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: 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?

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.

Have not actually dropped off the Earth

If anyone was wondering where I've been, I've been on Twitter. Yes, I know: boo, hiss, heaven forfend, etc. I never really thought I'd get a Twitter account, but as it turns out it's a great place for one-liner updates too small for a proper blog entry.

If you (three) were wanting a proper blog entry, though, I plan on making one as soon as I drag myself through the first draft of this short story. (Turns out they're hard. Who knew?)

Love, kisses, and remember: I'm @amongthegoblins.