Bookish thoughts 7 Aug: tech meets books; plot holes and broken ankles; digitising Galileo & more!

RIASS stuff:

Book Review: Your Voice in My Head by Emma Forrest'Rating:

Book Review: Ada's Rules by Alice Randall'Rating:

Excerpt and Giveaway: Big Sky Mountain by Linda Lael Miller'(open to US/Canadian readers)

Id also like to extend a huge thank you to reader Maxim Z for his generous donation to RIASS.

Other bookish stuff:

An interview with Fanny Merkin, author of the 50 Shames of Earl Grey parody'Im going to have a listen to this one tonightthe Bat Segundo show is always good value for money. Apparently this one looks at'pen names and impostors, romance novel writing aspirations, having multiple identities on Twitter, and plenty more besides.

John Curran on Agatha Christie scholarship'Curran is an author of two books about the work of Agatha Christie, and talks about how the became the greatest detective of our time. One interesting point is how apparently disorderly Christies notebooks werenotes for a particular book were often scattered throughout a variety of notebooks. Makes me feel a little better about the jumble of post-it notes on my desk.

On why writing is a better form of self-promotion than tweeting about your cats'The article makes a great point about people mistaking social media for the marketing platform that they so desperately think they need to have to sell their books. Social media is'social, guys. Its not called marketing media, you know. Although theres certainly some purpose to getting your name out there in the wilds of the internet, another good way to do so is write good books. And more than one of them. The author asks how youre expected to do your writing justice if youre spending 80% of your writing time self-promoting, and I think its a good point. A good promotion can work wonders, but its probably in an authors best interests to pick a type of promotion that requires them to put in the effort'once and can then be repurposed, rather than submitting to a gazillion blog tour interviews. When was the last time you saw a blog tour go viral? Infographics, spiffy Pinterest boards, spin-off short stories, and so onsurely they offer better value for money.

Alison Mercer'on why fiction doesnt deliver birth scenes'A good birth scene has tension, intimacy, a sense of jeopardy ' all the ingredients which make for a memorable sex scene, too. (In fact, sex and death, Yeatss fit subjects, are never very far away ' and how could they be?) But theyre not easy to write.

On the future of the book (yes, yes, again, I know)'Two spiffy tech peeps talk about a couple of projects theyve been working on to help improve the reading experience. One is designed to allow paragraph-level annotations and discussions of digital texts; another allows an online bookclub to get together and read and discuss a book in a browser.

On filling plot holes'without breaking an ankle.'Tips include having enough distance from your work, being able to sum up each scene and contextualise it within the work, looking at cause/effect issues and character emotion, and having the guts to go crazy with your red pen.

Digitisation and the Galileo Library'The Galileo Library in Florence, Italy, has been proactive about digitising its older volumesand given the damage caused by a recent flood, its a good thing they have been. You can also check out their collection here.

Google records show that its book scanning was aimed at Amazon'Records indicate that Googles initial designs were to keep web searchers from Amazon. I guess they were way ahead of my recent epiphany that Amazon is exploiting SEO and Google search in order to draw users its waytheres a reason why Amazon internal search is so crap.

On publishing in the age of social media'This article looks at the impact of the digital shift on news publishing. The focus of news publishers continues to be the collection and dissemination of news items, and sales teams tend to continue to look towards subscriptions and advertising. News publishers continue to offer a destination service, where readers come to'them for their news. Papers like the Financial Times have kept ahead of the, er, times by looking at multi-channel subscription models that offer more options to their increasingly fragmented readership. What hasnt been addressed, however, is how to deal with the fact that many people are getting their news from third party platforms such as Twitter, or third party aggregatorsboth of which are beginning to affect the newspaper as curator position.

Rebecca York shares writing advice at On Romance Writing'York emphasises how important it is to know your market, and gives a breakdown of the differences between the category romances and the single title romances she writes. She looks at elements such the degree of realism expected (more in single title romances), the type of language that can be used (category romances are more conservative when it comes to sexual language), and when the hero and heroine need to be introduced (pretty much straight away in a category romance; less so in a single title).

A new audiobook mixtape program for iPhone users'It looks like these guys are striving to be the new Audible.

Lee and Lows Tu books imprint has launched the New Visions Writers Award for US-based PoC authors of childrens books

And Visibility Fiction, which focuses on inclusive YA fiction, has just been launched.

A podcast interview with Alice Randall on her new book'Adas Rules (which I reviewed yesterday). Theres some interesting discussion about the different body narratives that people deal with depending on their cultural backgrounds.

Legend Press is looking for recipe testers for the Dessert Deli'cookbook, which is out 31st Oct please email info@legendpress.co.uk

The book trailer for Cat Valentes The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There: