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Ditch Diggers

mur

The new home for Mur Lafferty's work

  • 37 minutes 59 seconds
    [DD] Book Tours, TikTok, and Twitter Tantrums

    "Being on BookTok will not give you a career if you don't have one. Do what makes you happy." - Ursula

    Transcript

    (This post went live for supporters on July 3, 2024. If you want early, ad-free, and sometimes expanded episodes, support at Patreon or Substack!)

    In this episode, Mur Lafferty and Ursula Vernon dive into the realities of book tours, the financial intricacies of publishing, and the ever-changing landscape of social media for authors. Ursula shares a retraction about the profitability of her book tour, while Mur discusses the challenges of balancing writing with personal commitments and health issues.

    They also tackle the latest trends and controversies in the writing community, including the misguided advice about writing styles and the pressure to be active on platforms like TikTok.

    • Book Tour Financials
    • Author Panels and Interviews
    • Social Media Trends
    • Writing Styles and Absolutes

    Links:

    Evergreen Links:

    Support Local Book Stores! Ditch Diggers credits:theme song by Devo Spice, art by Numbers Ninja, site hosted by Libsyn (or Patreon). July 5, 2024 | Season 10 Ep 2 | murverse.com "Book Tours, TikTok, and Twitter Tantrums" by Mur Lafferty and Ursula Vernon is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
    5 July 2024, 12:00 pm
  • 55 minutes 56 seconds
    [DD] Ursula Vernon Takes Over- New Beginnings and No More Cancer!

    "If you want to make money, you have to think about it like a job."- Mur

    Transcript

    (This post went live for supporters on June 26, 2024. If you want early, ad-free, and sometimes expanded episodes, support at Patreon or Substack!)

    Welcome back to Ditch Diggers! In this episode, we kick things off with a fresh start and a new co-host. The mighty Mur Lafferty is joined by the fabulous Ursula Vernon (aka T. Kingfisher) as they dive into the nitty-gritty of the writing business.

    Ursula shares her personal journey of overcoming cancer and getting back into the writing groove, while Mur talks about the realities of making deadlines and the business side of writing. They also discuss the recent Hugo Awards controversy and the implications for authors involved.

    Highlights include: - Transition to Ursula as the new co-host - Ursula's health update and return to writing - The Hugo Awards controversy and its impact - Backing up your work and the Google Drive debacle - The pros and cons of attending conventions

    Links:

    Evergreen Links:

    (check here for all mentioned books)

    Support Local Book Stores! Ditch Diggers credits:theme song by Devo Spice, art by Numbers Ninja, site hosted by Libsyn (or Patreon). June 28, 2024 | Season 10 Ep 1 | murverse.com "Ursula Vernon Takes Over New Beginnings and No More Cancer." by Mur Lafferty and Ursula Vernon is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
    28 June 2024, 12:00 pm
  • 1 hour 17 minutes
    [DD] Birthdays and Gail Carriger 2, Electric Boogaloo

    This was recorded back in July, but time and things and travel got away with me. 

    Actually what happened was the fact that I can't spread podcast production across more than one day. If I do, I will forget it needs to be finished. It's not great spending 4+ hours to produce and upload 2 shows, but if I don't, one will fall by the wayside. ADHD brain for the win. 

    We will be back in september, hopefully with lots of amazing ditch digging. 

    August 10, 2023 | Season 9 Ep 9 | murverse.com Copyright 2023, Mur Lafferty and Matt Wallace | CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License
    5 September 2023, 12:00 pm
  • 59 minutes 23 seconds
    [DD] Data Wonking with Podmother Gail Carriger

    Streamed live, July 10, 2023 Below are some affiliate links that support indie bookstores and may benefit me financially with no cost to you.

    S9 Ep8 Horny chaotic god energy is what we're all about in today's Ditch Diggers, "Data Wonking with Podmother Gail Carriger" where Gail joins us to talk about sifting through data in self publishing. It is some heady stuff, and we discuss tying your self worth to "bad" data and more!

    Gail Carriger: 30:30 (ish): My sense of failure will kick in when a reader says I love Gail Carriger. And I didn't know she had a new book out, that's when I feel like I failed at my job. I am an author, that's the one job I had is to make sure that people who liked me can read my new books, right? That's it.

    Transcript

    • Let's Get Weedy
    • Twitter doesn't kiss well
    • When you have a new book out, your main job is to make sure your existing fans know.
    • We <3 librarians!

    Links

    (check here for all mentioned books)

    July 20, 2023 | Season 9 Ep 8 | murverse.com Copyright 2023, Mur Lafferty and Matt Wallace | CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License
    20 July 2023, 12:00 pm
  • 53 minutes 1 second
    [DD] Author/Agent Seth Fishman Answers Our Questions

    S9 Ep7

    Recorded live on Twitch!

    Mur's agent Seth Fishman joins us to take your questions, and we fill up an hour FAST. Full transcript available!

    Seth Fishman: ...the industry is right now, where editors are just, they just have, they're just too busy. There's just not enough people working in publishing. So it's harder for agents to do to sell books is really what we're saying. There's a number of times that were like, were you passing because of this, you don't want to put that like, work into it or whatever. But you know, what the people pass for all sorts of reasons, we get the books into pretty great shape, before we send them out. And I mean, we try to, and if an editor is passing, for those reasons, they're what they're really probably saying is more along the lines of developing of an author versus, like editing an author.

    Transcript Links

    (check here for all mentioned books)

    June 21, 2023 | Season 9 Ep 7 | murverse.com Copyright 2022, Mur Lafferty and Matt Wallace | CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License
    26 June 2023, 12:00 pm
  • 1 hour 17 minutes
    [DD] Matt's Book Launch: Savage Crowns

    Streamed live, June 13, 2023 Below are some affiliate links that support indie bookstores and may benefit me financially with no cost to you.

    S9 Ep6 It's our 1001st episode (not really) and Matt is here to launch the final book in the Savage Rebellion trilogy, and it's a very honest episode. Serious Ditch Digging here, y'all. He doesn't hold back. It's publishing, warts and all. Links to Savage Crowns and other books below! Full transcript available!

    Matt Wallace: I was like, what if I did 'the Wire' as an epic fantasy? That was my other thought when I started it. So my mother says there are strong women characters, there are, Thank you, mom. And I was raised, but I was raised by a strong woman who's definitely a character.

    Transcript (I wanted to do an annotated transcript like the other two podcasts, but frankly, the others are already taking up so much time I can't do three transcripts, annotate all three, record the podcasts, AND write books.)

    Links

    (check here for book links)

    June 13 2023 | Season 9 Ep 6 | murverse.com Copyright 2022, Mur Lafferty and Matt Wallace | CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License
    20 June 2023, 12:00 pm
  • 1 hour 8 minutes
    [DD] Premee Mohamed and our 1000th Episode (?)

    Matt and Mur welcome Premee Mohamed, multiple award winning author of No One Will Come Back for Us. We talk about chickens, sea cucumbers, conventions and anxiety, and there's a hair flip in there, but you can only see it if you get the video on Patreon. Links

    May 15, 2023 | Season 9 Ep 5 | murverse.com | Copyright 2022, Mur Lafferty and Matt Wallace | CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License

    22 May 2023, 4:00 pm
  • 1 hour 4 minutes
    [DD] OG Ditch Digger Fonda Lee Is Back!

    Streamed live, April 3, 2023

    S9 Ep4

    Matt and Mur welcome Fonda Lee, multiple award winning author of Untethered Sky. Fonda talks Patreon, starting something new after a very successful series, and more!

    Links

    April 3, 2023 | Season 9 Ep 4 | murverse.com Copyright 2022, Mur Lafferty and Matt Wallace | CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License

    11 April 2023, 12:00 pm
  • 1 hour 4 minutes
    [DD] Debut Author Advice from Mary Robinette Kowal

    S9 Ep3

    Matt and Mur welcome Mary Robinette Kowal, podcaster, puppeteer, former SFWA president, audiobook narrator, and Hugo Award winning writer. Mary Robinette has had blog posts helping out debut authors, so we decided to pick her brain for a few more pieces of advice, from how to run a kaffeklatch to how to write something cute into your book that isn't insufferable.

    Links

    March 13, 2023 | Season 9 Ep 3 | murverse.com Copyright 2022, Mur Lafferty and Matt Wallace | CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License

    23 March 2023, 1:00 pm
  • 1 hour 2 minutes
    [DD] AI Submissions with Valerie Valdes

    Streamed live, February 27, 2022

    S.9 Ep.2 I'm joined at the last minute by Valerie Valdes, my co-editor at Escape Pod! We talk about the whole AI thing and look to shed some light on the current kerfuffle.

    Links

    February 27, 2023 | Season 9 Ep 2 | murverse.com Copyright 2022, Mur Lafferty and Matt Wallace | CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License

    7 March 2023, 6:09 pm
  • 48 minutes 30 seconds
    [DD] Discussing Ethics in Publishing
    S9 Ep1

    Streamed live, February 6, 2022 - next livestream is Feb 27, 2023

    How do we, the little guys, handle things like strikes and other uncomfortable news?

    Links

    February 6, 2023 | Season 9 Ep 1 | murverse.com Copyright 2022, Mur Lafferty and Matt Wallace | CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License

    16 February 2023, 11:00 am
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