More to read, from the week that was.
Publishing and the Industry
- Print Books: The New Vanity Publishing? – Joanna Penn guest posts at Joel Friedlander‘s site with this post.
- Hidden Costs, Not Haterade – Lilith Saintcrow follows on from the Jonathan Franzen debate of last week and wonders why we are still not looking at the true costs of ebooks.
- Amazon, KDP Select, Monopolies and Asshattery – The Word – According To Me | The Word – Alan Baxter wades in with his opinions.
- Self-Publishing Basics: How to Organize Your Book’s Front Matter – Joel Friedlander makes me realise how little I knew about the front contents of a book.
- Bookstores are Closing & Amazon is Expanding–Want a Sure Bet in an Uncertain Future? – Kristen Lamb tells us all to get or keep on blogging.
- Via Joanna Penn (@thecreativepenn) Five Publishing Hurdles (And How to Clear Them) su.pr/4pr3dd via @michaelhyatt
Writing Craft
- So What’s Your Story(ies)? – Larry Brooks of Storyfix does it again, discussing getting the story pitch / idea right for the right audience, especially when you are still writing it.
- Aspiring Advice: Problems With Prologues – David P King tells us that prologues are okay, but maybe rename them ‘chapter one’.
- Prologues: please use responsibly – Roz Morris says something similar.
- The Perils of Plotting a Time Travel Novel / Suspense Author Jeremy Bates | White Lies – Tim C Taylor provides a very interesting guest post on a subject I’ve never really thought about from a structural sense.
- Oh, no. Not Again. – Hank Phillipi made me laugh out loud over her latest copy editing experience.
- Guest Author James R. Tuck: “Speechtags are of the Devil,” He Said – brilliant dialogue example of what James R Tuck said.
- Writing Tip: Figure out your “Candy Bar” scenes in advance – Via an io9 interview with author Jenn Reese, we learn about candy bar scenes – this is a term coined by Holly Lisle. I was one of the original alma maters of Holly’s Writer Bootcamp writing and revising e-courses (soon to be ebooks I understand) but had forgotten about eating my sweet spot scenes.
- KarlBimshas (@KarlBimshas) “Building Short Stories with Cubes“: karlbimshas.blogspot.com
- Writing Tips: how to use quotation marks – from the American perspective.
Inspiration
- Charles Dickens was a hero – read about how the author survived a train crash and rescued his book manuscript from drowning via Salon.
- Metaphors actually trigger the sensory parts of our brains [Neuroscience] – io9 tells me something poetically nice to know.
- The Eminem Guide to Becoming a Writing and Marketing Machine – via Copyblogger.
- 15 Amazing Effects of Prison Libraries – Lee Lofland points out how important paper books still are.
Topic of the Week – ideas
- Chuck Wendig’s Terrible Minds post (warning – some inevitable CW profanity inside) deals with 25 reasons writers are nuts and here’s No.23, the Idea Plague (yep, got that down pat, including the bugs in the hair syndrome) –
Ask a writer: “Where do you get your ideas from?” And the writer will reply: “How do you make yours stop?” Then he’ll bat at his hair as if it’s on fire.
- Crazy Monkeybrain Crack Dust, AKA, Writer’s Ideas – Lilith Saintcrow builds on the above post and talks more about ideas.
Great links! Thanks for sharing!