Month: December 2014

How “Sacred” Is A Print Book?

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This post by Alexander M. Zoltai originally appeared on his Notes From An Alien site on 12/30/14.

The raging argument over print vs e-books—carried out, still, in some of the media—perhaps igniting physical confrontations on a few campuses—a false argument, in my experience…

I read both—both have value to me…

But, there are differences—I can underline a print book but only highlight an e-book—different actions, in my experience.

The New York Review of Books has an article by Tim Parks about underlining and writing in the margins—A Weapon for Readers.

As is my usual reportorial practice, I’ll give you a few excerpts, hoping you’ll read the full article:

“This extravagant regard…is reflected in the treatment of the book itself. The spine must not be bent back and broken, the pages must not be marked with dog ears, there must be no underlining, no writing in the margins.”

 

Read the full post on Notes From An Alien.

 

Smashwords Year in Review 2014 and Plans for 2015

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This post by Mark Coker originally appeared on the Smashwords blog on 12/31/14.

Each year I provide Smashwords authors and publishers a review of our progress in the year as well as hints of our plans for the coming year. So here goes.

2014 marked another exciting year for Smashwords as we create new ebook distribution tools and capabilities that give our authors and publishers a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

If you’re new to Smashwords, a brief introduction to Smashwords is in order.

I founded Smashwords in 2008 to empower writers to become professional self-publishers. I wanted to transfer the power of publishing from publishers to authors. Back in 2008, large publishers controlled the printing press, the knowledge of professional publishing, and the all-important access to retail distribution. Publishers had the power to determine your fate as an author. No more. I wanted to make authors the captains of their own destiny.

Over the last six going on seven years, Smashwords introduced our free ebook printing press, Meatgrinder, which made it possible for any writer anywhere to publish an ebook in minutes; we opened distribution for the first time to major retailers and library partners that were previously inaccessible to self-published authors; we developed sophisticated yet easy-to-use publishing tools that help writers and small indie presses publish with pride and professionalism; we worked to actively educate our authors and publishers how to leverage best practices to publish with greater success; and we’ve been fierce (but friendly!) advocates for the rights and long term interests of the indie author community.

We exist to serve our authors and publishers, and we serve you by developing tools and relationships that help you publish faster, smarter and more effectively. Our time-saving tools help you spend more time writing and producing and less time managing multiple upload platforms.

In the years since we launched, Smashwords has grown to become the world’s largest distributor of self-published books. To the extent we’ve been successful is entirely thanks to the continued support of the authors, publishers and retailers we serve. You’re running a business, and we realize you work with Smashwords by choice, not by necessity. Through continuous improvement of everything we do, we will always work to earn and deserve your continued business, trust and partnership.

So let’s take a look at our progress for the year.

 

Read the full post on the Smashwords blog.

 

Living The Stuff Of Novels: The Ghostwriter’s Lot

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This post by Roz Morris originally appeared on her Nail Your Novel site on 12/14/14.

In this season of the notorious Zoella ghostwritten novel, I’m getting deluged with questions from people who know I ghostwrite. What’s it like? Who have I done? Well, I can’t tell you that because it’s a trade secret. Also because to divulge the details might get me shot. (Though I can give advice on how you get into it – here’s my recent post on that.) As the nation sings Zoella, Zoella, I thought you might like this piece on ghostwriting, originally penned for Authors Electric.

Write what you know? Ho ho ho

An acquaintance from my dance classes read My Memories of a Future Life last month and has since been seeing me in a whole new light. I can tell by the thoughtful looks he gives me as we wince through stretches and wobble through pirouettes; an expression that says ‘I never knew you had that weird stuff going on…’

After class the other day he said to me: ‘that freaky scene with the hypnosis in the underground theatre… you must have been to something like that?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s research and imagination.’ He looked a little disappointed.

 

Read the full post on Nail Your Novel.

 

The Death of the Artist—and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur

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This article by William Deresiewicz originally appeared on The Atlantic on 12/28/14.

Hard-working artisan, solitary genius, credentialed professional—the image of the artist has changed radically over the centuries. What if the latest model to emerge means the end of art as we have known it?

Pronounce the word artist, to conjure up the image of a solitary genius. A sacred aura still attaches to the word, a sense of one in contact with the numinous. “He’s an artist,” we’ll say in tones of reverence about an actor or musician or director. “A true artist,” we’ll solemnly proclaim our favorite singer or photographer, meaning someone who appears to dwell upon a higher plane. Vision, inspiration, mysterious gifts as from above: such are some of the associations that continue to adorn the word.

Yet the notion of the artist as a solitary genius—so potent a cultural force, so determinative, still, of the way we think of creativity in general—is decades out of date. So out of date, in fact, that the model that replaced it is itself already out of date. A new paradigm is emerging, and has been since about the turn of the millennium, one that’s in the process of reshaping what artists are: how they work, train, trade, collaborate, think of themselves and are thought of—even what art is—just as the solitary-genius model did two centuries ago. The new paradigm may finally destroy the very notion of “art” as such—that sacred spiritual substance—which the older one created.

Before we thought of artists as geniuses, we thought of them as artisans. The words, by no coincidence, are virtually the same. Art itself derives from a root that means to “join” or “fit together”—that is, to make or craft, a sense that survives in phrases like the art of cooking and words like artful, in the sense of “crafty.” We may think of Bach as a genius, but he thought of himself as an artisan, a maker. Shakespeare wasn’t an artist, he was a poet, a denotation that is rooted in another word for make. He was also a playwright, a term worth pausing over. A playwright isn’t someone who writes plays; he is someone who fashions them, like a wheelwright or shipwright.

A whole constellation of ideas and practices accompanied this conception. Artists served apprenticeships, like other craftsmen, to learn the customary methods (hence the attributions one sees in museums: “workshop of Bellini” or “studio of Rembrandt”). Creativity was prized, but credibility and value derived, above all, from tradition. In a world still governed by a fairly rigid social structure, artists were grouped with the other artisans, somewhere in the middle or lower middle, below the merchants, let alone the aristocracy. Individual practitioners could come to be esteemed—think of the Dutch masters—but they were, precisely, masters, as in master craftsmen. The distinction between art and craft, in short, was weak at best. Indeed, the very concept of art as it was later understood—of Art—did not exist.

 

Read the full article on The Atlantic.

 

Business Musings: Things Indie Writers Learned in 2014

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This post by Kristine Kathryn Rusch originally appeared on her site on 12/23/14.

I’d love to say nothing, but that’s not true—if we’re discussing indie writers who have remained in the business for several years. There will always be new indie writers who know very little, and there will always be those with “experience” who turn a year or two worth of sales into a know-it-all platform.

However, those indie writers who’ve been at this since the beginning of the self-publishing revolution in 2009 have learned a lot in 2014. Like last week’s piece, “What Traditional Publishing Learned in 2014,” this week’s will be my opinion. Next week, I’ll examine what I learned (or relearned) in 2014, before moving to brand-new topics.

A few bits of organizational business: Unlike my previous two blog series, The Freelancer’s Survival Guide  and The Business Rusch, Business Musings will appear irregularly. Sometimes it’ll show up in the old Thursday slot like last week’s, and sometimes it’ll show up on a different day like this week’s. Sometimes it’ll be long (like this week), sometimes there will be two or three posts in a week, and sometimes there will be none. If you worry that you might miss one, check back and look at the tab Business Musings under either the Business Resources or Writer Resources in the header.

Also, please note that, as in the past, I’ll be using “indie writer” instead of “self-published writer,” following the music model. I’ll also talk about “indie publishing” instead of “self publishing,” because so many writers who are not with traditional publishers have started their own presses. It’s not accurate to lump all writers who are not following the traditional route into the self-publishing basket any longer, if it ever was.

So, back to the topic at hand. What did indie writers learn in 2014? I wish they all learned the same things simultaneously, but they didn’t (and won’t). I also wish that there were indie writer financial statements, like there are financial statements for the big traditional publishers (which is what I based much of last week’s piece on).

Even if indie writers have formed corporations, those corporations are privately held, and therefore the quarterly financial reports are not public. Privately held companies do not need to list their earnings to anyone outside of the company (except the IRS), and therefore the smart ones do not.

So, in this blog post, I’m piecing together a lot of other people’s blog posts, anecdotal evidence, and just plain common sense. In other words, good old journalist me feels a bit uncomfortable, even though this is an opinion piece, because I don’t have as much quantifiable information as I’m used to for these blogs.

What have indie writers learned?

 

Read the full, very lengthy (and very much worth reading in full) post, which goes into detail on 15 specific lessons learned, on Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s site.

 

Amazon Offers All-You-Can-Eat Books. Authors Turn Up Noses.

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This article by David Streitfeld originally appeared on The New York Times on 12/27/14.

Authors are upset with Amazon. Again.

For much of the last year, mainstream novelists were furious that Amazon was discouraging the sale of some titles in its confrontation with the publisher Hachette over e-books.

Now self-published writers, who owe much of their audience to the retailer’s publishing platform, are unhappy.

One problem is too much competition. But a new complaint is about Kindle Unlimited, a new Amazon subscription service that offers access to 700,000 books — both self-published and traditionally published — for $9.99 a month.

It may bring in readers, but the writers say they earn less. And in interviews and online forums, they have voiced their complaints.

“Six months ago people were quitting their day job, convinced they could make a career out of writing,” said Bob Mayer, an e-book consultant and publisher who has written 50 books. “Now people are having to go back to that job or are scraping to get by. That’s how quickly things have changed.”

 

Read the full article on The New York Times.

 

Do We Live In A Post-Plagiarism World?

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This post by Derek Murphy originally appeared on his CreativIndie site on 12/9/14.

Today I read two articles.

The first is the plagiarism case indie author Rachel Ann Nunes raised against Tiffanie Rushton, an elementary school teacher. Tiffanie allegedly took Rachel’s self-published book, added some sex scenes and republished it as her own.

Rachel has already spent $20,000 in court fees and is using PRweb.com to get the word out so she can raise $100,000 extra to continue the lawsuit.

The article laments that, while traditionally published authors are backed by publishers with deep pockets, for indie authors there is nothing they can do.

But I’m not taken in by this sob story.

Yes it sucks.

It’s brutal to have somebody steal your work and try to sell it as theirs.

But it’s also pretty simple and easy to get Amazon to remove the book in question.

A couple of emails and Rachel could have gotten Tiffanie’s book removed from Amazon and from other online ebook stores.

So what’s the lawsuit for?

 

Read the full post on CreativIndie.

 

Finding Your Genre: An Epiphany

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This post by Christa Allan originally appeared on Jamie Chavez’ site on 12/22/14.

If you’re not from New Orleans and you find yourself plopped in the Big Easy one day, it’s likely one of the first questions you’ll hear is “Where did you go to school?”

Here’s a “quirk alert” that will navigate you through this disarmingly simple question. If you answer with the name of a college or city or state, we’ll know you’re definitely someone who lives outside the greater New Orleans area.

When locals ask that question of one another, we respond with the name of our high school. You may have attended Harvard, been selected as a Rhodes Scholar, or graduated from the University of Paris-Sorbonne. To us, those distinctions provide little, if any, information about the real you.

But a high school? Say a name and we’ll know if it’s public, private, religious, the demographics of the neighborhood in which you were raised, where you shopped and ate, your friends … For the most part, our high schools defined us and were reference points for those who didn’t know us well. And there were anomalies, like the kids awarded scholarships to private schools or the ones who transferred to schools whose football teams won championships.

So finishing my first novel and being asked about genre was as disarming as a tourist being asked about school.

 

Read the full post on Jamie Chavez’ site.

 

Artists and Personal Responsibility, Or Why There's Nothing "Terrifying" Nor Even Surprising About Sony Pulling 'The Interview'

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This post by Publetariat founder and Editor in Chief April L. Hamilton originally appeared on her Indie Author blog on 12/18/14 and is reprinted here in its entirety with her permission.

RE: The Interview, here’s a comment I posted in reply to Chuck Wendig’s blog post Art Held Hostage: Why Sony Not Releasing “The Interview” Is Scary. This is my response to those who say Sony’s decision to pull the Seth Rogen / James Franco comedy film The Interview, in which two hapless celebrity interviewers get an interview with Kim Jong Un and are pressed into service by the U.S. government to use their access to assassinate Un, is “terrifying”, “horrifying”, “scary” and lots of other hyperbolic adjectives:

– – – – –

Y’know, the go-to solution to this problem has always been not to name specific names. It’s one thing to make a film about a group of CIA operatives trying to take down “a Russian official” who’s made to look and sound like Putin but is given a totally different name (such that the audience knows exactly who’s being portrayed, even if it’s not explicitly stated), but it’s a horse of a different color when that same film is made and DOES have an actor portraying the REAL Putin. Naming ANY specific, real-life individual, especially the real-world leader of a sovereign nation, in a story that mocks that individual or lays out an assassination plot against that individual (that’s backed by the U.S. government) is asking for trouble. This is why the Roman A Clef has a long and celebrated history.

Sure, in a perfect world any artist should be able to make whatever art he or she wants so long as it doesn’t break actual laws or harm actual people. But there’s ‘a perfect world’ and the world we actually live in, which is populated by plenty of crazy and heavily-armed people, and when there’s a very simple alternative that can accomplish the same artistic ends *without* putting anyone’s data or lives at risk, why not just go with the alternative? Would you rather compromise a little and still get your art and message out there, or dig in your heels and see your art wielded as a tool to do gross injury to innocent people?

— END COMMENT —
–BEGIN COMMENTARY–

Whither the artist’s personal responsibility and common sense? Does the right to make a statement of some sort trump all other concerns, including the safety and security of innocent people?

A photo-realistic painting of hundreds of actual rape victims’ hospital ID bands would make a powerful statement about the numbers of girls and women who are victimized in such a way, but it would also be an irresponsible thing to put on display because it would make the victims’ identities public. And the artist should know that.

A performance art piece in which someone dressed as a police officer pretends to choke a black child to death in the middle of a town square, in plain view of passersby, while others dressed as police stand with their backs turned, would make a powerful statement about the de-facto police state that exists in many parts of this country. But it would also put everyone who’s participating at risk from people who don’t know it’s a performance art piece, and might step in to try and assist the “victim”. In this age of cell phones everywhere, it would also likely become an internet sensation of false reporting by well-meaning people who’d post their images and videos online with statements about ongoing police brutality, which in turn would foment more anger and hostility toward police in general. And the artist should know that.

My point is this: art is not “being held hostage” in this case. This is a case about a breathtaking lack of judgment on the part of Sony execs who greenlit this project without a thought about the entirely predictable fallout. It would’ve been a simple matter to tell Rogen and Franco their script could only be produced if the “dear leader” character were given a different name and and were put in charge of a fictional regime in a fictional country.

Before anyone cries, “CENSORSHIP!” stop and think it through. Would the substance of the film be altered to any significant degree? Would the jokes still work? Would the central message still be there for any who cared to hear it?

Now ask yourself: if that were the film Sony made, would thousands of innocent Sony employees still have their social security numbers and medical records leaked to the public? Would Sony’s servers still be wiped? Would we be hearing threats of terrorist acts against innocent moviegoers? I think not.

This is the juncture at which the Stand On Principle types usually chime in to say that forcing artists to consider the possible threats of hackers and terrorists when art is created effectively stifles the statements those artists want to make. But it doesn’t, as centuries of Roman A Clef novels have proven over and again: you can make your point and get your statement across without putting any innocents in harm’s way.

If you feel so strongly about whatever it is you want to say as an artist that you’re willing to be martyred for it, by all means go right ahead. If your statement puts others in harm’s way however, you better think pretty damned long and hard before making it. Who are you to decide for everyone else that your precious artistic integrity is worth the potential harm to others?

If there’s a way to make that same statement without bringing harm to other people and you still choose the route that makes sacrificial lambs of others—people you don’t even know—, I don’t care if you’re an artist or not, and I don’t care how important your statement may be: in my opinion, you’re just being selfish and irresponsible, and any harm that comes to others as a result of reactions to your art is your fault.

 

The Copyright Naughty List

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This post by Susan Spann originally appeared on the Writers in the Storm blog on 12/10/14.

Happy Holidays!

‘Tis the season to stay off the copyright “naughty list,” so I’m here to share a few #PubLaw tips for avoiding copyright infringement in your holiday blogging and social media celebrations!

When celebrating online this holiday season, keep these helpful rules in mind:

SONGS (AND LYRICS) ARE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

At the holidays, it’s tempting to re-post the lyrics to favorite carols or celebratory songs, either on Facebook, on a blog, or on other social media sites. Unfortunately, lyric-sharing often violates the copyright of the lyricist or songwriter, because lyrics are protected by copyright, as are novels, short stories and poems.

Posting an excerpt (no more than 2-3 lines) is often permitted as “fair use,” especially when the quoted work runs at least 30 lines. However, there is no absolute test for fair use, and no definitive test for when you’ve used too much of a copyrighted work. The legal test is “facts and circumstances,” based on several factors (so anyone who tells you “X lines is ok, but more is not” isn’t telling you the absolute legal truth.

 

Read the full post on Writers in the Storm.

 

13 Female Nobel Laureates In Literature

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This infographic from Fresh Essays is reproduced here in its entirety with that site’s permission.

13 Female Nobel Laureates In Literature

Courtesy of: http://www.freshessays.com

 

NaNoWriMo Doesn’t Matter

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This post by Chuck Wendig originally appeared on his terribleminds blog on 12/1/14. Warning: strong language.

On November 1st, NaNoWriMo matters.

On November 8th, it still matters.

On November 13th, 18th, 24th, mmm, yep, it matters.

(Thanksgiving? Only pie matters. Do not argue this.)

On November 30th? Still matters!

December 1st?

*the quiet sound of crickets fucking*

Today, it doesn’t matter.

This isn’t a dismissal of National Novel Writing Month. Not at all. I’ve come around to love the spirit around that month — a 30 day descent into the lunacy of being a novelist, equal parts fun and frustration (“funstration!”). A hard dive into creative waters. Let it fill your lungs. Drown in it.

Rock the fuck on.

But right now? It doesn’t matter. NaNoWriMo is just the wrapping, the trapping, the springboard, the diving board. It’s what got you going, but it isn’t what matters.

What matters is you. What matters is the work.

And right now, you’ve got something.

I don’t know if it’s finished or not. Did you win or lose?

Forget winning and losing.

You left those words behind when NaNoWriMo ended. What matters now is what happens next.

Don’t know what happens next? Here. I’m going to tell you. Or, at least, I’m going to give you a general idea of what happens next — a menu of permutations and possibilities.

If you didn’t finish what you started, you’re going to finish it. (Why? I told you that last week.)

And if you did finish it?

 

Read the full post on Chuck Wendig’s terribleminds blog.

 

Start Here: How to Get Your Book Published

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This post by Jane Friedman originally appeared on her site on 1/28/12.

Publetariat Editor’s Note: We mostly focus on the indie and small press routes to publication here at Publetariat, but since the hybrid publishing model (a mix of indie and mainstream releases) can be very effective it’s never a bad idea to share information on how things work in traditonal publishing, too.

It’s the most frequently asked question I receive: How do I get my book published?

Unfortunately, when I hear this question, I know I’m dealing with someone who is at such a beginning stage that it’s difficult to know where to begin.

With this post, I hope to offer the most critical information and address the most pressing questions, as well as provide a starting point for more fully exploring what it means for you to try and get meaningfully published. I’ve also created an Amazon list of the best resources on this topic.

If you’d like an in-depth guide on how to get your book published, consider my book on the topic: Publishing 101: A First-Time Author’s Guide.

 

First: The Difference Between Fiction and Nonfiction

Novelists (fiction writers) follow a different path to publication than nonfiction authors.

Novels and memoirs: You must have a finished and polished manuscript before you look for a publisher or an agent. While you may have heard of some novels or memoirs being sold based on an idea or proposal, this is rare for first-time authors without a strong publishing track record.

For most nonfiction: Rather than completing a manuscript, you should write a book proposal—basically like a business plan for your book—that will convince a publisher to contract and pay you to write the book. For more information on book proposals and what they entail, click here.

 

Read the full post on Jane Friedman’s site.

 

6 Tips For Becoming A Better Writer

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This post by Eric Barker originally appeared on Business Insider on 11/11/14.

U want 2B a better writer?

Good writing is often looked at as an art and, frankly, that can be intimidating. No need to worry. There are rules — even science —  behind writing well.

Our brain works a particular way; so what rules do we need to know to write the way the brain best understands?

To find out the answer I gave Steven Pinker a call.

Steven is a cognitive scientist and linguist at Harvard. He’s also on the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary.

Steven was recently ranked as one of the top 100 most eminent psychologists of the modern era.

His latest book is “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century“. And it’s great.

Below you’ll learn:

  1. The two key elements that will improve your writing.
  2. The biggest mistake we all make — and how to fix it.
  3. The science behind what makes writing work.
  4. The most pleasant way to improve your knowledge of grammar.

And a lot more. Let’s get to work.

 

Read the full post on Business Insider.

 

The Making Of A Boxed Set

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This post originally appeared on SFR Brigade on 11/13/14.

Boxed sets are a popular commodity at the moment. You see them everywhere, collections of stories by a variety of authors, grouped under some unifying label. But there’s a lot of work involved in putting a set like this together. That’s why we thought we’d share our experiences and lessons learned.

Earlier in the year, one of the members of the SFR Brigade asked for volunteers for an SFR boxed set. Eleven of us promptly banded together, and our Nebula Nights collection appeared in e-bookstores in record time. Since its release at the beginning of August, the set reached #1 on Kobo and All Romance, and charted as high as #3 on Amazon in science fiction romance. The book maintained an Amazon ranking above 10,000 for most of those three months. So you could say it did well. At the end of October, our contract with the publisher expired, so we decided to go it alone, since the set is still selling quite strongly. This article is a combination of what we did, and what we learned from our experience with the publisher.

Ready to go?

What’s your goal?
There’s no point in embarking on a project like this if you don’t know what you’re intending to achieve. In creating Nebula Nights, we wanted to showcase our genre, and encourage readers to purchase more of each author’s work. In quantifiable terms, we aimed at reaching one of the major lists, like the NYT or USA Today. It’s good to dream big!

 

Read the full post on SFR Brigade.