Link Love for Writers on Fridays

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.