Monthly Archives: February 2010

The Face of Prehistoric America

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For all of those nerds intellectual types out there who love to see news about the pre-Columbian history of the Americas, or who simply love learning more about humans before the advent of civilization, new research at the University of Copenhagen will prove irresistible to the imagination.

Scientists have sequenced DNA from the hair of a 4,000-year-old man locked in the Greenland permafrost long before the ancestors of modern Inuit moved into the region, and from the genetic coding have reconstructed the face of this archaic American.

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Is Publishing's Approach to Digitalization Upside Down?

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I wouldn’t normally link from here to an explicitly political site like Dros or Kudge (or whatever), but Huffpost has an interesting piece about publishing’s approach to product digitalization.

Most intriguing to me was with the following not-so-flattering description of the development approach publishing firms take, which could spell trouble in the digital age:

The “somebody do something that works so we can copy it” mentality duplicates the … attitude espoused by long-time executives in music who simply could not or would not question the viability of the professional cocoons they’d built for themselves …

What offed the music business — and what the publishing industry is facing — is a corporate structure built to churn out hits to subsidize an entire product line. Rather than developing artists, exploiting regional marketplaces, and building financial models that can easily support a mid-range list, both industries focus on entertainment at the expense of art and expression.

(Difference between selling entertainment vs art? Entertainment starts with the customer and works back to the product. Art begins with the product and works forward to find/create an audience.)

Thoughts?  Agree? Disagree?

A Snowstorm of Publishing Links

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Not much to do this weekend, given the Snowpocalypse besieging the East Coast.  I certainly will attempt to “write my ass off” but otherwise I strive to pick up where I left off posting a few writing and publishing links now and then.

So, let me start with commentary by Lydia Sharp, which I took to heart, that writing & publishing bloggers have been discussing the Amazon v. MacMillan conflict far too much.  Hear, hear.  I (think I) am done.  And, if the links in this post seem a bit light, it’s because I’ve purposefully skipped over any possible links dealing with ebooks or their attendant rights and royalties.

Also on the subject of beginnings, agent Kristin Nelson provides some good advice on why prologues often do not work, and why action often does.

Author Kelly Morgan describes what happens when a book “clicks,” while author Jade Smith offers some advice on authenticity which I whole-heartedly endorse: Let your fictional world be itself.

Agent Nathan Bransford tells us why it’s a great time to be an author, while agent Rachelle Gardner outlines the Top Ten query mistakes, discusses book trailers, and invites guest blogger Sandra Bricker to explain how a writer finds his or her niche.

Jessica at BookEnds answers writers’ questions about novel series (a subject newly dear to my writers’ heart) and querying as a youthful writer (a subject long far from my interests) as well as addressing the professionalism displayed by readily accepting the need for revisions (on which I completely agree with her).

I would be remiss not to direct you to three entries (1, 2, 3!) in Jennifer Jackson‘s “Letters From The Query Wars,” or Alan Rinzler‘s tips from 3 top agents about how YA fiction is “red hot.”

Enjoy!

Archaic Definition of the Week – Funk

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publishingFunk. In a funk or blue funk, To be. The word may derive from Old French funkier, ‘to smoke’, though the connection is uncertain.  A funk is a state of apprehensive fear or abject fear.  The word first appeared at Oxford in the first half of the 18th Century.

“If I was going to be flogged next minute, I should be in a blue funk.” – THOMAS HUGHES: Tom Brown’s Schooldays, Pt I, ch ii (1857)

Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, Sixteenth Edition revised by Adrian Room.

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The Amalgam Poems

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amalgamA lord or lady wrapped in ashy silk
was welcomed in Amalgam’s public hall.
Her gender hidden by his silken mask,
He spoke with love, but still she hurt us all.

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Category: Amalgam

The Pro-Piracy Argument Rises Again

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Responding to the recent slapdown of Amazon.com by MacMillan publishing, an oh-so-tech-savvy fellow over at DigitalTrends.com asks if book publishers are the new record labels, i.e., by responding badly to the digitalization of their product and encouraging piracy.

The writer offers up the typical hipster, pro-criminal argument that stealing is an acceptable response to high prices.  This isn’t Les Misérables, guys; we’re talking about entertainment, not food. 

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