VACATION WEEK

I’m out of the office, out of town, and out of touch this week, but I can’t let a Tuesday go by without something here at Fantasy Author’s Handbook so this, written last week and scheduled to post using the magic of the internet, will have to do. Advice for authors this week falls into the category of self-promotion. I’ve said before that you have to be the first champion of your own work, so this week, please allow me to champion my own work—Fantasy Author’s Handbook itself.

This is the 683rd post, a continuous every-Tuesday ritual since June of 2009. More than 223,000 visitors have accounted for over 518,000 views. Y’all have left 1200+ comments and almost 900 people are following along either via WordPress.com or email. I’m pretty proud of all that, and remain 100% committed to continuing this weekly ritual into the years to come.

Now here’s where I start asking you for stuff—and I promise it won’t be that hard!

I do not hide any content behind a Patreon wall or anything like that (except the older posts that are now part of The Best of Fantasy Author’s Handbook) so all this comes at no cost to you—unless you want to help out with an entirely optional donation. You’ll see a “Buy Now” button just to your right, and I hope you’ll see fit to use that to throw me a couple extra potatoes for the effort.

If you aren’t following FAH, now’s a great time to start! Just below the appeal for money is a place for you to enter your email address so you’ll get a friendly reminder every week to come back and see what’s up. This is, of course, entirely free of charge.

Do you even know what an RSS feed is? Click those links to find out!

The section “Are you following me?” grabs a few recent Tweets, which should remind you to follow me on Twitter @PhilAthans.

Then there are all sorts of fascinating links. Have you ever wandered through those? Why not start this week?

And you might have noticed that I end every post with this:

Follow me on Twitter @PhilAthans…

Link up with me on LinkedIn…

Friend me on GoodReads…

Find me at PublishersMarketplace…

Or contact me for editing, coaching, ghostwriting, and more at Athans & Associates Creative Consulting.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

…and a book cover or Athans & Associates link that will invite you to, y’know… buy one of my books or hire me to edit your book or otherwise help in your writing career. Actually clink on those links, people!

This vacation I’m on now is the first I’ve taken in five years, so the burnout has been real lately. But I’m putting a lot of eggs into this vacation basket and plan to come back next week energized and ready to finally dust that burnout off, along with any lingering COVID malaise, and so on, and hit the ground running through the rest of 2022 and beyond.

What can you look forward to from me?

You’ll see a second volume of The Best of Fantasy Author’s Handbook by year’s end, at least.

I will start writing again, and dive into another “how to” book—still deciding if I just go full on everything-you-need-to-know-about-genre-writing, a book on crafting villains, or a deep dive into POV…? Eventually, all three and more.

A novel, too.

And, finally, a return to online courses and tutorials, which I love to do, but that were interrupted with the Writers Digest bankruptcy and the hard transition to a new company that, let’s say… I had some compatibility issues with. But I’ll be back in a new venue (or venues) with all new content and a couple of old favorites.

What else? You tell me.

Am I the only one out there without a podcast? Is that something you’d subscribe to?

Am I just too handsome to deny the world a YouTube channel any longer? Who can say?

And who knows what else might happen, but I do know that I’m getting back out there after this trip, y’all, so strap in!

—Philip Athans

Where Story Meets World™