Joshua E.B. Smith's Blog

Need something to do this weekend?
How about a book – or half a dozen?

Both Necromancer’s Bullet and the Auramancer’s Exorcism are on sale from 2/14-2/16/25.

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Necromancer’s Bullet by Joshua E. B. Smith
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The Auramancer’s Exorcism by Joshua E. B. Smith
Grimdark #DarkFantasy #Fantasy #Horror
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Sales & Disclosure note!
In addition to royalties off of the sales of my titles, I may receive a commission as an Amazon Associate for certain qualified sales for purchases made on Amazon’s site through links on this page.

We need to talk.And let’s absolutely clarify my stance on it first.

Before we begin, let me throw the part of this out that’s important to my career:
I, Joshua E. B. Smith, Author, do not currently use generative AI in my books. I do not use it for my covers, I do not use it for my content. I do use AI-assisted programs to provide some editing of my work, such as Grammarly (before it’s sent to human editors), and some of my advertisement images may or may not (I honestly don’t know) have come from AI-generated “stock photos” masquerading as human-created content.

I say that because if you aren’t an author or an artist, you may not know about the civil war within the creative community between people who think AI is okay and people who think it’s theft. This post is not designed to address that controversy. This post is an educational and editorial post.

My other stance.

My personal views on AI aside (because that’s not the purpose of this blog post), the (not really an opinion) belief is that AI content generation is not going away. Legal, ethical, or moral considerations aside, we’re stuck with it. The cat is out of the bag. At a certain point, I do feel like some creators are going to have to face the idea of, “If I want to continue creating, do I use AI or not?” as a matter of surviving economically.

In short, too many multinationals are investing too much money into generative AI that we can ever hope to get out of the other side of the issue unscathed. I hate to throw the flag, but I’ve paid very close attention to the moves that some of the larger conglomerates (the ‘zon, Google, MS, Nvidia, etc) have been making over the years. Amazon alone has already incorporated AI images into their ad platforms, and that’s to say nothing of their AI-based audio presentations.

That question of, “Do we have a way out?” may be coming sooner rather than later.

This time? It’s courtesy of the US Patent Office.

Let’s talk (US) Copyright.

Honestly, I’d rather not. But this is important, and I don’t know how many people know about it. First things first: I am not a lawyer, I am absolutely not a copyright lawyer, and this is not legal advice. I will never give you legal advice because truthfully, I’m an idiot on some subjects.

But I try to learn, and then teach, when it counts.

In January of 2025, the US Copyright Office kicked out a report regarding, and I quote, “Copyright and Artificial Intelligence,” subtitled, “Part 2: Copyrightability.”

Pretty sure that’s a made-up word so here we go for the rest of it.

Here’s a copy of the actual document. This is a PDF.

Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2 Copyrightability Report

If I went through the whole thing, it would take a while, so let me just tear through some of the most important tidbits.

TIDBIT ONE:
They punted. In the summary, they suggest that AI issues can be solved without need for legislation (and I don’t care what side of the coin you’re on, we can all agree that’s bullshit).

TIDBIT TWO:
They do point out that this is going to be resolved on a case by case basis. Copyright law is already a ****ing nightmare at best, and that just basically says, “Let a court handle it if you get sued, have fun.” Cool. Just cool.

TIDBIT THREE:
This is a quote: “Copyright does not extend to purely AI-generated material, or material where there is insufficient human control over the expressive elements.”

And then:
“Based on the functioning of current generally available technology, prompts do not
alone provide sufficient control.”

So. Let’s clarify this:
If all you do is input a prompt into Dall-E, ChatGPT, or other AI platform, the ensuing output is not copyrightable. Point blank, end of discussion. If you generate a cute blonde riding a dinosaur and do absolutely nothing to it, you cannot sue someone if they use that image for a purpose other than what you created it for because you didn’t make it.

This itself is actually kinda important. Because you can’t say ‘you’ made it, you don’t have as many legal protections over it. You (may) not even have a leg to stand on if you try to sell it yourself, or put a commercial license on it (ie: here’s a lease to use this image under X terms, like you might find if you pulled a picture off of Pixabay). Again, I am not a lawyer, but that’s my reading and interpretation of how it stands.

But you may notice a very significant problem with that statement.

TIDBIT FOUR (I love typing the word ‘tidbit,’ btw):
“Human authors are entitled to copyright in their works of authorship that are
perceptible in AI-generated outputs, as well as the creative selection, coordination,
or arrangement of material in the outputs, or creative modifications of the outputs.”

Ah, sh*t. And there it is. The official stance of the US Copyright Office. It’s not black and white. It does kick back to the earlier statement that it needs to be resolved on a case-by-case basis.

Let me add a bit to this from page 24 (technically 32) of their memo:
“Generating content with AI is often an initial or intermediate step, and human
authorship may be added in the final product. As explained in the AI Registration Guidance, “a
human may select or arrange AI-generated material in a sufficiently creative way that ‘the
resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship.’”126 A human may also
“modify material originally generated by AI technology to such a degree that the modifications meet the standard for copyright protection.”

‘Human authorship’ is the phrase to read there.

They explain this in-depth but I’m trying to help you get an overview without your eyes rolling out of your skull. So what does this mean? Why do I sound a bit pissed?

The Ultimate Ruling

What that last tidbit means (and it’s not the end of the memo, there’s a bit more that I’m not diving into) is that if I go to Dall-E and have it spit out an image of a dwarf and a human standing in front of a giant cavern, that image is not copyrightable. I cannot expect to have copyright protections under it. You could use it to advertise a can of soda and I would absolutely be powerless to stop you even though I’m the person that input the prompts and paid to use the software and refined the image a few different generations, et al.

Or, I could go to ChatGPT and write out a novel about a succubus f*cking her way through the NYC subway system with the intent to sell it and then you could copy it word for word and sell it yourself and I would have zero legal recourse in terms of going after you for a copyright violation because, and this is important, I did not provide any substantial modifications or provide substantial input, despite being the originator of the prompt. The prompt alone does not generate copyright in the US.

But who’s really doing that anyways?

Yes, I mean, some people are. They just copying and pasting and putting their name on it and waving their arms around and going LOOK WHAT I DID! and a few people are cheering and going, “WOW WHAT A COOL CAT PICTURE!” and honestly, I’ve done that. Because sometimes it really is a funny cat picture.

However, let’s talk about using a generative AI image – or five – and combining them together. Let’s talk about taking an image, adjusting a ‘substantial’ amount of it (and if you want to know the definition of ‘substantial,’ good luck; this is where the courts have to decide if enough modifications have been made to any given work), and then trying to copyright it.

Did you take that picture of the blonde on a T-Rex from earlier, overlay it against a photo you took of a mountain, add a bunch of text, change some of the lighting/shading/blending, and decide it made an epic book cover for Tonya and the Tyrant-Rex: A Dino-Rotica Novel?

You’ve likely now added substantial amounts of human adjustments to it.

And that likely means you now have the US Patent Office’s approval (or grounds to claim it).

How does this affect us, as authors?

And this is the literal billion-dollar question.

Again, I am not going to sit back and opine about my feelings in regards to generative AI from a moral or ethical stance (from my tone, you can probably assume a few aspects of it). I barely passed ethics in college and I quite frankly didn’t pass it in most of my adult life. My concern right now, first and foremost, is how it affects my business. To a degree, how it affects yours.

What this ruling does is very clearly draw a very fuzzy line for how AI generated content can be used as it stands today as far as the Copyright Office is concerned. It does not address the broader legal implications of using generative AI and if you can be sued by people who may have had their work used to train generative AI platforms. We do not know the answers to these questions. The courts in the US (and I have no idea how the courts outside the US) have not, to my knowledge, passed rulings on this topic yet.

This ruling says that if you substantially edit a work created with the assistance of generative AI, it can have a copyright issued to it.

This is – or was – a barrier. It is – or was – a very important question to determine if we could make output and claim it as our own. If we could stand up and say, “I did this, so you, the courts, you have to protect me.”

There was a hope, I think, that gen-AI would fizzle out. I think that hope was severely misplaced, and thought as much when the engines were first unleashed on the world. I think that with this ruling it enshrines the fact that no, gen-AI is still here. Gen-AI is only going to grow.

And more importantly, Gen-AI is going to continue to be used by people to make money.

I fear that the question that content creators have to address now is an ethical one more than a legal one. The vast majority of us are not in a position to go to bat with the legal ramifications of, “Is generative AI using stolen content, is the end result fruit of a poisoned tree, can copyright holders sue the companies and platforms that trained their engines in ways that were not consented to ?” and I say that because Google is literally building nuclear reactors to handle the problem posed by AI electricity consumption.

(That’s not BS. Here’s a link:
https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/sustainability/google-kairos-power-nuclear-energy-agreement/ )

I have to figure that if plutonium is going to be involved, then The Money has already decided the answer to the question of legality. With one big barrier gone, it further breaches the dam. The floodgates were already open; now the wall has been sapped.

How does this ruling affect us?

If you use gen-AI, you now have a guideline to determine how you can copyright your works, and a guideline that says what you can do with AI to develop your works (regardless of what ‘type’ of work it is). You now have some legal protections that you didn’t necessarily have before.

If you don’t use it, it’s allowing more competition to enter the market because it removed one of the last hurdles.

The last question: Does it matter?

As I stated at the start of this blog post (which now feels like an essay), I don’t use gen-AI for my works. I can safely say that today, for the purposes of my business, it does not directly affect me.

It indirectly matters because it creates more competition on the market. It also indirectly matters because now you have to ask if you can afford not to use it. Can you, or your brand, afford not to throw ideas at ChatGPT and get an outline for your next novel? Can you, or your brand, afford not to cut costs by generating parts of a cover for your next title?

Granted, yes – that disregards the questions of, “Am I willing to get involved in the arguments about the moral use and be willing to be labeled as an AI creator, and the negative reactions that will involve?” Because hey: that’s a you problem and I am, very bluntly, not going to get involved. There are pitchforks on one side of that argument and I am not putting myself between your brand and those stabby things.

You’re on your own with that issue, kiddo.

That said, I’m always in competition. My ads compete for clicks. My books compete for the money in your entertainment budget. My release schedule is a thimble in the flood of books released every day. Every time I put out a book I’m in a fight between books about werewolves, werewolves having sex with vampires, space marines, cowboys, and honestly, even money you might spend on Wrestlemania tickets. I want your money. Everyone else writing or developing a show on Netflix or selling a video game or selling doughnuts also wants your money.

I create products that are strictly optional that nobody needs. As a result, I am in competition with your money with literally everyone from Shell Oil to Mattress Warehouse to Vince McMahon.

So for me, extra books being written with gen-AI are just more noise in the background. I still have to stand out in the crowd.

For you? I don’t know. Only you can answer that question.

But I would strongly, strongly, ask that you ask yourself that question sooner than later.

~Joshua E. B. Smith, Author
Feb. 2, 2025

Pssst. Hey. You. Enjoy this? Talk about it. Share it. GIVE ME TRAFFIC.
And then buy some books.

Find out more about the fictional capitalistic nightmare I write at:
https://www.sagadmw.com/necrotek-the-series

Or for fantasy horror:
https://www.sagadmw.com/series

And if you really like what I do? Consider dropping a coin for your author at the Ko-Fi link on the page! I love you, and I appreciate you.

Some random hashtags for good measure:
#ai #author #indieauthor #copyright #genai #writing #writingblog

The Amazon Associate Program

Yay – I’m an Amazon Associate!
But I’m not. And to be clear, I am not an employee or contractor of or to the ‘zon in any capacity. I’m primarily writing this for my friends who are also authors, or who are looking for a way to break into a side hustle – or ones who are just after a way to maximize their potential income (which if you intend to do this for a living, you should be). It’s also to post to ‘lead in’ to a new menu item that’ll appear on the front page before the end of January.

Let me back this up a little:
Recently, Amazon instituted a new service that allows people to post Kindle Book Previews directly on their website. This allows someone to say, read a book review and then actually read part of the book without leaving the hosting webpage. (There’s a slew of marketing studies behind this concept, but the short version is, “Once you’re on my page I don’t want you to leave.”)

If you’d like to learn more, that’s at:
https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=13489836011

This is a great idea. For me, it removes the necessity to have *.pdfs of the first chapters of my books available (which is no longer possible for sagadmw.com, my apologies) on a web host for preview purposes, or forces a potential viewer to go to Book Funnel or even navigate away from my page.

It’ll allow you to make an educated decision about my work if you stumble on it through my website – and I do have sales funnels to get you ‘here.’ This blog is actually one of them, so hey, welcome to the funnel. Now that you’re here, I want you to buy stuff.

Turns out, there’s another perk.

Once I heard about this program, I went digging. Turns out, to get it, and this is a very long story short, I have to become an “Amazon Associate,” which is something that people who are far brighter than me have been using for years. In short, this is their influencer program (or the predecessor step for it; the Influencer program is separate).

Let me drop a link to this program here, too. Just in case you like how this sounds.
(I am not getting any kind of commission off of this link. I just want my other author friends to do well.)
https://affiliate-program.amazon.com

I don’t want to misconstrue anything here and there is an epic ton of data to sort through about this program – how I can use it, how I can expect to get paid, when I have to use hashtags like #ad, and so on. The very short version is that if I want to get access to the API that allows me to place the Kindle Previewer directly here on my site, I have to complete the program in the next 180 days.

To do that, I have to have 3 ‘qualified’ sales tracked to products I’ve promoted through my page or my social media services. In theory, as long as it means some reasonably strict criteria, I’ll get paid a commission. Now, here’s the perk: One of those product types is… or can be…

…my books.

Yup. You read that right. The books that I sell through the KDP Publishing Program on Amazon, the ones that I get a royalty for when you read them on Kindle Unlimited or buy them for your Kindle device, I’m eligible to get paid for if you follow one of my new snazzy Amazon links. I’ve spent the morning updating every link on my site except my Shop links to point to the right pages. If any send you to the ‘zon, I may actually make some (extra) money off of your purchase.

In the long run, I don’t know if this is going to work. I’m going to give it a shot. I don’t expect to suddenly make BIG MONEY or win BIG PRIZES (there are no prizes) recommending a teapot or the like that someone decides to buy.

But, hey. It’s a hustle. It helps pay the bills.

Ko-Fi, Anyone?

In addition, I’ve added something else. Publishing is expensive, and I have to be honest that I haven’t started to turn a profit. If you look on this page (and every page), you’ll see a Ko-Fi link. It’s a tip jar. If you like what i do, like what I produce, or you just want to pay for a Diet Coke or something, you’re welcome to drop a coin for your Witch- I mean, slip some pay to your writer.

To give you an example, I recently ordered two brand new book covers by the insanely talented Christian Benultan over at Covers By Christian.com. They weren’t cheap (but they’re awesome), and it set me back over $975. I’ve also got more editing costs coming up, as well as a new round of ISBNs to buy at $300. And taxes. And marketing expenses.

My sales haven’t matched that level of expense lately, and I understand – it’s the economy, stupid – but the more books I put out, the better my career is going to be in the long run.

Still, every bit of caffeine helps – and this can’t hurt. Right?

Dead Man Streamin’

And finally, I’m now streaming on Twitch.tv!
I like to play video games to relax. It helps me calm down. It puts my brain on other topics and frees up my background processing headspace to solve one issue or another. As a perk, once I reach “Affiliate” status with them, I can use it to generate funds for the charity that I run.

Hey. I am absolutely on board with that.
If you would like to give me a follow over there, hit it up at:
https://www.twitch.tv/joshua_akaran_smith

But hey, about the delay…

If you’re hoping for more frequent blog posts, it’s on my list. I got really busy with NB’s launch back in October, then really sick, then really busy with my fundraising in Nov and Dec, and then suffered some minor head trauma right before Christmas.

I’m getting caught back up, but I apologize if you were waiting for some of my other posts!

I’ll see you soon!

~Josh

In short, it’s constant. In long, it’s constantly irritating.

Editing.

It’s the bane of most authors’ existence(s). It’s that squiggly little red line, or that query to Google, or that double-check with another writer. Or it’s that moment when you realize you missed a line (or forgot you wrote one) that changed a plot point forever. Or it’s just that you thought of a better way to phrase something. It’s developmental, it’s line, it’s copy, it’s a lot of headaches.

So when do you do it? How do you do it?

This answer is going to depend on a few key things, and you’re going to have to be the one to answer them for yourself.

This blog is going to be split into two parts, with part two coming later the week of 9/29-10/6. Part one addresses concepts and some soul-searching, and part two identifies the way I go about it.

Key Note: This is for Novels, Novellas, and Shorts.

All the love for FB posts and blogs, but this is a bit more involved than that type of content.

Your own personality.
I’m not going to lie to you; this is going to be a major deciding factor. Are you someone that has to make everything perfect the first time? Are you someone that has to ensure that whatever you type is exact the moment you write it? Or are you okay with going by the seat of your pants and just getting something down?

In fact, I’m going to push that last part. A major unwritten rule of writing is, “You can’t edit a blank page.” I’ve heard this from so many successful writers, but the actual quote seems to be from Jodi Picoult. In short, if you don’t have something on the paper, you can’t fix it. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but you have to have it written first.

What your final goal is.
Are you writing for yourself? Are you writing to have other people read it? Are you writing for publication? Are you writing for your career?

Depending on your goal, you may not need to do everything. You may just need to give it a good solid proofin’ and drop it onto the free hosting site of your choice. Or you may want to invest money into it… and expect to make a living from the net result of your work.

What kind of budget do you have?
Money is an issue. There’s an old joke that says the quickest way to have an author earn one million dollars is to give him ten. It hurts, but for a lot of us, it’s true.

When you’re low on cash, you may consider doing the bare minimum. I’m going to tell you up-front that if you’re writing for publication, if you’re publishing your own work, if you expect to earn money from it, then don’t do that. Don’t skimp; don’t screw around. Invest. You got someone to buy one book. Don’t you want them to buy the next book?

I’m going to be upfront on this one:
My first six titles (Snowflakes in Summer, Dead Men in Winter, Slag Harbor, Favorite Things, Blindsided, and Fearmonger) were self-edited. Not just once, but several times over the last few years. The net result? Some readers communicated with me that they had a bad experience. The ones that stuck around really enjoyed the full Battles of Coldstone’s Summit , but they were disappointed in the quality of production.

I lost potential fans. I lost sales. I didn’t find the success that I was after.

It still hurts to this day.

This isn’t the route you want to take. So maybe… don’t. If you’re completely broke, writing a book for sale is likely not the way to fame and fortune that you may think it is. You do have a lot of costs that are involved and if you are trying to build a career, this may not be your best option.

BUT DO NOT LET THAT SWAY YOU.

I’m broke as hell. I continually try to find the money to make ends meet and to push one book out after another. Why? Because it’s what I want to do with my life. If you want something bad enough, you will find a way to make it happen.

I only want to caution you against going full-bore. If it takes longer than expected, it takes longer than expected. That’s just life sometimes.

And – who knows? There are scores of authors that have made mega-bank on their first book. These are the authors that we aspire to be. The ones that get a movie deal and a show on HBO. You might just be one!

Sometimes, you just have to say ‘Never tell me the odds!’ and punch it into hyperdrive!

Time.
How much time are you willing to invest? This is THE question. What type of schedule are you on? Do you have one? Do you have an editor lined up? Do you know how long they’re going to take? Do you have a plan?

It takes me, on average, two months to run a completed novel from point A to point B in my editing process. It takes up to one to two months for my developmental editor and my proofreading editor to work on their parts of the process. So, generally (a word used liberally and loaded with salty tears), a 270-380pg book takes up to four-five months(!) of alternate development time for the methods I use.

You can cut this down significantly if you make certain choices. You can pay more to have your editor work faster (or pay less and hire a cheap one). You can skip developmental editing if you don’t think it needs it (and I’d at least run it through a beta reader first). You may not sit down and do two different full read-throughs with a red pen.

Publishers… do you have one?
One of my best friends in the indie-author industry recently took a contract with a local publisher in the WV area ( Henlo Press ; they’re good people, though I don’t use them myself) who handles things like cover design and editing in-house. Amanda doesn’t have to do any of it; she submits a manuscript and goes off to the next one.

I’m jealous. Not gonna lie.

There comes a point where you have to decide: what method is right for me? Where is my time best spent? How much control do I want over the final product?

If you’re like me… you want all of it. All the control.

And it comes with all the headaches.
My way is not the end-all-be-all of ways.

While you think on these (and I work on getting my ads ready for Necromancer’s Bullet to be released on October 1st), remember:

I’m one guy.

I have been doing this for ten years.

I have not been measurably successful with a positive ROI for a variety of factors.

What I have found works for me may not work for you. What I’ve found that works for me may lead you down a path of despair. What I’ve found that works for me may waste your time. Your time may be better used by spending your money on intensive editing solutions that hand the work to other people.

Or you may read my next post (later this week) and incorporate these methods into your own work.

For now, I hope I’ve given you something to think on.

See you soon!

~Joshua E. B. Smith, Author
sagadmw@gmail.com

Anthony Pierson: ex-Army, ex-husband, ex-hausted.

He’s not perfect, but he’s honest about it.

42, Captain, US Army. Retired, with an other-than-honorable flag.

Anthony is a tough nut to crack. America’s war against the New Persian Caliphate cost him his arm, a decent chunk of his moral compass, and the women he used to deal with his PTSD cost him his wife. Discharged back to civilian life at the age of 38 – with roughly fifteen years in the service – he’s shacked up in the projects of Los Santuario with limited hopes for… or interest in… the future.

“Can’t a guy just go through some sh*t?”

To make mends (and alimony) meet, Anthony has taken to working on the back-end of things. His time working for Army Intelligence (aka INSCOM) taught him a thing or two about operational security, intelligence gathering, and situational overview. It’s not a bad skillset in 2057 America, especially when you consider that Los San is the largest, grittiest corporate-meg in the country (and one of the biggest in the world). Dip your toes into the shadows and a guy like him can find all kinds of work.

Some of it is even legitimate.

Still, his preference is to live life as a man without a country. Pledging allegiance to one of the city’s corporate overlords comes with significant risks; the wrong boss can put you on the wrong side of a coffin in a hurry. While he’s not a stranger to taking a job or two from one of the local street gangs, a decade in the desert has made him a little skittish about jumping right into the middle of another gunfight if he doesn’t have to.

For him, black-ops has always meant black-magic.

Army Intel loves necromancers. They love them so much they have an entire division for them – and Anthony had the privilege of being embedded with a counter-insurgent platoon for nearly half his time in the service. When you can rip the secrets from a dead man’s mind and spread those tales far and wide through the halls of the Pentagon or Hoover Central, you get special considerations from the feds… even after you’ve been discharged.

As a federally licensed necromancer, Mr. Pierson has a few tricks up his sleeve – other than his cybernetic arm. Li-Necs are permitted to have a familiar, and they’re under a mandatory contract with law enforcement agencies anywhere in the states. It also comes with risks: if a Li-Nec is made aware of a Magical Anomalous Event, they are mandated to deal with it in whatever way seems reasonable at the time.

With a possessed shotgun on his hip, wit that’s only dulled by whiskey, and an arm that’s made of the cheapest poly-steel-and-chrome on the market, “whatever way seems reasonable” is frequently decided by a Necromancer’s Bullet.

Coming October 1st, 2024.

Get the first chapter and prologue here:
https://www.sagadmw.com/email

Or find out more about the book here:
https://www.sagadmw.com/the-series-necrotek

Or pre-order on Amazon at:
https://bit.ly/4diVF3D

Dead Man Bloggin’ – Sept 22nd, 2024

When I first started writing, I thought I knew it all. I had an idea. I had a story. I had Wordpad. That was enough, right?

Right?

Me of a decade ago (and 8 novels) was not bright.
Me now isn’t much of an improvement, but I’m trying.

With Necromancer’s Bullet coming out in a little more than a week ( #panic ), I thought I’d talk about all the things that went into getting the sausage made. For writers… you probably know this (or you’re about to be in for a shock). For readers, you probably had no idea.

With luck, you’ll learn a thing or two.

First, two notes about me in brief:
1. I am an independently published author. That means everything from my cover design to my website design flows through and ends with exactly one person: me. I make the decisions and I call the shots. As a result, I take the credit… and the blame.

2. I am an affiliate for one of the software items below – Publisher Rocket. With that said, I haven’t written my full review for it yet. I just wanted to be clear with that fact.
The Software Packages & Websites

This list isn’t inclusive, and I’m sure I’ve left something or other off. But, if you’re thinking about writing a book and doing it all on your own, here’s some of the skills I’ve had to learn over the last few years… and the sites that help put them together.

LibreOffice Writer
Okay, so let’s jump into the brass tacks on this one. Libre is a free-to-download word processor and office suite. It is one of several that you can find online that all do roughly the same thing; it works as a word processor.

I have a love/hate relationship with it. I love that it’s free; I love that I’ve used it since I was in college two decades ago. I don’t love that sometimes it can be incredibly buggy, or that it doesn’t always recognize “American” English.

That said, there’s been a large push over the years for people to migrate over to Google Docs. I personally don’t like web-based solutions, but I may switch into it for my next title.

Grammarly
Recently, Grammarly has made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Depending on your stance on AI and AI content generation, you may want to skip using the service. I do use it, knowing that they parse my documents for their AI models. On the other hand, God help any AI that gets it’s digital fingerprints on my first draft.

But why do I use it?

Let me be perfectly clear: I don’t generate content with it. Period.

I do use it to check for basic typos, misspellings, or grammar breaks. It isn’t perfect and we don’t see eye-to-eye. It is NOT a replacement for an editor. It does, however, cut down on the work that either my editor or myself have to do for the next revision. Anything that makes my life easier is for the better.

Not perfect, but useful. That said, neither is their stance on AI.

LibreOffice Calc
A little less important than writer, but I use the spreadsheet functions to keep track of my yearly sales, advertising keywords, advertising links, ad copy, and basically anything that can be spread-sheetable.

Affinity Photo 1
I can only speak for the first version of Affinity, and they have released an updated version since. That said, it is a one-time purchase with no subscription required. Why do I use it though?

When you advertise online, the vast majority of posts you’ll see have an image in them that utilizes their book cover along with a background image and other features. Affinity is a graphics software package that rivals Photoshop, and as a one-and-done purchase, it’s my preference.

Covers by Christian
But there are some things I can’t do – and detailed graphic art is one of them. For that, I outsource to the immensely talented Christian Benultan of CoversByChristian.com. Is he cheap? No. Is he worth every penny? Absolutely.

Christian has done the covers for the vast majority of my work – everything from Snowflakes to Requiem and Bullet. I can’t recommend him enough, and in fact, I’ll recommend him so much that I already have two more covers ordered from him!

Google Forms
While I’m not a fan of G-Docs, Google Forms is an incredibly useful tool for pre-sales. With the way that I have my business structured, I use a free Google Form to accept paperback pre-orders for people that want a signed, dedicated copy sent direct from me on book launch. Truthfully, it took about fifteen minutes to put together and it notifies me whenever someone orders in.

Google Drive
I am a fan of off-site storage. I want to know that my documents are going to be salvageable in case the worst-case scenario happens. Drive helps me accomplish that. As a perk, I can get into them wherever I am – at the mall, on my phone, in traffic, whatever. I seriously can’t recommend off-site storage enough; if you’re a content creator, use it!

Social Media Platforms
Listen, I know that you didn’t land here by chance. Odds are very good that you came to this blog by way of my YouTube channel, my Facebook page, or a post on X. I use all of them, plus Threads, LinkedIn, and Goodreads.

Who do I advertise on, though? For my paid advertising, I keep it simple: Amazon Ads and Facebook Ads, both rarely (at the time of this blog) but with intent. I post semi-regularly on TikTok, X, and I am working on building up my engagement on the ‘tube and Threads.

Atticus.io
With previous ebooks, I used the Calibre software package. Typically speaking, it would take me up to a week to format a title, eliminate the bugs, check the table of contents, organize the metadata, and test it.

With Bullet I used Atticus, an online formatting/semi-wordprocessor.

The cons? It hated the print edition and nearly doubled the size of the book. That’s my number one beef. The other? It’s designed to be user-intuitive, but since it’s web/browser based, I kept making the mistake of going “back” when I just needed to close an overlapping window.

That said? A task that normally would take a week and a slew of old HTML/CSS knowledge took an afternoon.

No joke. And I was able to add some extra bells and whistles I’ve never used before. Seriously – no joke. I’m delighted with it and how the end product came out.

Publisher Rocket & Kindleprenure.com
Okay, full stop – I am registered as an affiliate marketer for PR. I am not linking to it in this blog, because I want to dedicate an entire post to it later.

With that said, the reason I registered as an affiliate is because PR has vastly improved over the years. A semi-recent update has made it incredibly easy to find *valid, relevant keywords* for advertising, Amazon-specific ad targeting, and general marketing. I cannot stress how important this is.

I also can’t stress at how fast it makes your research, from a marketing standpoint. A task that two years ago took me 3-4 days of reviewing and then a month+ of testing took a whopping HOUR to get my keywords and categories set for Necromancer’s Bullet. It is the #1 reason I am going to try to run Amazon Ads again at book launch.

Anything that makes advertising less of a headache is entirely worth it to me.

WordPress.org
Welcome to my website. I’m not going to lie; WP gives me a headache on most days. On the other hand, there’s a reason why it’s one of the most popular web development platforms in the world. It’s more than just blogging; it’s e-commerce. It’s design. It’s development. It’s plugins. SO MANY PLUGINS.

A lot of authors think that having a social media page is enough. It isn’t. When you have a website, you have your own part of the internet that you can do almost anything, say almost anything, and host almost anything on. You have more control over it than you do your FB page, and that’s important.

Your website serves as a one-stop shop. Look at everything on mine; it’s a portal to all of my other platforms. It hosts first chapters of all of my books. It links to my vlogging platforms. It supports my charity work. It hosts my newsletter signup page.

It’s also not at the whim of a random social media bot deciding I’ve violated “a policy” that will get my account suspended. If I lost my FB account tomorrow, it would be freaking terrible; but I’d still have my website. I’d still have a line of communication. I’d still be able to sell direct, even if I’ve been ‘zucked.

It’s worth the investment, even if you don’t see a positive ROI (yet).

Bowker
Do I like that I have to use Bowker? No. Do I have to use Bowker? Technically, no. Do I use Bowker? Yes. Why?

In the US, ISBNs aren’t handed out freely by our government – unlike in some countries. Bowker is the agency that handles registration fees and ISBN assignments for any form of media you create. Can you get a ‘free’ ISBN from a publishing company? Yessss… kinda. Except you don’t own it; you’re effectively freely leasing it (and that’s a story for another blog).

For me? I bite the bullet and pay for them. It’s better to own your own, so for all of my print books, I do.

Ingram Spark
IS is a Print on Demand (PoD) distribution agency – you give them your work, you upload your files, and you grant them the right to fill orders. I’m not going to lie to you: their prices have increased repeatedly over the years, and I am not a fan of it. However, most non-Amazon bookstores won’t stock books if Amazon does the PoD service…

…so if you want to see your books carried in smaller/alternative retailers, Spark may be the service you want.

Amazon KDP
For me, this is the core of the self-publishing world. Without Amazon, I wouldn’t/likely couldn’t do what I do. There are plenty of places to self-publish, but Amazon is the biggest. While it’s not always fun to play by their rules, it is their sandbox – and everyone is welcome.

With that said, be wary! There’s a few services out there that promise they will publish your book on Amazon, but you don’t need them; Amazon KDP is Amazon. Period. Here’s a direct link so you don’t get ripped off:

https://kdp.amazon.com

Start there for your publishing journey!

But at the end of the day…


…at the end of the day, these are just tools, services, and service providers. What world you make is up to you; what stories you tell. It STARTS with you, it ENDS with you.

Sure, you need a bit of mental elbow-grease to put it all together. Sure, you need time, effort, and tech to polish it. However, all the tech in the world doesn’t matter if you don’t put pen to paper, or cursor to screen.

Just remember:
You’re not just creating content, you’re creating a product. Writing for fun is writing for fun, but writing to publish is a business – and you’re the de-facto CEO.

Good luck, and I hope this list helps you out in the future!

Joshua E.B. Smith
Grimdark Fantasy Horror & Cyberpunk Novelist
https://www.sagadmw.com
Necromancer's Bullet

Dead Man Bloggin’ – Sept 22nd, 2024

When I first started writing, I thought I knew it all. I had an idea. I had a story. I had Wordpad. That was enough, right?

Right?

Me of a decade ago (and 8 novels) was not bright.
Me now isn’t much of an improvement, but I’m trying.

With Necromancer’s Bullet coming out in a little more than a week ( #panic ), I thought I’d talk about all the things that went into getting the sausage made. For writers… you probably know this (or you’re about to be in for a shock). For readers, you probably had no idea.

With luck, you’ll learn a thing or two.

First, two notes about me in brief:
1. I am an independently published author. That means everything from my cover design to my website design flows through and ends with exactly one person: me. I make the decisions and I call the shots. As a result, I take the credit… and the blame.

2. I am an affiliate for one of the software items below – Publisher Rocket. With that said, I haven’t written my full review for it yet. I just wanted to be clear with that fact.

The Software Packages & Websites

This list isn’t inclusive, and I’m sure I’ve left something or other off. But, if you’re thinking about writing a book and doing it all on your own, here’s some of the skills I’ve had to learn over the last few years… and the sites that help put them together.

LibreOffice Writer
Okay, so let’s jump into the brass tacks on this one. Libre is a free-to-download word processor and office suite. It is one of several that you can find online that all do roughly the same thing; it works as a word processor.

I have a love/hate relationship with it. I love that it’s free; I love that I’ve used it since I was in college two decades ago. I don’t love that sometimes it can be incredibly buggy, or that it doesn’t always recognize “American” English.

That said, there’s been a large push over the years for people to migrate over to Google Docs. I personally don’t like web-based solutions, but I may switch into it for my next title.

Grammarly
Recently, Grammarly has made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Depending on your stance on AI and AI content generation, you may want to skip using the service. I do use it, knowing that they parse my documents for their AI models. On the other hand, God help any AI that gets it’s digital fingerprints on my first draft.

But why do I use it?

Let me be perfectly clear: I don’t generate content with it. Period.

I do use it to check for basic typos, misspellings, or grammar breaks. It isn’t perfect and we don’t see eye-to-eye. It is NOT a replacement for an editor. It does, however, cut down on the work that either my editor or myself have to do for the next revision. Anything that makes my life easier is for the better.

Not perfect, but useful. That said, neither is their stance on AI.

LibreOffice Calc
A little less important than writer, but I use the spreadsheet functions to keep track of my yearly sales, advertising keywords, advertising links, ad copy, and basically anything that can be spread-sheetable.

Affinity Photo 1
I can only speak for the first version of Affinity, and they have released an updated version since. That said, it is a one-time purchase with no subscription required. Why do I use it though?

When you advertise online, the vast majority of posts you’ll see have an image in them that utilizes their book cover along with a background image and other features. Affinity is a graphics software package that rivals Photoshop, and as a one-and-done purchase, it’s my preference.

Covers by Christian
But there are some things I can’t do – and detailed graphic art is one of them. For that, I outsource to the immensely talented Christian Benultan of CoversByChristian.com. Is he cheap? No. Is he worth every penny? Absolutely.

Christian has done the covers for the vast majority of my work – everything from Snowflakes to Requiem and Bullet . I can’t recommend him enough, and in fact, I’ll recommend him so much that I already have two more covers ordered from him!

Google Forms
While I’m not a fan of G-Docs, Google Forms is an incredibly useful tool for pre-sales. With the way that I have my business structured, I use a free Google Form to accept paperback pre-orders for people that want a signed, dedicated copy sent direct from me on book launch. Truthfully, it took about fifteen minutes to put together and it notifies me whenever someone orders in.

Google Drive
I am a fan of off-site storage. I want to know that my documents are going to be salvageable in case the worst-case scenario happens. Drive helps me accomplish that. As a perk, I can get into them wherever I am – at the mall, on my phone, in traffic, whatever. I seriously can’t recommend off-site storage enough; if you’re a content creator, use it!

Social Media Platforms
Listen, I know that you didn’t land here by chance. Odds are very good that you came to this blog by way of my YouTube channel, my Facebook page, or a post on X. I use all of them, plus Threads, LinkedIn, and Goodreads.

Who do I advertise on, though? For my paid advertising, I keep it simple: Amazon Ads and Facebook Ads, both rarely (at the time of this blog) but with intent. I post semi-regularly on TikTok, X, and I am working on building up my engagement on the ‘tube and Threads.

Atticus.io
With previous ebooks, I used the Calibre software package. Typically speaking, it would take me up to a week to format a title, eliminate the bugs, check the table of contents, organize the metadata, and test it.

With Bullet I used Atticus, an online formatting/semi-wordprocessor.

The cons? It hated the print edition and nearly doubled the size of the book. That’s my number one beef. The other? It’s designed to be user-intuitive, but since it’s web/browser based, I kept making the mistake of going “back” when I just needed to close an overlapping window.

That said? A task that normally would take a week and a slew of old HTML/CSS knowledge took an afternoon.

No joke. And I was able to add some extra bells and whistles I’ve never used before. Seriously – no joke. I’m delighted with it and how the end product came out.

Publisher Rocket & Kindleprenure.com
Okay, full stop – I am registered as an affiliate marketer for PR. I am not linking to it in this blog, because I want to dedicate an entire post to it later.

With that said, the reason I registered as an affiliate is because PR has vastly improved over the years. A semi-recent update has made it incredibly easy to find *valid, relevant keywords* for advertising, Amazon-specific ad targeting, and general marketing. I cannot stress how important this is.

I also can’t stress at how fast it makes your research, from a marketing standpoint. A task that two years ago took me 3-4 days of reviewing and then a month+ of testing took a whopping HOUR to get my keywords and categories set for Necromancer’s Bullet. It is the #1 reason I am going to try to run Amazon Ads again at book launch.

Anything that makes advertising less of a headache is entirely worth it to me.

WordPress.org
Welcome to my website. I’m not going to lie; WP gives me a headache on most days. On the other hand, there’s a reason why it’s one of the most popular web development platforms in the world. It’s more than just blogging; it’s e-commerce. It’s design. It’s development. It’s plugins. SO MANY PLUGINS.

A lot of authors think that having a social media page is enough. It isn’t. When you have a website, you have your own part of the internet that you can do almost anything, say almost anything, and host almost anything on. You have more control over it than you do your FB page, and that’s important.

Your website serves as a one-stop shop. Look at everything on mine; it’s a portal to all of my other platforms. It hosts first chapters of all of my books. It links to my vlogging platforms. It supports my charity work. It hosts my newsletter signup page.

It’s also not at the whim of a random social media bot deciding I’ve violated “a policy” that will get my account suspended. If I lost my FB account tomorrow, it would be freaking terrible; but I’d still have my website. I’d still have a line of communication. I’d still be able to sell direct, even if I’ve been ‘zucked.

It’s worth the investment, even if you don’t see a positive ROI (yet).

Bowker
Do I like that I have to use Bowker? No. Do I have to use Bowker? Technically, no. Do I use Bowker? Yes. Why?

In the US, ISBNs aren’t handed out freely by our government – unlike in some countries. Bowker is the agency that handles registration fees and ISBN assignments for any form of media you create. Can you get a ‘free’ ISBN from a publishing company? Yessss… kinda. Except you don’t own it; you’re effectively freely leasing it (and that’s a story for another blog).

For me? I bite the bullet and pay for them. It’s better to own your own, so for all of my print books, I do.

Ingram Spark
IS is a Print on Demand (PoD) distribution agency – you give them your work, you upload your files, and you grant them the right to fill orders. I’m not going to lie to you: their prices have increased repeatedly over the years, and I am not a fan of it. However, most non-Amazon bookstores won’t stock books if Amazon does the PoD service…

…so if you want to see your books carried in smaller/alternative retailers, Spark may be the service you want.

Amazon KDP
For me, this is the core of the self-publishing world. Without Amazon, I wouldn’t/likely couldn’t do what I do. There are plenty of places to self-publish, but Amazon is the biggest. While it’s not always fun to play by their rules, it is their sandbox – and everyone is welcome.

With that said, be wary! There’s a few services out there that promise they will publish your book on Amazon, but you don’t need them; Amazon KDP is Amazon. Period. Here’s a direct link so you don’t get ripped off:

https://kdp.amazon.com

Start there for your publishing journey!
But at the end of the day…

…at the end of the day, these are just tools, services, and service providers. What world you make is up to you; what stories you tell. It STARTS with you, it ENDS with you.

Sure, you need a bit of mental elbow-grease to put it all together. Sure, you need time, effort, and tech to polish it. However, all the tech in the world doesn’t matter if you don’t put pen to paper, or cursor to screen.

Just remember:
You’re not just creating content, you’re creating a product. Writing for fun is writing for fun, but writing to publish is a business – and you’re the de-facto CEO.

Good luck, and I hope this list helps you out in the future!

~Joshua E. B. Smith
Grimdark Fantasy Horror & Cyberpunk Novelist
josh@sagadmw.com

Dead Man Bloggin’, Sept 11, 2024

Hey everyone!

On October 1st, the culmination of more than two years of incredibly hard work will be released on Amazon (and wide-release across global booksellers on the 2nd): NecroTek 1.0: Necromancer’s Bullet!

Bullet is a major, major shift for me as an author and at the same time, feels incredibly familiar. I’ll do another post in the coming days about the book, the characters, the plot – but for now, let’s talk the genres!

I grew up reading and playing Shadowrun, the tabletop RPG and novel series set in a futuristic earth where magic and technology combined in a mix of cybernetics and otherworldly influences across a backdrop of a world gone corporate. There are few things I’ve ever read that have managed to take that idea and mix not only the brutality of street life with the fantastical concepts of elven, dwarven, orc, vampires and then throw in advanced tech with it. The Netflix movie Bright is the only thing that really compares, at least to me.

In fact, there’s been so little that I’ve seen that has ever compared that I decided it was time to write the kind of book that I want to read.

Enter Anthony Pierson – a former intelligence officer in the US Army. He’s enjoying his other-than-honorable medical discharge while living in a sh*tty apartment in a sh*tty slum in the largest mega-corp-stylized city in 2057 USA. In Anthony’s world, magic has been a part of human society forever, even if it only was given “official recognition” in 1970.

The Gates of Hell opening up sorta forced the point.

With Anthony, black-magic also means black-ops. In his role as an intelligence officer, he was trained as a necromancer; so I have a character that is capable of using cybernetic technology embedded in his body to compliment the ability to get into a dead guy’s head and learn what he or she knows.

Building a world around this concept was incredibly fun. What happens when Daemon Lords leave Hell but decide that Earth really is a better place to live? What happens when torture chambers are replaced with boardooms and status reports? How does humanity cope with halfbreed demon/human people who just want to live in modern society?

How does society change when everything is an advertisement, when if you can pay your way for it you can turn your body into anything you want, and how do you find a way to make a living if you don’t want to just be some corporate drone?

On a personal note, this is something I’ve had boiling for literally years. It’s gone through two extensive rewrites, and one was so heavy that I effectively cut an actual third of the book and rewrote it over a four month period. It is the very definition of ‘labor of love,’ even when the content of it is anything but.

With Necromancer’s Bullet, I’m shoving you into a brand new American dystopian cityscape in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s an urban fantasy/cyberpunk thrill ride with a bit of horror, a lot of violence, over three-hundred utterances of “f*ck,” a six-decade dead former Texan Marshal that goes by the name Marshal Marshall Blackburn, and a forty-year-old asshole that just wanted his d*ck sucked before everything in his life went straight to Hell.

If he’s lucky, it’ll be Hell and back.

But he may not be that lucky.

Enter Anthony’s world on October 1st, 2024!

Necromancer’s Bullet by Joshua E. B. Smith
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGRVBG

Hey everyone!

On October 1st, the culmination of more than two years of incredibly hard work will be released on Amazon (and wide-release across global booksellers on the 2nd): NecroTek 1.0: Necromancer's Bullet!

Bullet is a major, major shift for me as an author and at the same time, feels incredibly familiar. I'll do another post in the coming days about the book, the characters, the plot - but for now, let's talk the genres!

I grew up reading and playing Shadowrun, the tabletop RPG and novel series set in a futuristic earth where magic and technology combined in a mix of cybernetics and otherworldly influences across a backdrop of a world gone corporate. There are few things I've ever read that have managed to take that idea and mix not only the brutality of street life with the fantastical concepts of elven, dwarven, orc, vampires and then throw in advanced tech with it. The Netflix movie Bright is the only thing that really compares, at least to me.

In fact, there's been so little that I've seen that has ever compared that I decided it was time to write the kind of book that I want to read.

Enter Anthony Pierson - a former intelligence officer in the US Army. He's enjoying his other-than-honorable medical discharge while living in a sh*tty apartment in a sh*tty slum in the largest mega-corp-stylized city in 2057 USA. In Anthony's world, magic has been a part of human society forever, even if it only was given "official recognition" in 1970.

The Gates of Hell opening up sorta forced the point.

With Anthony, black-magic also means black-ops. In his role as an intelligence officer, he was trained as a necromancer; so I have a character that is capable of using cybernetic technology embedded in his body to compliment the ability to get into a dead guy's head and learn what he or she knows.

Building a world around this concept was incredibly fun. What happens when Daemon Lords leave Hell but decide that Earth really is a better place to live? What happens when torture chambers are replaced with boardooms and status reports? How does humanity cope with halfbreed demon/human people who just want to live in modern society?

How does society change when everything is an advertisement, when if you can pay your way for it you can turn your body into anything you want, and how do you find a way to make a living if you don't want to just be some corporate drone?

On a personal note, this is something I've had boiling for literally years. It's gone through two extensive rewrites, and one was so heavy that I effectively cut an actual third of the book and rewrote it over a four month period. It is the very definition of 'labor of love,' even when the content of it is anything but.

With Necromancer's Bullet, I'm shoving you into a brand new American dystopian cityscape in the Gulf of Mexico. It's an urban fantasy/cyberpunk thrill ride with a bit of horror, a lot of violence, over three-hundred utterances of "f*ck," a six-decade dead former Texan Marshal that goes by the name Marshal Marshall Blackburn, and a forty-year-old asshole that just wanted his d*ck sucked before everything in his life went straight to Hell.

If he's lucky, it'll be Hell and back.

But he may not be that lucky.

Enter Anthony's world on October 1st, 2024!

Necromancer's Bullet by Joshua E. B. Smith
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGRVBG
Necromancer's Bullet

I recently took a contract with #GamersDecide to write some articles on video games and books. One of the first ones I was given was to do a list of Top 10 #Fantasy #Horror #Novels of All Time.

This list is *going* to be divisive. I won't lie; I struggled. The line between fantasy and fantasy horror - and #grimdark horror, which I write - is easily muddled.

I picked ten that, to me, were incredibly influential. Not just my work, but on society as a whole.

While I'm sure it'll cause some consternation, I do hope you'll enjoy!

Find it here at:
https://www.gamersdecide.com/articles...