Nathan Bransford | Writing, Book Editing, Publishing

Helping authors achieve their dreams

This week in books 4/21/17

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I grew up in these fields. Follow me on Instagram: @nathanbransford

Hello! How are you doing on this lovely Friday?

Did I mention the discussion Forums are freshly redesigned and awaiting your visit? Well, just in case you need further enticement, please know that I am always looking for fresh content on this blog, and I love to “promote” great Forum posts to the main blog — with full credit and attribution and all that.

In fact, one of my favorite posts on the blog originated in the Forums! So take to the Forums and prosper.

Now then. I saw some good books and publishing links around the Internet, and here they are:

Forget the smell of paper, I have long awaited the time when we could simply upload books to our brains. So naturally I couldn’t click fast enough on this link: What If We Could Upload Books to Our Brains? It me!!! But instead of hearing about how this glorious future is imminent… the author of the article is really skeptical and argues against the whole enterprise. Le sigh.

What do editors do? A LOT.

Writing a memoir? I’m not! But I did really enjoy this very good post over at The Creative Penn on writing memoirs. Good stuff.

Are you a writer on the organized side? You may enjoy these really awesome spreadsheets reader Annie Neugebauer has created to help with all sorts of stages of the publishing process.

Ever wonder what it’s like to work with an agent? Author Bethany Neal has 8 unexpected things she learned along the way.

And, of course, a taxonomy of Amazon reviewers.

This week in the Forums…

Soccer!
Nominate Your Query for a Critique on the Blog
Nominate Your First Page for a Critique on the Blog
What’s the longest you’ve gone without writing?

Comment! of! the! week! goes to our friend John T. Shea, for his defense of Felix the Cat as the greatest fictional hero of all time:

I like Jim Hawkins too, to the point of naming my WIP’s protagonist Jimmy in his honor. But I must point out two things he and all the other nominees for greatest fictional hero lack. None of them are cats, and none of them have magical bags of tricks. Felix alone passes both tests. I rest my case!

And finally, I’m a huge Survivor fan, and it was a seriously, genuinely shocking moment when contestant Zeke Smith was maliciously outed as being transgender by a fellow contestant. His article about the experience is incredible and inspiring and well worth your time.
I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and consultations! And if you like this post, check out my guide to writing a novel.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. JOHN T. SHEA says

    Meow! I mean thanks, Nathan. And amen re the Forums, whose large simple black and white format displays well on my 13 inch laptop, incidentally.

  2. Ted Cross says

    Not sure if it's something to do with the new look of the blog, but the link to your favorite promoted forum post won't let me look at it. I get an access denied.

  3. JOHN T. SHEA says

    I got a similar result to Ted Cross' when I tried that link. It rejected my 'current account' which is my only account. The message is from Blogger.