writing career – Stories Rule Press

Publishing Has Entered Its Horse Era

27 May 2026 / Mark Posey

The indie gold rush is over. Publishing today feels less like striking it rich and more like pulling a plow through hard ground. Algorithms shift, discoverability shrinks, AI sludge floods storefronts, and the easy momentum is gone. But maybe that’s not a bad thing. Because hard eras reveal what actually matters: endurance, adaptability, direct relationships with readers, and authors willing to keep moving even when the road gets muddy. Welcome to publishing’s horse era.

Should You Blog? A Solar Sail Theory Answer

23 May 2026 / Tracy Cooper-Posey

Every few years, someone declares that blogging is dead. Usually loudly. Usually confidently. Usually while selling a course about the thing you’re supposedly meant to do instead.

But Solar Sail Theory asks a different question entirely: not whether blogging is fashionable, but whether it strengthens your discoverability surface area. In an era of disappearing social posts, algorithmic chaos, and AI-mediated search, blogging may be less about going viral—and more about building durable infrastructure that compounds over time.

Email List Size Really Does Matter

16 May 2026 / Tracy Cooper-Posey

Everyone says engagement matters more than email list size. I believed that once—and it cost me thousands of dollars. Fiction readers don’t behave like SaaS customers or productivity buyers. They hibernate, sometimes for years, then suddenly wake up and binge-buy an entire series. Here’s why aggressively scrubbing “inactive” subscribers may be one of the worst mistakes fiction authors can make, and how this realization became a core part of my Solar Sail Theory of indie publishing.

The Easy Way To… (Get Ripped Off)

7 February 2026 / Tracy Cooper-Posey

Everyone’s teaching authors how to spot scammers with lists of red flags and warning signs. But none of that works if your mindset is wrong. Because if part of you still wants the “easy way,” you’ll explain away every clue. Here’s why modern scams work — and the one shift that makes you almost impossible to fool.

The Two Survival Strategies Every Indie Author Needs Now

18 October 2025 / Tracy Cooper-Posey

The indie publishing world has fractured into a thousand niche markets, and the old one-size-fits-all advice just doesn’t cut it anymore. To thrive now, you need two things: a platform that keeps your readers close, and an experimental mindset that helps you navigate the mountain of conflicting advice. These aren’t just tactics—they’re survival strategies for the modern indie author.

When Writing Isn’t Enough: The Harsh New Reality of Indie Income

13 September 2025 / Tracy Cooper-Posey

In the early days of indie publishing, simply hitting “publish” could bring in income. Now? Discoverability is a battle, the market is saturated, and writing fiction full-time is a dream that more and more authors are having to compromise. This post digs into why multiple income streams aren’t a failure—they’re the new normal—and how indie authors can adapt without giving up.

“If Amazon Collapsed Tomorrow…”

5 September 2025 / Cameron Cooper, Science Fiction, Space Opera

What if Amazon collapsed tomorrow? Thousands of exclusive authors would lose their income overnight, and Kindle Unlimited readers would find their go-to content gone. In this speculative thought experiment, I explore how such a collapse would reshape the indie publishing landscape—for authors, readers, and the future of storytelling.