Booksquare

A few weeks ago, we posted on blogs spawning book deals. Now it appears the phenomomenon will hit critical mass within the next few hours. This, of course, means that by the time your mother figures out what a blog is and thinks it might help your career, you will know the awful truth: you […]

We covered the, um, poorly advised writing advice of Todd Pierce. John Scalzi, likely a fairer minded soul than us, actually contacted Mr. Pierce. And received a response. At least the whole issue is somewhat clearer, though we suspect people only hear the first thing. Bottom line: don’t lie in your queries. You’ll get caught. […]

We’ve written about how authors are using the Internet to change how they work. It was only a matter of time before the online community reintroduced an ancient concept. Robert McCrumb of the Guardian discusses innovation in literature (the last frontier!) and dates what we consider a modern phenomenon back to Homer. The author, not […]

While gay romance isn’t exactly new, it isn’t exactly mainstream. Yet. Scott Whittier and Scott Pomfret want to change that — and they’ve created Romentics for that very purpose. In a convenient tie-in to our posting on the demise of Lad Lit, it turns out women are interested in gay romance. Actually, we’re not sure […]

Fiction snatched Barbara Trapido from the jaws of academia. It can do the same for you. Start now and you too can erase words like “thesis” from your vocabulary forever. Just remember those voices in your head are your friends (unless you’re truly insane, in which case we recommend proper help). The awkward squad: The […]

First, we can’t begin to tell you how many visits we get every day from people searching for information about the Adams Literary Agency. Since word emerged that Tracey Adams was hanging out her own shingle, people have sought her high and low. No more — Adams Literary has a brand spanking new website. And […]

We admit it, we’re a little obsessed (in a healthy way) with Marian Keyes. Perhaps it’s the characters, perhaps it’s the stories, but mostly likely it’s the fact that we laugh out loud even on our third or fourth reading of her books. We did, however, promise ourselves we wouldn’t post links to every single […]

Or maybe just guy weekend. We’re not sure. Lad Lit is dead, though Beatrice.com questions whether two books constitute a trend. Gay romance is the new frontier. And, supporting our own reporting (those piles of male reading material remain in place), we learn that men do read. Not about relationships and sex (well, a little […]

All that macro/micro stuff…frankly, we didn’t care about supply and demand unless it affected our immediate needs. However, we know the author’s lot in life, well, sucks. Especially from a money perspective. We calculate the average hourly wage for a novelist at approximately three cents an hour. That’s factoring in overtime.

Here’s the thing about the writing process: while everyone has their own special way of doing it, in the end, it gets down to writing. Putting words together in some sort of order, punctuation optional. Yet we are continually fascinated by the process. It is inevitable that an author’s reading will somehow morph into questions […]