•I don’t know how this applies to writers, but companies that pay for online reviews can’t pretend they don’t.
•One of the memes of writing advice is that writing is a horrible, unpleasant process and we all hate it. I can safely state that no, that’s not true: frustrating as it often is, I enjoy writing. As Lawrence Block once said, there doesn’t seem to be any other art form where it’s assumed the practitioners (actors, musicians, painters) hate what they’re doing.
•If you offer a resume and job-letter writing service, write your own letter, don’t copy.
•A new tactic against music-industry piracy: Release new albums everywhere in the world simultaneously. Would that help for books, I wonder?
•Kristine Kathryn Rusch discusses the problem of getting hard data on publishing, whether it’s for industry articles or for writers wanting to know how much their books are selling.
•Here Rusch talks about backlist being a valuable source of sales and that traditional publishers don’t get it. I’m wondering if this is a cyclical thing because for years I remember Publisher’s Weekly talking about the importance of the backlist (particularly for series books). Then as publishers got more bottom-line oriented in the 1990s, they made less and less effort to carry backlist … so perhaps the wheel has turned again (both links courtesy of Walk of Words).
•An agent tries to define “uneven writing.”
•From the Thrillwriting blog, a post on realistic fight scenes. And another. And one more.
•Susanna Fraser on not restraining your enthusiasm.
