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: 1/23/13

 While you read: I'm not usually into country, but I've heard this song on the radio a couple of times and I really like it.

 
Kacey Musgraves, "Merry-go-Round."  

1. "How To Fight Book Pirates." Jason Boog of AppNewser gives some tips on how to find out if your book is being pirated, and what to do if it is.

2. "PW Select December 2012: Miami Advice: At the Miami Book Fair, a panel of self-publishing experts talks best practices." Writeup by Andrew Richard Albanese.

3. "2012 Writing Income." Fantasy author Jim C. Hines is kind enough to give the internet details about how much money he makes and where each bit comes from. Thanks to Rebekkah Niles for the link.

4. "Six Degrees of Retelling." Post by Marie Brennan of Book View Cafe on what makes a fairy tale retelling work.

5. "20 Books Every Woman Should Read in Her 20s," by Emily Temple of Flavorwire. These all look incredible. I've got a year--think I can get through them?

6. "The Publishing Quest: Hurry Up and Wait." Wendy Lawton of Books & Such Literary Agency discusses the delays involved in traditional publication.

7. "Ownshelf Helps Readers Share Their Digital Libraries With Friends."

 Ownshelf, a free web service that launched in beta Friday, provides readers with a cloud storage platform to share e-books with friends and family. Think of it as a simpler Dropbox intended specifically for e-books, but with a social element built in to foster discovery. Users sign into the service through Facebook and can quickly upload e-book files to create a digital bookshelf or borrow e-books from their contacts' bookshelves.

Via Mashable. So it's like Goodreads but... with sharing? Not quite sure what to think about that.

And that's it for this week! How are you doing?

Reading, Writing, and Publishing Links: 1/16/13

This week's random video: Did anyone know Christina Aguilera had done a duet with a country singer? Apparently the song's been out awhile, but I didn't hear it till Friday. I think it kind of works! I'm glad she still has a career--I always liked her.

 

Christina Aguilera/Blake Shelton: "Just a Fool"

1. "Don't Make Your Book Launch Like a Trip to the Dentist." Dan Blank of Writer Unboxed reminds authors to build their platforms well before the book is due to launch. 

"So how do we avoid this feeling, this panic of the drill in your mouth as you lead up to your book launch? At the most basic level, I would encourage you to answer these questions:

1. Describe to me, in detail what your ideal readers read in the last 12 months....
2. Where specifically can you go – online or off – to meet your readers?...
3. Who manages or organizes these places[?]"

2. "Got a cool idea for a story? Now break it." This is a fantastic post about plot creation by Hugh Howey, author of the Wool series, which I've heard incredible things about and need to read. Thanks to M. David Blake for the link.

3. "The wrong goodbye of Barnes and Noble." In the words of Cathy: "Ack!"

4. Autharium.  New ebook publishing platform; looks like they intend to compete with Smashwords. Some differences: According to the FAQ, it looks like they take about a 15% cut of what you earn from the various retailers (that's after the retailers take their cut). Also, it seems heavily skewed towards nonfiction--the fiction section doesn't even have genre divisions. Still, it's something to be aware of.

5. "9 Tips for Writing a Really Good 'Shitty First Draft.'" Lisa Cron of "Writer Unboxed" gives hints on how to produce a coherent story on the first try (rather than a Gordian knot that has to be cut to shreds and stitched together again before it makes any sense). My favorite tip is #7, the "third rail."

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Had a wonderful time at IllogiCon 2 this weekend, and saw a lot of good friends. What's everyone else been up to?

IllogiCon 2, Day 3

 Click here for Day 1, or here for Day 2.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Got there late, of course. The first panel I managed to attend was "Humanizing Villains," which started at 2. I came in at 2:15, and missed a lot of the discussion, but enjoyed what I was able to see. The panelists were Misty Massey, John Kessel, John Hartness, Natania Barron, Ada Milenkovic Brown, and Garth Graham.

Reading, Writing, and Publishing Links: 12/26/12

Since all the cool kids have been doing it, I thought I'd put together a little Wednesday links post every week. I'll keep it short, since the big news roundups tend to cover the major stuff. These are just favorite posts I've come across in my day-to-day surfing.

While you're reading, here's a song I revisited last week. Isn't it lovely?

"Soul Meets Body"--Death Cab For Cutie

1) Brilliant author/blogger Foz Meadows wrote a guest post for The Book Smugglers, which is one of my favorite book blogs.  The post is about literary bad boys, and astutely explains the difference between the "Classic Bad Boy" (the literary equivalent of Danny from Grease and Johnny from Dirty Dancing) and the more problematic kind that's become popular lately. This type--which Meadows describes as the "New Abuser"--includes specimens like Edward Cullen and his spinoff, who are bad not because they reject the status quo, but because they're actively dangerous for the (usually female) protagonist. Here's a snip:

And by abusive behaviour, I mean behavioural patterns which are listed by domestic abuse authorities as warning signs that you’re in a toxic or dangerous relationship. These are all clear indicators that something is seriously wrong, especially when they appear in confluence; and yet these are exactly the same characteristics which, time and again, I see being displayed by the male love interests in YA, PNR and urban fantasy novels, as though aggressive behaviour somehow becomes sweet and acceptable when the abuser loves their victim, or vice versa.

For those who are interested in trends and patterns in YA literature, this is definitely worth a read.

2) In a post called "Ladders," accomplished fantasy author Patricia Wrede reminds us that publication is not the end of a writer's journey.


3) In a brief post called "What's Not Working," agent and blogger Wendy Lawton considers whether several popular marketing techniques are really effective.  

4) China Miéville rants brilliantly against Belgium's reaction to the blatantly racist Tintin in the Congo. This post is from February, but still worth reading. I got it from a year-end link roundup on a great blog I recently started following, Things Mean A Lot. 

5) "Stories Are Genderless," another post by Foz Meadows, is another one from the link roundup in #4. It's from April, but an excellent read. It deals with the oft-cited conceit that boys won't or can't enjoy books by female authors. 

And that's it for right now! I had a wonderful holiday--quiet, at home, with family--and, hope you all did, too. New Year's is coming up! I have a "Favorite Books of 2012" list almost ready to post (that's read, not published, in 2012), and am working slowly on my winter story. I hope you have a safe and happy New Year!

XOXO
Kate