RIASS stuff:
Book Review: Silhouette by Thalia Kalkipsakis'Rating: 
Book Review: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro'Rating:
Giveaway: Pearl Verses the World by Sally Murphy'(open to all)
After a few months of discussion with the WordPress help desk, it looks as though my lost subscribers are going to stay lost. If youre one of those poor souls, you can resubscribe here.
Other bookish stuff:
Have you completed the'Australian Romance Readers Survey 2012?
Catherine McKenzie sums up the recent review kerfuffle and ponders how it will affect social media.'But if the articles above are reflective of whats really going on, most authors and people who love books will be driven from social media. Who but the most masochistic amongst us would stay in a forum where people are encouraged to be mean to one another and where everything nice is false?
Journalist and editor Charlotte Harper has launched a new digital-first publishing business called Editia'The business will focus on long-form journalism and short non-fiction.
Thank goodness for this pink for her Bic biro. However would I have expressed myself if I were forced to rely on gender non-specific design?
Are authors neurotic perfectionists?'Angela Scott looks at the typical signs and symptoms of neurosis, and argues that authors fit most of them. Also this: And to top it all off, as a writer, you never know if what you write straddles genius or stupidity. If someone says youre a genius, you think them a liar. If someone calls your work stupid, you think theyre too dumb to know anything.
An interview with Arthur Koestler. I particularly like this quote about reviewing: You force yourself to read very carefully and it triggers off unexpected trains of thought. Also you find yourself reading books you wouldn't normally read.
Do reviewers target female authors?'The author notes that though only around 1/3 of the books reviewed in major publications are by women, they tend to be the ones that are savaged by (largely male) critics.
YA and Middle Grade books bound for the big screen'Some of these, I think, would actually be better suited to the big screen than as novels. The Lauren Oliver books, for example, suffer in their world-building, but I think its easier to gloss over that on the big screen than in a book.
Is your book a unique snowflake of astounding, incomparable genius? Ebony McKenna wants to have a word with you.'The whole idea of promoting your book is to reach an audience. By stating what your book is like, in comparison to other books, you begin to target the title towards your most receptive audience. And they would be readers of your genre.
William Kennedy'on awards'I've got something like a thousand letters, and the only thing I can do is try to answer some of them. Some I'll never get to, but I keep trying. All this is very time-consuming. The fact is that it's also very pleasant. I'm solvent, I can travel, I've been able to rewire the house, dig a new well, install a new furnace, put in a pool.
Self-published authors are cracking the sads over Sue Graftons assertions that theyre taking publishing short-cuts'Charges of elitism have been levelled at Grafton, who has argued that being able to write publishable material takes time, but that this learning curve is now being bypassed by people who can just whack their work up online. And to be honest, for the most part I agree. Although there are some self-published authors out there who do write at a publishable level, have a good understanding of the market, and put in plenty of editorial and marketing effort, I suspect that these are a small percentage of a greater number who are all about uploading PDFs their mum loves to Amazon.
Holly Kensch on loving words and eschewing grammatical rules.'Words are the real playground for writers. They are our sites for fun, play, discovery, exploration, and creativity. Enhance your use of words by understanding and respecting their correct usages. Just don't allow the rules to restrain your relationship with words.
Have poorly behaving authors affected your reading of their books (or even whether you choose to read them?)'I generally ignore the riffraff getting up to mischief online, so I dont really see much of this stuff, and accordingly, it probably doesnt really affect my reading. Although to be honest, these mischief-makers are typically so small fry that I wouldnt see their stuff anyway. However, when it comes to authors with more clout, and who use that platform not to moan about bad reviews etc, but to rail against things that I believe to be fundamental rights? Well, yeah, they probably wont get my money.
Galleycat is assembling a list of the best bookshops on Tumblr
Based in Canada?'Harlequins Digital Publishing team is looking for an Editorial Assistant (1 year contract, Toronto)
Send to Kindle
Bookish thoughts 30 Aug: http://t.co/EBxII73f reviewing & reading horizons, your book is not unique, grumpy self-pubbers & more!
Im tired of all the bitching and whining going on in the book world. I ignore most of it, except the cash for reviews thing, which has made me distrust most book reviews. Everyone wants to be a writer these days, but their motive seems to be more about making money than making art. Maybe we do need cultural gatekeepers, which is the role traditional publishers exercised. Now, its a free-for-all and everyone can self-publish their writing. Im not convinced this is a good thing.
I think I only see a tiny portion of what actually goes onapparently theres been all sorts of mischief going on across the various social networks and sites such as Goodreads. I think part of the problem is that creative types personal and professional identities are so interlinked that its very easy for a critique of a book to be taken as a critique of a person, and thus for drama to arise. I think this is also encouraged by all this emphasis on authors getting out there and networking and promoting. Theyre being asked to put their personal self out there as a proxy for their work rather than letting their work stand on its own.
On some level I like that the internet has opened up the world to writers and creative typesmost of my clients are overseas, and my agent is as well, and that probably wouldnt have been possible ten or so years ago. But at the same time, the egalitarianism of the internet has arrived at the same time as the special snowflake ideology, where everyones work is apparently meant to be given the same amount of weight and attention, no matter how good or terrible that work is. I do think that self-publishing can be dangerous in that it allows people to bypass the apprenticeship of writing, and this isnt a good thing.
LOL. Ebony McKenna wants to have a word with you.
Oh dear, I can be very schoolmarm-ish at times.
Then again, I noticed someone on twitter who had previously said, Unlike any other then tweeted later in the day, after my bloglesson, that her book was like a similar book in the genre so, hey, maybe its working? :-D
Haha, glad to see that your stern ways are beating people into submission. :) I think having a starting point for comparison is really helpful, and agree that authors need to help their potential readers figure out into which genre/area their books fall, rather than making the reader try to figure it out by themselves. Keeping the barrier to entry low is always a good idea!
Hey, Steph! Just dropping by to say hello.
Ive been slack lately :p
Hope youre well :)
Cheerts!
Good to see you, Tien! For some reason I havent been getting your blog updates, so I havent been by. Ill add you to my Google Reader as well so that I have a backup :)