TONIGHT, ON The Catholic Geek: Matt Margolis Discusses the Worst President Ever

The Catholic Geek: Matt Margolis Discusses the Worst President Ever 03/19 by We Built That Network | Culture Podcasts:




AT 7PM EASTERN, Host Declan Finn welcomes Matt Margolis to the show. We'll be discussing his book, The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama, as well as graphic design, conservative counter culture, and more.

Matt Margolis is the coauthor of the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama published in 2016, and Caucus of Corruption (2007). He is an architectural designer by day. Prior to writing books, Matt was a political blogger. In November 2003, Matt founded Blogs for Bush, one of the most popular political blogs during the 2004 presidential campaign, earning him an invitation to the Republican National Convention. Matt has written for Townhall and Conservative Review. He lives with his wife and son and their dog Zuzu in Upstate New York.

Music blog: Duel of the Bumblebees - Sonya Belousova

This was fun to watch, as well as listen to.  This is Flight of the Bumblebee done as a piano duel.

The Green Hornet never had it this good.... though I do recommend that, too.

And check out the Love At First Bite Series. 
Or leave a review if you have already read them

Taxes for Writers Part 2, by Kal Spriggs

I told you there would be a part two. You might want to look at yesterday's post just to keep up.

~DF

In my last bit on taxes, I went into what I've learned as far as tax deductions. Now comes the less fun parts.

Writers, God(s) help us, are considered self employed. This has a number of effects upon the money we earn and the taxes we have to pay. As far as the US tax system and the IRS, being self employed puts most of the burden upon the writer.

There's three types of tax that all US Citizens pay. There's Social Security, Medicare, and then income tax. Normally, you only have to pay a net 7.65 percent of your income to social security and medicare. The problem is, your employer is paying the other 7.65 percent. As a writer, your employer is you (regardless of whether you publish with a big company or not, they push the onus of paying that to you), so you have to pay all 15.3% as the self employment tax. Now then there is income tax on top of this. What's nice about being a writer is that your deductions come from both areas, because your income is what is left over from your earnings after your expenses. In case you didn't notice, right off the bat you're in around a 30% tax bracket. This is pretty painful if you're writing with no other income. It is especially painful when you are supposed to pay your taxes quarterly, or face fines from the IRS, and you may not receive your royalties until months after the quarter (trust me, it's happening to me now, it hurts, I'm paying taxes on income I still haven't received, which comes from my savings...) Bringing those taxes down a bit you have the things I listed in the previous tax article, which is why keeping track of all that is essential to making sure you keep a little bit of that hard earned money.

Your royalties from book sales are income, much like a contractor. That's how you should report it and that's how you should take deductions. You report your income from 1099-MISC's, which acts much like your W2 from a normal job. The exception, as stated above, is that you have to pay the full self-employment tax rate.

One caution: most publishers and publishing platforms don't do automatic withholding. So you'll need to balance your income between your normal job and writing. The last thing you want at the end of the year is to file your taxes and learn that you owe more money to the IRS. (It sucks). On the other hand, you want to avoid paying too much early on, so monitoring your sales and adjusting your payment to the IRS throughout the year is the best tactic.

This is important because if you are a professional author, this is your income. You've probably spent tens or even hundreds of thousands of hours writing, honing, and perfecting your craft. You've earned that income, you can't avoid paying the taxes on it, but you can make sure that you only pay as much as necessary.

To make things more complicated, if you are buying covers or other services (Audiobook narration or editing, for instance) of over $500/year to a single person you have to file a 1099-MISC for that person's income... and they have to pay taxes on it. Filing a 1099-MISC isn't hard, you can get the form from the IRS and do it yourself or you can use Turbo-Tax's 1099-MISC form. To make matters slightly more complicated, you only do a 1099-MISC when paying in cash or check. When you do a payment through a bank or a platform like PayPal, you have to do a 1099-K, because the bank tracks and reports the payment to the IRS. The annoying part is that you need the person's Social Security Number in order to report it.

The good news is that since these payments are business expenditures, you get to deduct them from your income. If you aren't otherwise tracking your earnings and budget throughout the year, you can quickly see if some things are paying for themselves. If, for instance, you spent $3000 for audiobook narration, $500 on a cover, and another $1000 on professional editing but only earned out $2000 from your book sales, you might want to reevaluate your expenditures.

One other thing. Because writing is a business, I highly recommend setting up a separate "writing" checking (and possibly savings) account for this. Not only does it show to the IRS your intent of making this work, but it also makes it far easier to track your payments and income as well as your expenses. Not only should you keep your receipts and document your expenses, but you should also monitor your income from book sales, track how your books trend up (or down). These things will help you as a professional, especially as you learn what works and what doesn't.

As a disclaimer, I am not a tax professional, I'm heavily reliant upon the things I've learned from writing conferences (where they have tax panels) as well as using programs like TurboTax and even going to some tax professionals. Also, this is just an overview, more to get you thinking in the right direction than anything else.

Here's some other links you may find helpful

Taxes for Writers

Tax Advice for Writers

Help me require Kal's tax advice by buying -- or reviewing -- the Love at First Bite series.

Taxes for Writers Part One, by Kal Spriggs

Kal Spriggs is here to educate us writers about taxation. 

It's that time of year again: Tax Season!  In honor of this (in)asuspicious occasion, I'm bringing up some tax advice that I have picked up from various conventions and doing my own taxes as a writer for five years now.

In writing, as in many things, there is no getting away from the absolutes: Death and Taxes. The good news, such as it is, is that writing can have a number of perks, chief among them is making you a bit of money.  The bad news, of course, is that you'll have to pay taxes on that money.

Even if you're not earning money on writing just yet, your writing can save you a bit come tax season.  Writing, so long as you are making a sincere effort at publishing or getting published, is a business.  As a business, you can take deductions from expenses common both to general writing and genre fiction.  Those deductions can really start to add up and can be a real benefit when you go to file your taxes, hoping to get a little bit more money back.

If, like me, you've earned money writing, those deductions can help you to keep a little bit more.  As a business, you need to keep track of receipts, invoices, and other expenses.  That part can be the most frustrating, particularly when you return from a convention tired, travel-lagged, and of course with a case of the con crud.  Still attention to detail here can save you a lot of money when it is time to file those taxes.

The big thing is to know is what you can and can't deduct.  Remember, this is the fun part because deductions are expenses that drop your earnings so you pay fewer taxes.  There are a lot of viable areas for business expenses that you can deduct.  Attending conventions, both writing and genre is a networking and educational event.  The convention fees, hotel room charges, and even your meals are tax deductible.  If you're attending conventions, you also probably have business cards or some other means of marketing, these too are tax deductible.

There's more than that, though,  Your travel to and from the convention is deductible, both in whatever mileage you drive (keep a record of miles you drive in your car for such events), as well as airline, train, or bus tickets.  That new computer you had to buy, that's deductible, though you may have to depreciate it because it's something that should last more than a year.  If you've bought Microsoft Office, that's a tax deduction too, as you need it to do your writing.  Most meals for business are only 50% deductible, however, that's still 50% that comes out of your taxable income.

If you're meeting with an editor or artist over lunch to do your cover design or illustrations, not only is the travel to the location a deduction, so is the meal.  So, in fact, is the expense of the editing and the artwork for the cover.  Any kind of entertainment meals are 100% deductible, so keep a log of what is just a business dinner and what is entertainment.  Any time you conduct business during the meal or the discussion is going to take place immediately before or after, you can consider it an 'entertainment' expense and you get the 100% deduction.

There's also deductions you can take towards research that you do as a writer.  If crucial scenes in your book are set in a specific location, travel to that location as well as any expenses towards researching it are deductible, within reason, of course.

All these deductions can add up and that's important because, as we'll see later, as an author, you are self-employed and you'll have to pay more taxes, the Self Employment Tax, on top of what you would normally pay.

So, save those receipts and try to save as much of that hard-earned writing money as you can!

In Part 2, we'll look at how you are categorized in your taxes as a writer.

Help me require Kal's tax advice by buying -- or reviewing -- the Love at First Bite series.

Path of Angels Interview Questions with Dawn Witzke

So, my cover artist Dawn Witzke came out with a new novel, Path of Angels. There are some questions kicking around.

What led up to this book?

About 5 years or so ago, there was a lot of talk about Texas breaking away, people relocating to states with people who had like-minded views, and the fear of religious persecution by the government. I pulled a lot of conspiracy theories from the internet and exaggerated them, along with different things going on in our culture. I threw in a bunch of history and bam...Path of Angels.

What would you have done differently if you could do it again?

I wouldn’t have taken four years to finish the book.

What’s next?

I have several novels I’m currently working on. Relic Hunter - a futuristic tale of how the main character gets his coat. I’m also co-writing a fantasy novel that revolves around Irish mythology.

How'd you design the setting?

The setting for Nacerma is a combination of a bunch of conspiracy theories from both the right and left political sides. Then I centered it around the area I am most familiar, with some slight modifications.

What made you choose this route for the little road trip?

It’s a route I’m familiar with. Highway K is I-29 that runs between Sioux City (the fictional New Athens) and Omaha (the fictional Galt). Of course the towns in between are completely made up. The distance from New Athens to Galt is also farther than the distance between Sioux City and Omaha. Clinton Way is roughly Highway 30, another road that I’ve driven quite freqently.

How did you design the black / red guards?

The Black Guard came first. I wanted a military force that also served as a police force. In Nacerma the government is from the top down. There is the Central Council that governs everything. Power is then distributed to a number of branches from there, the Black Guard being one of those. The High Commander overseas the military branch. From there the Guard is divided into 7 branches, one for each of the six regions of Nacerma and the Red Guard.

The Red Guard came out of Monty Python. Yes “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition” made it into my book. Except the Red Guard are less comedy and more Nazi SS. They are the small elite force of the Black Guard who are charged with handling treason both secular and religious. They are judge, jury and sometimes executioners.

What was your concept behind the design of two characters?

Aadi and Mischa sort of materialized from thin air. They did however evolve a bit while writing the story. They are long time best friends.

Aadi is the type of person to not make waves. She practices her religion under the radar and isn’t concerned with changing the laws on religion. Her thought is that they will change as the faith spreads from person to person.


Mischa on the other hand, is more rebellious. He is part of a group that is public with its demand for changes.

They are both try to be faithful Catholics in their own way.

What kind of research do you do, and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book?

I don’t do much advanced research. I usually do it as the need pops up. In Path of Angels, I spent a considerable time researching time periods of Catholic persecution and how they kept things under wraps.

What did you edit out of this book?

Lots of whining and drama. It was a bit too much for most of my beta readers.

Do you hide any secrets in your books that only a few people will find?

Always. I like to add in odd random information into my books. Sometimes it’s in dialogue and other times it’s in the setting. In Path of Angels, one of the secret codes is actually lines from the Bible.

Do you believe in writer’s block? (DO NOT ask whether they’ve had writer’s block).

Sort of. I believe that block’s are created by fear. Maslow's hierarchy of needs puts creative efforts higher on the pyramid. You have to fulfill basic needs and such before you can get into this higher level. When you’re stressed, your mind goes into a fight or flight state, bringing you down to a lower level on the scale. It’s much harder to write when you’re in a state of panic.

I’ve been there before, but it usually doesn’t last long, because I don’t fight it. I sidestep and do something else, like blog posts or art or reading or promotion or play a 1000 rounds of Candy Crush.

Path of Angels is out now.

March 2017 CLFA Booknado

Yup, more CLFA books -- new releases, and new deals.

Up do and including a price reduction for Set to Kill starting ... now, actually.

$1.99 OR LESS

FREE!

Wreathed by Curtis Edmonds

Meeting a new boyfriend at a funeral may not be ideal, but Wendy Jarrett can’t help but fall for sexy Adam Lewis. A tricky inheritance situation soon takes them from the graveyard to an old Victorian estate in Cape May in this witty romantic comedy.

 $1.99
Set to Kill: A Sean AP Ryan Novel (Convention Killings Book 2) by Declan Finn

Science fiction’s greatest political battle is coming to the largest convention in the world. And it’s about to have its first causalities.

NEW RELEASES

Lost Children (The Minivandians Book 3) by Tom Rogneby

Ruarin and DaddyBear continue their journey home after surviving the dark of winter in the North. Old friends are there to help them, but tragedy and mystery await them in an ancient city.

Recon: A War to the Knife by Rick Partlow

Tyler Callas is the pampered heir of a high-level Corporate Council executive, groomed from birth to take a seat beside her as a member of the ruling class of the Commonwealth society. But the bloody war with the alien Tahni has hit close to home and Tyler wants to join the military, something his powerful mother would never have allowed…

Fade (Paxton Locke Booke 1) by Daniel Humphreys

If Paxton Locke’s magic can’t stop an evil witch, he always has his trusty shotgun.






Path of Angels by Dawn Witzke

Seventeen-year-old Aadi seeks something deeper than the life Nacerma offers. When her former lover, turned priest, asks her to risk her life for her faith, she accepts the meaningful quest. Mischa Llient is wanted by the Guard and needs to get out of town for a while. Will their friendship survive the quest? Will they?

Outcast Ops: Watchlist (Outcast Ops Series Book 5) by Rick Chesler and Craig Reed, Jr.

Tanner Wilson and the rest of the Outcast team must dodge Terrorists, Russians and European law enforcement agencies to get data back to the US and stop a terror attack that could kill millions.

Winter Into Spring: A Romance Novella by Nitay Arbel

Suburban Chicago librarian Ronnie has always dreamed of writing, but her partner is dismissive — his needs and those of others always come first. Until she meets a new patron who encourages her to break free…

Only Time: A Speculative Story by T.E. George

Part Twilight Zone, part Firefly, and all fun with a touch of melancholy bittersweet, Only Time is what’s left when love has one more story to tell.

Days of Future Past – Part 2: Present Tense by John Van Stry

Coyote has given Paul another Task; now he just has to cross 400 miles of post-apocalyptic California to complete it. What could possibly get in the way?

The Catholic Geek: With Dragon Award Winner Nick Cole 03/12

The Catholic Geek: With Dragon Award Winner Nick Cole 03/12 by We Built That Network | Books Podcasts:




Dragon Award Nick Cole joins host Declan Finn to discuss his works. Nick Cole is a former soldier and working actor living in Southern California. When he is not auditioning for commercials, going out for sitcoms or being shot, kicked, stabbed or beaten by the students of various film schools for their projects, he can be found writing books. Nick's Book The Old Man and the Wasteland was an Amazon Bestseller and #1 in Science Fiction. In 2016 Nick's book CTRL ALT Revolt won the Dragon Award for Best Apocalyptic novel. Fight the Rooster CTRL ALT Revolt! The End of the World as We Knew It Soda Pop Soldier The Old Man and the Wasteland The Savage Boy The Wasteland Saga The Red King The Dark Knight The Pawn in the Portal The Lost Castle Tunnel Rats Lee Marvin and the Long Night

Music blog: Batman Theme - Sonya Belousova

The original Danny Elfman Batman score by the woman I've come to think of as the Lindsey Stirling of piano, Sonya Belousova. She's geeky. She's fun. She's brilliant. And .... I have to say it ... DANG she pulls off that costume perfectly.

For good storylines with some great action, check out the Love At First Bite Series

Taking the Faith into All Walks of Life

Yes, I know, Declan is back. But, I have one more guest post that I couldn't squeeze in while he was on vacation. Ann Seeton reminds us that being faithful Catholics isn't always so easy. Do it anyway.

We are to be salt and light. We are to bring Christ into the places we go and into our own activities. It is a given and we expect ourselves to do it, and yet, what does it LOOK like?

I used to think that bringing Christ into places like Church was easy. That is, until I discovered that God has some fairly plain directions for how we are to live. Even with the Church clarifying the whys and hows, there are some things you cannot say in Church unless you want to be on the bottom of a dog pile of angry people.  Why is that?

If we run such risks when talking about the Faith with fellow Catholics, then how on earth do we bring the Faith with us into other places? Like work, or school, or a club based on a mutually loved hobby?

We all know the theory: You have to BE the Catholic you are even if your workplace bans that crucifix you love to wear, or the rosary hiding in your pocket. You have to see Christ and serve Christ in each person, no matter if they are hostile to the Catholic faith or do not care one way or the other.

Yet, it isn’t that easy. Lets begin with the hostility.

Hostility to things Christian is pretty common these days. We see it in the courts. We see it in the news. We see it worldwide. The obvious evils of rape, murder, enslavement, and martyrdom are easy to see, easy to condemn, and, from our safe homes in the US, ought to be easy to speak against.  So, what keeps us quiet?

We also see it in the subtle (or  not so subtle) idea that if you really believe all that Bible stuff that you must be less than sane. Or in some circles, if you believe all that Catholic stuff you must be uneducated, ignorant, and stupid.  The peer pressure in our society can be fierce.

The pressure to conform even in Christian circles can be over-whelming when mostly Catholic persons merely hold the details of the faith as a comfortable fairy tale instead of historical fact and present reality. Something that we hold in common but do not act upon or allow to influence our daily lives.

I think the fear of disapproval silences us more often than not. Humans are social, we live in groups: families, communities, parishes, clubs, and work-places.  We want to cooperate with others in our activities.  Sensitivity to social approval and disapproval is part of what makes group cooperation possible. It has always been difficult to part ways with our peers.

AS long as a generic Christianity was the norm for the American culture, speaking up was expected and approved.  The community agreed on most truths of Christianity and the superior value of those beliefs.  But there were always exceptions, weak places that could be attacked and we live with the results.

Truths taught by the Catholic Church are loathed and hated by all the fallen angels.  Those truths, and anyone who holds them, must be attacked in whatever way possible with an eye to driving those beliefs underground and silencing anyone who would defend those truths.

The purposeful activity of the demons is to convince people to reject part or all of the Faith, view it as a nice fairy tale, or reject it as intolerant. The source of all heresies, including some heresies that are now called religions, is in the whispering of the demonic. Finally the Reformation where apostolic authority was rejected in favor of whatever layperson’s opinion happened to be popular was demonic no matter how many history books hold it up as a great leap forward for human rights.

Our Founding Fathers were so eager to avoid the religious civil wars of Europe, they created a form of tolerance that could be exploited to go from each Christian is free to worship as he sees fit, to all religions are equal, to every idea is equal.

The rejection of the concept of objectively knowable truth, which in a small dose allowed bickering factions of protestantism to live together, is the root of relativism.  Catholics felt it first and always, that pressure to let go of the absolutes of our Faith, teachings God gave us through the Church, and to accept heresies as equal to orthodox teachings. Holding to an absolute is held to be rigid, judgmental, and extreme.

We are children of our own age, and suffer from this relativism, making the deliberate study of the Catholic faith and some serious examinations of ourselves, essential to our ability to carry Christ into where we go and what we do. Relativism is so ingrained in our culture we hardly see how we ourselves fall victim to it.

An example:  One day you are at a party and an excited person says “oh my g--” do you speak up or do you let it pass? Our culture says that avoiding offense is a high priority. The pressure is on, do you speak up? If you speak in private, how will it be received?  The person may thank you and try to do better, or not.

There is a new policy at work. It contradicts what we, as Catholics, hold to be true. Do we approve the new policy to avoid being called judgmental or rigid? Do we respectfully decline to approve? There was a time when disagreeing was OK, but not anymore. Now, it can get you fired and blackballed.

Today, the same peer pressure that used to reinforce the Christianity in American culture is being used against Christianity. The same tolerance that declared all interpretations of Christianity acceptable has morphed into a demand that any and all beliefs be accepted as equally valid.  The flaw in the plan is now the cudgel for everyday martyrdoms.

The Rosary is my response.

For good books with a solid Catholic base, check out the Love At First Bite series:

   

Awards Season has begun

I few weeks ago, I gave my first suggestion about the Dragon Awards.  I'll be doing an update on that one shortly, because I have more thoughts on the matter, and more candidates -- and in some cases, fewer. I've gotten around to reading some of the books I hadn't gotten to when I first wrote it, and I'll be removing them from the list for suggestions.

But 2016 is over, leaving us again with new awards, from different sources. And the deadline for nominating in the Dragons are still several months off.

I may have mentioned the Planetary Awards. They're assembled by book bloggers, and I was nominated by Brian Niemeier for Murphy's Law of Vampires. You can look up the laws for how to vote for the Planetary Awards on their website, right here.

The deadline for voting is April 30th. You have plenty of time to catch up on the seven novels, assuming you haven't read any of them already. And there's also seven short stories. It shouldn't be that difficult to catch up.

So that's one.

And, much to my own surprise, I made the CLFA book awards.... twice.

Murphy's Law of Vampires, by me
Set to Kill, by me
Domino, by Kira Heavy
Souldancer (Soul Cycle Book 2), by Brian Niemeier
Brings the Lightning (The Ames Archives Book 1), by Peter Grant
Discovery, by Karina Fabian
Chasing Freedom, Marina Fontaine
Grunge, by John RingoIron Chamber of Memory, by JCW
By the Hands of Men, Book Three: The Wrath of a Righteous Man (Volume 3), by Roy Griffis

If you want more data on how this was compiled together ... it was mostly a matter of voting within the Facebook group, and coming up with finalists, and then voting on who got the most votes so we can end up with the top ten list from there. You'll be happy to know that my two novels were not even given a single vote by me.

And, as you can tell, these are all pretty solid stories. I'm told that Peter Grant is quite amazing; Domino is basically Animal Farm, just with cats; Souldancer is the Dragon Award winner; and Roy .... okay, I don't actually know anything about this one. But I can't read everything. The rest of the links in the list above have been reviewed by me, on the blog, so you can get them out.

... Okay, I haven't reviewed my own books, obviously, because that's just tacky.

This one has less time to vote on, as voting closes at the end of March. So if you're all caught up on these, click here and vote now. If you haven't ... read fast? I guess?