Lookee here — another article on the sad financial plight of the lowly author. Actually, it’s a pretty even-handed article, if you don’t mind serving a little depression with your muse. We believe education is key in this business. We also wish it wouldn’t fog up our rose-tinted glasses. For love, if not money
Like most of our kind, we love words. We especially love “just right” words — especially when they pop into our heads when needed, not three or four days later. It’s easy enough to guess what usually happens. We also love Scrabble — the thrill of forcing those little letters into a word is exquisite. Of course, the last time we played, our mother and sister got a bit huffy…something about our lack of competitive spirit. What about the part where our contributions to the game were a perfectly formed haiku? Doesn’t that count for something? This week, the Guardian
True story: our accountant told our husband that our writing would make him rich. So he supported our decision to quit our despised day job. We reasoned time would be better spent in creative pursuit — and he agreed (we love our accountant for his unexpected support). All we have to say now is: Sucker! Not that we don’t work hard. It’s more that our genius has gone largely unrecognized. That’s fine — we’re shy. All of this is a roundabout way of suggesting each of you read this article. Because we sincerely hope you become as rich as your
We don’t pretend to understand the complex minds of publishers (well, sometimes we do, but mostly we’re just guessing). So we’re not sure why the concept of black chick lit took so long to catch on. Especially in light of the fact that Arabesque books is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. Yet it is only now in the chick lit lifecycle (we may need to ponder this concept further) that we have the publishing industry saying: “We think that there is a very healthy market for African-American chick-lit, and we plan to capitalize on it,” [Janet Hill] added. Yes,
We’re not much for the author as celebrity concept. Mostly because most authors we know are not well suited to public life. Our instinctive wariness of Bergdorf Blondes doesn’t come from the words on the page as much as the hoopla surrounding the author. She hasn’t done much to change our impression that the writing is shallow. We have nothing against shallow — we are more opposed to very large advances to celebrity authors — was there anything about this book that justified that much money (we posted last week on the likelihood of a certain range of advances not
This week, the Guardian lets Robert McCrumb revisit twenty-five years of his life. McCrumb passes through the library shelves of his mind about his authors and the state of the industry. Literary fashion comes and goes, but books will never change. The best book club
We doubt we’re alone in thinking that adolescence should be banned. It is, hands down, the worst life has to offer — and then some. Yet there are authors who persist in revisting this inglorious time. Perhaps it’s the fantasy of finally getting high school right, maybe it’s repressed revenge on the head cheerleader. Places for Writers offers up a new market for authors who write with the soul of a teenager. Lobster Press seeks YA fiction
Oh heck, for just about everybody. Just a little something for the long weekend — we are saddened by the genesis of this story, but cannot help (we are, after all, writers) dwelling on the irony and mystery. It seems the world’s foremost Sherlock Holmes scholar (we’ll let the concept pass without comment), Richard Lancelyn Green, died under unusual circumstances, and his death remains unsolved (except the part where he is, unfortunately, dead). Return of the curse of Conan Doyle?
As noted, Southern California has abandoned both Winter and Spring in favor of a more easily managed (and pronounced) Awards Season. We suspect Fall may soon fold into this single season — and we worry that Summer may not be far behind. After all, we’re edging toward Memorial Day, and awards are still being announced. This week, the Bellweather Prize for Fiction was awarded to Marjorie Kowalski Cole for her novel Correcting the Landscape. We like the sound of this award, by the way — Bellweather is in support of social change (we’re thinking we need more of that), so
We realize we’re particularly picky about these things — we’re also particularly picky about matching shades of red — but in this day and age, a website is your number one, primary, first, initial, predominant, most critical, etc., marketing tool This goes for authors and agents. Too often, we see them presented as an afterthought or check mark on a To Do list. We’ve been particularly hard on agents without websites (because we assume they’re looking for business, but maybe we’re lamer at econ that we suspected), with good reason, we think. For example, we stumbled across the Talcott Notch
