Jen's Writing Journey

The Business of Writing

Ain’t That a Shame
Author Justine Larbalestier shares her thoughts on the cover for her book Liar. The protagonist is African American, but the girl shown on the cover is White. Larbalastier campaigned strongly for a different cover, but she did not win that battle. What do you think about book covers? Does it bother you when the people on the cover look nothing like the characters in the book?

Industry Notes
Theresa at Edit Torrent gives some information about the trends in publishing based on what she saw and heard at RWA. Fewer trades; more mass market. Fewer standard erotic titles. And a publisher who slipped under the $1,000 advance mark.

Teresa Says It Loud and Says It Proud: I Write Romance Novels
Teresa Medeiros shares some amazing stories of the profound effect her books have had on people’s lives.

Is It True? Are 40% of Books Pulped?
Moonrat gives a thorough report of the sometimes crazy ins and outs of the publishing profit and loss philosophy.

Craft

Deep Point of View Versus Omniscient
Author Camy Tang discusses the publishing’s move toward deep point of view–when the reader is inserted fully into a character’s mind and body–and how to use it in your writing.

Writerly Round-up: Revision
I’m not sure if it’s overly tautological to link to another roundup, but here it is. A great collection of posts about revisions.

Fiction

Some Great Tips from Mystery Author Betsy Webb
F. M. Meredith of The Blood-Red Pencil attended a conference where she got the chance to hear this author give her tips of crafting a compelling novel.

Crazy People Think They Are Sane
Writing Career Coach Tiffany Colter provides a method for ensuring that your villain is compelling and believable. Remember: no villain thinks he or she is the bad guy.

Freelancing

Six Signs It’s a Job Scam
CNN and Career Builder provide a good resource for evaluating the at-home writing jobs you see on the job boards.

Five Must-Have Qualities to Become a Top Freelancer
In the first of the Freelance Folder posts I’ve included this week, Glen Allsop gives his tips to building a strong freelance business.

Are You Undervaluing Your Freelance Business?
My guess is that the answer is yes for a lot of us. Freelance writer Laura Spencer helps us get over our insecurities and begin to treat our writing businesses as important and lucrative endeavors.

Special Focus on E-publishing

Aside from the Publishers: How the Other Stakeholders Fare as Ebook Adoption Continues
A good look at the history of ebook publishing and how it has worked for the end user and the distributors.

From the Comments
Here, Theresa from Edit Torrent responds to some of the comments on the post I included under The Business of Writing. In response to Green Knight, she offers her viewpoint on the Rogue Digital Workshop at RWA, which included epublishers and epubbed authors talking about the business model and realities of epublishing.

Rogue Digital Workshop
Another summary of the rogue epublishing workshop at RWA, this one by Elisa Logan.

Will Publishers Ever Make Money Off E-books?
Paul Sweeting looks at the profit model of ebooks. I personally think the point is moot. Ebooks are the future, and publishers need to figure outa way to make money on them.

Amazon, Orwell, and the Truth about DRM
P. Bradley Robb discusses the recent deletion of copies of George Orwell’s books from users’ Kindle devices. Amazon has since apologized for the way they handled the situation–read the apology here. The really interesting part of Robb’s article is his discussion of how DRM turns us into renters of content rather than owners.

Fun Stuff

The Writer’s Cave
Ever wonder what your favorite author’s writing space/office looks like? Paige Cuccaro has pulled together a collection of photos.

Related Posts:

• Writing Roundup, October 23
• Writing Roundup, September 11
• Writing Roundup, September 4
• Writing Roundup, August 28
• Writing Roundup, Aug. 14