Count us among the relieved. All this crazy technology is actually…wait…building writing skills. Some users of Instant Messenger go so far as to correct spelling. Avoid contractions (why, we don’t know; we love contractions). Some even form complete sentences. Again, we cannot explain the folly of youth. The Web Not the Death of Language
It is entirely possible that we don’t get the concept of fake books. Or rather, we don’t get the dividing line between a real book and a fake book. We understand plagiarism. We kind of comprehend bait and switch. It’s the part where an entire new work is written, right down to the reviews. Is it the book or the reviews that make the work fake? How does one distinguish between a pseudonym and a fake name? Why, oh why, doesn’t the press answer all the questions we could possibly ask? (Via The Literary Saloon at The Complete Review) China
Around here, there are a lot of discussions about how the inherent inefficiencies built into music distribution benefit record labels. The same could be said for book publishing. The model was developed a long time ago, when printing presses were slow, computers occupied entire floors of large buildings, and Amazon was either a river or single-breasted woman. One favorite inefficiency, for both publishers and authors (though for entirely different reasons…no, that’s not true. Same reason, different perspective.), is the policy of returns. We liked this comment: After all, the costs involved in maintaining returns create, in effect, the bubble that
What with one thing and the other, we don’t get as much reading done as we should*. For the past year or so, we have tried to figure out how a person without a day job works so many…days. It’s like every time we turn around, we’re heading for this office or that office. This is wrong on so many levels (not the least of which is the fact that all this to-ing and fro-ing wreaks havoc on our afternoon naps). For a while, we tried listening to books-on-tape at the gym — actual cassettes. Which, it turns out, they
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
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
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
No really, we can’t. No details, no specifics, no explanation. We can only remember that English is that most imprecise of languages. Also, that HST greatly influenced the Booksquare household. Author Hunter S. Thompson Kills Himself Here’s the direct link to David Thayer’s tribute to HST. We like his comments about Thompson writing as if life were a war zone. There are days…there are definitely days! Whiskey and Gorillas: Doctor Thompson Farewell As for us, we can only say you haven’t done Hawaii until you’ve done it Thompson style. He told the truth the travel agencies don’t dare: come December,
Phase Three of the genre fiction advances, etc. information collection project is in full swing as Sarah Weinman posts her survey for crime and mystery authors. Names not required, confidentiality respected. Would you like to take a survey?
We love a man who wears his obsessions proudly. Moleskine? For us, it’s the Lett’s of London journals that are no longer being produced. Did that stop us? No, thanks to our fine friend, eBay, we were able to buy a lifetime — literally, provided we do not excced 113 years — supply. Panic attack averted. At the beginning of each year, we place a fresh journal in our adorable leather cover (gift from the husband) and proceed to fill the pages over the next 365 days (oddly enough, no matter how heavily we use the thing, and some years
