2014: ‘A Bumper Year For The Peculiar’ Publishing has a tendency to do things in waves. For example, certain conference organizers who shall remain nameless seem to take a reckless delight in scheduling their events much too close to other conferences and trade shows. This ensures that special bleary-vacant stare you see in the eyes… Read More
10 Bounces Of A Moving Target: Publishing Goes Mobile
Can You Hear Me Now? No, it’s not just you. Among our favorite confusing topics in digital publishing these days, mobile really gets around (sorry). And that’s because it’s thought by a great many people to be the coming thing. Maybe the already here thing. Maybe the you are so late thing. Forget plastics. Graduate to mobile.… Read More
#MSWL: Agents And Editors Calling Out Requests — To Authors
‘Play It Again, Sam’ For a long time, most author-agent communications on the front end have gone just that way — author to agent: the query letter. The query letter is so daunting for many writers that there are whole courses offered simply on how to write a good query letter, never mind the damned… Read More
More Terminology In Self-Publishing’s Winter Garden: Are They ‘Royalties?’
Another Day, Another Ill-Used Term In the strictest sense, there really is no such thing as royalties in self-publishing! Mick Rooney is a little kinder than I am, warning you to sit down before you read that line about there being “no such thing as royalties in self-publishing.” Me, I prefer to dump the ice… Read More
In The Hothouse Of Publishing, Our Terminology May Need Pruning
Let’s Give ‘Hybrid’ Back To The Botanists It’s not as if the industry! the industry! doesn’t have enough transition to contend with. Oh, what a lovely disruption we’re having, and at a time of upheaval like this, we’re going to see changing phrases, new jargon, and updated iterations of various terms come and go. Not… Read More
Music For Writers: ‘Self-Publishing’ Cellist Kate Dillingham
Crossings: ‘A Whole CD Of New Music’ It’s a big change that’s happened in both literature and in music. The DIY aspect of it. Do it yourself.The necessary focus that many of us maintain these days on the development of the self-publishing sector in the books world can sometimes cause us to look right past the fact… Read More
Does A ‘Writing Community’ Really Foster Writing? Or Community?
‘Connect With Readers While You Write Your Book’ That’s the brand promise of a site called Tablo. Familiar with it? It’s the work of writer and developer Ashley Davies of Melbourne, Australia. That’s a city we Australian Open tennis viewers feel we know very well after two weeks at the Rod Laver Arena (and two… Read More
Eyes Wide Open: Can Canelo Cross The Coals?
If Anybody Should Know This, It’s Publishing People Enough disrupting! Disrupting is the unthinking mantra of technology companies desperate to carve a niche. – Michael Bhaskar During the FutureBook Hack in London last June, Faber Press’ Henry Volans said to me that it’s interesting that “publishing has taken the digital disruption very hard.” As it… Read More
‘Who Decided Our Worth?’ Do Free Books Give Away Authors’ Value?
‘There’s Something Badly Wrong’ For those following the industry! the industry! in its digital melodrama, tossing books to the crowd free is not new. But the question of whether today’s plethora of free offers may devalue books and/or authors in readers’ minds is not going away as easily as some folks wish it would. Roz Morris… Read More
If Writers Don’t #CreditWriters, Who Will?
Science: Breathing Down Your Narrative One reason that writers might want to be sure to credit each other for their work — in tweets, on Facebook, in their own posts and stories — is that there are alternatives not just in the pipeline but on the pages and Web sites of some news outlets near… Read More