Square Pegs

As a long-time romance novel reader — yes, Mom, I know, but I never warmed to the serial killers — I know that many of the books will never qualify as “great”. Still, there are a lot of talented writers telling incredible stories with amazing voice and creativity in the genre. This is so for all types of literature, so much chaff, so little quality wheat. Ugly book covers are suffered by many male authors as well. What I have hated most about reading romance, and I’m including the entire cowboys, babies, virgins, and daddies obsession, is reading a book […]

What do you fear more: obscurity or piracy? Seems to me most people fear the latter because we’re told that piracy is bad and must be stopped. 400,000 books were published/distributed in the United States in 2007, according to Rachel Donadio’s recent New York Times article (“You’re an Author? Me Too!”). If you’re trying to reach the surface and 399,999 other books are blocking your way, piracy might very well be the only evidence that you’re not totally obscure. When threatened with obscurity versus piracy, it helps to understand terms. Yes, you’ve been warned. Random, disconnected thoughts to follow. The

Last week’s JK Rowling/Warner Brothers versus RDR Books trial made me very uncomfortable. On one hand, I completely support an author’s right to protect copyright. It’s time this nation (world, really) learned serious lessons about copyright — what it is, how it’s applied, fair use (yes, kids, fair use is part of copyright). But there’s something, well, chilling about how this case has played out. And, as a fan, I’m particularly bothered by this case because, well, there has to be a better way to deal with your readers than suing them. Especially after you’ve blessed the website and admittedly

Philip Parker has won today’s “Worst Person in Publishing” award. I wanted to give him the “Worst Person in the World” title, but, well, I’m fairly certain that’s been copyrighted. Hmm, maybe the ”’New York Times”’ will share the honors, if only due to its continued lack of critical thinking when it comes to covering books and publishing. I do not take exception with Parker’s book authoring process — it’s merely an algorithmic process for generating, and I do hate this term, information products. Scrubbing the Internet for source material yields a text on a particular subject matter. Put this

A week or so ago (time flies when you’re in Austin and then down with the modern cold), I did a radio interview with Susan Benjamin for her show Greater Voices. We talked about a few favorite books, and since the show is airing — access through this link — I thought I’d offer a few resources for the books I suggested. The three books were The Girl In The Glass by Jeffrey Ford, Always by Nicola Griffith, and The Spymaster’s Lady by Joanna Bourne. I chose these titles because they are all terrific examples of authors with great voice.

Though it goes against my very nature, I have resisted commenting on the recently reached DGA/AMPTP accord — the settlement of contractual issues between the Director’s Guild of America and the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers — to let the deal points sink in. Not surprisingly, this period of reflection hasn’t changed my initial position: good for producers, lousy for talent. No one individual can say, “I own this.” I go into this in great detail at Medialoper, but want to address some writer-specific points here. First, while the DGA deal might very well be historic in that

So naturally, I am reading all the news about this entity and that entity cutting deals with the WGA directly. I am also imagining all the major producers gnashing their teeth in frustration. Oh, man, this has got to rankle. And not necessarily for the reason you think. Residuals — the basis for this two-month old strike — are, by and large, easily calculated. Though creaky and cumbersome, the formulas used to pay various types of talent are monolithic. Or, if you will, percentages might vary, but the methodology remains the same across all guilds. Oh, to be sure, over

Normally, I do only one “Most Wonderful Post of the Year”, because, well, if there are two, which post is truly the most wonderful? But since it’s the giving season — and I do love giving — I’ve decided to break precedent (because you’ve got to live every day to the fullest) and offer up a second most wonderful post. Over the past several years, I have been wishy-washy about the “One Laptop Per Child” project. When it was first announced by Nicholas Negroponte, a bountiful vision of gifting the world’s needy children with fully functioning laptops, I, like so

Though I have been assured that I was born talking (first words, if legend holds true, were “I’m off to buy new shoes”), I believe my next major action was reading. I cannot recall a time when I was not surrounded by printed words. Most of my siblings survived childhood due to the fact that I preferred reading ingredients on cereal boxes over arguments. Readers — natural, bone-deep readers — cannot fathom a world where there are non-readers. We find ourselves somewhat suspicious of people who don’t covet books. To have the ability to read without using it seems downright