Beware the robots … writing robots, that is.

"The Representative" by Nemo Gould

As if it isn’t hard enough to stay profitable in the writing biz while competing against smart people, it might not be that far in the future when we have to defend against the “rise of the machines.” You know, robots that write fiction. Yes, seriously. In an article for The New Stack, David Cassel […]

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Dear NaNoWriMos: first drafts suck

Reposted from a 2013 article on scottsigler.com. The details on what Scott’s currently writing are a bit out-of-whack, but the rest bears repeating. Good luck for a strong finish NaNos! This month, thousands of working and aspiring writers are banging out a 50,000-word novel as part of National Novel Writing Month, or “NaNoWriMo.” The challenge […]

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So You Wanna Be A Writer #5 — Setting Word Count Goals

The fifth video in our continuing series “So You Wanna Be A Writer” featuring Scott Sigler! If you want to sell your books, you are a small business in addition to being an artist. To be a successful business, you have to consistently create new product. And by “create new product” we mean “get something saleable out […]

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Fewer Americans reading print books

With the continued impact of eBooks, the growth of audiobooks, and the ever-present time-gobble of TV, movies, video games and the Internet, is it any surprise that fewer adults are buying and reading good-ole print? A new study by the Pew Research Center states that “seven-in-ten American adults (72%) have read a book within the […]

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Why Community Matters: a Reflection on SiglerFest2k15

This year we at Empty Set celebrated our fifth SiglerFest, the annual gathering of Scott Sigler’s fans. For the last few days we were hooting and hollering in Las Vegas — bowling and singing and card games oh my! — and now we’re overtired, overstimulated, and headed back to the grind. Fatigue be damned, we start recording […]

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Meet the Makers: Scott E. Pond Designs

I’m introducing a new feature here at emptyset.com called “Meet the Makers,” where I’m going to profile creators we love. It follows that this feature will showcase lots of the folks we work with to put out our books and products. As such, there’s really no better place to start than with Scott E. Pond […]

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So You Wanna Be A Writer #4 — The Trap of “Perfect”

The fourth video in our continuing series “So You Wanna Be A Writer” featuring Scott Sigler! So when is a book “finished”? When do you send that sucker off to agents, editors, publishers, readers, Amazon, etc? In this episode, Scott talks about the trap of perfection — there is only one factory in your company, […]

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So You Wanna Be A Writer #3 — Should You Outline?

The third video in our continuing series “So You Wanna Be A Writer” featuring Scott Sigler! “Should I outline my book, or just start writing and see where it goes?” Another extremely common question from aspiring novelists. In this video, Scott gives you the run-down. Not so much about which ways one can outline, but […]

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So You Wanna Be A Writer #2 — The Big-Ass Binder!

The second video in our continuing series “So You Wanna Be A Writer” featuring Scott Sigler! “Hey, Sigler, how do you organize your research?” I get asked this all the time, and my answer is old-school — I use a big-ass binder. This video walks you through my process. Maybe it can help you be […]

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So You Wanna Be A Writer? A YouTube series for your faces.

Of all the questions Scott gets asked over and over, at every con, every book reading, and every day by DM or Facebook message or email … among the most frequent is “What advice do you have for me? How do I become a writer?” In this video, he tells you how he did it. […]

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