Category Archives: Uncategorized

via PWxyz:

The Worst Book Ever is ‘Moon People’
Gabe Habash — January 31st, 2012

“Moon People has reshaped my literary perceptions.” – Goodreads reviewer Neil

What I’m going to do before telling you about the epic stinker Moon People by Dale M. Courtney is issue a blanket sic statement for the duration of this article. I think that’s important to say before we move forward. Anyway, this is how chapter one of Moon People by Dale M. Courtney opens (source):

This story begins on a Beautiful sunny day in Daytona Beach Florida With a man by the name of David Braymer. A 45-year-old Single man that works at the local High school as a science teacher and astrology in the 12-grade level. Now he’s been here about 5 years and has become kind of partial to a young lady by the name of Cheral Baskel a local restaurant owner in Daytona Beach. At the moment Cheral’s preparing her restaurant for another Shuttle launch at the cape and everyone always gathers at her place because you can see the launch real good at her place. It’s also on the water and its real close to the cape and she really decks the place out.

You probably have questions. That’s understandable.

I also wish I hadn’t bought “Freedom” as an ebook. Every time I open the Kindle app, I have to look at that blue bird pecking at a wall of Star Wars-era typography.

via The Christian Science Monitor:

Jonathan Franzen: E-readers are ‘damaging to society’
Jonathan Franzen, the author of ‘Freedom’ and ‘The Corrections,’ calls e-readers incompatible with ‘responsible self-government.’
By Husna Haq / January 30, 2012

Speaking at the Hay Festival in Colombia, Jonathan Franzen had harsh words for e-books, saying they are 'not for serious readers.'

Jonathan Franzen doesn’t want you to read his bestsellers on e-readers. The acclaimed novelist of “Freedom” and “The Corrections” launched a tirade against e-books at a recent literary event, calling them “not for serious readers” and “damaging to society.”

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The inevitable response.

via Huffington Post:

Johannes Franzen: “Print Books Are Damaging to Society”

“Maybe nobody will care about hand-copied books 50 years from now, but I do. When I read a book that’s been painstakingly transcribed by hand, I’m handling an object that took a scribe six months to a year to copy,” Johannes Franzen told booksellers at the 1564 Frankfurt Book Fair.

“I think, for serious readers, a sense of permanence has always been part of the reading experience. Life is temporary: You might lose your brother at sea to scurvy, your first wife in childbirth, your mistress to tuberculosis, your second wife in childbirth, and so on. But a hand-copied book is forever.

For an indie writer who does things properly, check out my friend and Clarion classmate, Annie Bellet. This is the cover of her latest book:

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via INDIEREADER.com:

via The Guardian:

One of my favorite articles from last year.

via The New York Times:

The Muses of Insert, Delete and Execute
By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER

Published: December 25, 2011

The literary history of the typewriter has its well-established milestones, from Mark Twain producing the first typewritten manuscript with “Life on the Mississippi” to Truman Capote famously dismissing Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” pounded out on a 120-foot scroll, with the quip “That’s not writing, that’s typing.”

Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times

Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, a professor of English, asks, “Who was the first novelist to use a word processor?”

The literary history of word processing is far murkier, but that isn’t stopping Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, an associate professor of English at the University of Maryland, from trying to recover it, one casual deletion and trashed document at a time.

Coming up with a title for a story is not something I am good at. When starting a first draft, I type the main character’s name at the top of the page, centered and underlined, and hope that a better title will suggest itself as I go along (it never does).

Fun Facts about titles:

* Lord of the Flies was originally titled, Strangers From Within.

This was what William Golding’s first novel was called when it was rescued from the slush pile at Faber and Faber. Editor Charles Monteith prescribed some rewriting and an alteration of the title to Lord of the Flies.

* War and Peace was first published as, All’s Well that Ends Well.

Tolstoy’s incongruously cheerful projected title for War and Peace, which was actually first published under the title 1805.

* Don Delillo originally wanted his novel White Noise to be titled, Panasonic.

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via Beyond the Margins:

Finding (and Losing) Book Titles
By Randy Susan Meyers

Picture having a baby. You named that baby so soon after conception. Dear little Lev. It’s the Russian version of your father’s name. It has great meaning. Birth! The nurse places him in your arms. She smiles. Than she says, “Change his name. He sounds too much like a Jewish cowboy.”

For the effort most authors put into titling their book, you’d think they’d get to see it splashed across the cover—but an overwhelming amount of us are told by our editors, “Love the book, hate the title. Find another one.”

Marianne Leone says she “wanted JESSE: A MOTHER’S STORY to be THE RUNNING MADONNA, but Simon & Schuster thought it sounded like a workout book by the rock star.”

In my unscientific study, only 17% of the author-respondents were able to keep their chosen titles.  My original title for THE MURDERER’S DAUGHTERS was ADOPTING ADULTS, which I was told sounded like a self-help book. (Oh, they were right on the money there.) My editor chose the final title, tacking on ‘a novel’ when I insisted people would think it was a mystery.

Three recent articles on how technology is shifting the way we read (and write).

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First, the rise of digital readers accelerates:

via Pew Internet

Tablet and E-book reader Ownership Nearly Double Over the Holiday Gift-Giving Period

The share of adults in the United States who own tablet computers nearly doubled from 10% to 19% between mid-December and early January and the same surge in growth also applied to e-book readers, which also jumped from 10% to 19% over the same time period.

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Second, how one author is thriving in the e-book world:

via Joe Konrath

$100,000

One hundred grand. That’s how much I’ve made on Amazon in the last three weeks.

This is just for my self-pubbed Kindle titles. It doesn’t include Shaken and Stirred, which were published by Amazon’s imprints. It doesn’t include any of my legacy sales, print or ebook. It doesn’t include audiobook sales. It doesn’t include sales from other platforms.

This is from my self-pubbed books. The ones the Big 6 rejected.

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Lastly, some of the pitfalls that writers must navigate:

via ZDNet

How Apple is sabotaging an open standard for digital books

Summary: For nearly two years, Apple has wooed digital book publishers and authors with its unconditional support of the open EPUB standard. With last week’s introduction of iBooks 2.0, Apple has deliberately locked out that standard. Here’s why you should care.

I hear his Twitter posts are awesome, too.

via Deadline.com:

Pulitzer Prize-winning Author Cormac McCarthy Sells His First Spec Script

EXCLUSIVE: While Cormac McCarthy’s novels have been turned into No Country For Old Men, The Road and All the Pretty Horses, he’s left the film adaptations to others. McCarthy has surprised everybody by writing his first spec screenplay. Nick Wechsler, Steve and Paula Mae Schwartz, the producing trio behind the adaptation of McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winner The Road, have just closed a deal to take The Counselor off the table with a preemptive acquisition.

Fascinating article by the author of The Handmaid’s Tale.

via The Guardian:

Really pleased that my short story, “Euler’s Identitity”, is part of this anthology.

Prime Number Magazine: Editors’ Selections Vol. 1

I am very excited to announce that Volume 1 of the Prime Number Magazine Editors’ Selections is available for order.

Prime Number Magazine debuted in July 2010 with Issue 2 (we use prime numbers for our online issues, and the next issue our 8th, is No. 17 and will go live in 2 weeks). We published a lot of terrific work over the course of the first year, and this print annual volume includes only a small portion of it.