By Porter Anderson | @Porter_Anderson Ether for Authors: Do All Conference Roads Lead to Writers Now? [dropcap style=”flat” size=”5″]T[/dropcap]he centricity of the entrepreneurial writer in publishing circles still comes and goes as a focus these days. We’re in the early days, yes. But Jon Fine’s line about starting with the author as customer and working backward… Read More
Contrarians Among Us
A good contrarian look at something may help you articulate your own beliefs. It can provide a foil to your own views, contrast that helps you get more securely in touch with your own opinions. Read More
What's Wrong With Franzen? | Porter Anderson
By Porter Anderson | @Porter_Anderson Writing on the Ether: What’s Wrong With Franzen? Jonathan Franzen “warns ebooks are corroding values” (The Guardian, Alison Flood) and says “ebooks are damaging society” (The Telegraph, Anita Singh). And now you can follow this link to pre-order his new October 1 release, The Kraus Project: Essays by Karl Kraus—as an ebook. The… Read More
But Wait. Do We Even Like Bundling?
“Bundling,” the provision of one format with another, isn’t a new concept to us in our digi-rotic stress, of course. But, as it has done in the past, Amazon has caught many in the industry! the industry! with a move that seems somehow to confront us earlier than expected. Read More
Pattern Recognition and Writerly Advice | Porter Anderson
How many of us really know how to use all this writerly advice? Particularly when much of it is written by writers for other writers, how much of it is a case of the sight-impaired leading the hard-of-hearing? Does anyone ever worry (you may remember that I like this analogy) that all these how-to books for writers by other writers start to come across like John Updike’s ladies of the church who fund-raise by selling cupcakes to each other? Read More
Is the Dust-Up Over Kobo's Devices Fair?
Kobo’s announcement last week—new devices, eyebrow-raising prices—showed nothing if not chutzpah. And predictably, that ambition was challenged before the equipment even rolled down the runway. Maybe rightly. Maybe not. Read More
Is Social Reading the End of an Intimacy?
I just wonder what full-on social integration may do to reading. And I’m good enough at cognitive dissonance—and betting you are, too—to believe it’s worth our asking what it might do to our reading while being excited by the possibilities it may bring us. Read More
Goodreads: When Bad Things (Seem To) Happen on Good Sites
In Writing on the Ether at JaneFriedman.com, Porter Anderson looks at controversial interactions at the 20-million-member Goodreads reader-and-author site. Read More
Are You Lonesome Tonight? The Dreaded Solitude of Writing
At Writer Unboxed, Porter Anderson takes on the stereotype of the “loneliness” of the solitary writing life, as discussed on a recent BBC Radio 4 show. Read More
Are You Marketing Your Books to "Adjacent Fans"?
In Writing on the Ether, Porter Anderson looks at a marketing phrase from Peter McCarthy, “adjacent fans.” What could this offer to entrepreneurial authors? Read More