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 "Why Not to Register Copyright for Unpublished Work."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)