Monthly Archives: January 2010

Stumped by Dialogue?

This is just to let you know that one of our advertisers, Pennwriters.com, has a very affordable online class for learning to write effective dialogue beginning February 1st.

The course instructor is writer Catherine McLean:

“Catherine McLean is a published author of science fiction, paranormal, and contemporary (romance) short stories. She has had more than two dozen articles published on the craft of writing. For more than ten years she’s given workshop for writers at conferences, college personal enrichment courses, and online writing courses.”

You can find out more about Ms. McLean at her Web site, WritersCheatSheets.com.

Filed under: Writing, advice for writers, dialogue, Education, Online instruction, online writing classes, Pennwriters, writing classes

Interview with Laura Kinsale

Lessons in French

Lessons in French

I get to read a lot of interviews with writers, editors, publishers, and other assorted interesting people. This interview posted on Tartitude is very fun. Not just because award-winning NYT best-selling author Laura Kinsale has a new book out, but Hope101′s interview questions aren’t just the same old standards, either, and Ms. Kinsale’s answers have humor, heart, and a sense of fun that’s a joy to read.

Ms. Kinsale has more advice for writers in a Q&A posted today on Apprentice Writer, as well.

You can follow Hope101 on Twitter: @tartitude

You can follow Laura Kinsale on Twitter: @LauraKinsale

You can find Lessons in French at your local bookstore, or your favorite online bookseller.

Filed under: Interviews, advice for writers, authors, historical romance, Interview, Laura Kinsale, news, Writers

Pray for Haiti

As empathy fatigue sets in and life presents challenges that are geographically closer to each of us, please let’s take a few moments to recall the perhaps hundreds of thousands dead, and even more still suffering.

And please let’s all spend the time and energy it takes to help, in whatever ways we possibly can. Because I do believe that we are charged to be our brother’s keeper, in pretty much any belief system or faith I’ve ever been exposed to.

Filed under: Miscellany, compassion, Haiti

Slush

A rather silly and  inaccurate article from WSJ proclaiming The Death of the Slush Pile.

An excellent post on agent Janet Reid’s blog, Slush Works.

A discussion on the AW forums, that references both essays.

This stuff comes up every now and then. Every week it seems like some new Website goes up, announcing that they’ll revolutionize the publishing industry by collecting writers in one place for agents and editors to browse at their leisure; this is such a common meme that savvy writers simply call these sites YADS: Yet Another Display Site.

A mighty pile of paperEvery week it seems like some newspaper looking to fill column inches runs a scare piece about the death of the slush pile, all the ways publishing is doomed, the “revolution” in “indie” publishing or yet another ridiculous story about submitting a re-keyed manuscript version of Gone With the Wind, and—quelle surprise!—receiving form rejections from agents too canny to verbally engage with some wingnut who’s just submitted a re-keyed manuscript of Gone With the Wind…Then Twitter explodes with links to the original essay, writers despair, bloggers pontificate, and message-board threads proliferate on writer’s fora across the Web.

Read those pieces more closely. Too often,  these articles are thinly-disguised, self-serving press-releases pretending to be articles. Remember a few things. Remember that there are some very key differences between fiction and nonfiction publishing. Remember that book-selling and publishing, while very closely related and interdependent, aren’t the same industry.

Most of all, remember that an article full of speculation full of doom and gloom and looming apocalypse is just more interesting reading than an essay that says, “Yep. Writing is a competitive and challenging aspiration. You’ll have to work your ass off, and you still may not make it. That hasn’t changed one little bit in centuries, so don’t look for it to change anytime soon.”

The best essay I’ve ever read about slush, by the way, is Teresa Nielsen Hayden’s Slushkiller. You should read it, if you haven’t. You should read the comments, too. And if you’ve already read it, you should probably read it again. Every writer I know actually finds it oddly encouraging.

Filed under: The Business of Writing, authors, news, publishing, slush, slush pile, submissions, submitting, Writers

SFWA Panel on Google Book Settlement

Google and the Google Book Settlement might be one of the biggest  concerns of the entire decade for published writers. Ursula K. LeGuin resigned from the Authors Guild, because of their capitulation.

So very much has been written about this wrangle and Google’s rather blatant attempt to completely revise copyright law, and I won’t try to recap it all, here. SFWA is hosting an online panel discussing the Google Book Settlement, and you’re invited.

The text-based panel will be held at 11 a.m. (EST) Jan. 21 and will run for 90 minutes on the SFWA discussion forums. The text will create an instant transcript for writers who cannot make the opening discussion. After the first 30 minutes of discussion, the floor will open for questions from the audience. The online discussion is open to the public, although anyone wishing to ask questions must register at the website. Visit the SFWA discussion forums at http://www.sfwa.org/online-google-settlement-panel/ to watch the panel and to register.

figs want to be free

Here are some links to read, if you’re still feeling in the dark about all this, and how it might concern you and your book:

Wired article about the original proposed settlement

Some criticism of the revised version of the proposed settlement

One take on where things are now, and what objections remain

A petition to be presented to the Court, expressing the opinion of the undersigned authors

I’m generally a fan of Google. But I’m vehemently opposed to their proposed end run around all existing copyright law. They’ve apparently decided that, not only do “figs want to be free” but that they’re big enough to simply set up their own fruit stand with other people’s figs.

Filed under: The Business of Writing, Writers, Cluetrain Manifesto, Google Book Settlement

Backspace Writers Conference

Pen nibJust a reminder to those of you thinking about attending Backspace Writers Conference in May, you’ll get an early registration discount if you register before February 1.

(In the interests of full disclosure, Backspace does advertise with AbsoluteWrite on occasion, but this is not a paid post, and I’ve personally heard really excellent things about this conference.)

This is a terrific opportunity for agents and writers to find each other. From the Backspace FAQ:

Both the Agent-Author Seminar and the 2010 Backspace Writers Conference offer access to agents so that authors can talk about their project, get a feel for the agents’ personalities and interests, and learn from the agents’ cumulative knowledge and experience. We offer workshops, not pitch sessions, which means that while an author can get their work in front of agents, if the agents feel it’s not yet ready (or if your opus is not quite finished), authors haven’t burned any bridges. The agents know that based on what authors learn at the conference, they might want to take another pass through their manuscript before they submit it. So while ideally, authors will be coming to the seminar with a finished manuscript in hand, they can still connect with agents and learn from their feedback, even if their work is not quite finished.

Writers generally have to do a lot of self-educating about both writing craft and the publishing industry. Conferences like Backspace Writers Conference can offer an excellent set of resources for a writer’s continuing education and professional network.

Filed under: Agents, Miscellany, Agents, Backspace Writers Conference, Education, Networking

A Quick Note

Just wanted to let you guys know I’m down with the flu, right now. On the mend, but still not anything like functional.

In the meantime, just in case you didn’t realize these resources are out there, let me direct your attention to these two writing-related and markets-listing sites that can save you hours of chasing around on the Web:

Duotrope’s Digest
“a free writers’ resource listing over 2750 current Fiction and Poetry publications. Use this page to search for markets that may make a fine home for the piece you just polished. Use the menus at the top and right to explore the rest of the free services we offer writers and editors, including a free online submissions tracker for registered users.”

Ralan.com
“This web site is about writing, mine and yours. In 1994 it started as an exercise for myself, to promote my work and find writing speculative and humorous fiction writing links and markets for my work on this new-fangeled Internet thing, because they weren’t to be found. As it got bigger, I decided to share what I had with other writers who, like myself, might be in a place where finding markets was not that easy. Pretty soon these other writers started helping me right back, by pointing out new markets and changes in listed ones. That two-way interaction is still going on today. There are other e-places to find markets now, but thanks to you, this is still one of the most up-to-date.”

Resources like this are often found through word of mouth, and it’s a privilege to get to point new writers in helpful directions. I’ve used both of these sites, especially for fiction and poetry markets, and found valuable, up-to-date information. When I can, I support the tremendous amount of work they do, via paypal.

Hopefully, you’ll find them as helpful and worthwhile, in pursuit of your own markets.

Filed under: Markets, Fiction, market research, Markets, poetry, short stories

Tor Books Internship

Internships are a standard part of how people learn the publishing business. When you work at a major publisher, you’re gaining experience, insight, and making contacts that can eventually serve you for your entire career as a writer, editor, or even as an agent.

If you’re interested in working in publishing, and you’re in the NYC area or willing to relocate, Tor/Forge is currently seeking two editorial interns:

Tor Books is seeking two editorial interns for the spring 2010 semester. The interns in this position will gain insight into the process of publishing a book at every stage, from acquisition and contracts through production and, finally, the finished product. They will learn about acquisitions, editorial review, scheduling, rights and territories, catalogue, and sales. There will also be opportunities to read and evaluate unsolicited manuscripts. While this is an editorial internship, the position will involve interaction with other departments including Production, Marketing, Ad Promo, and Publicity. Our interns have the opportunity to work with a wide variety of genre fiction, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, thriller, mystery, and romance.

This has been a friendly-neighborhood boost-the-signal announcement.

Filed under: Internship Announcements, Miscellany, editing, genre, internship, publishing, science fiction, sf, signal boost

Spam for Breakfast!

Happy first Monday of 2010, AWers.

We talked about SEO and keywords, last time. I’ve got a post I’ve been working on about agents blogging, but in the meantime I’ve been deleting a fair amount of spam from the comments threads since we went live with comments here. (Thank you to HistorySleuth for the heads-up on this morning’s fresh batch.) So I’m looking at turning on more of the anti-spam tools. If you guys get comments hung up in moderation, please feel free to drop me a note and I’ll go and unscreen your post. Real comments make me grin the rest of the day, so I don’t want to miss any.Spam!

But I’ll confess to being already a bit grumpy about spam in general, so I got just plain mad when I got to the AW forums to discover that an agent (and a legitimate agent at that) is apparently running a contest on her blog, and one of the rules for entry is to post a link to the contest site on your own blog or site, and two other venues. That means that a half-dozen comment-spam links had been posted all over the forums, already.

So I wrote the agent in question with my objections, and she blew me off with a cheerful but dismissive statement that this is just how it’s done, and “Obviously, I didn’t send them directly to you nor do I have control over where they choose to post.”

No, actually – requiring that people invade other sites with comment spam is NOT how it’s done. It’s a fairly astonishing breach of netiquette, in fact. There’s a good article about comment spam, what it is, and how to deal with it, here.

Requiring that people spam message boards and other people’s blogs? That’s a far cry from asking people to tweet a link, retweet the link, or post on their own blogs/sites. Dealing with spam takes up an awful lot of everyone’s time. Most bloggers, community members, and board moderators are actively hostile—and with good reason.

Why don’t we just ignore spam? Because it interrupts the conversation. When you have to scroll past post after post of links that have nothing to do with what people are actually talking about, it’s disruptive and distracting. It’s also a cheesy attempt to try and cash in on other people’s hard work maintaining a community.

So how does anyone get the word out about a promotion (or a contest) without making site-owners and bloggers actively hostile? That’s actually dead simple. You build a reputation with your participation, then you spend that reputation carefully. Participation. Real conversation. Posting good links in relevant places will actually enhance your credibility, in fact.

Message boards and blogs are usually equipped to let people link back to their own sites in their signatures and/or profiles. Often, there’s even an appropriate place to post a direct link if you have an announcement or are promoting something. If you’re participating in real conversations, saying interesting things, interacting and engaging with an online community, then people are going to be a good deal more attentive and curious about what you’re doing elsewhere, as well.

Filed under: Miscellany, Online Writing, Writing for the Web, agent, Online Writing, Web content, Writing for the Web