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 "Why Not to Register Copyright for Unpublished Work."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: 2/6/13

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