Get the Pulp Mindset! Wasteland And Sky

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It's been a long month and, as it draws to a close, I'm going to end it on a big note. This might be a long and hot summer, but there is some good to come out of it!

Finally, today is the day we've been waiting for. The Pulp Mindset is out for everyone on amazon. This guide has been in the works for awhile and now I can finally show you just what I've been working on behind the scenes for the past couple of months. It's a guide for new creatives who wish to understand just how to approach art in the modern age, and for those who wish to understand just what this NewPub thing is about. You can find it on amazon here.

A short description:

Out with the Old, in with the NewPub

Nobody reads anymore. In an age where audiences consume more art than ever before, books have remained irrelevant to the ever-changing West. Nothing seems to change this unavoidable reality. The industry is over.

Or is it?

A new frontier has opened where anything goes! We live in a pulp landscape now, a place where the past and present comes together to create a better future. In this book you will learn just what this NewPub world is, how to adapt to it, and change the way you think about everything.

The Rules Have Changed!

You can do anything! The Pulp Mindset will help you adapt to this crazy climate and become the best artist you can be. Read on and join the revolution!

The seed for this idea started when I submitted an essay to authors' Misha Burnett's and Ben Cheah's upcoming Pulp On Pulp collection of non-fiction essays for writing pulp-inspired fiction in the modern day. When I finished my piece up and sent it off for submission, other ideas started swimming in my mind related to the topic. I began taking notes and drew up a rough outline in between other projects. Before I knew it, I was already hip deep in the waters of The Pulp Mindset which had exploded beyond that one single essay. The entire project came together remarkably fast, and now here it is out ready for aspiring pulpsters!

Never let it be said that pulp speed is impossible to achieve. This entire book is proof that it absolutely can be reached.

There are eight chapters in the book, each centered on an important aspect of NewPub that needs explaining to upcoming authors and current writers too reliant on the decayed system of OldPub. I wanted to make this entire work as clear and concise as picking up an old beat up yellowing paperback would be, matching the feel and pace of a pulp novel while still delivering important information that can be used to achieve a productive mindset. There's no droning on and on here: the book gets to the point quick.

It needs to, because we need to make reading cool again in order to get people reading again. And nothing was cooler than the pulps. Nothing ever will be.

A lot has been lost since the pulps ruled the roost back in the early 20th century. Much slander and libel has taken place to tear them down and insist their influence was only ever harmful to writing nd storytelling. However, as the years have gone on it is the pulp that endures while the gimmicks and fads fade away to obscurity for the next big thing. The mutations that have attempted to subvert pulp have all died off.

How often have you heard that John W. Campbell "rescued" science fiction from the disgusting cesspool of the pulps that those filthy normies read? How he brought in a golden age that sold less, had less cultural impact, and is now in the process of being erased from his own industry. Meanwhile, pulp writing remains stronger than its been in ages.

There is something there beyond the old cliches of the pulps, something OldPub wanted to bury, and it is about time that it is reclaimed. Those of us in NewPub can, and will, bring it back.

At this point, it is inevitable.

John W. Campbell's career as seen from OldPub's perspective. NewPub is going to reverse it.

But I've already talked a lot about OldPub. I fact, I might spend a bit too much time devoted to its failings on this blog. This is why I used more time in the book writing on NewPub instead. What else is there to say about a zombie industry, anyway? It's over.

For one, OldPub is already eating itself through purity tests and creating stricter and stricter rules on who is allowed to write what before they are published and placed in their nearly empty bookstores. Be sure to check your skin color or what private parts you have equipped because that matters more than what you have to say as a human being.

And those who helped spearhead this change over the course of the 20th century? Well, they are being airbrushed out as we speak. While they were useful weapons to destroy whole fields to the result of less and less people reading every day, despite the highest literacy rates in history, they continue to eat each other in an attempt to seize control of their nearly empty, dirty sandbox that long ago once used to be a beautiful beach.

Soon there will be nothing left but a gravel pit, and no one is going to be left to mourn them.

This is the reward you get from all that subversion.

And we aren't going to mourn them, because we have something better. We have NewPub, and we have the Pulp Mindset.

As I mentioned, each chapter covers a different subject. The first explains just what OldPub and NewPub are and why the difference matters. We then go in straight to just what the titular Pulp Mindset is and why you need to have it to succeed in this new wild frontier. These first two chapters form the backbone of the work in showing both the issue with modern writing and just how to fix it with a mindset shift.

But we don't stop there. The next three chapters focus on three different areas of writing, all of which are invaluable to understanding how to operate in NewPub. Because you can't quite be pulp without capturing what made it spark beyond the surface level.

The first of these chapters contains the only bit of practical writing advice I can give without turning the entire project into a How-To book, but it is necessary to put out there since reading this guide and then going out and reading Save the Cat defeats the purpose of everything being attempted here. No one in OldPub is going to help you write pulp.

The following two chapters form the core of what makes exciting pulp-inspired writing and how both have been diluted over the years. The first is on action, and the second is on wonder. Without engaging these dual subjects you simply cannot hope to tackle the changing writing landscape at all. Low art needs both action and wonder to survive, and so does NewPub!

Finally we end on what a real revolution in writing would contain and why the Pulp Mindset contains it. What exactly can we learn and do different from the failures OldPub has suffered, and what can we do better moving forward into the unknown future. There is more than you'd think, including pieces of advice that would make subversives in the 1960s blanche.

An early review nailed it perfectly:

I think aspiring authors might find some interesting inspiration from Cowan’s work, which after all mostly serves as a signpost to the successful story tellers of the past. What has worked before can work again, if you know about it. This work could be the catalyst that makes that possible.

All we have left of the forgotten past is a better and more fruitful creative place than the one ravaged by OldPub. That is the one we need to reach out to. In order to move into the future, one needs to connect with the past.

But that past is not OldPub. OldPub is dead.

Regress harder, and find what was lost. Only then can we move into a better future free from the shackles of mutation far past its expiration date.

The truth of the matter is that we are not in the same place we were a decade ago. We're not even in the same place we were five years ago. Things have changed so much in such a short period of time that it is overwhelming. But no matter how much the world might morph or fall apart around you there are eternal truths that don't change. This is the core belief of the Pulp Mindset, and this solid foundation will serve you even if the sky falls down around your head. The more things change, the more they remain the unchanged.

So put aside those creative writing classes you had back in college. Forget the self-help books that don't offer any help. Don't bother with creatives that hate the wider audience. Ignore the rumblings of a dying industry that want you to join them in their death spasms. There is no future in any of that nonsense.

The only way forward is with a Pulp Mindset. You can succeed without OldPub, and that terrifies the old guard more than anything. There is a revolution coming, and you will be part of it. The future is inevitable, and the future is in NewPub.

Once again, you can find the Pulp Mindset here.

Turn it around!

I told you all that I would get to three books released this year. This is book #2! I'm on a roll, and unlikely to stop anytime soon!

That's the Pulp Mindset for you.

The Pulp Mindset is out TODAY!