McLean, Va. (July 22, 2009) – Beginning tomorrow USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books List will include Amazon Kindle book sales in overall sales rankings. USA TODAY is the first major book list to include Kindle book sales and in doing so will provide a much more robust ranking for our bestseller list. This list will run in Thursday’s edition of USA TODAY and online at booklist.usatoday.com.
From our sister site, NebulaAwards.com, comes an appealing interview with James Alan Gardner. It covers writing his Nebula nominated novelette “The Ray-Gun: A Love Story,” applied mathematics, publishing hurdles and interstellar travel
The words “online marketing” are fairly generic, since there are quite a few components involved with this business practice. Marketers (like myself) often utilize web analytics, social media, blogging, natural and paid search, online advertising, etc. For authors, online marketing may be a little more targeted to our writing and publishing efforts via social media and blogging platforms.
The New York Times Magazine has a glowing tribute to SFWA lifetime member, Jack Vance. If you haven’t read his work before, this article will make you want to do so now. It’s nice to see one of our best recognized.
If you are writing fiction that’s set at any point in the real world’s history, the subject of research can take up countless hours of time. The nitty details can tie up you up while writing anything from alternate history to urban fantasy. Sometimes though, you just need to know a quick date to set the background of your story.
Check out the Google News Timeline, as a quick place to start your search.
With the publishing industry shifting so rapidly now, it’s always interesting to see what people think the new paradigm will be. Bernard Lunn takes a look at it in a two part article at ReadWriteWeb. As with any set of predictions it’s just guesswork, but guesses worth reading.
At our sister site, NebulaAwards.com, Charles Tan talks with Nebula-nominated author, Mike Allen, about his story “The Button Bin.”
When attending a social function–whether it’s a small gathering at someone’s home, or a political fundraiser, or a room party at a convention–you are being gifted with the opportunity to meet, mingle, and make contact with a wide variety of people. What I intend to do here is give some pointers on how to get the most out of any social gathering, whether you’re there for business or for pleasure.
Charles Brown
(1937-2009)
Locus magazine is reporting the very sad news that Charles Brown has passed away. He was a major force in the industry and will be missed.
So here it is. You’re a fairly “new” writer, or at least new to the convention scene, and you desperately want to make some industry contacts in the hopes that it will make it easier to get an agent/sell your work/quit your day job and hire a cabana boy/any of the above. You decide to go to a convention, perhaps picking one of the “big” ones such as WorldCon, or World Fantasy, because you’ve heard that editors and agents are absolutely spilling out the doors.
Here are some guidelines/rules/suggestions to go by:
From our sister site, nebulaawards.com, comes an interview with Nebula nominee, Richard Bowes who was nominated for his novelette “If Angels Fight.”
When you were a kid, did you ever imagine that you’d be a writer?
This .pdf document is an annotation of the Amazon Kindle contract as it was posted on Amazon’s Web site (downloaded in February, 2008).
