Further To The Virtual Book Tour

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So, the concept piqued Brenda Coulter’s interest. Frankly, we expected lots more excitement, and we’re going to keep pounding on the subject until sufficient numbers pretend to be as enthused about Virtual Book Tours as we are. Why, you might ask, do we need to get worked up when that your job? Because, we might answer, you need to think creatively in today’s marketplace. Because of our inherent laziness, we’re thinking of this as our lead the horse to water post. Tom Dolby (who, apparently, has nothing in common with the singer dude except the name) is the latest VBT […]

Square Pegs

In The Spirit of Public Interest, Not Prurient Behavior

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Now, we don’t normally stoop to cat fights…wait, we do. Quite often, that’s us, racing out of the house in our pajamas, trying to figure out what all that howling and hissing is about. You know how boys can be. A Booksquare tipster pointed us to this little exchange (one suspects she was avoiding work), and we found ourselves amused. First, titles are not something easily copyrighed. We are sorry to break this to you, but it’s true (we are not saying they cannot be copyrighted, just that it’s not as easy as you’d think). All those hours you spend

Square Pegs

Moving Rapidly from Old To Decrepit, And Not In A Good Way

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You know, some days it doesn’t pay to get out of bed. Literally. However, despite the day’s lack of discernible income, we rose and shone. Briefly. Shining takes a lot of out of a person, and we wanted to save our energy in case something interesting happened. Probably that’s not likely, and we’ll start hacking away at the novel in a few minutes (in some regions, this is also known as editing and polishing; we prefer precise description). Yes, despite the fact that we’re clearly past our prime: Masahiro Mita also started young. His first novel, “M no Sekai” (The

Books/Mags/Blogs

On Running A Literary Journal

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Though we remain convinced that Dan Wickett doesn’t sleep, we will not dwell on that at this moment. He’s posted the second in his series of interviews with literary journals. Great, great reading all around. And great quote for us: Well, I don’t know that you’d call it “love,” but it’s a long way from anything resembling cash. (Barry Barry Silesky – Another Chicago Magazine) Interview with LitJournals Another Chicago Magazine

Quote of the Week

One Morning, Two Views

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We realize that blogs are only on-topic posts* because that is our communication tool of choice. Blogging software makes certain tasks easy — that it has gone off and become a revolution of sorts defies explanation. It appears that all the Web wanted was the killer publishing tool, and the rest would fall into place. Makes us wish we’d paid more attention to 1994. That’s the last time we spend a year being too busy with other things to get rich. Blogs occupy a unique place: they are still ascendent while suffering from backlash. Makes one wonder how the fall

Books/Mags/Blogs

How To Feel Old Without Really Trying

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We continue to listen to Stephen King on our iPod…he’s discussing his love of fifties-era film. Horror film, specifically. Perhaps this was on our mind yesterday when we were puzzling through an accounting conundrum. Hmm, not quite true. The accounting was quite clear — it was the explanation from the tech guy that required us to print an email and draw a diagram. Even then, we were quite convinced either our understanding of the English language was off, or he was contradicting himself. To make a long story short, the problem related to old-time serials — the short films shown

Square Pegs

In Six Months, This Will Come Up In A Marketing Meeting

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The rain has stopped, the cats are reacquainting themselves with something called “sun”, and the day promises to be glorious. Yes, that means we’re headed out to Culver City to spend the day locked in a building. There are so many things wrong with this, we cannot begin to list them. Okay, we can, but it’s polite to shower before meetings, and we are nothing if not polite. So, if you haven’t heard about Virtual Book Tours, we can assure this: they will be all the rage sooner than you think. MJ Rose gets to the bottom of the concept

Tools and Craft

Cheap Amusement

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We realize that we need to get over our amusement with Tom Wolfe and his latest book. It’s not his fault that he made it so easy. And it’s not like we don’t like his work. Maybe it’s the part where he says stuff like: Women of Yale, listen up: What most disappoints Wolfe about modern college students is the loss of feminine innocence. When I press him [Wolfe] to pass judgment on college kids, he allowed, “I cannot get used to women talking like men.” Quite possibly, our fascination with this subject is Wolfe’s inability to put himself into

Books/Mags/Blogs

Not A Job for Autodidacts

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So it’s all night with the thunder. Finally, sleep, and then the parrots started going crazy. We estimate there are over one hundred parrots screaming and terrorizing the neighborhood. Apparently, they’re going to keep doing this until it stops raining and trees regain appropriate leaf cover. The husband thinks it’s time to make little parrots and nature isn’t cooperating. We think parrots are loud and proud and easily riled up by instigator parrots. We are currently listening to On Writing on our iPod (goal: catch up on reading while enjoying the splendors of the treadmill; result: we like loud, fast

Books/Mags/Blogs

Eventually, We’re Going To Stop Giving It Away For Free

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Before we get started, we must say, again, that while many ills can be laid at Harlequin’s feet (and we can detail them, if provoked), ripped bodices are not on the list. We reiterate our plea to journalists everywhere: drop the cliches. They make you look like hack writers. Try to come up with something fresh for us to rant about. We need a good challenge. Now that we’ve settled that, let us delve into the conundrum that is TorStar profits and why they’re dwindling. More than one Booksquare reader thought we were up to this task, and we live

Publishers and Editors
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