Articles from March 2005

Update: Train Wreck

March 31st, 2005 · Comments Off on Update: Train Wreck

If we impart one piece of advice*, it will be that the wise person remains above the bad review fray. Beatrice follows up on last week’s train wreck. It seems that Sue Eccleston, the publicist for Windstream Publishing, cannot leave well enough alone. After a bout of unprofessional behavior**, she subsided, only to resurface when […]

File Under: Books/Mags/Blogs

If We Can’t Amuse Ourselves, Who Can We Amuse?

March 31st, 2005 · Comments Off on If We Can’t Amuse Ourselves, Who Can We Amuse?

Okay, there is nothing new here. Honest. We were just amused as heck to see this on the Los Angeles Times Opinion page. Though, hmm, perhaps the placement was apropos. Setting aside our confusion, it strikes us there is a perfect plot for what we suspect will be the a recurring theme this summer: The […]

File Under: Tools and Craft

Oh, The Things We Don’t Know

March 31st, 2005 · 1 Comment

We’re going to be honest: we had no idea there was such a monster as Good Morning America’s “The Story of My Life” contest. Based on our extensive research (peeking through The Happy Booker’s window), it appears that someone has a story and someone else writes it. In this case, the story in question is […]

File Under: Square Pegs

The Problems of Celebrity

March 31st, 2005 · Comments Off on The Problems of Celebrity

We have a long-standing policy at Booksquare (yes, we really do have such things that we dust off when needed): if you can’t be distractingly cute, you must be smart and funny. And since the latter ages better, we prefer the smart and funny. Thus we were charmed further into what started out as an […]

File Under: Books/Mags/Blogs

More Brand Name Madness

March 31st, 2005 · 1 Comment

Reader Susan Gable suggested she might be available for a little product placement work (not that she’s selling her soul to the corporate devil, but a girl needs to upgrade her home network every now and then). It’s not like this is a new concept, but we suspect there will be increased opportunities presented to […]

File Under: Square Pegs

The Politics of Presentation

March 30th, 2005 · 5 Comments

We stumbled across an interesting discussion about our friend Daniel Olivas, whose first book came out at the same time as Jill’s (they shared war stories during her month here). Actually, the discussion is about Olivas’s book — we’re feeling too lazy to rewrite the sentence. Okay, really, the discussion is about the way presentation […]

File Under: Books/Mags/Blogs

The Shock, The Horror

March 30th, 2005 · Comments Off on The Shock, The Horror

We have just learned something awful…almost too awful to share. We cannot bring ourself to type the horrible words, so will let John Rickards do the dirty work for us: Crime is very formulaic, it’s true. Like any genre, it has its conventions, which more or less have to be obeyed to satisfy the reader. […]

File Under: Tools and Craft

Case (Almost) Closed

March 30th, 2005 · 2 Comments

The long-running lawsuit by various authors against The New York Times and others regarding compensation for republication (or, we suppose in some cases, publication) of works in databases and online has been resolved. The issue, essentially, involved generating revenues from different distribution streams but not compensating authors for the use of their work. Yes, bad. […]

File Under: Tools and Craft

More Secret Lives of Editors Revealed

March 30th, 2005 · Comments Off on More Secret Lives of Editors Revealed

Dan Wickett, who assures us he does sleep, leading us to believe he forgoes food, has posted the next in his series of interviews with editors of literary journals. We are particularly impressed with this series because the editors take their time to answer questions thoughtfully and in detail. Sure, when you get down to […]

File Under: Books/Mags/Blogs

West Coast Agents Do It Just Fine

March 30th, 2005 · Comments Off on West Coast Agents Do It Just Fine

How many times have you heard that the only good agent is a New York agent? Probably as often as you’ve heard you must have 25 lines per page, Courier, 12 point. Also, one inch margins. No exceptions to the rule. Agent Sandra Dijkstra scoffs at the notion that one must be Back East to […]

File Under: Agents