp up to writing a million new words in a year. It was less something I set out consciously to do when I started this in 2011 and more a step-by-step evolutionary process that took several years. By the grace of God, I have been indie publishing for almost 15 and a half years now. So here's the process of how I ended up writing a million words in a year. #1: Tech Writing Back in the second half of the 2000s, I used to do a lot of tech blogging, mostly about Linux, and I also did tech support, which frequently involved writing FAQs and guides for how to connect your Blackberry or Windows Mobile device to the company email or whatever. In retrospect, ...
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