Fred Phillips

It's here! Paperback and ebook available today!

@SWT_Channel 1, 2, and 3. I love hardcovers, but most of my reading these days is ebook. It's more convenient, and I can get the font as big as I need for my old eyes. Can't do audio at all. I just zone out and suddenly realize I haven't heard a thing that's happened in 15 minutes.

Fantasy Fans 🧝‍♂️ Q: What type of book reader are you? 1. Hardcover 2. Paperback 3. E-book 4. Audio

@SDDonovan Yes. One, and I think it's a good story. It was something I needed to write at the time, but I never want to put myself back in the place I was when I wrote it, so I will never revisit it.

Be honest... have you ever abandoned a WIP forever?

@BrentMatley I'll look at them, but I don't give them much weight. I've hated a lot of beloved books and loved a lot of hated ones. If it looks interesting to me, I'm going to grab the sample, and that will decide if I buy or not.

When looking at a book you’re interested in, do you browse reviews before you buy it? Or Do you like to make your own mind up about a book?

@Unclefm99 @RobProvince They're right up there, too. 😆

@FredWPhillips @RobProvince U2 would like a word about the most overrated band ever .

Grunge sucked ass and all the left wing coffee drinking flannel queefs in the 90’s made Rock suck and brought about its demise leaving us with the god awful crap music we have now. I’m glad his wife emptied both barrels.

@CreatureAuthor Thanks for the info. Good to know.

This DM with a link is the bullshit that's hacking half of Twitter lately. Ran rampant in political Twitter, then made its way to other communities. It's hitting the writing community particularly hard. If you see this or any of the close variations, the sender is compromised, and recovering accounts here is damn near impossible so you may as well consider them gone until they make a new profile from scratch.

I... *sigh,* ya know, at some point this has to be thought aloud. Authors who've been here for a minute have endured spam/scam slush every dang day in our emails, in replies to our posts, and even our DM's. But that damn link is what's taking us out? We can't be THAT gullible.

@byMorganWright I'd say there's probably some bit of me in every major character I write, not just protagonists. But I definitely wouldn't consider them a "reflection" of me. A reflection of me would be a very boring character. 😆

Someone mentioned that writers’ protagonists are “a reflection of the writers themselves” & whilst I do agree that we often inevitably embed some elements of our own personalities into our characters, I prefer writing main characters whose personalities are very different from my own🤷‍♀️. Personally, I think those are the more fun/interesting characters to write.

Just so happens that all of my guitars seem to have incredible disdain when I try to play them. 😆

@MishaBurnett I did a test on Substack last week with a story of mine that was published in 1998. It ranged from 0 percent AI to 89 percent AI and everywhere in between depending on which checker I ran it through. They're useless.

How many authors would be willing to put their own works through an AI detector and pull from publication any that got flagged as AI written?

Two dumb things that will always make me laugh: 1. People abbreviating assorted as ass. 2. People who get angry at someone online and respond with "your stupid."

@raconteur_press True story. I got laid off six months ago, and if not for the cloud of impending doom hanging over the near future because the bills keep coming, I'd be happier than I've ever been. 🤣

When I can work steadily on them, I average 6-8 months. I wrote the first scenes of the 35-year book in the early '90s, and I've revisited every so often. I wrote about 25K words on it five or so years ago and haven't touched it since. Sadly, it will never be good enough to be worth 35 years. 😆

@FredWPhillips Wow, that’s both ends of the timescale

How long did it take to write your first book and why? #WritingCommunity #writerslife #writingq

@SirArminius I've tried a couple of different things over the years, but I always come back to Word. It's familiar, and it works.

Authors - I have been using Word to write my book because it is familiar and easy. What do you use? Should I switch or is it a case of if it ain't broke, don't fix it? #writingcommunity #indieauthors

No, we didn't actually hire Lisa Frank on acid to design the cover. I'm sure @cedarlili's real cover will be just as awesome as "Dreams." I've felt like I needed to apologize to her ever since I posted the April Fools version this morning. Though I may make the rainbow bubble font for my name part of my contract going forward. 😆

@Maloryauthor @BaenBooks Awesome news. Congrats.

So, erm, turns out my story, ‘Orbital Decay’, has only gone and WON THE JIM BAEN MEMORIAL SHORT STORY AWARD! Now I just need to work out how I’m getting to Virginia in June to accept the award… Thanks @BaenBooks

Folks, this is awesome! Today, I'm happy to reveal the cover for "Sons of Gold and Fire."

@KyleLeeWriter Everyone can use an editor. I worked as an editor for 20-plus years, and my final copy is fairly clean. I need an editor. My books have been greatly improved by good editors.

An author who thinks they don't need an editor is like the person who acts as their own lawyer in court.