We had a lovely rant about finding reviewers for your work planned for this morning, but due to technical difficulties (ie, lack of caffeine), it was lost in the ether. However, we remember enough of said tirade to reproduce the intent of the post, if not the actual words. Our intent was to explain, gently, that if you are seeking reviews, you must do your homework. Approaching the wrong people with requests to review your brilliant work is not a positive career move.
While we presume our dear readers are doing whatever it is that they do one day before Thanksgiving, we got a free pass on the cooking thing this year. Which is fine because this six-percent royalty for e-books issue is gnawing at our soul. Heck, 10% and maybe even 20% would gnaw. Book publishing, as we know it, is a highly inefficient business. After all the writing and editing is done, the physical production and movement of boxes of paper begins. Though publishers have handy computer algorithms and charts teeming with statistics, the truth of the matter is that they
We are fully aware that we rant a bit on the subject of royalties for electronic media. Ranting keeps us young. Plus we think it’s the most important topic facing artists today — and, as evidenced by Saturday’s dinner with a fine, upstanding member of the Director’s Guild of America, we remain concerned that too much faith is being placed in “someone else.” This particular DGA member professed a vague idea that in the coming year, her guild will be going to battle on her behalf. She felt certain that the DGA will take care of everything, yet wasn’t quite
Let’s play a Monday morning game. Read the following sentence and remove the word “travel”. Then read the sentence again: Internet technologies have created new forms of publishing that are making it possible for any wannabe travel writer to see their work in print. Fun, huh? We lie awake all night long thinking of amusements for you. It’s not just travel writers who are finding new opportunities thanks to digital technology — other writers are finding creative ways to sell and publicize their works as well. While there are advantages and disadvantages to publishing your work online (or, horrors!, giving
We figure we’ll be sitting on the sidelines while the battle of new media compensation is waged in Hollywood — been there, done that, as the kids say — but that doesn’t mean we can’t make great sport of the fight while it’s brewing. Let us begin with the “for purely promotional purposes” argument. And yes, this matters to people who write books. We wouldn’t lie to you. If you’ve been following the news about digital media (and we have no reason to believe that you don’t), you know that this YouTube phenomenon is causing entertainment executive to break out
If we were the type to eat our words, we would be, yes, considering swallowing all of the things we’ve said about the publishing industry and their slow movement into the modern world*. Just this week, near the end of 2006, a mere dozen or so years after the dawn of the Age of Amazon, the industry has…wait for it…announced the release of a new digital book standard. Just in time for Christmas! As with all major announcements, this one came with tongue-ready acronyms: the Open eBook Publication Structure (OEBPS) and Open eBook Publication Structure Container Format (OCF) were released
We have been following recent discussions about the decline of book coverage in major newspapers with interest. As always, we remain surprised by the lack of discussion about content when it comes to reviewing and discussing books in newspapers. Is it possible that newspapers don’t value book coverage because their readers don’t value book coverage because that coverage is perceived as being targeted toward “someone else”? Someone else, of course, is that narrow strata of readers who are clamoring for yet another expose of the real Shakespeare. Or a translation of a great Hungarian novel about oppression, strife, and disaffected
Either or, either or, either…what is it about the world we live in that every move is giant step forward with the potential to surpass the leader with just a little more effort? Or is it just that journalists spend a little too much time reprinting press releases and not enough time thinking about the information contained in said releases? Microsoft is not stepping further into Google’s territory; they are just moving forward with an ongoing project. Two technology giants — Google and Microsoft — are currently engaged in major book digitization efforts. While their approaches differ (slightly), they have
Because we don’t want to create the impression that we think everything is bad in the world of publishing, we’d like to joyfully highlight something good: the juxtaposition of Penguin UK, Second Life, and Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash. If it is sounds like a cool party, it is. “Wha?” you say? “You mean someone’s finally put the pieces together?” Yes, that’s it exactly. The publisher of the book that introduced us to the Metaverse — a virtual world where people enter into personal and business transactions of all types — has created a special offer for residents of Second Life,
Last week, we link to an article with the grand plan of returning to the topic later that day. Days have a way of getting away from us. As do weeks. But we have been dwelling mentally on the subject, and woke up this morning ready to write about the all-important topic of making money from blogs. Lynne Scanlon notes that making money the traditional way (selling a book to a publishers, receiving an advance, earning out an advance, waiting months and sometimes years for royalties to be paid) doesn’t really work for her. Let’s all face facts: if you’re
