Nonsense-Free Kristin

Kristin McTiernan
  • 4.5 (2)
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  • Updated Weekly

Nonsense-Free Kristin is where independent authors and creators learn to build their platforms, master their craft, and create on their own terms—without begging for permission from gatekeepers who hate them kristinmctiernan.substack.com

  1. Matthew Bockholt - Why "Writing Rules" Won't Make You Better

    22h ago

    Matthew Bockholt - Why "Writing Rules" Won't Make You Better

    Matthew Bockholt spent years in video games and marketing before he ever wrote a novel full-time — and it shows in how he thinks about the work. While most indie authors are great storytellers and shaky prose stylists, he treats writing like a skill you drill, not a gift you're born with. In this episode he makes the case for killing the phrase "rules of writing" entirely, explains why genre stopped serving readers and started bossing authors around, and walks us through Fable Vine — his pitch for a third path that sits between the trad-pub trickle and the Amazon firehose. He also writes YA that refuses to talk down to teenagers, opening his debut novel Bloom at a funeral and meaning it. It's a conversation about craft, death, sincerity, and why "just write every day" might be the worst advice in the business. In This Episode * Rules don’t make you good — technique does: Bockholt’s basketball analogy reframes everything: anyone can follow the rules and still be terrible. Rules let you play; technique determines whether you’re worth watching. The fix is treating prose like free throws — something you practice on purpose, not something that improves by accident. * The crutch words bleeding into your prose: His weekly prompt group writes under 300 words with constraints like “no ‘to be’ verbs” and “no adverbs.” The point isn’t a lower word count — it’s precision, and the discipline of the micro quietly upgrades the macro. * When genre flipped from a favor to a cage: Genre started as a way to shelve books readers would like. Now marketing departments use it to dictate what authors are allowed to write, and the defining classics of any genre, Bockholt argues, are the ones that didn’t fit a shelf in the first place. * “Twilight if Orson Scott Card wrote it”: His comp for Bloom is a masterclass in positioning: everyone knows Twilight, and the people who perk up at Orson Scott Card are exactly the readers he wants. A good comp narrows your audience instead of flattering everyone. * Fable Vine and the third option: Trad pub is a careful drip; Amazon is a waterfall you drown in. Bockholt’s concept puts the author in the gatekeeper’s chair — pay to shelve your book, keep 100% of the return, and let an upfront cost do the quality filtering that readers are desperate for. * Killing the five-star review: Borrowing from Steam’s recommend / don’t-recommend model and element-based ratings (concept, execution, ending), he argues for a system that tells readers what an author is actually good at. * Writing death honestly for young readers: Bloom opens at a funeral, and its narrator tells you up front that he dies. Drawing on his own experience with loss, Bockholt makes the case that kids are smarter than we write for them, and that respecting death is what gives a story weight. Guest Links * Read Bloom: https://www.fablevine.com/ebook/bloom * X: @MatthewBockholt Kristin’s Links * Editing Services: nonsensefreeeditor.com * Newsletter: https://www.fictionalinfluence.com * YouTube: https://youtube.com/@nonsensefreekristin Timestamps 00:00 - Meet the Matthew Bockholt. 01:54 - Sharpening Prose Skills. 03:12 - Prompts and Style Challenges. 04:31 - How Genre Became a Cage. 07:28 - Writing Across Genres. 09:54 - Fable Vine Third Path. 12:20 - Gatekeeping and Reviews. 15:26 - Rethinking Rating Systems. 17:59 - Visibility and Silent Launch. 20:54 - Rules Versus Techniques. 23:15 - Practice Beats Habit. 23:54 - Ditch Genre Rules. 25:05 - Writing Smart YA. 28:40 - Death as Story Engine. 30:51 - Respecting Mortality. 32:11 - Stories That Face Death. 36:08 - Heroes and Sincerity. 38:27 - Where to Read Bloom. 39:07 - Free Copies Debate. 40:52 - Community and Conventions. 42:52 - Wrap Up and Thanks. About This Podcast Nonsense-Free Kristin is where independent authors and creators learn to build their platforms, master their craft, and create on their own terms—without begging for permission from gatekeepers who hate them. New episodes weekly. Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Music. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kristinmctiernan.substack.com

    43 min
  2. Jason Hunt - Author Habits That Kill Reviews Before They Start

    Jun 3

    Jason Hunt - Author Habits That Kill Reviews Before They Start

    Jason Hunt founded Sci-Fi4Me in 2009, right after the sci-fi channel became "SyFy," and has spent 17 years covering science fiction, fantasy, and horror through reviews, commentary, and his interview show Live from the Bunker. In this episode, he joins us to break down what makes an author pitch an instant yes, why so many writers sabotage their own marketing, and how the Hugo Awards went from a career-defining honor to a warning label. In This Episode * The Rebrand That Started a Network: When the sci-fi channel became “SyFy” and filled the schedule with wrestling and cooking shows, Jason saw an abandoned audience up for grabs. He started blogging from a basement like everyone else. Seventeen years later it’s become reviews, commentary, and a live show. * Wearing the Franchise Like a Skin Suit: Creators don’t like what they’re making, and they’re gutting beloved properties to use as a platform for message fiction. * The Hugos Are a Mean Girls Sleepover: Sad Puppies, Larry Correia, and the year the whole thing burned to the ground. Now a Hugo sticker tells you to stay away. Locus and the Dragon Awards still carry weight; the Hugos are the Oscars now — a club patting itself on the back. * Baen vs Tor Tells You Everything: Whether a book leads with story or ideology comes down to the imprint, not whether it’s hard or soft sci-fi. * Choosing the Bear: The romantasy wave where the heroine ends up with the monster, and how women becoming the gatekeepers — editors and agents both — shapes what gets greenlit and what never makes it past the slush pile. * What Gets an Indie Book a Yes: Pitches come through PR firms or email, and page count matters more than authors think — a 150-page book beats a 700-page tome on time alone. * The Headshot Nobody Has: The single most common media-kit failure. A blurry, half-lit phone selfie is not a headshot. He walks through what a kit actually needs — bio, blurbs, links to past interviews — and why follow-up is where authors blow it. * Nobody Markets You Anymore: Unless you’re Stephen King or George R.R. Martin, you book your own podcasts, signings, and conventions. A.C. Crispin told him the same thing years ago. Trad or indie, new authors get thrown in the deep end. * What Makes a Guest Worth Having Back: Knowledge of the craft, a list of things you can talk about beyond the plot, and the discipline not to spoil your own book. The James Doohan line he lives by: he may have heard the question a thousand times, but it’s the audience’s first time hearing the answer. * What Actually Drives Traffic: Hating on Star Trek and Kathleen Kennedy news does numbers, but author interviews pull just as well as actor interviews. It’s the conversation, not the name on the marquee. If you’re interesting, people stay for two hours. * The TikTok Press-Tour Problem: Clip-bait reviewers asking vulgar questions they don’t care about the answer to, and why a host who does real research lands as a relief. * When to Push Back: He’ll press on a loaded statistic or something outrageous, but keeps it a conversation, not an ambush. * Step One With Zero Audience: Headshot, a simple website, and active socials with the politics dialed way down. * 800 Words a Chapter, on Purpose: His novella experiment, where every chapter is exactly 800 words and the last one lands on 666. A brutal drill in word choice and cutting the fat. He’s sold maybe 15 copies in 12 years and has no regrets. * Read Outside Your Genre: Write sci-fi, sure, but go read a Western, read some Fenimore Cooper. It freshens your approach and gives you new structures to steal. * Where Sci-Fi 4 Me Goes Next: COVID blew up the live-from-conventions plan, the elections scattered the volunteer crew, and YouTube keeps changing the algorithm. The goal now is getting a few shows back on the air. Guest Links * Youtube: @SciFi4Me * Website: SciFi4Me.com * X: @SciFi4Me * Substack: SciFi4Me * IG: @scifi4me Kristin’s Links * Editing Services: nonsensefreeeditor.com * Newsletter: https://www.fictionalinfluence.com * YouTube: https://youtube.com/@nonsensefreekristin Timestamps 00:00 - Meet SciFi4Me’s Jason Hunt. 03:59 - Hugo Awards Fallout. 07:23 - Hard vs Soft SciFi. 09:26 - Indie vs Trad Trends. 14:13 - Choosing Books to Review. 18:17 - PR Pitches and Press Kits. 23:18 - Great Author Interviews. 25:32 - Tech Angles for Sci-Fi. 30:06 - Fresh Questions Beat Clickbait. 32:56 - When to Push Back. 34:39 - Author Visibility Basics. 36:39 - Building an Audience on YouTube. 37:41 - Writing with Word Limits. 40:35 - Discipline and Reading Habits. 42:41 - Future of SciFi4Me. 46:41 - Where to Find Them. 47:33 - Thanks and Wrap-Up. About This Podcast Nonsense-Free Kristin is where independent authors and creators learn to build their platforms, master their craft, and create on their own terms—without begging for permission from gatekeepers who hate them. New episodes weekly. Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Music. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kristinmctiernan.substack.com

    48 min
  3. Spotlight on Indie SFF - A New Home for Based Sci-Fi

    May 27

    Spotlight on Indie SFF - A New Home for Based Sci-Fi

    Spotlight on Indie SFF's founder — a Catholic novelist with nearly 50 books across 16 years who keeps her platform persona separate from her author byline — joins Kristin to talk about the curated referral site she launched last summer after the indie sci-fi space made it clear that authors with her convictions weren't welcome. This conversation covers the long road from Kindle's original gold rush, to realizing the publishing industry’s bias, to building the based-fiction home Indie SFF didn't have. In This Episode * “I Could Do Something Better”: A few years back, someone tried to crowdfund a conservative book site and quietly let it die. When she found the abandoned attempt, the decision to create a new home was simple. * The Email That Funded a Website: The straw that broke the camel’s back was the Indie Sale’s narrative announcement saying authors with her convictions weren’t welcome. The funding came together the same week — a paid-off bill, an extra paycheck, and a saddle she wasn’t using anymore that covered exactly what the dev quote required. * Kindle Before the Gold Rush: She published into the original Kindle wave nearly twenty years ago, when readers were hungry and a non-bestseller could comfortably pay off a mortgage. * Why Scammers Made It Harder for Everyone: Every adaptation Amazon makes to clamp down on KU and ratings abuse hits the honest authors first. The page-read economy collapsed, ratings got gated behind a $50/month spend, and the platform keeps contorting around the worst actors. * Author-Rated Content, Not Surprise Content: The site lets authors rate their own books across four categories. Readers can filter on the front end instead of finding the surprise on page eighty. She isn’t pretending to be the content cop — the system runs on author honesty plus a reader-feedback loop. * Based ≠ Christian: True conservatism conserves something, and Western civilization conserves Christianity, so a real Christian will be based, but a based reader isn’t necessarily Christian. The site is built for the overlap and the people standing next to it, not a denominational gate. * The Grimdark Ink “Sisters of Mercy” Mess: A recent contest billed itself as non-discriminatory and then had judges call Christian themes in an incense-punk novella “blatant in-your-face zealotry.” Comments got closed on the response. The pattern keeps repeating. * The Hidden Exorcism Prayer in the Footer: At the bottom of every page on Spotlight sits a small circle of Latin initials — the Saint Benedict exorcism prayer. Anyone offended at being excluded from the site is, in her read, exactly who that footer is addressing. * Author Nation Got Anonymized Selection Right: This year Author Nation anonymized presenter submissions so the committee judges the proposal, not the name behind it. She’d like to see more of the industry do the same. * Free Now, Free Later: She pays for the site out of pocket and runs a Buy Me a Coffee tip jar for upgrades. The early fear among authors was that she’d flip it to a paid model. She won’t. * Don’t Rush a Book Out — The Audra Winter Cautionary Tale: A TikTok-famous fantasy author took pre-orders, raised hype, then refused edits even after a major-press editor offered help. Once a name is tarnished, the climb back is harder than the climb up. * Hire One Editor for One Short Story: The best money she spent on her craft early on was an edit of a single short story she could actually afford. The advice jumped her writing forward by years and is still her highest-leverage recommendation for developing authors. * 50 Books, a Day Job, and a Friend Who Wrote 100: The output looks intimidating until you remember how many were short. Burnout is real — her answer is permission to rest, not the write-every-day catechism. She knows a romance author who has cleared 100 books in the same window. Guest Links * Join Spotlight on Indie SFF: https://spotlightonindiesff.com * Youtube: @Spotlightonindiesff * X: @spotlightfic Kristin’s Links * Editing Services: nonsensefreeeditor.com * Newsletter: https://www.fictionalinfluence.com * YouTube: https://youtube.com/@nonsensefreekristin Timestamps 00:00 - Introducing Spotlight on Indie SFF. 01:40 - Early Kindle Gold Rush. 02:51 - Scammers KU and AI. 05:36 - Building a Better Site. 07:22 - Content Ratings System. 08:14 - Based vs Christian. 09:40 - Submission Rules Lines. 11:38 - Curated Sales Backlash. 13:08 - Anti Christian Bias. 15:19 - Do Awards Matter. 16:57 - Fixing Popularity Contests. 18:59 - Submitting Books to Indie SFF. 20:31 - Trust, Ratings, and Moderation. 21:35 - Funding and Future Sales. 23:53 - YouTube and Rumble Strategy. 27:34 - Writing Pace and Burnout. 28:57 - Craft First, Publish Later. 32:01 - Avoiding Indie Author Pitfalls. 34:41 - Building Sites and Reputation. 36:18 - Where to Find Spotlight on Indie SFF. 37:03 - Final Thanks and Wrap-Up. About This Podcast Nonsense-Free Kristin is where independent authors and creators learn to build their platforms, master their craft, and create on their own terms—without begging for permission from gatekeepers who hate them. New episodes weekly. Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Music. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kristinmctiernan.substack.com

    38 min
  4. Jarrod Christman - Guerrilla Storytelling Done Right

    May 20

    Jarrod Christman - Guerrilla Storytelling Done Right

    Jared Christman is a writer, musician, and filmmaker who came up in the Victory Records era of metalcore, escaped the 360-deal grinder, and "fell ass-backwards" into making a feature film when three music videos turned into one. In this episode, he joins to discuss his 400,000-word fantasy debut, why he believes power reveals rather than corrupts, and the through-line connecting Ripley in Aliens to a saloon scene reshot in a horse arena. In This Episode * “What’s It Really About?”: Ridley Scott is famous for hammering screenwriters with that question. Jarrod’s answer for his debut is structural — the book is an interrogation of whether absolute power corrupts or whether it reveals. * 400,000 Words on Accident: It started as a single image from the last scene of the book — who are these people, why are they here, why is that on fire? * Why He Despises Nihilistic Storytelling: The line isn’t dark versus light. It’s whether you can see the author’s hand. When the structure sets up good to prevail and then the author yanks it away without justification, that’s the tell. * Knocking Men Down to Raise Women Up: The pattern is a ladder problem. Cut three feet off a six-foot ladder and step up — you’re only three feet off the ground when you could be six. Two losses, not one win. He calls modern feminism “masculinism” — trying to make women into men. * Ripley Did It Right: Alien and Aliens are the template. She’s a woman, as strong as the job requires, contending with men without becoming one. * The Crisis Is Insecurity, On Both Sides: Young men and women are screaming into the void asking what the other wants and getting back contradictory garbage. Everyone performs because the camera never turns off. One cringe moment can end a life. He worries about the pendulum swing already coming. * MySpace Killed the Music Industry: From roughly 2003 to 2008, the metalcore scene transitioned from a music event to a social event. Labels started signing bands off MySpace numbers. Then the records didn’t sell, because online presence didn’t translate to sales. * The Universal Truth About Record Labels: A New York entertainment lawyer told Jared’s old boss that in 35 years of doing industry law, he had never once audited a record label and found they didn’t owe their artists money. The labels were already stealing bewfore the 360 deals showed up to take a cut of everything else, too. * Publishing Just Copy-Pasted the Model: A reality TV star who didn’t read for leisure got a traditional book deal off TikTok fame. Nobody has produced data showing social following translates to book sales, but the industry keeps signing on it anyway. * From Corpus Christi to Missouri Breaks: Victory Records is in the rearview. The new project is independent through DistroKid. * Three Music Videos Became a Feature: The plan was three consecutive music videos sharing a narrative thread. Then a little interstitial footage. Then his co-director said there’s a feature here, and a three-page treatment turned into a full screenplay. * $25K on an AmEx and the Saloon That Wasn’t: Two and a half days of guerrilla filming in southern Idaho with two cameras, a drone, and a volunteer crew. The opening saloon scene came back perfect — except for the modern power outlets and exit-sign switches nobody noticed on set. They built a sound stage in the back of an actor’s riding arena and shot the whole scene again.. * The Next Film — Where Even Shadows Fear to Tread: Modern crime thriller, small town, modern wardrobe. Every obstacle from Missouri Breaks (period authenticity, modernity bleeding into every frame) is gone by design. * Why Multiple Kickstarters Instead of One: A smaller ask is an easier ask. If two campaigns hit and one misses, that’s still a lot of movie. Spread the burden, spread the asks, respect that gas just jumped a dollar overnight. Guest Links * Support Jarrod’s Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/danielpriley/where-even-shadows-fear-to-tread-phase-one * X: @jarrodchristman * IG: @wearemissouribreaks Kristin’s Links * Editing Services: nonsensefreeeditor.com * Newsletter: https://www.fictionalinfluence.com * YouTube: https://youtube.com/@nonsensefreekristin Timestamps 00:00 - Meet the Jarrod Christman. 00:45 - Storytelling Across Mediums. 01:44 - The 400K Fantasy Epic. 02:09 - Power Reveals Character. 03:40 - From Final Scene to Outline. 05:17 - Rejecting Nihilistic Endings. 06:41 - Masculine Heroes Today. 10:16 - Gender Tensions and Online Life. 13:44 - Advice for Stuck Creatives. 15:19 - Music Industry vs Publishing. 18:50 - Fame Over Craft. 19:51 - Followers vs Sales. 20:11 - Music Industry 360 Deals. 22:15 - Going Independent Today. 23:52 - Accidental Feature Film. 26:18 - Guerrilla Production Lessons. 28:54 - Directing Non Actors. 30:51 - New Thriller Kickstarter. 32:42 - Funding Strategy and Wrap. About This Podcast Nonsense-Free Kristin is where independent authors and creators learn to build their platforms, master their craft, and create on their own terms—without begging for permission from gatekeepers who hate them. New episodes weekly. Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Music. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kristinmctiernan.substack.com

    34 min
  5. Riley C. Bolt - Writing Combat That Reads True

    May 13

    Riley C. Bolt - Writing Combat That Reads True

    Riley C. Bolt is a 12-year Army intelligence veteran turned indie author who writes the kind of action thrillers Hollywood used to make before it forgot how. In this episode, he joins to discuss why the special operations community looks nothing like the Hollywood super-soldier myth, how to build a female protagonist men will actually read, and why "three times is enemy action" was all the market research he needed to go indie on day one. In This Episode * “I Don’t Exist. Please Don’t Look for Me.”: Riley’s running joke about his own bio isn’t just a bit. Twelve years inside the intel community — SCIFs, target packages, two tours to Iraq — left him with a body of work the public is never supposed to hear about. The book is what he can talk about. * The Comic Book That Saved Him a Decade: Eastern Blood Price started as a supernatural superhero comic set in New Orleans. Then he had a chance meeting with Chuck Dixon, who warned him off the comics industry entirely. * Hobbit in Third Grade, Dune by Seventh: Riley’s reading path runs through Tolkien, Narnia (which his school wouldn’t let him touch until fifth grade — he tried), and Herbert. * The Elevator Pitch — Extraction Meets The Sixth Sense: Just swap Chris Hemsworth for a much smaller Chinese-American woman. Read it and find the supernatural pieces yourself. * Built a Female Lead for Male Readers on Purpose: Anya is in the Sarah Connor / Ellen Ripley mold — not a girlboss, an ambush predator. Riley set it as a personal hurdle: write a dual-female-protagonist action story that men would actually care about. If he could land that, he’d earn the title “author.” * Senior Chief Shannon Kent — The Rarest Kind of Public Figure: A SIGINT operator who broke into a JSOC tier-one unit and was killed in Manbij, Syria. The intel community almost never produces a name the public knows. Kent did, and Anya is partly built from her. * Why Katya Reads as “Wishy-Washy” — And Why That’s Correct: Some reviewers don’t know what to make of her. Riley’s answer: she spends most of the book in shock. The entire story runs under 24 hours. Ninety-five percent of humans wouldn’t make it out of chapter two. * Pekiti Tirsia Kali Over BJJ — A Battlefield Philosophy: The Filipino military’s combat system isn’t built to look pretty. Riley breaks down why BJJ is fantastic one-on-one in a ring and disastrous the moment a second enemy walks into the room — and the famous practitioner who blew out his own kneecaps trying to take a street fight to the concrete. * Tier-One Operators Aren’t Hollywood Super Soldiers: Hollywood sells SEALs, Delta, and MARSOC as walking weapons. The reality is surprise, speed, and getting back behind cover. The only group built to “lay waste” is the Rangers — by design. Everyone else is an ambush predator, just like Anya. * Reacher’s Quiet Tell: Once someone points out that Jack Reacher goes passive the second a woman walks into the scene, you can’t un-see it. * “Three Times Is Enemy Action.”: Riley went indie before he ever queried. After researching how big publishers treat authors with his profile, he hit the Army’s old saying — once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action — and stopped counting well past three. * The Sequel Is Outlined: Book two is already on the table. Guest Links * Read Eastern Blood Price by Riley C. Bolt: https://amzn.to/4cOX0m9 * Website: rileycbolt.com * Substack: Riley C. Bolt * X: Riley C. Bolt Kristin’s Links * Editing Services: nonsensefreeeditor.com * Newsletter: https://www.fictionalinfluence.com * YouTube: https://youtube.com/@nonsensefreekristin Timestamps 00:00 - Meet Riley Bolt. 01:07 - From SCIFs to Stories. 01:41 - Comics Roots and Chuck Dixon. 03:52 - Early Fantasy and Sci Fi Reads. 04:57 - Building Eastern Blood Price. 06:12 - Why Anime Resonates. 09:12 - Shannon Kent Inspiration. 11:54 - Writing Strong Female Leads. 13:32 - Realism Under Pressure. 15:43 - Elevator Pitch and Action Focus. 16:24 - Martial Arts Background. 17:45 - BJJ vs Battlefield Reality. 19:58 - Bootcamp Lessons and Humbling. 23:46 - Bad Movie Fight Choreography. 26:51 - Writing Efficient Combat. 31:12 - Going Indie and Publishing. 33:17 - Sequel Plans and Where to Find Him. 34:10 - Where to Buy and Closing. About This Podcast Nonsense-Free Kristin is where independent authors and creators learn to build their platforms, master their craft, and create on their own terms—without begging for permission from gatekeepers who hate them. New episodes weekly. Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Music. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kristinmctiernan.substack.com

    35 min
  6. Michael Morton - What Small Press Editors Actually Want in Chapter One

    May 6

    Michael Morton - What Small Press Editors Actually Want in Chapter One

    Michael Morton is a retired Air Force officer, civilian Space Force employee, military sci-fi and fantasy author, and editor at Canon Publishing. In this episode, he joins to discuss his unconventional path to publishing, the craft principles that actually move the needle, and how a small press operates from the inside — including Canon’s firm stance on AI, scheduling realities, and what separates a manuscript that gets a yes from one that gets a pass. If you write military sci-fi, are weighing indie vs. small press vs. traditional, or just want to understand how a working publishing house thinks about authors, this one’s worth your time. In This Episode * Why Michael Can’t Write Contemporary Fiction: 20 years in space ops means security review would line-edit a contemporary novel into oblivion. The workaround was a far-future fallen empire where the physics still hold but the classification stamps don’t reach. * Microgravity Marines Built Like Gymnasts: The Mist Marines in Silent Violence aren’t your standard tall, jacked Devil Dogs. They’re short, compact, and built for Newton’s laws. * The JF Holmes Moment: A casual Facebook post in 2017 about something he’d been dabbling with. The publisher’s first reply: “Are you published yet?” That’s the line that flipped him from fanfiction hobbyist to working author. * Bullet Points Are Secretly Fiction Training: Years of distilling general-officer briefings into five bullets read in five minutes turned out to be the same skill as writing tight fiction. Cut the words that don’t earn their spot. * The Structure That Actually Works: Forget the outliner-vs-pantser fight. Michael recommends My Story Can Beat Up Your Story by Jeffrey Alan Schechter — 13 structural elements that give your story a frame without locking you into rigid outlining. * The First $1,000 Is Theirs, the Rest Is Yours: A figure he’s heard repeated: your publisher’s marketing covers the first thousand dollars in sales. Everything after is word of mouth. Which is why Canon now writes “maintain a social media presence” into the contract. * Canon’s AI Line in the Sand: Grammarly is fine. AI marketing visuals are fine. ChatGPT plotting your book — or mining other authors for “successful plot points” — is a hard no. The line is whether the creative work is yours. * The AI Cover Loophole: A fully AI-generated cover can’t be copyrighted. Run that image through a human artist who reworks it into an original composition with different assets, and now you own it. The Fiverr artists who can do this fast are quietly winning. * Why Prologues Get Books Auto-Rejected: Some readers will refuse to buy any book with a prologue, because the prologue almost always exists for the wrong reason — backstory dumping that should have been woven in through dialogue and exposition. * What Kills a Submission in Three Chapters: If he doesn’t know who the protagonist and antagonist are by chapter three, it’s a no. If the first three pages are background instead of action, it’s a no. If basic Word grammar checks weren’t run, you started in the hole. * The Rising Tide Argument: Voracious readers go through books faster than any single author can produce. Other authors aren’t competition — they’re the relay team keeping the reader’s habit alive between your releases. * No Exclusive Contracts on Purpose: Canon actively refers authors to other small presses — Three Ravens, Chris Kennedy Publishing, Jump Master Press — for genres outside their lane. The bet is that authors who write across multiple houses come back better. * 200 Words a Day Equals One Book a Year: Don’t compare yourself to the author shipping four books a year. Hold yourself to your own pace. The math adds up faster than people realize, and BICHOK — butt in chair, hands on keyboard — is the only rule that actually matters. Guest Links * Read the Fallen Empire series by Michael Morton: https://amzn.to/4cOW9BX * Facebook: Michael Morton, @michael.mortonauthor Kristin’s Links * Editing Services: nonsensefreeeditor.com * Newsletter: https://www.fictionalinfluence.com * YouTube: https://youtube.com/@nonsensefreekristin Timestamps 00:00 - Meet Michael Morton.01:09 - From Fanfic to First Publish.03:41 - Space Ops to Space Marines.05:41 - Microgravity Combat Mindset.08:38 - Character Over Hardware.11:12 - Learning the Craft.13:19 - Structure That Works.16:03 - Readers and Market Gaps.18:22 - Inside Canon Publishing.20:19 - Small Press Model Explained.22:12 - Launch Marketing and Social Media.23:33 - Social Media Dialogue.24:03 - Author Training Tools.24:32 - No Exclusive Contracts.25:16 - What Editors Want.27:05 - Common Submission Pitfalls.28:24 - Prologues Debate.30:45 - Small Press Scheduling.33:47 - Indie vs Traditional.35:04 - AI Policy and Art.38:20 - Writing Routine Advice.41:09 - Projects Coming Next.43:06 - Where to Find Michael.44:11 - Book Recommendation Wrap. About This Podcast Nonsense-Free Kristin is where independent authors and creators learn to build their platforms, master their craft, and create on their own terms—without begging for permission from gatekeepers who hate them. New episodes weekly. Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Music. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kristinmctiernan.substack.com

    45 min
  7. J. Manfred Weichsel – The Smut Double Standard No One Will Talk About

    Apr 29

    J. Manfred Weichsel – The Smut Double Standard No One Will Talk About

    J. Manfred Weichsel is an indie author, editor, and New York background actor writing the kind of books the “write to market” gurus would tell you not to write — Menippean satires set in pulp-fantasy worlds, with covers spicy enough to get him banned from Amazon’s direct catalog. In this episode, he joins to discuss why classical satire is the antidote to the AI slop tsunami, why “tropey writing” was already machine-generated long before the LLMs showed up, and how an author with NSFW pulp covers builds an audience without playing the trends game. In This Episode * Two Kinds of Satire (and Why One Is Disappearing): Manfred explains the split between Aristophanic satire (SNL, South Park, parodying real people) and the Menippean tradition he writes in — fantasy-world satire aimed at human institutions, using weird perspectives and structural experiments. * “How Do You Write Satire When Everything Is Satire?”: A Fordham nun asked him this decades ago and he still doesn’t have a clean answer. His current read: nothing is satire anymore, which is its own problem. * The AI Slop Argument Authors Don’t Want to Hear: Trope-chasing romance authors who let tools pick their plots have been outsourcing creativity to algorithms for years. The pitchforks only came out when AI got good enough to do the last 5%. * The Vertical Drama Economy: What he sees on Chinese romance sets — AI writes the script, actors get a “human touch” pass to fix mistakes. * Why Originality Is the Only Way to Survive: When the machine spits out every trope on demand, the authors left standing are the ones doing things it can’t copy. * Amazon’s NSFW Cover Roulette: Two of his Action Girls books got blocked from Amazon direct (still on Ingram Spark). He thinks re-uploading the cover too many times to fix a bleed line might have triggered it. A real look at how random Amazon’s enforcement is for spicy covers. * Kickstarter as the NSFW Lifeline: Kickstarter is one of the most NSFW-friendly platforms left, with a dedicated NSFW newsletter pulling in tens of thousands per campaign. * The Smut Double Standard: Male-targeted smut gets reviewed with “but what about other audiences?” framing. Female-targeted smut never gets that question. Manfred thinks regular readers don’t actually care — only the professional review sphere does. * The Bizarro Scene Is Over (But the Authors Aren’t): What killed bizarro around 2019. * Dropshipping as an Indie Fulfillment Hack: He uses Amazon author copies shipped straight from Amazon US (and Amazon UK for European orders), skipping the $8 middleman cost. That’s the reason his Kickstarter pricing works at all. * Why Cirsova Made His Career: He got into Cirsova at Volume 1, Issue 8 — early enough to ride the wave up. Short fiction in the right venue is one of the highest-leverage moves a new author can make. He also covers the flip side: magazines that fold and bury your stories with them. * The Social Media Dread: Manfred is on every platform and barely posts on any of them. What he sees on commuters’ phones in New York — short-form video, online shopping, chatbots, almost no text-based social — and why old Twitter was his peak before X tanked his reach. * The Guru Trap for New Writers: Two predators to watch for. The course-sellers are obvious. The attention-economy ideologues who want you to convert and promote their worldview disguised as writing advice are much harder to spot. Guest Links * Read Space Escapades by J. Manfred Weichsel: https://amzn.to/4rwGriA * Website: https://j-manfred-weichsel.mailchimpsites.com/ * Substack: J. Manfred Weichsel Kristin’s Links * Editing Services: nonsensefreeeditor.com * Newsletter: https://www.fictionalinfluence.com * YouTube: https://youtube.com/@nonsensefreekristin Timestamps 00:00 - Meet the Guest. 00:37 - Pulp Meets Satire. 00:57 - Classical Satire Roots. 01:26 - Menippean Satire Explained. 04:02 - Writing Outside Trends. 05:44 - AI Slop and Originality. 10:25 - Breaking Plot Formulas. 11:34 - Kickstarter and Indie Sales. 13:40 - Amazon NSFW Cover Roulette. 15:44 - Illustrated Trilogy Kickstarter. 17:02 - Kickstarter and NSFW Policies. 18:08 - Smut Double Standards. 20:59 - Transgressive Fiction Today. 21:45 - Transgressive Genres Fade. 22:40 - Bizarro Scene Fallout. 24:03 - Finding Readers Today. 24:17 - Social Media Dread. 26:23 - Short Form Video Shift. 29:06 - Kickstarter Versus Preorder. 29:49 - Fulfillment And Dropshipping. 32:09 - Short Fiction And Sir Sova. 35:45 - Advice For New Writers. 36:07 - Avoiding Internet Gurus. 40:09 - Where To Follow And Support. 42:25 - Final Thanks And Links. About This Podcast Nonsense-Free Kristin is where independent authors and creators learn to build their platforms, master their craft, and create on their own terms—without begging for permission from gatekeepers who hate them. New episodes weekly. Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Music. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kristinmctiernan.substack.com

    43 min
  8. Jonathan Shuerger - Target Readers Like an Intel Marine

    Apr 22

    Jonathan Shuerger - Target Readers Like an Intel Marine

    Jonathan Shuerger spent five years as a Marine Corps Crypto Logic Linguist studying Arabic and tracking ISIS targets in real time. Now he writes intense military-grade dark fantasy, runs a YouTube news show for authors, and brings the full Intel toolkit to the problem of selling books. In this conversation, he explains why most authors are speaking to an echo of themselves, why Kickstarter is for celebrating a community rather than building one, and why Marines make better protagonists when they're happy psychos instead of gritty brooders. In This Episode * Enlisting at 26 and Landing the Dream Job: How Jonathan walked into a recruiter’s office ready to sign paperwork, got bumped into another kid’s slot, and ended up studying Arabic in Monterey for two years before going to “blow up ISIS for a while.” * The Mission Behind the Books: Why Marines develop “cynical nihilism” in the Intel field, how listening to bad guys laugh about what they were doing produced a helpless darkness in his team, and why Jonathan transitioned from hobby author to professional to show them that good still exists. * Writing Frosty for Deployed Marines: How a Christmas novella blowing up every sacred holiday story became his first published book — and his crash course in the self-publishing system. * Kickstarter Reality Check: Why Kickstarter doesn’t build communities (it celebrates them), how Jonathan sent 120 personalized Facebook messages to land 120 backers, and why your mother-in-law backs the first book but only keeps backing if it’s actually good. * The Four Audiences You Didn’t Know You Had: Marines, Marine moms, guys who wish they’d joined, and women who refuse to be told they can’t handle your book. * Selling in Person Using Intel Training: How Jonathan tracks eye lines at conventions, uses cover banners to read interest before a reader reaches the table, and opens with a yes-or-no question designed to let disinterested browsers walk away. * The Facebook Ads AI Problem: Why Meta’s new AI targeting is starving authors who spend $5 a day, and why “Advantage Audiences” is an expensive learning process you’re paying to train. * Author Update vs. Novel Marketing Podcast: How Jonathan and Thomas split duties — time-focused hard news and zeitgeist commentary on Author Update, evergreen best practices on Novel Marketing. * Using AI Without Sounding Like AI: Why AI is great for exploratory marketing copy and terrible for voice, how the cadence gives it away every time, and the Substack post where Jonathan got publicly called out by an enemy for not editing hard enough. * Authors Treat Success Like Paganism: Why most successful authors can’t tell you how they did it, why the TikTok gold rush is over, and why the conference speaker circuit is full of people coasting on Kindle-era dumb luck. * Behavioral Analysis for Readers: What Jonathan learned tracking religious zealots that applies to tracking book buyers — figure out what your target wants to feel about themselves, not what you want to say. * The Double-Tier Children’s Book Sell: Why the magic word in a children’s book pitch is “quiet,” and how to make the parent feel like a good person without judging them for needing a break. * Positioning Ideological Fiction Against an Enemy: Why clean wholesome Christian romance sells better when it’s framed against alien slut queen 9000, and why Americans will unify around almost any shared enemy. * Happy Psychos Sell Better: Why Generation Kill worked where Jarhead didn’t, why Avatar audiences ended up rooting for the Marines, and why the Fat Electrician gets the Marine Corps story right. * The Emails That Keep Him Writing: The Marine Corps moms who write in to say their sons found hope in his books, and why that’s what makes the brutal material worth writing. Guest Links * Read Semper Die by Jonathan Shuerger: https://amzn.to/46eBFi7 * Website: https://jonathanshuerger.com/ * Substack: Jonathan Shuerger Kristin’s Links * Editing Services: nonsensefreeeditor.com * Newsletter: https://www.fictionalinfluence.com * YouTube: https://youtube.com/@nonsensefreekristin Timestamps 00:00 - Meet Jonathan Shuerger. 02:58 - Becoming a Linguist. 03:51 - Leaving the Corps and writing With Purpose. 07:38 - Frosty Exorcism Novella. 08:47 - Kickstarter Reality Check. 11:35 - Community Before Crowdfunding. 15:10 - Adjacent Audience Targeting. 16:36 - In Person Sales Tactics. 19:34 - Ads AI and Long Game. 24:16 - Why Author Update Exists. 25:28 - Zeitgeist News Segment. 26:38 - Indie Paths and Backgrounds. 27:46 - Courses That Paid Off. 28:33 - Using AI for Marketing Copy. 32:03 - AI Panic and Formula Fiction. 35:19 - Audience Psychology and Value. 38:27 - Finding Your Value Proposition. 40:55 - Ideology Marketing and Enemies. 42:40 - Marines Stories and Pacing. 45:13 - Where to Connect and Closing. About This Podcast Nonsense-Free Kristin is where independent authors and creators learn to build their platforms, master their craft, and create on their own terms—without begging for permission from gatekeepers who hate them. New episodes weekly. Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Music. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kristinmctiernan.substack.com

    47 min
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Ratings & Reviews

4.5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Nonsense-Free Kristin is where independent authors and creators learn to build their platforms, master their craft, and create on their own terms—without begging for permission from gatekeepers who hate them kristinmctiernan.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Kristin McTiernan
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    40
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Kristin McTiernan
  • Show Website
    Nonsense-Free Kristin

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