Articles from November 2006

Notes From The Inbox

November 29th, 2006 · 4 Comments

We had a lovely rant about finding reviewers for your work planned for this morning, but due to technical difficulties (ie, lack of caffeine), it was lost in the ether. However, we remember enough of said tirade to reproduce the intent of the post, if not the actual words. Our intent was to explain, gently, […]

File Under: Back To Basics

Castration By Drapery, Or, The Importance Of Good Editing

November 27th, 2006 · 12 Comments

What with one thing and the other, we were seriously underbooked as we left town for the Thanksgiving holiday — luckily, we were able to borrow from the lending library run by the BS mother (as she doesn’t reread books, borrowing books from her is a kindness). We settled on a fairly recent J.D. Robb […]

File Under: Square Pegs

The Six-Percent Problem

November 22nd, 2006 · 6 Comments

While we presume our dear readers are doing whatever it is that they do one day before Thanksgiving, we got a free pass on the cooking thing this year. Which is fine because this six-percent royalty for e-books issue is gnawing at our soul. Heck, 10% and maybe even 20% would gnaw. Book publishing, as […]

File Under: The Future of Publishing

Monday Morning Royalty Rant

November 20th, 2006 · 2 Comments

We are fully aware that we rant a bit on the subject of royalties for electronic media. Ranting keeps us young. Plus we think it’s the most important topic facing artists today — and, as evidenced by Saturday’s dinner with a fine, upstanding member of the Director’s Guild of America, we remain concerned that too […]

File Under: The Future of Publishing

When Women Aren’t Well-Behaved

November 16th, 2006 · 13 Comments

The Internets are buzzing with shock and awe: an author dared to speak out against her publishing house. Now don’t get us wrong — we firmly believe that this type of conversation happens all the time. It is the fact that Anne Stuart’s comments about her relationship with her current publisher, buried in the middle […]

File Under: Square Pegs

There Is More Than One Way To Publish Your Work

November 13th, 2006 · 4 Comments

Let’s play a Monday morning game. Read the following sentence and remove the word “travel”. Then read the sentence again: Internet technologies have created new forms of publishing that are making it possible for any wannabe travel writer to see their work in print. Fun, huh? We lie awake all night long thinking of amusements […]

File Under: Non-Traditional Publishing

Litigation: It’s The American Way

November 8th, 2006 · 2 Comments

We have a former boss who liked to say that litigation kept America working — this was, somehow, supposed to bolster our spirits when Friday afternoons rolled around and, just as visions of going home and starting the weekend danced through our head, an attorney called to say he’d “forgotten” that he needed this, this, […]

File Under: Publishers and Editors

The Truth About Celebrity Books, Or Why Publishers Are Evil Geniuses

November 6th, 2006 · 1 Comment

Though it won’t come as a surprise to anyone, our least favored reading material is a celebrity biography/autobiography/ghostwritten claptrap. Very few of these people are fascinating enough to sustain a feature-length article, much less an entire book. Why publishers continue to throw good money after bad books confuses us. Oh right. Money. Power. Fame. Fortune. […]

File Under: Square Pegs

Cranky Post About Sex And Politics

November 4th, 2006 · Comments Off on Cranky Post About Sex And Politics

The Village Voice has a fascinating article about the rise of yaoi — fairly graphic male-on-male manga — and how it resonates with straight American women. This isn’t exactly breaking news by any stretch of the imagination; there is a growing group of women who consider themselves part of the romance genre who write yaoi, […]

File Under: Square Pegs

The Funny Thing About Circular Arguments

November 3rd, 2006 · Comments Off on The Funny Thing About Circular Arguments

We figure we’ll be sitting on the sidelines while the battle of new media compensation is waged in Hollywood — been there, done that, as the kids say — but that doesn’t mean we can’t make great sport of the fight while it’s brewing. Let us begin with the “for purely promotional purposes” argument. And […]

File Under: The Business of Publishing