publishing
October 26, 2009
- The Madrid Book Fair is but a warm memory and Frankfurt was freezing but I still have pixels dancing in my eyes. Surrounded by beautiful books at the Frankfurt Buchmesse, in all languages, styles and formats I’m still following my new fascination with the ebook and POD (print on demand). They live in different worlds but complement the traditional by satisfying both the new and the old way of ...
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October 25, 2009
- The jury may still be out on Iraq and Iran, on Brittany’s hairstyle and global warming, but by now we have a clear-cut verdict on the issue of western decline. No longer sufficient to admit that the West has lost relative position with regard to the rest of the world in material terms, it’s past time to confess that we are deep into the historically well-attested syndrome sobriqueted [my ...
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October 24, 2009
- Dear Fellow Writers -- I spent the weekend of Oct. 23-25 at the Surrey International Writers Conference. What an event! Hundreds of attendees: published authors, speakers, agents, managers, and ambitious writers looking for publication. It was a surprisingly friendly and supportive group of people. Somehow, the swords of competition were left behind and nearly everyone I spoke with was ...
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October 23, 2009
- I'd love to hear from the collective Red Room brain trust on this one.As I've recently discovered, a "blook" is a book posted online in serial chapters, like a blog. The idea appeals to me, harking back as it does to the grand old tradition of Dickens and Thackeray, who serialized their novels in monthly magazine installments eagerly gobbled up by the breathless public. At the end of ...
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October 23, 2009
- Spin the wheel and point a finger. A new model of publishing is being forged and no one is quite sure where the industry will land. The days of stodgy publishing houses (editors with ascots, cigars and snobbish accents) who follow tediously slow time lines are disappearing as rapidly as the DVD movie rental. Heck, anyone remember Beta? When you hold your finished book in your hands like a ...
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October 22, 2009
- (Ref: My blog of 10/21/09) The important question of whether or not posting content on a Red Room blog or member page constitutes “publishing” was handled most expertly by the lady who should know, Ivory Madison. She gives excellent advice in her comments to me following that blog, so I strongly suggest clicking on. (Raymond Mallette also gives honest support.) Eons ago before the ...
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October 21, 2009
- Until I marketed my essay "A Red and Blue Marriage" last year, it had been a long time since I had to write a query letter. I wouldn't mind if I didn't have to write one again! I had forgotten how hard it is to get in what you want to say without sending the editor in a spasm of yawning. How much do you say? Does the editor already know your name, in which case a list of your ...
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October 21, 2009
- Romancing the Lie and the Enlightenment Guru Let me give you a bit more background before I continue. Power, money, position and celebrity do funny things to people and their good judgment. Both the holders of the aforementioned qualities and those with whom they interact. How else do you explain the misguided reasoning of many who say, “Roman Polanski didn't really rape and drug a ...
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October 21, 2009
- One of the small literary presses contends that posting a story on one’s Red Room page or on one’s RR blog constitutes publishing in their eyes and makes such content ineligible for submission to them. They make no mention of first serial rights or anything substantive. Any accurate info on this problem from someone more experienced than I would be beneficial to us all. I’m sure we ...
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October 21, 2009
- Life is almost normal again. At least the routines are settling in. I enjoyed a leisurely second cup of coffee while I did some blog-hopping, catching up on all the sites I hadn't visited while I was away. Of course, as Murphy's Law would have it, I was about to shower and get back to reading the galleys for Nowhere to Hide when I got a call from a Realtor who wanted to show the house. In an ...
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