RIASS stuff:
Mr Darcy and The Awkward Man: the perils of shyness in literature'In which I reflect on being shy and the problems of first impressions in both books and real life.
Review: Nikki and the Lone Wolf/Mardie and the City Surgeon by Marion Lennox'Rating: 
Runaway pups and country lovin. Aw.
Starting over: thoughts on rebuilding my book collection from scratch'A follow-up to my post on'clearing out my bookshelves.
Giveaway: House at the End of the Street by Lily Blake'(Aus onlylast days!)
Other bookish stuff:
Sue Bursztynski on the current changes in publishing, and how they compare with those in the past.'Nothing really changes, does it? The entire culture of publication in Caxtons time would have had to change from terribly expensive manuscripts which only the very rich could afford to printed books. [And now]'Publishers not only have to work out how to deal with sales theres the whole Digital Rights Management thing, where you cant transfer your book from one gadget to another and the question of do you own your books anyway and can you leave them to your family but the matter of who can publish.
The bookshop strikes back: opening a bookshop in the era of Amazon'The word had spread to the Southern Hemisphere: in Australia, all anyone wanted to talk about was the bookstore. Journalists were calling from Germany and India, wanting to talk about the bookstore. Every interview started off the same way: Hadn't I heard the news? Had no one thought to tell me? Bookstores were over. Then, one by one, the interviewers recounted the details of their own favorite stores, and I listened. They told me, confidentially and off the record, that they thought I just might succeed.
On feeling as though your writing career is coming apart at the seams'I thought about my writer friends, and how I'll never be able to do what they do'I don't have their genius, I can't write a book in a year, and I don't write the kinds of novels that will top the'New York Times'best-seller list, or become movies, or at least provide a steady income'and I cried even more. But what's even worse than the idea that I broke my book and that I'll never be able to make a career out of writing is the realisation that the thing that had always comforted me and given me strength to endure painful times was now the source of my pain. Oh gosh, I can completely identify with this. Ive been an absolute mess of frustration and dejection this week.
Feeling itchy? It might be that youve brought home an army of bedbugs with your library books
The suspension of disbelief in science fiction and fantasy'In order for it to work, speculative fiction has to work both as straight fiction and for its speculative elements. That is, with speculative fiction, there are factors at work that can cause loss of the author's trust with regard to both the straight and the speculative aspects.
Tansy Rayner Roberts on historically accurate sexism in fantasy'Women's lives were not written down except on the rare occasions that they were useful tools in the politics of men, or where maligning/celebrating them was relevant to the politics of men, bu that doesn't mean they weren't really, really interesting by modern standards.'History is not society. It only covers one aspect. History is imperfect, and biased, and it always, always has omissions. The most common omissions are the bits that the writer of that history took for granted that his readers would know.
Entangled Publishing is looking for help naming its new New Adult line
Bloom: a newly launched website for authors aged 40 and over when they were first published or first started to bloom.'I am hoping that Bloom might help relieve some of that pressure for younger writers, to publish fast and young. I dont think weve quite figured out how to do this, but I want readers to know that Bloom is for young writers as much as it is for older writers.
and Emma Straub on being a late bloomer'I was confident that I was a hard worker, and a good writer, and that I had things to say. I set a deadline for myself'as long as I published a book by the time I was 25, I would be happy. Then it was that I just had to'sell'the book by the time I was 25. Then I was 25 and bookless, and nothing bad happened to me. No pianos fell on my head, no witchy old ladies cursed me, I didn't suddenly die in my sleep. Most important, nothing happened to my drive to write'there was no age limit on my imagination or creativity. This was a revelation.
Decoding dystopia in pop culture'(author Jonathan)'Maberry insists it's not the dystopian stories themselves that intrigue readers, it's the idea that the teens who survive the apocalypse or escape dystopia' build something new. 'The characters in the story serve as proxies for us, he says, just as they do in traditional monster stories. 'It's not about the vampire, it's about the people that fight the vampire
Cuba is keen to start producing ebooks, but is wary about an effective blockade from the UScurrent trade agreements mean that US citizens cant take books produced in Cuba back into the US.
NYT creates separate MG and YA listsand the Dystel and Goderich agency chimes in. Digging into the sales numbers a bit, it's clear just how disadvantaged MG books are. Without the non-fiction to compete with, the YA list features titles on the main list that aren't selling as well as some of the titles on the MG extended list. I'm basing this on one list, but from what I can see, it's going to be much more difficult to have a MG bestseller than a YA one.
Ever thought about quitting Twitter for a month?'The problem that occurs is that it can be a huge mental lease we're signing when we invite a few hundred people into our Twitter life. To some degree, it is choosing to subject ourselves to thousands of ads throughout the day, but ones that come from trusted sources we care about, so they're actually impactful.'Even if the people we know aren't explicitly selling things (not that there's anything wrong with that) or Promoting their Personal Brand' (there is everything wrong with that), we're still choosing to accept their stream of one-second ads with *some* kind of message all day.
