Hello from Brendan Powell Smith, LEGO-illustrator and author

Hello, fellow published authors.

My name is Brendan Powell Smith. I have 15 published books, all based on my LEGO-illustrated storytelling. I am most well-known for having spent ten years illustrating the entire Bible in LEGO which spawned my series of Brick Bible books and The Brick Bible for Kids book series. More recently I have been writing and illustrating history books, with last year's Assassination!: The Brick Chronicle of Attempts on the Lives of Twelve US Presidents, and the just-released Revolution!: The Brick Chronicle of the American Revolution and the Inspiring Fight for Liberty and Equality that Shook the World.

I recently joined the Authors Guild in hopes of finding solidarity with other authors, but was rather stupefied to find that the Authors Guild does not have a forum or any way for authors to be in communication with each other. That seems like one of the most obvious ways for authors to empower themselves. So I went searching for such a thing elsewhere on the interwebs and wound up here.

I think authors stand to benefit greatly from sharing information that publishers try to keep secret in order to weaken individual authors they negotiate with. I've just arrived here, so maybe someone can help orient me a bit. Is that sentiment shared widely among authors here? For instance, if I wanted to openly share the details of my publishing contracts and see the details of other authors' contracts, is there a particular area of these forums for that? Are there reasons authors would not want to share such information with each other?

Pleasure to meet you all. Hope we can help each other out.

 WELCOME!  

Welcome Brenda.  Try doing a search on this forum.  If that doesn't help, ask specific questions and I'm sure you will get a response.

I'm also a member of Authors Guild which I find quite useful for its purpose - advocating for authors.  It also provides contract review services, and they are the host for my web site www.dkchristi.com .  I was surprised that there is no forum and also that they list an author's new books, but nothing about them!  However, their mission is advocacy and some information.

I have been a member of this forum for many years and find it a great outlet to test ideas and hone my writing skills right here and the members are more than generous with their time, ideas, helpful information, resources and for those that post often and a bit more personal, there is support in times when a caring fellow author is a comfort.

The threads contain volumes of great information if you take the time to search them.  Welcome.

P.S. We have an active forum moderator who is a research guru - finding resources at the drop of a hat and providing helpful information when requested.

brendanpowellsmith wrote:

Hello, fellow published authors.

My name is Brendan Powell Smith. I have 15 published books, all based on my LEGO-illustrated storytelling. I am most well-known for having spent ten years illustrating the entire Bible in LEGO which spawned my series of Brick Bible books and The Brick Bible for Kids book series. More recently I have been writing and illustrating history books, with last year's Assassination!: The Brick Chronicle of Attempts on the Lives of Twelve US Presidents, and the just-released Revolution!: The Brick Chronicle of the American Revolution and the Inspiring Fight for Liberty and Equality that Shook the World.

I recently joined the Authors Guild in hopes of finding solidarity with other authors, but was rather stupefied to find that the Authors Guild does not have a forum or any way for authors to be in communication with each other. That seems like one of the most obvious ways for authors to empower themselves. So I went searching for such a thing elsewhere on the interwebs and wound up here.

I think authors stand to benefit greatly from sharing information that publishers try to keep secret in order to weaken individual authors they negotiate with. I've just arrived here, so maybe someone can help orient me a bit. Is that sentiment shared widely among authors here? For instance, if I wanted to openly share the details of my publishing contracts and see the details of other authors' contracts, is there a particular area of these forums for that? Are there reasons authors would not want to share such information with each other?

Pleasure to meet you all. Hope we can help each other out.

Welcome to the forum, Brendan! We'll help as much as we can.

dkchristi wrote:

P.S. We have an active forum moderator who is a research guru - finding resources at the drop of a hat and providing helpful information when requested.

LOL!, DK, it's Victor who is the guru about publishing rights and contracts. I'm sure he would be willing to discuss legal issues -- with a disclaimer, of course!

Welcome, Brendan!