Reading, Writing, and Publishing Links: 3/14/13

Random song of the week:

Steve Earle: "Copperhead Road"

This song came on the radio a few days ago, and I realized it was one of the first songs I ever  remembered hearing. My mom confirms that my dad bought it a few days after it came out (I would have been about five). If I were to make a playlist of songs illustrating important aspects of American culture, this one would be on it.

Links:

1. "SFWA De-Lists Hydra; Random House Responds." Drama! The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America have decided that Random House's new e-imprint, Hydra, will not count as a qualifying market for SFWA membership. Random House feels they're being unfair. Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware reports at SFWA's website.

2. "Losing interest." Fantasy writer Patricia Wrede discusses some things that can make a writer want to abandon a story halfway through.

3. "Query Letter FAQs (Part II): 10 More Questions Answered." Chuck Sambuchino of Writer Unboxed gives some tips to writers approaching the dreaded query process.

4. "Omniscient." An interesting post by Ann Leckie on the rarely-discussed subject of third-person omniscient point of view. Worth reading!

5. "Why Not to Register Copyright for Unpublished Work." By Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware. Basically: it's probably a waste of time and money, and it might get you spammed by vanity presses. Those self-publishing, or publishing with small presses, on the other hand, should at least look into it. (Thanks as always, Ms. Strauss!)

6. "Publisher as Prestige Brand?" Wendy Lawton of Books & Such has an interesting speculation: that publishers are going to focus more and more on branding, creating recognizable consumer experiences like big design houses now do for fashion. Which I guess would put authors in the position of in-house designers? I don't know. It's odd to think about, but makes a certain amount of sense.

Reading, Writing, and Publishing Links: 3/7/13

Thursday instead of Wednesday this week; sorry about that! Here's your random track of the day.

 "Delirium," Motion City Soundtrack. Language warning (one instance)

I am unfortunately super-way-behind again, so these are a couple of weeks old. I thought they were interesting, though!
 
1. "My First Year on Twitter: How I Became @erik_kwakkel." Medieval researcher Erik Kwakkel describes the development of his personal Tweeting style.

2. Peter Knapp of The Park Literary Group, LLC says that emotions and relationships are the key to writing a good pitch. Posted in preparation for WriteOnCon's Mid-Winter "Luck-o'-the-Irish" pitch fest.

3. "Utopian for Beginners: An amateur linguist loses control of the language he invented." By Joshua Foer of The New Yorker (via Lilith Saintcrow) Very interesting!

4. "Author As Innovator: The Future of Publishing is Story, Not Technology." By Dan Blank of Writer Unboxed.

For writers, what this means is that innovation is in your hands. How will storytelling or publishing change? Stop looking to “the industry! the industry!” as Porter Anderson would call it, and begin creating it yourself.

 5. In this interview, Tumblr's Rachel Fershleiser gives some tips for organizing a successful book event. (By Togather)

Reading, Writing, and Publishing Links: 2/27/13

Your random song of the week: "The A Team," by Ed Sheeran. Added this song to my soundtrack for the upcoming WOODS sequel (none of it's written, but the bits and pieces are starting to come together.

Sad video, isn't it? The music reminds me a little of James Blunt.

1) "Is Your Agent an Asset?" By Lynne Price of Behler Blog. This is actually really scary. Apparently there are a lot of agents who send out query letters that misspell words, leave out wordcounts, and fail to include a book's target audience? Price's takeaway point here is that if you work through an agent, you should always ask to see the letter that's being sent out to editors.

2) This interview with Chuck Sambuchino at Literary Rambles raises a couple of good points. My favorite is in question five, where he describes three different ways to focus your blog. I've been using a blend of #1 and #3 for this one--that's a combination of "related subject matter" and "writer's journey"--but I think I'd like to steer more towards #1. That will probably mean a bit more focus on fairy tales and ghost stories--and, as a result, more reviews of fantasy movies. I hope that's okay with y'all. : P

3) "The Series Death Spiral, and other unfortunate realities of publishing." Kevin J. Anderson explains how the sales of book 2 can actually make or break a series. If book 2 doesn't sell well enough, the publisher might decide not to publish book 3 at all.

4) "Perpetual WIPs: Literary Agents." By The Daily Dahlia. This is another "Gospel According To Agents"-type post, but the questions are good and the answers are interesting. Probably a must-read for those considering traditional publishing.

5) "Interview with Holly Black and Sarah Rees Brennan, YA Authors," at Racebending.com. Talks about the importance of writing a diverse cast of characters, and the difficulty of getting those characters represented in movies and on book covers.

6) "Romance novelist 'Jessica Blair' is an 89-year-old man." By Today News. You often hear about this happening the other way--lots of female authors use male or gender-neutral pseudonyms--but this is the first specific case I've heard of where a male author used a female one. I'm kind of interested in reading his books, now!

7) "Serials, or, How to Make Your Readers Hate You." According to Angela Benedetti, there are people out there marketing serials by pretending they're selling complete stories and surprising their readers with cliffhangers. Um... maybe don't do that?

8) "An Ode to the Series, Contemporary YA Style." By Kelly of Stacked. I actually never got into contemporary--by the time I hit middle school, I'd discovered fantasy, and never really looked back. If one were interested in seeing what's cooking now, though, this would be a pretty good place to start (her list is short, but there are lots more suggestions in the comments).

9) "Beta Outside Your Genre: Opposites Attract." Sarah Enni of YA Highway points out that fresh eyes (stylistically speaking) can be an advantage during the editing process.

Reading, Writing, and Publishing Links: 2/20/13

Oh, hey, you guys! I got distracted--here are yesterday's links. Sorry for the delay!

Your random song of the week: I've come across this as an auto-play background song on a couple of different blogs, and though I hate auto-play media, I really like the song.

Half Moon Run, "Full Circle."

1. "Where your time is." Fantasy author Patricia Wrede points out that a writing career takes time, and often comes at the sacrifice of other appealing things (TV, money, a social life...)

 2. "The Dreaded Synopsis." Sean Cummings of Oasis for YA says the secret is to write it from your outline, not your manuscript.

3. "What to Do When Our Families Don't Support Our Writing." I'm lucky enough to have a very supportive family (thanks, Mom! I love you!) However, if you have trouble getting your loved ones to support your need for writing time, Jody Hedlund has some suggestions. I especially like the one about considering the first couple of years of unpaid writing a sort of professional education--that's how I've been thinking of it. : )

4. "Bad advice from best-selling authors." By Janet Koboel Grant of Books & Such. It's an interesting read. However, at the risk of sounding snotty, I'd like to see a post extolling the value of literary agents that was not written by a literary agent. Nothing personal against Ms. Grant--it's just that a lot of agents have written posts about how much writers need them, and it comes across as... less than objective.

5. "Too much talent." Patricia Wrede on how talent can actually be a disadvantage on how you don't have the diligence to go with it. This is the same thing that happens to bright high-schoolers who are used to coasting once they get to college and are expected to work. (Not that I speak from experience...)

6. "MFA Programs and You."  This... actually sounds amazingly good. I wonder if they'd take my almost-finished novel as an application? Thanks, SFWA!

7. "An Introduction to Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction, Part 1: Definitions." Another SFWA post, this one by Malinda Lo. I think this is actually a few weeks old, but I don't remember posting it before; if I did, I'm sorry. (WOODS, if you're curious, is definitely on the edgier side of YA. : ))

Reading, Writing, and Publishing Links: 2/13/13

Hey folks! Happy almost-Valentine's day. I have lots of links for you today--it was a good news week. (Actually, these are more than a week old, because I'm way behind on my reading. I'm trying to catch up though!

While you read, please enjoy Efterklang's "Mirador." It's beautiful, isn't it?

I love weird videos.

1. "Shocker: B&N to cut a third of stores over next decade -- WSJ." Writeup by Shara Tibken of cnet. Apparently Barnes & Noble denies it's doing anything differently at all, but in light of this article from a few weeks ago I'm not sure I believe them. I do know that my regular B&N has cut its operating hours by five a week. Something to keep track of, I guess.

2. "Self-Publishing and Traditional Publishing: Enjoy the Best of Both Worlds." Jane Friedman interviews CJ Lyons, who has some interesting things to say.

3. "Secret Ingredient for Success." Opinion piece by Camille Sweeney and Josh Gosfield, of The New York Times, on the importance of self-awareness. Not specifically written word-related, but relevant to anyone trying to make their own career.

4. "Pulp-O-Mizer: The Customizable Pulp Magazine Cover Generator" (by Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual." Thanks To Steve Turnbull of the Google+ Speculative Fiction Writers community for passing along this wonderful toy. Here's mine:

Why do they have ray-guns? A better question would be, WHY DIDN'T THEY BEFORE?

5. "Hell is my own book tour," by Adam Mansbach at Salon. This post basically had me at the first sentence. However, the second and third are pretty great, too:

The publishing industry stopped having new ideas out of respect for the untimely death of Ernest Hemingway in 1961, and has been doing everything the same way ever since. Usually without adjusting for inflation.

Fantastic. However, I must point out that Bonobos aren't monkeys.

6. "Buying is a hard thing for bookstores to do effectively, and that becomes an increasingly important reality for publishers." By Mike Shatzkin of The Idea Logical Company.

7. "This is a Post about Plagiarism." Sarah of Clear Eyes, Full Shelves explains why she takes a hard line.

8. Miriam Forster, author of the upcoming City of a Thousand Dolls, shows us some lovely promo swag. I hadn't thought about quote cards, but they'd be easy to do, and would work for self- or traditional publishing.

9. "Best Business Advice for Writers: January 2013." Good links from Jane Friedman.

10. Via the above: "5 Ways Authors Can Get the Most Out of Goodreads," by Brian A. Klerns of Writer's Digest. A little chirpy, but does have some good ideas. I decided after my manifesto a few weeks back that I wasn't comfortable leaving negative reviews of books by people I might encounter socially (seriously, there are a lot of authors around here). However, an "Inspirations" shelf is a great idea, and I've been meaning to set up a proper author page.

11. Also via #9: "The complete and unabridged guide to GoodReads for authors: Account set-up, customization, and widgets, lots of widgets." Guest post by John Corwin at Novel Publicity & Co. Seems to be part one of a series.

12. "A Stake Through the Heart."  Patricia Wrede on character motivation. Helped me clarify a problem I was having conceptualizing the sequel to WOODS.

13. "State of the Digital World 2013."Janet Kobobel Grant of Books & Such sums up some of the key points from this year's Digital Book World Conference.

14. "Have You Planned For Success?" Lynn Price of Behler Blog lists things authors should think about before they make it to the "publication" stage. She raises some good points, but I'm not sure an author who's only gotten one offer of publication is going to turn down that offer just because s/he's not happy with the editors or distribution at that house.

15. On Galleycat, via Cuddlebuggery: "Tor UK Now Accepts Direct Submissions from Writers." So there's that.

16. Also via Cuddlebuggery: "Tamora Pierce wince 2013 Edwards Award for Song of the Lioness series and Protector of the Small quartet." Congratulations, Ms. Pierce! The Song of the Lioness quartet was really important to me when I was in elementary and middle school. Alanna was one of the first books I picked up off the YA paperback shelf at the library when I moved to North Carolina. (Two others were The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword.)  I was nine at that point, and I think these books had a lot of influence on what heroes, and stories, I looked for after that. So thank you very much, Ms. Pierce, and please keep writing. : )

And I think that's enough for right now, don't you? Have a great day!

Reading, Writing, and Publishing Links: 2/6/13

All right, technically it's the seventh now. Sorry! Have some Queen while you read.

 Queen, "We Are The Champions"

1. "The writing career and all the moneys," or, why it's especially impressive that J.K. Rowling lives in a castle. By Mur Lafferty; via Rebekkah Niles. (I think some of these others are from her, too, but can't remember which. Sorry, Becky! -_-)

2. "The Business Rusch: Editorial Revisions." In a response to this blog post by editor Lynn Price, Kristine Kathryn Rusch is starting a new blog series on the relationship between editors and authors. Very informative.

3. "President of Dystel & Goderich Literary Management Jane Dystel: Agents Unwilling to Adapt Won't Last." Interesting interview with the agent who first represented Barack Obama, and who now represents WOOL author Hugh Howey. Via dbw.

4. "Why online book discovery is broken (and how to fix it)." By Laura Hazard Owen, via paidContent. A short but interesting read that's been going around this week.

5. And, via the above: "Liability vs. leverage: How writers lose when 'piracy' gets harder." By Cory Doctorow, via TOC. Quick, and worth reading.

6. "Are you watching the Lizzie Bennet Diaries?" Well, are you? I haven't checked them out yet, but Ana of things mean a lot seems to have excellent taste, so I  might give them a try.

7. "7 rules for writing historical fiction," by Elizabeth Crook for Writer Magazine. An old piece (2006), but good advice (though I think I agree with Fraser Sherman, who posted the link, that the first-person thing is mostly a matter of taste).

8. "David Rintoul: The Best, Yet Least-Loved, Mr. Darcy." Another for P&P fans. (I'm not an Austen fanatic, per se--I just really like that particular book.) Shari Perkins of DramaticImpulse argues that Rintoul's stiff, awkward, formal portrayal of Darcy is actually much closer to the book than any of the others--and, when you think about it, she's right. Book!Darcy can be a huge asshole. : ) I actually was not a huge fan of the 1980 BBC Pride and Prejudice when I first saw it, but I like it more every time I watch it.

Et c'est tout. How are you?

XOXO,
Kate

Reading, Writing, and Publishing Links: 1/30/13

Lots of links today! Here's a random song to start us off:

Pomplamoose: "Mister Sandman." Song ends about halfway through the video, but I like this version. : )

1. "Rising Action, Falling Interest." Sherwood Smith of Book View Cafe argues that too much literary analysis, too soon, can kill a person's chance of becoming a lifelong reader.

2. "How to make the most of being a noncelebrity author." Janet Kobobel Grant of Books & Such discusses the occasional need for pragmatic choices in a beginning author's career.

3. "What to do when an editor shows significant interest and other editors have the proposal." Rachel Kent, Books & Such. May we all have such a problem. Probably aimed mostly at nonfiction writers, since it's talking about proposals.

4. "8 Ways to Help Your Favorite Author* (*and Get Your Fans To Help YOU)." Another from Books & Such--this one by Rachelle Gardner. They have a really good blog, actually--I think they're a Christian agency, but most of their advice is universally applicable. Give them a look!

5. "How does an author handle multiple requests for 'exclusive reads'[?]" Again, may we all have such problems. This is a "Question Emporium" post by the inestimable Janet Reid.

6. "Should Writers 'JUST' Write?" By Dan Blank of Writer Unboxed. (Spoiler: The answer is "probably not.")

7. "Cover Art -- So Where's The Problem?" For those who came in late, Jim Hines sums it up.

8. "Girl Hood: On (not) Finding Yourself in Books." Jaquira Diaz of Her Kind on the importance of diversity in children's/YA literature.

9. "The Making of a Cover," by Zoë Marriott. This is SO COOL. I'm now having daydreams about someone doing this for my book.

10. "Where Kristin Discusses The Importance Of Metadata,"  by Agent Kristin of Pub Rants. The video quality isn't great, but this is definitely something to think about, especially for people who are interested in self-publishing.

For those of you wondering what the heck is metadata, these are the descriptive tags included in product description and in a lot of cases, embedded in the content file itself of electronic books, that allow a novel to be searchable and discoverable on distribution venues such as Amazon, BN, and Kobo.  

The overall gist is that flexibility and responsiveness are important here, as they always are in self-publishing (or publishing in general).

11. "A love letter to books that aren't exactly mine (or, why I love foreign rights)." By agent Molly Jaffa.

12. "25 Hard Truths About Writing And Publishing." I have mixed feelings about Chuck Wendig's blog style, but this is a good piece.

Sorry these were late! And happy birthday to my sister, thelisbet, who's 27 today. XOXO!