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| Paris. Photo by me. I’m on Instagram here. |
The last few weeks! Books! Writing! All the stuff!
First off, thanks to everyone who voted on what my guide to writing a novel should cost. I have decided to accept your judgment and go with $4.99 to start. The guide should be ready to go in a little over a week, just in time for NaNoWriMo!
It’s been a while since I’ve done a link roundup and boy did the articles pile up. I even went to Europe and back since the last one, as the photo above can attest.
But the Internet has been cooking up a feast of good stuff. Here it is.
The eminently quotable uber-agent Andrew Wylie gave a pretty amazing interview to the New Republic, in which he talks about his newfound disdain for Amazon. Highly recommended reading.
This happened almost forever ago, but if you somehow missed it, J.K. Rowling is writing screenplays for new movies taking place in the Harry Potter universe. Fans, rejoice!
Has the era of bundled print and e-book sales finally arrived? Amazon recently announced Kindle MatchBook, which gives readers the option to buy discounted e-books for books where they bought the print edition. As Michael J. Sullivan points out, this may not be quite the game-changer it seems because publishers need to agree to it, and Joe Wikert is concerned it represents a further erosion of the perceived value of e-books.
Never let it be said that it’s easy to be friends with an author. As Mark Slouka writes, “Want to lose a friend who’s a writer? Ask her, a month in, how it’s going. Better still, ask her to describe what she’s working on.”
Meanwhile, it’s never easy to be a public figure period. My friend and former colleague Karyne Levy wrote a really incredible article on what it’s like to be on the receiving of Internet abuse.
Sarah McCarry (aka The Rejectionist) had a fantastic interview with Lisa Brackmann about the writing life and the pressures on authors. One of the fantastic quotes from Lisa:
Authors are responsible for more and more of their own promotion and are expected to do a lot of work that didn’t used to be part of the job description. I think most of us accept that this is the modern market and are willing to pull our weight. But these are things that take time and for which we are in general not directly compensated. If you’re working other jobs or if you have family responsibilities, the question becomes when, exactly, are you supposed to do all these things and still be writing books?
When indeed.
Meanwhile, I’m a pretty big Parks & Rec fan, and was intrigued to see Aziz Ansari got a book deal.
Agent Rachelle Gardner has a list of 11 things happy authors don’t do, and Sarah LaPolla has a great list of things authors shouldn’t do on social media.
Author Jennifer Hubbard, who wrote the fantastic Until It Hurts to Stop, has an equally fantastic three part blog post on bullying and its aftermath. A must-read. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
Bookstores are doomed to fail, right? Well, not so fast. Forbes has an awesome profile of bookstore owner Jeff Mayersohn, who is using an Espresso Book Machine to help close the inventory gap with Amazon.
Maggie Mason has a roundup of some pretty awesome children’s book tattoos.
Beloved Twitter spambot Horse Ebooks wasn’t a spambot after all, which made some people really sad. Which is somewhat funny and shows just how much we crave random serendipity and natural poetry in the world. Maybe we really do want a robot uprising?
Book consultant Mike Shatzkin wrote recently that marketing will replace editorial as the driving force in book publishing. Bloomsbury publisher Peter Ginna says not so fast.
Lots of famous authors had day jobs. Writers Digest rounded up 10 of the oddest ones.
Author Todd Mitchell has 10 great suggestions on creating book trailers that don’t suck.
Editor Alan Rinzler wrote about how to grab and delight your readers right from the start.
Jennifer Hubbard rounded up three posts on the need to take a break from time to time.
And finally, I missed this when it was originally posted, but my colleague Lindsay van Thoen helped put together this amazing stopmotion abbreviated history of Harry Potter. (Warning: SPOILERS!)
Have a great weekend!
Regarding your book: yes!
Regarding Dinosaur Erotica: I don't even want to know.
Regarding day jobs: Mine is currently killing me, I think.
Regarding taking breaks: I take too many. That's the problem!
Regarding your book, again: I can't wait!
Even though I voted for 3.99, you've definitely got me at 4.99. Can't wait. (And thanks for keeping the blog, etc. going. Really!)
Nathan,
I read Jennifer Hubbard's "Until It Hurts To Stop" just a couple of weeks ago, and immediately passed it on to my daughter in the hope that it would resonate with her, too. It did. But she's still got a long way to go before she believes she's worthy of being "liked" for who she is, and that she's not to blame for what has happened to her, and is still ongoing. So I can't thank you enough for these links to Jennifer's blog posts detailing her own experiences with bullying. They couldn't have come at a better time.
I've emailed my daughter these links, in the hope that reading these blog posts from Jennifer will help my daughter overcome her own "default assumption", namely that there's something "wrong" with her… which is so not the case. But whenever I tell her what a wonderful, caring, talented kid she is, I get: "Mom, you have to build me up coz your my mother." Perhaps after reading these she'll look at things from a new perspective. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a breakthrough….
Thanks for linking.
And Maree, your comment here really touched me. Earlier tonight, I was on a panel with other authors on the topic of bullying. The discovery that "what other people say about me is not who I really am" was shared by many people in the room. I so hope your daughter knows that, too.
Jennifer – you've been an inspiration and I want to thank you for your courage to write a story from your heart that has mirrored so many people's experiences. I love this powerful statement: "What other people say about me is not who I really am." This one's going on my noticeboard… and my daughter's too. She's rediscovered how to smile, lately, and is learning how to "let the good stuff in" again. Progress 🙂 And this discovery you've shared from the panel will only shore up her resources. Thank you again! Cyber-hugs….
Point of confusion: You are self-publishing? Your links include agents, editors, and bookstores. As a former agent who is self-publishing, you will have dual loyalties, but this appears one-sided. Would be useful to read about world of self-publishing as well.
I really, really try to be nice on social media, and will continue that practice by not naming names, but it's interesting how someone on this list of links in the blog, after what I thought was a respectful discussion on a certain genre of writing and some feedback I'd picked up at a book fair, decided to delete all tweets related to the discussion. Not certain if it was insecurity on this person's part or deciding that having a discussion with one of us great "unwashed" was unacceptable in the end. The information I shared came from a discussion I once overheard from a multicultural panel of writers and I really didn't think this was any big deal–I didn't completely agree with the viewpoint and said so. Just wanted to point out the controversy over the labeling of this particular genre. I guess some social media rules only apply to some of us.
I'm pretty sure I invented dinosaur erotica. https://dailybrass.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-oiliest-secret-chapter-eight.html