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The Secrets

The Secrets: Volume Five (Issues 101-125)

Issues 101 through 125 of The Secrets!

The Secrets is published electronically. Subscribers get an email with a link for downloading each issue. Individual issues cost $1 to subscribers, and back issues cost $2 (save for special double issues which are $4).

The Secrets Subscription (25 Issues)

The Secrets is a compendium of wisdom by writers for writers who are serious about their craft and the business. Written and edited by New York Times Bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole, each bi-weekly issue is packed with a minimum of four pages of vital information about how to succeed with a writing career. Articles cover topics like:

Writer’s block
Characterization
Writing Action Scenes
World Building
Career Management
The Business of Writing

The Secrets gives you the need-to-know information that will start your career off racing, or propel your career into the stratosphere. If you are serious about writing and getting published, The Secrets is something you cannot do without.

And now you don’t have to! You will receive an issue bi-weekly for one year!

Your download includes the published issues for this package. Future issues in this subscription will be emailed to the address you provide during checkent.

World Building

The Secrets: World Building is a thirteen issue package that explains everything about world creation. Starting with the basics, New York TimesBestselling author, Michael A. Stackpole moves you through the development of magic, technology, politics, history, religion, cultures, language and society. The collection concludes with an example of a world and includes devastatingly simple and coveted techniques for creating big impressions with very few words. (This package consists of issues 27-39.)

If you’ve always wanted to see what The Secrets has to offer, or want to create incredibly fantastic worlds for fiction or gaming, this collection is for you.

The Secrets: World Building: everything you need to get started creating worlds of your own.

Digital Career Guide

The Secrets Presents: Digital Career Guide by New York Times bestsellingauthor, Michael A. Stackpole

The Digital Career Guide breaks down all the steps necessary to set yourself up for success in the post-paper era of publishing. The guide covers four major areas: You, Words, Hype and Numbers—the four key areas in which you have to excel if you want to establish yourself.

You deals with the challenges that you, the author, will face in readying yourself to create a successful business as a writer. Many people decide to become writers because of the romance of the book, and dream about seeing their name on a book without any understanding of the hard work that entails. This guide walks you past the pitfalls and puts you on the path to success.

Words covers the ways in which technology and society consume entertainment products. Michael A. Stackpole walks you through a step-by-step process of creating the sort of stories that will sell to both the digital and print markets, and points out how a variety of projects that never would have sold in the past become winners in the new marketplace.

Hype gives you a command of self-promotion, including a detailed explanation of why so many authors are headed toward disaster. Michael explains what you need to do to establish yourself online, to build a community and an audience, and points to which easily available and free tools you can use to get there.

Numbers explains the intricacies of running a business with an eye toward making you profitable as quickly as possible. This includes a discussion of formats and distribution systems that will get your work out to as many people as possible fast.

This guide comes in a zipped into an archive that includes both the PDF and the epub versions of the book.

The Digital Career Guide is the culmination of six years experience running a publishing business online, brought to you by the first author to have his work on sale in the Apple Appstore. If you want to make your dream of having a writing career come true, this is the guide that will get you started.

Serial Fiction

The Secrets: Serial Fiction

This is the definitive guide to developing and writing exciting serial fiction. New York Times Bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole breaks down the best successful series in fiction, separating out all the elements that make them compelling. Searching for the way to bring readers back time and again? The Secrets: Serial Fiction is the solution.

Writing Fiction

Writing Fiction: A Short Course is a series of eight lessons on writing and career-building by New York Times Bestselling author, Michael A. Stackpole. Originally presented as a college-sponsored online class, these lessons address key issues in writing, like plotting and characterization; as well as trickier aspects of the art like writing realistic dialogue and making your writing engage readers. In addition to the lessons are four of Mike’s stories which are used in the lessons as examples:

Tip-Off
Least of My Brethren (A Purgatory Station story)
The Cards Call Themselves (A Merlin Bloodstone story)
No Rest For The Wicked (The first Trick Molloy story)

Sold separately, these stories would cost $9, but are provided as part of this educational package. Here, addressed in eight information-packed lessons, you can learn from an acknowledged master of fiction the vital techniques that will raise your writing to a publishable level, and provide you a career.

Characterization (Part One)

The Secrets: Characterization (Part One) is a collection of thirteen different issues from The Secrets covering characterization. In publishing, characterization is king—people read for character, and good characters will keep readers coming back time and again. This collection covers:

* Blitzkrieg Characterization
* Characterization Techniques (including examples)
* Sex, Love and Romance
* Creating monsters and villains, as well as how to present them
* Emotional challenges for characters

The Secrets: Characterization (Part One) provides you a crash course in the techniques that New York Times Bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole uses to create memorable characters like Corran Horn, Resolute, Victor Davion, Nolan and The Revenant. If you want to build a career that will have readers hot after your stories, this collection is the place to start.

(This collection comprises issues 12, 16, 21-24, 40-41, 57-58, 63 and 66-67.)

Plotting (Part One)

Plotting (part one) is the first compilation of The Secrets issues dealing with the thorny issue of plotting. Included in this set of eleven issues is a four issue series titled The Art of Plotting. It details New York TimesBestselling author Michael A. Stackpole’s methodology for creating the twisting and complicated tales that thrill his readers. In addition to that, three articles cover how you actually find a story to tell, another details Blitzkrieg Plotting and yet another deals with the tricky prospect of the negative story-arc and how to make it work. All the issues compliment each other and create a solid foundation for any writer when it comes to putting that story together. (This package consists of issues 51-54, 60-61, 71, 73, 75, 79 and 96.)

If you’re looking for a foolproof method for plotting, or have ever just wanted to sample what The Secrets has to offer, this is a perfect starting place.

The Rules of Writing

The Rules of Writing is a collection of guidelines put together by Michael A. Stackpole and originally published in issues 2-21 of his writing newsletter,The Secrets. These rules include advice from other writers, and insights gleaned through years of professional writing. These are lessons that every writer learns, usually in the first few years of their career, so studying The Rules of Writing can speed your development considerably, and help you avoid many of the mistakes that plague writers early on. For experienced writers, the Rules are an excellent diagnostic tool for fixing up those little problems that can stand between you and publication.

Forty-one pages with black and white illustrations. Price: $20.00.

Note: If you already own the first volume of The Secrets, you have all the included material here and much more, so there is no need to add this book to your collection.

21 Days To A Novel

21 Days To a Novel is a collection of exercises which will set any writer up to successfully start and complete that novel they’ve been dreaming about. The exercises hit hard on the critical areas of book design: characterization, world building, plotting, description, dialogue and more. The excercises likewise serve as diagnostics for when things aren’t quite working the way you’d like.

Distilled from over twenty years of writing experience, and rife with examples, 21 Days To a Novel is a clear roadmap to setting you up for writing success. If you’ve always dreamed of writing a novel, and didn’t know where to start, you’ve found that place. 21 Days To a Novel is the booklet that will give your dreams all they need to grow into a fantastic and strong novel.

This package contains the book in three formats: PDF, epub (for use on the Nook, Sony Readers, iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch later generations, as well as with Adobe Digital Editions) and mobi (for use in your Kindle).