Booksquare

The problem with traveling (other than the part where getting the husband to understand that, if he doesn’t make decisions, we cannot be responsible for the fact he can’t shave) is that you get into a news time warp. Truly, you’re under sedation. Yes, we’ve already lost our point. Luckily, through the magic of Firefox, […]

The idea of character versus reality has come up in many ways over the past few days. For example, today Ana Marie Cox, a keynote speaker at SXSW explained that Wonkette is a character (it was also revealed that she’s married…this was news only to Robert Scoble). If you’re a fiction writer, this makes perfect […]

We suppose we must begin with a question: has there ever been a point in publishing history where every book released into the wild came accompanied by an unlimited promotion budget? We ask because we are not certain if the large number of books being released truly means that authors need to be more creative […]

You’d think that people would keep excellent track of their money. But they don’t. While we cannot give away trade secrets, we recently encountered a situation where two well-known (in a different era) producers had their checks returned because they’d either a) died or b) moved without a forwarding address. This, sad to say, is […]

The delightful thing about major authors with major releases is that they do the press rounds like crazy. After a while, it sort of feels like you’re reading the same story in a different font. It’s as if there are only so many column inches available for author profiles. Which is why the Internet should […]

Back in the olden days, you had to work to figure out who represented your favorite author. So, so passe. So last century. So hard. Who has time for such nonsense — after all, why else were databases invented*? Still, the fine folks at Publisher’s Marketplace love to innovate, and now you can do all […]

In keeping with our discussion on reading, we bring you the concept of reading as it relates to writing. We have met very few writers who are not readers (and we have met more than a few writers who finally accepted their calling when they found nothing they wanted to read, and decided to write […]

The husband often tells us that someday we will have a wiki*. For a long time, we got away with pretending to confuse a useful tool with a frou-frou drink garnished with fruit and paper umbrellas. Our strategy was sound — we were testing the limits of his patience by making explain the same concept […]

Oh sure, we meant to post this information earlier today. And, yes, we believe we have sufficient will to overcome the strongest lure of of the Web. This does not count active procrastination — that is more of a vocation, not an avoidance technique. We have met our match in the venerable New York Public […]

Richard Curtis concludes (we believe) his series on Publishing in the 21st Century with a look at how computers have transformed the industry. Yes, children, it’s not just the fact that editors and agents are accepting submissions via email (and we do so appreciate those who do — though we may be less appreciative of […]