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The Pulp Writer Show

The Pulp Writer Show

By: Jonathan Moeller
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 Hosted by Jonathan Moeller (author of the FROSTBORN and SEVENFOLD SWORD fantasy series and the SILENT ORDER scifi series), the Pulp Writer Show discusses how to write, format, publish, and sell your novel. Sometimes there are jokes.Copyright Jonathan Moeller Art Economics Leadership Literary History & Criticism Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • Episode 259: Comparison Is The Thief Of Joy

    Episode 259: Comparison Is The Thief Of Joy
    Jul 14 2025
    In this week's episode, we look at five ways writers can avoid the self-destructive mindset trap of "comparisonitis", and five ways that comparing oneself to other writers can be useful. Once again it is time for Coupon of the Week! This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Wolves, Book #2 in the Cloak Mage series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store: WOLVES50 The coupon code is valid through August 5th, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook this summer, we’ve got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 259 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is July 11th, 2025, and today we are looking at why comparing yourself to other writers is a bad idea. Before that, we will do Coupon of the Week and have an update on my current writing progress. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Wolves, Book #2 in the Cloak Mage series (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store, and that is WOLVES50. This coupon code is valid through August 5th, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook to listen to during your travels this summer, we have got you covered. Now let's have an update on my current writing projects. I'm pleased to report that Shield of Power is 100% done, completing the Shield War series. You can get Shield of Power at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords and my own Payhip store. It's been selling briskly and it's gotten good reviews so far, so thank you very much to everyone who has bought and enjoyed the book. Now that Shield of Power is done, the first third of my Super Summer of Finishing Things is complete. So what's next? My next main project is Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest. It was originally going to be named Reactant, but I changed the title to Final Quest to emphasize really and truly and definitively that this is the final book in the trilogy. In fact, I'm already done with the rough draft and I am done with the first phase of editing it as of this recording. If you've been listening to the podcast for a long time, you know how I frequently say that if you keep chipping away the novel over a long enough time, sooner or later you'll finish it. That is exactly what happened here. Since October of 2024, I've been writing 500 words a day on Final Quest, and this piled up over time enough so that after Shield of Power came out, I only had 3,000 more words to write to finish Final Quest, and I did that in an afternoon. One more phase of editing on that and then I would like to have Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest out before July 22nd, if all goes well. I'm also 21,000 words into Ghost in the Siege, which will be my main project once Final Quest is finished. Ghost in the Siege will be the sixth and final book in the Ghost Armor series and will hopefully cap off my Super Summer of Finishing Things. In audiobook news, Shield of Battle (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) is now out. You can get it at Audible, Amazon, Apple, and Google Play as of this recording. Because of some difficulties with Findaway Voices, it’s going to take a little bit longer to get into the other stores, but I'm working on a way to do that and as I mentioned before, Ghost in the Corruption (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy ) is done and just has to finish processing on the various stores, and so hopefully that should be out before too much longer. So that's where I'm at with my current writing and audiobook projects. 00:02:52 Main Topic: Comparison Now let's move right on to our main topic, The Dangers of Comparison. In Episode 257, we started a series on mindset for writers. In some of the previous series I've talked about some of the practical ways to help with distractions, procrastination, and managing time wasters. In this series, we're going to focus on things that derail writers from a mindset perspective because as we know with any endeavor in life, mindset is something like three quarters of the battle where if you convince yourself that you're going to fail before you start, you're probably going to fail. So that's why it's important to have an appropriate mindset to the task at hand. Today we're going to focus on comparing yourself to others, and I will share five reasons it's not a great idea to compare yourself to others aimlessly and how to shift your focus to five more constructive ways to compare your work to other authors. Comparisons are a constant of the reading world. Librarians and Goodreads reviewers talk constantly about “readalikes” or finding books that have similar themes or settings. Book displays and shops and libraries love to group similar books or authors together. People look at the bestseller lists like they're sports scores. Dollar amounts in publishing deals are a constant source of gossip and jealousy. Sometimes comparison is useful, especially when ...
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    16 mins
  • Episode 258: How Many Short Stories Have I Written, Redux?

    Episode 258: How Many Short Stories Have I Written, Redux?
    Jul 7 2025

    In this week's 4th of July episode, I take a look back at Episode 147 and try to figure out how many short stories I have actually written.

    This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebook version of Silent Order: Omnibus One at my Payhip store:

    SILENTOMNI25

    The coupon code is valid through July 28, 2025. So if you need a new ebook this summer, we’ve got you covered!
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    17 mins
  • Episode 257: Writing Obstacles

    Episode 257: Writing Obstacles
    Jun 30 2025
    In this week's episode, we take a look at five obstacles that can impact your writing, and offer tips and tricks for dealing with them. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Dragons, Book #1 in the Cloak Mage series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store: DRAGONAUDIO50 The coupon code is valid through July 21, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook this summer, we’ve got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 257 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is June 27th, 2025, and today we are looking at mindset obstacles to writing. Before we get to that, we'll have Coupon of the Week, an update at my current writing progress, and then we will do Question of the Week. First up, let's do Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Dragons, Book Number One in the Cloak Mage series (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store. That is DRAGONAUDIO50. And as always, the coupon code and the links to the store will be included in the show notes. This coupon code is valid through July the 21st, 2025, so if you need a new audiobook this summer, we've got you covered. Now let's have an update on my current writing and audiobook projects. The rough draft of Shield of Power, the sixth and final book in the Shield War series, is done and I'm editing it. As of this recording, I am about 68% of the way through the first pass of editing. I had hoped to be a bit further along than I actually was, but there was a lot to do this week and because of that, I think it's going to slip to early July for the release date. I'd hoped to have it out in June, but I don't think that's going to happen, but it should be not too much longer once we get to July. Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest, I’m 114,000 words into that. So I am very much hoping that will come out very quickly once Shield of Power is out. And I'm also 14,000 words into Ghost in the Siege, which would be the sixth and final book in the Ghost Armor series. So it sounds like my Super Summer of Finishing Things is well underway and making good progress. Hopefully I can continue that. In audiobook news, Shield of Battle and Ghost in the Corruption are both essentially done in audio and just have to get through processing. Shield of Battle was narrated by Brad Wills and Ghost in the Corruption was narrated by Hollis McCarthy. They both did an excellent job and I'm looking forward to being able to share those audiobooks with you in July. So it looks like July is going to be a big month for releases with Shield of Power, Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest, and then the audiobooks of Ghost in the Corruption and Shield of Battle. So lots to look forward to in July. 00:02:20 Question of the Week Now it's time for Question of the Week, which is intended to inspire interesting discussions of enjoyable topics. This week's question: how do you pass the time when you find yourself compelled to spend a good chunk of time waiting away from home or work (such as in the hospital waiting room, in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles, or waiting in your car to pick up someone from sports practice, a sort of situation like that)? And as you can expect, we had a range of answers. Justin says: Reading your books. Mary says: Reading. David says: Reading or listening to books is my default. Sometimes email. Keith says: I pace around mulling on problems that I otherwise have no time to think about. Gary says: A variety of things. I do think it is good practice to teach yourself to wait an hour or more without something external to occupy your mind. My own opinion is that our constant need for distraction hinders us in many ways. Mandy says: Reading. If I know I'm going to be waiting (or suspect it), I bring a book or my Kindle and I read. I almost always have a book in my car, too. Mike says: I read books by Jonathan Moeller. John says: I bring my tablet and read. Juana says: I read. Catriona says: Read a book or play a game on my phone. When I worked, I’d do emails, but I am retired now. Tom says: Usually I read a book on my Kindle app on my phone. Often it's one of yours. Bonnie says: Usually I scroll through Facebook or do one of the games on my phone or tablet. Don't usually read because I get focused and have a hard time tearing back to reality. And Jesse says: Reading ebooks or thinking through Work problems for later. If I know up front it'll be an hour or more, I'll bring a laptop and tether it. For myself, the answer is easy. I bring my laptop and work on my current book. The inspiration for this question was that I had to bring my car in for some maintenance, so I spent the time working on Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest and got a thousand words more into it. I've been doing that for a long time. I think most of ...
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    13 mins

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