500 Words

500 Words is a weekly newsletter celebrating indie publishing. It carries two regular columns: INTERROGATING AI, which is about our choices around artificial intelligence, and BLURBOMATIC, a monthly curated list of book reviews.

I'll also keep you updated about books I'm publishing, productions in progress, and podcasts I'm launching or publicizing.

Hi, I’m Lee Schneider, novelist, producer, storytelling workshop facilitator and member of the faculty at the USC School of Architecture. I’m the author of the Utopia Engine Trilogy, which includes the novels SURRENDER, RESIST, and the forthcoming LIBERATION, and writer/director of the audio dramas Privacy Pod, Mission of the Lunar Sparrow, and Your Performance Review.

Every issue of 500 Words is free. If you want to support my work, please consider a monthly subscription for $5, or an annual subscription for $50. Along with new issues, you’ll get access to back issues and bonus audio content.

By writing about indie publishing in public, I'm working through (for myself and you) how we get our ideas out there, whether in book form, podcasting, essays, or video. I host and produce a podcast called The Future Lab that is dedicated to interviewing authors, publishers, and platform creators working in the science fiction, climate fiction, and fantasy genres, and will call out when a new episode drops.

You get all of that, plus INTERROGATING AI to keep you on top of the culture of AI, and BLURBOMATIC, the monthly publication of interesting and relevant book reviews curated by me.

From time to time, I will offer recordings of authors reading their own work, and serialized fiction designed for email. Welcome aboard for free, or support this newsletter with a subscription.

Thanks,

Lee