Snagged from the Broad Universe mailing list -- Anne Wilkes is putting together a database of places to request reviews of your sf:
http://wilkes.zftp.com/ReviewPlaces.html
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| 2008-04-22 17:21 |
| A pointer to Geek Social Fallacies |
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I think it would be helpful to put up a pointer to the Five Geek Social Fallacies, a useful primer on how and why sf fandom is inclined to turn a blind eye to bad behaviour:
http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html
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| 2008-04-19 10:08 |
| Business card design tips and contest |
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No, not from me. One of the other members of Broad Universe has a blog post this weekend about business card design for writers. It's a useful little post that's worth looking at.
It's also a nice example of viral marketing, because her day job is graphic design and she's offering a business card design to one person who posts a comment to her blog post. She's *also* offering a free download of her forthcoming book -- but not to the person who wins the business card design. She's asking people to link to her post; and if the winner of the design offer has done so, then someone who commented on *their* linking post gets the download. In other words, if I win the card design, someone who comments on this post gets the download. Now that is a cunning bit of marketing.
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Must remember to get a couple of these the next time I'm at Ikea:
http://community.livejournal.com/torch_wood/2610385.html
(Yes, I was doing some costume research for a Fragments-inspired fic. Apparently Torchwood reaches the fanfic-writing parts that other shows cannot. If I've got as far as doing actual research, it's probably time to think about where I post the thing when it's done, because clearly it is going to get written.)
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| 2008-01-07 16:12 |
| Useful reference site |
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This is a medical wiki run by doctors, which may be a useful reference source for the writers amongst you:
http://www.ganfyd.org/
There's not a huge amount there at the moment, but what there is has a lot of links to other sites. Some of the entries are about being a doctor, rather than about medicine as such.
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Nail Gaiman's blog post with the letter from Teresa Nielsen Hayden listing lots of useful links about the writing business and how not to get scammed:
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2005/01/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about.asp
"Follow the Money" -- TNH's analysis of a new model of vanity press scam exploiting POD technology to conceal the sting:
http://www.nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/002692.html
In the middle of a discussion about a vanity press, a quick discussion of how bankruptcy law makes those bankruptcy clauses in publishing contracts effectively worthless if you're relying on them to get your rights back:
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/002703.html#22227
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/002703.html#22244
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/002703.html#22253
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/002703.html#22280
Scrivener's Error on the differences between commercial publishing, self-publishing and vanity publishing. The second link has a nice little table that shows you how to classify a publisher.
http://scrivenerserror.blogspot.com/2003/07/now-observer-has-gotten-into-whole.html
http://scrivenerserror.blogspot.com/2003/07/continuing-from-wee-hours-of-this.html
And that last one is the one I was looking for when I started collecting links to post in various places today if needed. Because if the books belong to the publisher as they come off the press, and the guaranteed capital outflow on publishing date is away from the author, then it's a vanity press. Doesn't matter what the publisher tries to tell you about only passing on fees from the printer, it's still a vanity operation if they own the books as they come off the press.
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| 2007-12-10 09:35 |
| New discussion forums |
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A couple of links that may be of interest:
Elisa Rolle has a new Italian/English dual language romance blog. Author interviews, excerpts, articles about the history of romance and more at Rosa is for Romance, all in both English and Italian. (She's still posting her English-language reviews at ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) elisa_rolle.) If you're interested in the romance genre, there's some good stuff here, and while it's in blog format, discussion is welcome in the comment threads.
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Read the Rainbow is a discussion forum for readers of gay-themed books of all genres. From the "about the forum":
I'd like it to be a place where folks from all sorts of other lists and blogs and forums and groups can get together to chat about gay books, gay authors, and gay films; discuss various issues about gay writing; make recommendations; pass on news or new book titles; and generally have fun!
I've found it useful for book recommendations that go into a reasonable amount of depth.
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More from the romance blog Dear Author about the Triskelion bankruptcy. If you're a Triskelion author, you need to read this. But it's also worth your time simply as a case study if you're involved in small press, especially epublishing. Jane analyses the bankruptcy filing, and digs out some interesting information. The comments are worth reading as well, particularly the description of a publisher behaving badly towards authors who decided that they wanted out.
The Triskelion mess is an excellent example of why you should do your homework before submitting to a publisher. It won't guarantee you don't get caught up in something like this, but it will improve your chances of avoiding a publisher with trouble brewing. December Quinn has an excellent series of blog posts about finding the right publisher:
http://decemberquinn.blogspot.com/2007/06/find-right-publisher-part-one.html
http://decemberquinn.blogspot.com/2007/06/find-right-publisher-part-two.html
http://decemberquinn.blogspot.com/2007/06/find-right-publisher-part-three.html
http://decemberquinn.blogspot.com/2007/07/find-right-publisher-part-four.html
http://decemberquinn.blogspot.com/2007/07/find-right-publisher-part-five.html
You also want to check out Emily Veinglory's guest post at Dionne Galace's blog, about the wide range of sales figures within epublishing:
http://dionnegalace.com/wordpress/2007/07/30/guest-author-emily-veinglory/
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Having just Googled for a supplier of my favourite editing pen, Pentel's R56 rollerball in red, I stumbled into this purveyor of all things pennish:
http://www.cultpens.com/
*Serious* stocking of all those hard to find refills and exotic ink colours, as well as the pens themselves.
Bookmarked...
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| 2007-08-04 10:32 |
| Pen porn |
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Started clearing out the Westercon detritus from my con bag, and found the business card from the person who makes handcrafted pens in woods and fancy plastics. These are utterly gorgeous, and I have enough pen fetishists on my flist that I thought I should get her catalogue URL. Of course, I may not be thanked for providing a new way to spend money on something people don't really *need*, but want. :-)
Index page
http://www.foxtrot-designs.com/pens/index.html
Current catalogue:
http://www.foxtrot-designs.com/pens/pages/currentcatalog.html
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Incoming:
Received my contract from Vision for my review of "Elements of Arousal". Not sure when it'll appear, but looks like next issue.
Received my postcard from my Distant Horizons submission, showing that it reached Greg Herren's slushpile safely.
Received bits and pieces from Broad Universe, including form for those wanting to sell books off the BU table at Wiscon. I'm tempted to try sending a couple of copies of The Syndicate, but I think I'll pass--as they note, it's easier to sell books when you're actually at the con.
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Word count: around 1000 words on the travel tale. It's going to need serious tidying up, but developing nicely. And 1000 on the erotic romance novella.
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alg has been doing a series of posts on demystifying publishing. Today's is the first in a two-parter on how books make (or don't make) money, and how that relates to deciding what size advance to pay the author. Excellent insight into the economics of fiction publishing, and well worth reading if you're an aspiring writer.
http://alg.livejournal.com/84032.html
And I showed my biases by hitting the term "hc/mm" and parsing it as "hurt/comfort slash" for a second before realising that in this context it was "hardcover/mass market". That was an... interesting... experience. My only excuse is that Anna was using fanfic names to make it clear that she was running a fictional example rather than an actual real live book published by Tor.
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Writer Beware's 20 Worst Agents list has been getting a lot of coverage online in the last few days, not least in a thread at Making Light.
One of the agents on that list took exception to Teresa posting the list and tried to cause trouble for her at work, as duly reported in a further thread at Making Light. Much amusement all round, and posting of links on many, many more blogs...
I am reminded that I must add a subpage to my links section for useful links like this.
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Warning: swallow what's in your mouth and put the mug down before reading the following LJ post. (Yes, I know that given what sort of fiction I write, that last sentence could be taken in a manner I didn't intend when I started writing it. Either way, it's good advice.)
http://azurelunatic.livejournal.com/4817217.html
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rasfc is feeling cranky this week courtesy of an outbreak of Endless September. Public service announcement for people who don't know the difference between "the Web" and "online": when you go into a new online forum, try to read a couple of week's worth of posts before posting. If you go bouncing into a group on the assumption that you can post what you like, you may be frostily reminded that you are doing the equivalent of walking into someone's living room in muddy boots that you have neglected to wipe on the doormat. And whatever Google and sundry other web-based interfaces may try to imply, usenet is not their personal property, it existed long before the web did, and lots and lots of people read and post to newsgroups through systems that go nowhere near such web-based interfaces. If you're posting to a usenet newsgroup through Google Groups, you may be annoying a lot more people than Google Groups says are members of that "forum". This may not be a good move if your aim is to win friends and influence people.
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| 2005-09-01 21:28 |
| urban legends |
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By way of light relief from the hurricane discussion, there's a thread at Making Light with assorted urban legends rewritten for writers...
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/006484.html
They're taking the piss out of a lot of stuff that gets passed around as "fact". It richly deserves having the piss taking out of it.
And yet, and yet... Although the details differ, (like ff.net not being involved), I do actually know at least two people for whom one of those urban legends came true. Two of the writers I know each got their first profic writing gig as a result of someone being familiar with their fanfic (which in both cases is very, very good) and asking them to submit a story to a pro anthology. In one case it was to an unrelated anthology, in the other it was to a pro anthology in the relevant universe. It doesn't happen very often, but it's not completely unknown.
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| 2005-08-28 20:06 |
| (no subject) |
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Just found this link in the Particles at Making Light:
Peter and Wendy, PG-13, "A Hundred Years Ago"
http://www.livejournal.com/community/vintagefic/15374.html
I think a lot of you lot would like it.
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