Selected Links and Things

Two years ago -- and for a few years prior to that -- I did a monthly "Links and Things" blog post, in which I would recap relevant publishing news and info from throughout the previous month. If you look through the Tags list in the right column below, you'll find that I published 47 "Links and Things" blog posts (actually, 48 now, counting this one).

Unfortunately, trying to keep up on publishing-related news, newsletters, blogs, twitter feeds, etc. -- and then reading, recapping, and posting the details each month simply overwhelmed my time and energy.

However, over the past few weeks I've come across a few resources that are just too good to pass up:

1. If you are a hardcore Twitter user, then this link is just for you: The Best Hashtags for Indie Authors in 2015

The article is written by Gary McLaren, who runs PublishYourOwnEbooks.com. He provides charts, graphs, and statistics on a number of Twitter hashtags, including #amwriting, #writetip and #writingtips, #wrting, #indiepub and #indiepublishing, and more. He also provides info on Twitter groups -- #iartg (Indie Author Retweet Group), #asmsg (Author Social Media Support Group), and #ian1 (Independent Author Network) -- including links to each group's guidelines.

So, read up and tweet on....

2. Author Toni Morrison on Failure: "Write, Erase, Do It Over" from NEA Arts Magazine.

Talking to Toni Morrison about failure is a bit like talking to Einstein about stupidity: it's incongruous, to say the least. At 83, Morrison is one of the world's best-known and most successful novelists, her awards list crammed with the heavyweights of literary prizes: among them, the 1988 Pulitzer Prize and American Book Award for Beloved; the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993 (the last U.S. author to receive it); the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012; and most recently, the Ivan Sandroff Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Critics Circle....

Obviously, to be a writer, you must write, but how often do you get to read writing tips from an author such as Toni Morrison? In this NEA article, Ms. Morrison discusses the following topics: a) Defining Creative Failure; b) Getting Started; c) Success in the Morning; d) Recognizing When Something Isn't Working; e) Responsibility to Characters; f) Learning Not to Overdo It; g) Failures in Contemporary American Literature; h) Stumbles Along the Way.

3. I've saved the most fun for last: Kindle Cover Disasters

Some of the most outrageous, ostentatious, horrendous, jumped-the-shark book covers you will ever see. And some of the book titles are pretty freaking ridiculous, too. (Did I use enough adjectives here?) And what's even more fun is that often the links to the actual books are also provided, so you don't even have to search -- you can just click on over to the book if it intrigues you and add it to your library!

Note: Links 2 and 3 were courtesy of GalleyCat, and I strongly suggest you subscribe to their newsletter, delivered directly to your inbox daily.

Paul Williams 1948–2013

On March 27, we lost one of our own: Paul Williams passed away. In 1995, Paul suffered a traumatic brain injury in a bicycle accident, which is believed to have later caused his early-onset dementia. Paul's achievements are far too numerous to list here, but let me just touch upon a few: In January 1966, Paul launched Crawdaddy! the first magazine of rock music criticism, which paved the way for Rolling Stone and other such rags. In the '80s Paul founded the Philip K. Dick Society and published the society's newsletter. It was Paul's hard work that helped keep PKD's name -- and work -- alive, following the author's death in 1982. Paul also edited the 5-volume Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick and the 13-volume Complete Short Stories of Theodore Sturgeon.

Obits and tributes to Paul Williams have been posted across the 'net, including io9, the LA Times, and the New York Times.

All 19 issues of Crawdaddy! published between 1966 and 1968 are also available online for your reading pleasure in the Crawdaddy! Archives.

I briefly wrote about my involvement with the PKD Society in my "February Links & Things" post (third bullet point from the bottom) in 2010. I again mention Paul Williams in another blog post on PKD and Rudy Rucker, published on August 30, 2010: Paul had fact-checked an article I wrote on PKD in 1988 prior to its publication in the 'zine Paperback Parade.

My friend, author Eileen Gunn, shared some personal thoughts with me, and her Facebook readers, the day after Paul passed away:

Crawdaddy! was a stenciled fanzine, and I bought it for a quarter at Briggs & Briggs in Harvard Square in the spring of 1966. It made my head explode. And that was just the first time. The first issue looked like a term paper; the next looked like an SF fanzine. By the third issue, in less than six weeks, it looked like it belonged on a shelf with other magazines. Whatever the subject, Paul wrote always of exactly the moment he was in, and it was often exactly the moment that I was in. He expanded my view of my own world, of my own (counter)culture, whether it was music or philosophy or the strange internal politics of the Sixties. (Fort Hill, anyone?) I will miss him, but somehow it feels like he's still out there....

Aside from the 5-volume PKD story collection and the 13-volume Theodore Sturgeon collection, both of which hold special places (literally and figuratively) in my own personal library, I would also like to recommend Paul Williams's Bob Dylan: Performing Artist series -- assuming of course that you are a fan of Dylan's music. Unlike most books about rock music, which are typically biographical in nature, these three books focus on Dylan in concert, a critical look at the man's performances over a span of nearly 40 years: Volume 1, The Early Years 1960-1973; Volume 2, The Middle Years 1974-1986; and Volume 3, Mind Out of Time 1986 and Beyond.

My deepest sympathy to Paul's wife, Cindy Lee Berryhill, their son Alexander, and Paul's extended family and friends.

Keep on rockin', Paul....

---------------

Note: The Paul Williams photo that opens this post accompanied the New York Times article by Paul Vitello; the photo was taken by Raeanne Rubenstein, and features Paul Williams in 1971, after he had left Crawdaddy! Since I do not have the rights to reprint this photo, I have linked to the photo on the NYT website. It's one of my favorite photos of Paul: we were grunge before there was grunge. Thank you, Raeanne Rubenstein, for sharing this photograph with us.

Selected Links & Things

Here are some links that you may find of interest from the past few weeks. My apologies that these haven't been posted in a more timely fashion, but other priorities blah, blah, blah.

Courtesy of Quote-Unquote Apps (@qapps), we have a new version of the Courier Prime font, IBM's classic public domain typeface, which has been redesigned to look good in print and on-screen. So if you still use Courier Prime (I'm a Times Roman kinda guy, myself) for your manuscripts, you'll want to check this out. Easy-to-install for both PCs and Macs; instructions included. (via BoingBoing.net)

Mary Doria Russell is the author of the well-known 1996 alien contact/Jesuits in space novel The Sparrow and its sequel Children of God, and most recently Doc, a novel of "Doc" Holliday and Wyatt Earp. On the Washington Post Book Blog, Mary shares her story with columnist Ron Charles (@RonCharles) on the "perils (and rewards) of being a midlist novelist": "Just as her new novel, Doc, was being released in 2011, she got word that her publisher [Random House] was not interested in any more books from her."

What if you could buy your way onto the New York Times bestseller list? Think it's impossible? Not if you have enough money, as detailed by one author's experience in Forbes.com's "Here's How You Buy Your Way Onto The New York Times Bestsellers List." ResultSource, a San Diego-based marketing consultancy, specializes in getting books onto bestseller lists, assuming you have $200,000-plus to invest. The author in question couldn't afford the NYT, so he settled for the Wall Street Journal's list. Life's tough, aint' it?

"How I made $2,000 in 7 days launching my ebook." Programmer Josh Earl, author of Sublime Productivity: Code Like a Pro with Today's Premier Text Editor ebook, writes: "The book is growing steadily, and with it, a sense of panic: What happens when I’m done? My entire promotional strategy consists of pushing the publish button! I’m a programmer, not a sales wizard. Marketing seems like black magic. The thought of my hard work going to waste makes me sick." (via Hacker News)

Digital Book World (@digibookworld) has an excerpt from a new book on publishing by former Apple guru Guy Kawasaki; the book is entitled APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur-How to Publish a Book. The section "Appearance Is Everything" covers such topics as: Front Matter; Ebook Front Matter; Organization Name; Blurb Overload; Gaffes; and Crappy Interior Design. Authors, even those not self-publishing, would be wise to read this excerpt, if not the entire book, which includes manuscript and text formatting in the "Gaffes" section.

The Original Hacker's Dictionary: "Many years after the original book went out of print, Eric Raymond picked it up, updated it and republished it as the New Hacker's Dictionary. Unfortunately, in the process, he essentially destroyed what held it together, in various ways: first, by changing its emphasis from Lisp-based to UNIX-based (blithely ignoring the distinctly anti-UNIX aspects of the LISP culture celebrated in the original); second, by watering down what was otherwise the fairly undiluted record of a single cultural group through this kind of mixing; and third, by adding in all sorts of terms which are 'jargon' only in the sense that they're technical. This page, however, is pretty much the original, snarfed from MIT-AI around 1988." (via Hacker News)

"Aaron Hillel Swartz (November 8, 1986 – January 11, 2013) was an American computer programmer, writer, political organizer and Internet activist." At least that's what Wikipedia opens with, when you search for "Aaron Swartz." But Aaron was so much more: as a teenager he helped develop the RSS feed, which has been in the tech news lately as Google prepares to shut down its Google Reader service. Aaron also helped develop the Creative Commons licensing, which many have used to publish their work openly on the internet. Facing years of incarceration from an overzealous prosecutor, Aaron committed suicide on January 11. I'll leave you to decide the rights and wrongs of the case (a quick Google search will yield plenty of results). Aaron Swartz's weblog, Raw Thought, has been preserved for free download as PDF, mobi, and epub files. (via Hacker News) Here's an excerpt:

I’m not such a nuisance to the world, and the kick I get out of living can, I suppose, justify the impositions I make on it. But when life isn’t so fun, well, then I start to wonder. What’s the point of going on if it’s just trouble for us both? My friends will miss me, I am told. . . . But even so, I feel reticent. Even among my closest friends, I still feel like something of an imposition, and the slightest shock, the slightest hint that I’m correct, sends me scurrying back into my hole. (2007)

From The National Security Archive: "The Zero Dark Thirty File -- Lifting the Government's Shroud Over the Mission That Killed Osama bin Laden." Twenty-two files including photos, letters, and details on the mission that brought down bin Laden.

And lastly, in 1942 LIFE magazine sent Margaret Bourke-White, America’s first accredited woman photographer during WWII, to spend time with the now legendary VIII Bomber Command in England. During her assignment, she managed to snap a series of color photographs, many of which never actually made it to her feature article. Over 70 years later, LIFE has finally released these unpublished color photos. (via io9.com - @io9)

July Links & Things

The past five or so weeks have been very busy for me -- but having work to do is always a good thing: it helps to pay the bills. I completed a developmental edit on a manuscript for an unpublished author; I completed a line and copy edit on reprint anthology The Apes of Wrath for Tachyon Publications (edited by Rick Klaw); and lastly, I completed a comprehensive line and copy edit (and some content editing as well) on Kameron Hurley's Rapture, the final volume in her Bel Dame Apocrypha series, for Night Shade Books. Oh, and for my own personal reading (which occurs so seldom anymore), I read the omnibus edition of Wool by Hugh Howey -- one of the finest works of post-apocalyptic SF that I have read in years. I don't recall any typos at all, though there was the occasional dropped word, missing hyphenation, etc., but that's it. Imagine that -- and a self-published book, too!

I also attended Readercon in mid-July; there are aspects of Readercon that I truly enjoy, but too much of it is simply cliquish and pedantic -- and thus not my personal preference; but I attend roughly every other year for the sole purpose of seeing friends whom I would not ever see otherwise. But, it turned out that this year's Readercon wasn't so typical after all, as a lot of controversy ensued afterward. Just search for "Readercon controversy" in any search engine and you'll find enough links. Or, you could check out John Scalzi's blog post: he links to a list of "Readercon controversy" posts, and provides his own personal view on convention harassment. Bottom line: the Readercon board of directors reversed their initial decision regarding a Readercon attendee, and they have all resigned from their positions as directors. You can read the official public Readercon statement.

Now to resume my regularly (albeit late) scheduled programming: This is my monthly wrap-up of July's Links & Things. You can receive these links in real time by following me on Twitter: @martyhalpern; or Friending me on Facebook (FB). Note, however, that not all of my tweeted/FB links make it into these month-end posts. As with prior months, June was a busy month, so there is a lot of content here. Previous monthly recaps are accessible via the "Links and Things" tag in the right column.

• If you are a Facebook user -- and a writer -- you may want to add the following group to your FB profile: OPEN CALL: SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY & PULP MARKETS. The majority of posts are made by Cynthia Ward, publisher of Market Maven, but anyone can post an open call for genre submissions. There have been a half-dozen posts already today, which is fairly typical.

• I recently critiqued a couple stories for a "new" writer, after which he contacted me about ways he might improve his grammar. I recommended that he read works by a few specific authors, one of which was Lucius Shepard. Shortly thereafter I read a blog post by Michael Swanwick (another author whose work I would highly recommend) in which he quoted a lengthy paragraph written by Lucius Shepard; in this paragraph, a tyrant's son restores a dragon skull. The paragraph is approximately 160 words, and includes very few adjectives and only two adverbs. As Michael says about the paragraph: "Beautiful stuff, eh?"

• On Salon.com: In an article entitled "Thank you for killing my novel," author Patrick Somerville explains how the New York Times "panned my book, then had to correct the review to fix all their errors"; he then shares the email communication one of the book's characters (yes, that's right, a character from the book) had with an NYT editor. (via Curt Jarrell's Facebook page)

• I do a lot of copy editing in my line of work, and if you've ever wandered just what a copy editor does -- a good copy editor -- then read this next link and be amazed: courtesy of Angry Robot Books (@angryrobotbooks). (also via Curt Jarrell's Facebook page)

June Links & Things

This is my monthly wrap-up of June's Links & Things. You can receive these links in real time by following me on Twitter: @martyhalpern; or Friending me on Facebook (FB). Note, however, that not all of my tweeted/FB links make it into these month-end posts. As with prior months, June was a busy month, so there is a lot of content here. Previous monthly recaps are accessible via the "Links and Things" tag in the right column.

• Mediabistro's @galleycat recommends that writers try SmartEdit, a free software program. No, this program won't edit your manuscript, but it will find clichés, along with overused words and phrases. The link showcases a SmartEdit of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. I've tested the program on a couple short story manuscripts, which revealed little of interest; but I'll be using it shortly on a novel I am editing.
• Speaking of editing: Guest blogger @JaneFriedman shares an interesting piece [hint, hint] entitled "How to Influence Editors in a Way That 90% of Other Writers Don't." Jane writes: "One of the most important qualities of successful people I know (regardless of profession) is that they understand what motivates the people around them. Some authors—even though they are experts in understanding the hearts of their characters—forget to look into the hearts of editors and agents.... Well, how do you win anyone over? You start by listening and showing you understand." (via @RachelleGardner)
• I found this next link via the Facebook page of Testy Copy Editors [And though it's not my page, I certainly would qualify!]: From CNN.com comes "Why 'Amercia' needs copy editors.": "But most important is that a copy editor stands in for the reader, gingerly reshaping, clarifying and correcting things before the reader can see them and post an excoriating comment. But more and more publications are laying off their copy editors, replacing them with Web designers or more reporters, or with nothing."
• In past "Links & Things" I've included links to blog posts by both Kristine Kathryn Rusch (@KristineRusch) and @DeanWesleySmith, both of whom post regularly on the business of books and publishing. In a recent "Business Rusch" post, Kris tackles the difference between traditional publishing and indie publishing, or, as she words it: the difference between "hurry up and wait" and "wait and hurry up." This latest Business Rusch post has more than 75 comments, too.
• After reading "The Business Rusch" above, you might want to read this post on duolit entitled "8 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Deciding to Self-Publish," by guest poster @AndrewGalasetti: 1) How will my readers benefit? 2) Do I mind the long wait for traditional publishing? 3) If so, is it because I'm impatient? 4) If so, will my impatience negatively impact the quality of my writing? 5) What skills do I possess? 6) What skills can I outsource? 7) How will I outsource these skills? and 8) How bad do I want it? You'll find the details at the link. (Via Hugh Howey's FB page; see my May Links & Things for more on Hugh Howey's self-publishing success.)

May Links & Things

This is my monthly wrap-up of May's Links & Things. You can receive these links in real time by following me on Twitter: @martyhalpern; or Friending me on Facebook (FB). Note, however, that not all of my tweeted/FB links make it into these month-end posts. May was another busy month, so there is a lot of content here. Previous monthly recaps are accessible via the "Links and Things" tag in the right column. 

• What would the publishing world be without another "authors beware" entry.... In this case I'm referring to Open Casket Press, Living Dead Press, and Undead Press. Don't be fooled: these three presses are all run by the same individual: Anthony Giangregorio -- and when "Tony" mentions his "editor" (Vincenzo Bilof) he's also talking about himself, though he wants you to believe that he is referring to some other nebulous individual. New author Mandy DeGeit was excited to have her first published story accepted for an Undead Press anthology -- that is, until she discovered after the story was published how the "editor" had rewritten her work, going so far as to include a paragraph of a dog beating (and sexual arousal) that was never in the original story. Mandy's sad tale went viral shortly thereafter, and when Richard Salter read it, he decided to go public as to why he pulled his novel, World's Collider, from Open Casket Press. You can read Richard's blog post, which also contains a link to Mandy's blog post. Bottom line: Stay away from Open Casket/Living Dead/Undead Press and Anthony "Tony" Giangregorio/Vincenzo Bilof. You have been duly warned.
• But I'm not quite finished with Tony Giangregorio. Author Adam-Troy Castro posted a lengthy Facebook piece concerning this individual; since only FB users could read said post, I asked Adam to repost it elsewhere, and he graciously complied. So now non-FB users can read his "Secret Sequels" post. Here's a quote: "What Giangregorio has done is specifically, and deliberately, hijack the name of a better work and superior work to his sequel; he is specifically saying, 'This is a sequel to Dawn of the Dead.' Which he has no right to do."
• I spent Memorial Day weekend at the annual BayCon convention here in Santa Clara County. One of the many panels in which I participated was entitled "Editors, Agents and Other Endangered Species"; the moderator, Dario Ciriello, posted a recap of the panel, with particular emphasis on the "editors" part.
• Hugh Howey. Recognize that name? If not, neither had I, until May 14 when I read in Publishers Weekly online that film rights to his science fiction series Wool had sold to 20th Century Fox -- and partnering with Fox on the film deal is Scott Free, none other than Ridley and Tony Scott's production company. So I purchased a copy of Wool myself, and in the process learned that Hugh Howey had originally self-published Wool as a series of five novellas. The book will be published in hardcover in the UK, and the author is currently at work on a prequel series. If you search out Wool you will read nothing but rave reviews of this book. It represents one of the true self-publishing success stories, the result of a great story and great writing, and hard work. Howey's guest blog on IndieReader provides some personal history on Wool and how the movie rights came about. And he even writes on his own blog about receiving payment from a reader who originally obtained a copy of his book for free from a pirate site. As Howey writes: "How cool an exchange is that?"
• Self-publishing is, of course, what everyone is talking about, especially when you read success stories like Hugh Howey's above. Rudy Rucker (@rudytheelder) has posted a four-part series on his step-by-step road to creating an ebook, which includes working with HTML code and apps like Calibre and Sigil. Begin at part one: "Getting Started," and you'll find links at the top of each page to get you to parts 2, 3, and 4. In part 4, you can even purchase the ebook edition of Rudy's How to Make an Ebook for only $1.95 from his own Transreal Books press.
  

April Links & Things

This is my monthly wrap-up of April's Links & Things. You can receive these links in real time by following me on Twitter: @martyhalpern; or Friending me on Facebook (FB). Note, however, that not all of my tweeted/FB links make it into these month-end posts. April was a very busy month, so there is a lot of content here; please return to this blog if necessary to take full advantage of all the links. Previous month-end posts are accessible via the "Links and Things" tag in the right column.

• Philip K. Dick passed away shortly before the release of the Blade Runner movie. But, PKD did catch "his first glimpse of Blade Runner in a television segment," after which he wrote this wondrous letter to the Ladd Company, one of the film's production companies. The PKD Estate believes this is the first time the letter has been made public: "...I came to the conclusion that this indeed is not science fiction; it is not fantasy; it is exactly what Harrison said: futurism. The impact of BLADE RUNNER is simply going to be overwhelming, both on the public and on creative people -- and, I believe, on science fiction as a field." [all emphasis is PKD's] (@WordandFilm via @PantheonBooks)
• Grim_Noir on the PopTards blog revisits George Alec Effinger's Maríd Audran series of books 30 years later: When Gravity Fails, A Fire in the Sun, The Exile Kiss, and Budayeen Nights (which I acquired and edited for Golden Gryphon Press; here is my lengthy blog post on the making of Budayeen Nights, part one of three on my edited GAE books). Grim_Noir writes: "THIS is what Blade Runner wants to be when it grows up. (And I say that with the upmost respect for Philip K. Dick, Ridley Scott, Harrison Ford AND Blade Runner.)...Thirty years after it was originally published, George Alec Effinger's Audran Sequence is STILL ahead of its time. The writing is sharp and goes straight at the gut, like a turbo-charged razorblade." (via Gordon Van Gelder's Facebook page)
• After twenty-one years of teaching English Literature at Oakdale Community College in New Jersey, author Jeffrey Ford has retired from the teaching profession to write full time in upstate New York. One of Jeff's former students, Matthew Sorrento, pays tribute to his mentor, in this very personal post on Matthew's Identity Theory (@IdentityTheory) blog. For an instructor, it doesn't get any better than this.
• On Amazon's Omnivoracious blog, Susan J. Morris (@susanjmorris) writes about "Engaging Readers on Page One" with a blog post entitled "Brilliant Beginnings." Susan covers the three most common "False Starts": Waking Up, Fight Scenes, and Origin Stories...of the Universe.
• Speaking of first pages and opening lines: Glamour in Glass, the new novel by Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette), is missing its opening line. The sentence was there during the review of the page proofs, but then, shazam! -- it disappeared in the published edition. But not one to miss an opportunity, Mary has turned the missing line into a game, a t-shirt, and more.

March Links & Things

This is my monthly wrap-up of March's Links & Things. You can receive these links in real time by following me on Twitter: @martyhalpern; or Friending me on Facebook (FB). Note, however, that not all of my tweeted/FB links make it into these month-end posts. Once again there is a lot of content, so please return if you need to to take full advantage of all the links. Previous month-end posts are accessible via the "Links and Things" tag in the right column.

• Unfortunately, words of warning to authors are an endless stream, and even more so in this digital age of publishing. This month's word of warning concerns Dorchester Publishing. Author Brian Keene details the current mess surrounding this publisher (with numerous links to other sources). In one place Dorchester states they are closing down; yet elsewhere they continue to buy new material and sell existing material, even when they no longer have the authors' permissions to do so -- while owing their authors advances and royalties. Bottom Line: DO NOT DO BUSINESS of any kind with Dorchester Publishing.
• This was brought to my attention via Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) along with a warning for those who travel with digital comics on their cellphones, laptops, and tablets, particularly in Canada (though there are other countries far more repressive, certainly, than Canada). Everyone who travels with digital comics really needs to read this.... The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) reports "Criminal Charges Dropped in Canada Customs Manga Case." This case involved defendant Ryan Matheson, a 27-year-old comic book reader, amateur artist, and computer programmer, who ended up in this criminal and legal brouhaha because manga comic books were found on his computer. The total legal costs in this case exceeded $75,000 -- and contributions are being sought to help pay off Matheson's huge remaining debt: $45,000.
• On March 13, Encyclopaedia Britannica announced that -- after 244 years; since 1768 -- they will discontinue the 32-volume print edition once the current inventory is gone. But, they add: "...the encyclopedia will live on--in bigger, more numerous, and more vibrant digital forms." (via @HuffPostBooks)
• From The Guardian UK: Lloyd Shepherd, author of The English Monster, found a request to pirate his novel on the discussion board Mobilism; so, he decided to respond to the request himself, to open up a dialog with said individual. Frustration and anger followed with this individual's responses, so Lloyd opened a topic himself entitled "Novelist seeking understanding" on the main discussion board. (via @ebooknewser)
• Brad Torgersen guests on Kevin J. Anderson's (@TheKJA) blog, with a blog post entitled "On Not Quitting." Brad writes: "One week ago, I got a call from the President of the Science Fiction Writers of America. He told me that my novelette, 'Ray of Light,' was nominated for the SFWA Nebula Award.... Being nominated for a Nebula means my story not only connected with readers, it connected with a readership composed of my peers.... I can say from now on that my fiction is 'Nebula quality,' something I find more than a little astounding when I consider the fact that I didn't have a single word in professional print prior to 2010. How did it happen? Simple: I didn't quit."
  

February Links & Things (This Post Not Quite Past Its Sell-by Date)

To say that my February wrap-up of Links & Things is a bit late would be a gross understatement. After spending two separate weeks in February in Southern California (see this previous blog post for some background), I was just too overwhelmed with catch-up in the first half of March -- and then preparing for my next (and hopefully last) trip to SoCal in the second half of the month -- to deal with February at that time; and now, here it is April 1! But there were some excellent resources in February and I didn't want to simply overlook that month entirely, so here they are, February's Links & Things: better late than never.

• Consumers in greater numbers are finally questioning the source of their food (and what is in it), which has led more and more people to begin growing their own. So I wanted to take this opportunity to inform you that the long-out-of-print (1995) book Homestead Year: Back to the Land in Suburbia, by author (and my friend) Judith Moffett, is now back in print courtesy of the Authors Guild Back-in-Print program. [Note: I appear, though not by name, in Homestead Year, in a paragraph on "September 4" (page 258 in the original hardcover edition) in Judith's journal; she refers to me as a "[book] collector in California."]
• What was undoubtedly the biggest news of the month (and yet I've seen no further details on this since): On February 6 Reuters reported that Amazon "plans to open a physical store in its home town of Seattle in coming months to showcase and sell its growing line of gadgets, including the Kindle Fire tablet..." (via mediabistro.com's @galleycat)
• A website entitled BookBub has recently come to my attention, and if you are an avid eBook reader, then you'll want to sign up at the site's home page. BookBub describes itself as "an alert service that keeps you updated on great book deals. We only notify you about deals that meet the following criteria: Free or Deeply Discounted, Top Quality Content, and Limited Time Offers." When you register for BookBub's newsletter, you can select the categories of books in which you have an interest. View the latest BookBub Deals.
• Author N. K. Jemisin (@nkjemisin) shares with her readers an essay she wrote for a forthcoming anthology entitled The Miseducation of the Writer -- essays by writers of color on genre literature -- edited by Maurice Broaddus, John Edward Lawson, and Chesya Burke, to be published by Guide Dog Books, the nonfiction imprint of Raw Dog Screaming Press. From the essay: "Not so long ago, at the dawn of the New World, black people were saved from ignorance in darkest Africa by being brought into the light of the West. This is bullshit." This is a must-read essay for all writers (and editors, too).
• James L. Sutter's guest post on SF Signal (@sfsignal) deals with "Technology in Fantasy." Sutter writes: "Some people prefer technology that precisely matches that of a given real-world historical era. Others see nothing wrong with mixing and matching, combining swords, laser pistols, zeppelins, and dinosaur-pulled chariots. Some feel that technology itself should be the defining feature of the world (hence the ever-popular steampunk genre). Yet whatever path you choose when designing worlds for your fiction or RPG setting, there are a few important technological issues to consider." And he deals with each of these issues: 1) Anachronism; 2) Multiple Technology Levels; 3) The Question of Magic; and 4) Common Technologies, in which he covers these specifics: Airships; Sanitation; Medicine; Printing Press; Steam Power; and Firearms.
  

January Links & Things

I returned this past weekend from my trip to SoCal, only to have to schedule yet another trip in a couple weeks. My mother's house in Anaheim, California, will be on the market toward the end of this month. In my youth I used to walk to Disneyland from that house, but it was/is a long walk, though not for a teen -- and from the house you can watch, and hear, the D-land fireworks at night, with no interference from any structures. It really is a great house. When everything becomes official, I'll post some photos and more details.

If you have an interest in my recently published anthology Alien Contact (Night Shade Books), please consider clicking on the "Like" button (if you haven't already done so) in the Facebook widget in the right column of this blog. This will add the anthology's updates to your own news stream on your FB Home page. You won't be inundated with posts, probably on average a couple per week, I promise.

And I best get to January's Links & Things before I run out of time this month as well. You can receive these links in real time by following me on Twitter: @martyhalpern; or Friending me on Facebook (FB). Note, however, that not all of my tweeted/FB links make it into these month-end posts. Once again there is a lot of content, so please return for a second visit if you need to to take full advantage of all the links. Previous month-end posts are accessible via the "Links and Things" tag in the right column.

• Via author and friend Bruce McAllister's FB page, I learned of a new magazine with a very strange title: rFISHc. Bruce has a short-short story in the first issue. Submission guidelines, payment details, etc. at the link.

• Do you write fantasy novels? -- HUGE fantasy novels? If so, then you need to consider taking David J. Parker's "The Fantasy Novelist's Exam." Here are the first 5 of 75 questions: 1) Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages? 2) Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage? 3) Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it? 4) Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme bad guy? 5) Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world? Let's just say that you don't want to be answering "yes" to very many of these questions. (via John Shirley's FB page, shared from David Brin)

• Princeton Alumni Weekly -- "an editorially independent magazine by alumni for alumni since 1900" -- recently published a feature article on books entitled "What Princeton students are reading." You may be interested in learning what their "comfort food" reading actually entails. (via Gordon van Gelder's FB page)

• From the UK's Guardian (@guardian): "YA novel readers clash with publishing establishment," and subtitled: "A row over the status of the bloggers who fuelled the success of young adult novels has been raging across the net." Apparently YA authors and their agents and publishers do not like negative reviews. I'm shocked, shocked I say.... So, among other things, they have been publicly discussing rigging the Amazon and Goodreads ratings to improve the visibility of good reviews, and thus "hide" the negative reviews. They've also been ganging up on the YA book reviewers/book review bloggers. The Guardian article concludes with a very special note to authors: "And if you can't stand the heat of the blogosphere – don't Google yourself." (also via Gordon van Gelder's FB page)

• I write these month-end recaps on my computer, directly into a blog post, because I need access to the links/articles and often reference material, etc. But the drafts of most of my other blog posts are written in longhand; that's right, I take pencil to paper and actually write (well, more like scribble, since I'm the only one seeing the draft). I do this because I have a tendency to overedit when I compose online, and thus I never complete the text because I'm too occupied with editing. (Did I tell you that I'm an editor?) But writing on paper avoids a lot of this, and words actually do get written. Yes, I'll scratch out text, squeeze in changes, draw an arrow to the bottom of the page to something I want to add -- but the energy continues to flow, words continue to be written, and eventually the piece is completed. And then I edit as I type the text into a blog post. Evidently I'm not the only writer who works this way. Timmi Duchamp, of Aqueduct Press fame, also uses longhand, particularly when she needs to write additional material that will be inserted into an existing file. In a blog post entitled "The magic of writing longhand," Timmi says: "[In the past, before personal computers] whenever I wasn't sure where the story was going, I would retype the entirety of the scene I was working on, to give me a sort of running start. It never failed. I didn't feel I could do that when I switched to a word processor. So then I'd write out some of it longhand, and continue from there. Writing longhand has thus come to seem a sort of magic...." (via @charlesatan)

(Belated) December Links & Things

Whoa... hard to believe that we're in week four of January and I still have yet to post my December links and things. I do have a lot of excuses, like the holidays (and recovery from same), multiple computer, software, and network issues (some good, including a new ASUS Zenbook; most not so good; but all very time consuming), as well as a huge project -- 271,000-plus words! -- I just proofed and copyedited for Night Shade Books (The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Six, edited by Jonathan Strahan¹) that took far longer than I had anticipated. And I'm still dealing with the aftermath of my mother's passing: emails, phone calls, photocopying, meetings, forms to complete and notarize, and yet another trip to Southern California planned for next week.

But, as they say -- whoever "they" are -- that's life. And better that than the alternative, to be sure.

In fact, by the time I finish typing up and posting these December links it will be time to type up January's links... sigh....

I want to remind you that February 3 is the deadline to sign up for the last Alien Contact giveaway, hosted by SciFiChick.com. The giveaway is open to US residents (a print copy giveaway) and non-US residents (an ebook copy giveaway). So follow the link to SciFiChick.com, read my guest blog post entitled "Twenty-six Stories, Twenty-six Weeks..." and be sure to sign up for the giveaway.

And speaking of Alien Contact: Michael at The Mad Hatter's Bookshelf & Book Review blog just posted his December Reading Log, and he had these kind words to say about the anthology:

Alien Contact edited by Marty Halpern – Ranging from first contact and last contact to vacationers visiting an alien's home world and being, typically, obnoxious guests, Alien Contact compiles one of the most diverse collections of modern stories concerning the "other." Highly recommended....

Now, on to the links: This is my belated monthly wrap-up of December's Links & Things. You can receive these links in real time by following me on Twitter: @martyhalpern; or Friending me on Facebook (FB). Note, however, that not all of my tweeted/FB links make it into these month-end posts. There is a lot of content this time around, so please return for a second visit if you need to to take full advantage of all the links. Previous month-end posts are accessible via the "Links and Things" tag in the right column.

• Since I'm encouraging you to follow me on Twitter, here are teasers from Angela James's (@angelajames) "10 things authors should know about Twitter": 1) When you start your tweet with the @ symbol... 2) If you have your tweets protected... 3) You should not, really ever, I mean never, query or pitch an editor or agent on Twitter... 4) Please don't use Twitter DMs (or Facebook messages) to do business... 5) Just because the editor/agent is on Twitter at 11pm on a Friday night... 6) When we say you should "engage" on Twitter... 7) You should be talking about other people's books... 8) And while we're on the subject of promotion... 9) It's a good idea to be mindful... and 10) Twitter should be fun. For all the details: Angela James's blog. (via @ColleenLindsay)

• In 1963, at the ripe old age of sixteen, Bruce McAllister (1988 Hugo and Nebula awards finalist for "Dream Baby"; 2007 Hugo Award finalist for "Kin") sent out a 4-question mimeographed survey to 150 well-known authors to learn if "they consciously planted symbols in their work." Remember, this was long before the internet and email: the authors had to be tracked down, envelopes addressed and mailed, etc. He hoped the surveys would "settle a conflict with his English teacher by proving that symbols weren't lying beneath the texts they read like buried treasure awaiting discovery." Bruce has been sitting on 65 of those responses for all these years, and thanks to the Paris Review, we can now view many of these questionnaire responses from the likes of Jack Kerouac, Ayn Rand, Ralph Ellison, Ray Bradbury, John Updike, Saul Bellow, and Norman Mailer. This is amazing stuff! Not to be missed! The PR article was posted on December 5; on December 17, less than two weeks later, PR Online reported that they had 120,000 page views of the McAllister survey article -- the most page views they've ever had!

November Links & Things

I've been rather quiet here of late, as I just completed work on a project for Penguin/Ace Books that I had been anticipating for a couple months. I'll provide a bit of a teaser here by saying that I've just finished "the laundry" -- neatly pressed. So, now that this project is behind me (and I hope to do a blog post about it soon), I plan on being a bit more visible here. Or, at least I hope to be a bit more visible here. One can never tell, especially these days. Regardless, please don't give up on me.

Onward: This is my monthly wrap-up of November's Links & Things. You can receive these links in real time by following me on Twitter: @martyhalpern. Note, however, that not all of my tweeted links make it into these month-end posts. Previous month-end posts are accessible via the "Links and Things" tag in the right column. 

• Ernest Hogan (@NestoHogan), a contributing author to the Alien Contact anthology ["Guerrilla Mural of a Siren's Song"], has recently written a blog post on La Bloga, entitled "Chicanonautica: The Lone Sci-Fi Chicano?" in which he wonders if he may just be the only Chicano science fiction writer. If you are a Chicano SF/Fantasy author, or know of an author, please let Ernesto know by posting a comment to his blog post.
• Author Andrew Fox has informed me that his novel, The Good Humor Man, or Calorie 3501 (which I edited for Tachyon Publications) has been released in a variety of ebook formats. The link here is to the Kindle edition, but you'll find the ebook at Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and other online sellers. The novel was described by Kage Baker as "a Fahrenheit 451 for the post-millennium, told with Fox's magnificent evocation of place and twisted humor..." For more details, here's a link to my blog post from 19 February 2009 on the novel, and Tachyon Publications.
• If you are a book reader and/or a book collector, then you undoubtedly are familiar with ABEBooks.com (@AbeBooks), which recently posted a concise history of Amazing Stories magazine. You can find lengthier, more detailed histories elsewhere online, but what makes this article special are the more than 25 full-color covers, including the first Amazing Stories Annual from 1927. The article falls short, however, by not mentioning that the "Amazing Stories" name has recently been acquired by Steve Davidson, who has formed an editorial board and commissioned cover art. Check out my September and October Links & Things posts for details.
• Looking for fellow gamers for your game group? NeedGamers.com wants to help by being a registry for all flavors of gamer. (via @ProfBeard)
• On November 7 I purchased the new Stephen King novel, 11/22/63. How could I not purchase a book in which time travel is used to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination? The week before the book was released, Wired Magazine featured an interview with King in which he set forth his "Rules for Time Travel." King and Wired discuss the "butterfly effect," alternate timelines, and more. At the end of the interview, when asked if he'll write about time travel again, King responds: "No, this is it. Absolutely not. No, that's done. It's like Apollo Creed says, 'Ain't gonna be no rematch.'" (via @io9)
  

October Links & Things

As a follow-up to my September 1 status: as the saying goes, when it rains, it pours. (And it did, in fact, rain earlier today.) My mother, who had been under hospice care for a couple months, passed away on October 14; after spending a week away, I returned home on October 21, knowing that I would have to pack again in a few days for my trip to the World Fantasy Convention in San Diego. Then, on Sunday, two days after returning home, my laptop finally gave up the ghost. In previous years I had replaced the hard drive and the battery, and though the laptop had certainly paid for itself, I just wasn't ready to invest in a new machine, especially one running Windows 7. (I've been a die-hard XP user for more than ten years.) And then there was the work that had to be done on my mother's car: repair a window that wouldn't go up or down (and wouldn't stay up), and replace a burnt out horn. Anyhow, it was all of this or the World Fantasy Con; and all of this took priority. And, all of this was going on just prior to the release of my Alien Contact anthology, too. I was a bit overwhelmed. So, if you were looking for me at WFC, my apologies, but I simply had to bail on the con. Besides, after the week away, at the mom's funeral and dealing with the aftermath (which I'm still dealing with), I needed some time.... The next con I plan to attend will be FOGcon at the end of March, 2012.

So, finally, this is my monthly wrap-up of October's Links & Things. You can receive these links in real time by following me on Twitter: @martyhalpern. Note, however, that not all of my tweeted links make it into these month-end posts. Previous month-end posts are accessible via the "Links and Things" tag in the right column.

• With the publication of Alien Contact, there are a number of special "events" going on: my interview with Matt Staggs on Suvudu.com, and SFSignal.com's fourteen days of guest blog posts and interviews with many of the contributing authors, as well as upcoming events on io9.com and Night Shade Books. Also, don't forget to sign up for the Goodreads giveaway: 5 free copies of Alien Contact; and please check out (and "Like") my Alien Contact Anthology Facebook page. There are widgets to the right of this post for both Goodreads and Facebook.
• I reported in September's Links & Things that Steve Davidson had been granted the "Amazing Stories" trademark. According to Digital Science Fiction, Davidson now "has announced the creation of an Editorial Advisory Board to assist in the re-launch of the world’s first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories.... Steve has also commissioned Frank Wu, multiple Hugo Award-winning artist, to create a re-imagining of Frank R. Paul’s inaugural cover illustration for the magazine. The cover art will be made available on a variety of different media and will be used as a fund raising and promotional vehicle."
• Speaking of magazines, Realms of Fantasy, with which I have been involved since the October 2009 issue, has called it quits-- this now the third time in as many years, and publishers -- effective with the just-published October 2011 issue. Publishers William and Kim Gilchrist of Damnation Books, editor Doug Cohen, and fiction editor Shawna McCarthy have all written farewells on the magazine's website.
• Larry Brooks (@StoryFix) on storyfix.com has a blog post from back in May -- which I recently just learned about -- entitled: Suffering Is Optional, Or, Ten Ways to Totally Screw Up Your Novel. He writes: "The best way to avoid a hole in the road is to see the hole in the road." -- 1) Never begin writing a story without knowing how it will end; 2) If you choose to ignore the previous tip, then you’d best accept this one....; 3) Don’t kid yourself about the critical nature – the necessity – of structure in your story; 4) Don’t take side trips; 5) Don’t write a "small" story without something Big in it; 6) If you can’t describe your story in one compelling sentence, you probably can’t write it in 20,000 compelling sentences, either; 7) Don’t save your hero; 8) Don’t for a moment believe that the things an established bestselling author can get away with are things you can get away with; 9) Don’t overwrite; and 10) Never settle. Each bullet point has the details. (via @BookBuzzr)
• Author Kay Kenyon (@KayKenyon) shares her Secrets of the First Page in a recent blog post, which came about after Kay and Larry Brooks (see entry above) worked a "first page critique session." In the "Cut to the Chase" section, Kay writes: "Start with a scene. Where something is happening on stage. Put us in the middle of something interesting. The goal of the first page is to get the agent/editor to the second page. So your goal is not really to introduce the novel, but to introduce the scene... Last week Larry persuaded me that openings could be successful if not a scene. If your voice is strong...if you can deliver information that is dramatic...or if you can give us something else wonderful!" The blog post has 14 specific bullet points. (via Deborah J. Ross's FB page)

September Links & Things

This has been one of those days, one of those weeks, one of those months....for any concerned individuals, please see my earlier "Status" blog post.

This is my monthly wrap-up of September's Links & Things. You can receive these links in real time by following me on Twitter: @martyhalpern. Note, however, that not all of my tweeted links make it into these month-end posts. Previous month-end posts are accessible via the "Links and Things" tag in the right column.

• My friend, the New York Times Notable author Judith Moffett (about whom I have blogged on numerous occasions, two examples being here and here), has a newly revised website: judithmoffett.com. It's still "under construction," as they say, as Judith is currently in the midst of relocating from Kentucky to Pennsylvania.
• As we say good-bye and bemoan the loss of Borders Books & Music (chain store or not, the loss of any bookstore is sad), this poignant photo was taken by Reddit user "Jessers25" at a Borders going-out-of-business sale:
  
  
  
  
  
  The photo (with additional links) was originally posted on mediabistro.com/galleycat (@galleycat).

August Links & Things

My apologies for the belated August links wrap-up. This has been a trying two weeks...see my previous blog post for an explanation. Onward:

• The novel The Good Humor Man, or, Calorie 3501, by Andrew Fox, does for food what Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 did for books. In honor of the forthcoming eBook edition of TGHM, Andrew has posted links from around the world on "Food Police, Food Fascists, or GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) food terrorist stories." Here's just one: "Washington bureaucrats work to have Tony the Tiger Placed on the Endangered Species Act." [Note: I edited TGHM for Tachyon Publications.]
• When is the last time that you sent a postcard? In fact, have you ever written and mailed a picture postcard to someone? Received a postcard? In the NY Review of Books blog, Charles Simic takes a nostalgic look at "The Lost Art of Postcard Writing": "Until a few years ago, hardly a day would go by in the summer without the mailman bringing a postcard from a vacationing friend or acquaintance. Nowadays, you’re bound to get an email enclosing a photograph....The terrific thing about postcards was their immense variety. It wasn’t just the Eiffel Tower or the Taj Mahal, or some other famous tourist attraction you were likely to receive in the mail, but also a card with a picture of a roadside diner in Iowa, the biggest hog at some state fair in the South.... Almost every business in this country, from a dog photographer to a fancy resort and spa, had a card." (via @smallindiepress)
• On occasion, I have used the Internet Archive (aka the Wayback Machine) to find links and such to use in my blog posts. The nonprofit Internet Archive was founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle in order to save a copy of every web page ever posted. New Zealand's 3 News reports that Kahle has launched a new project: "the MIT-trained computer scientist and entrepreneur is expanding his effort to safeguard and share knowledge by trying to preserve a physical copy of every book ever published." (via @bkwrksevents)
• From foliomag.com: Penton Media's American Printer magazine ceased production after 128 years. The August 2011 edition was the last edition published. (via mediabistro.com)
• From postcards, to books, to magazines, to bookstores... Opened 32 years ago, the Travel Bookshop, made famous in the Hugh Grant/Julia Roberts flick Notting Hill, has closed, according to TheBookseller.com.
• Have you read Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India by Joseph Lelyveld? Or possibly The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan? Or perhaps Push by Sapphire, which was made into the Academy Award-winning film Precious? These are only 3 of the more than 20 books banned by U.S. schools so far this year. Censorship is on the rise. Read the list. (via @RickKlaw)

July Links & Things

This is my monthly wrap-up of July's Links & Things. You can receive these links in real time by following me on Twitter: @martyhalpern. Note, however, that not all of my tweeted links make it into these month-end posts. Previous month-end posts are accessible via the "Links and Things" tag in the right column.

July turned out to be a fairly slow month, newswise. Not sure if it was because of summer vacations and downtime, or possibly I was busier than I realized this month and didn't pick up on as many newsworthy items as in past months.

• In a previous blog post entitled "Writing with Style (Sheets, That Is)," I hoped to rally authors to use style sheets. In all the hundreds of books I have edited and/or copyedited over the past 10-plus years, I have only had two authors provide me with a style sheet -- Mark Teppo and Michael Stackpole -- and both of those were just in the past couple years. Until now. Kameron Hurley, author of God's War, Infidel, and the forthcoming Rapture (all from Night Shade Books), has gone one step further than a style sheet: she has created the Bel Dame Apocrypha Wiki for her trilogy of books. When I proofed and copyedited the first two titles in the series, I created my own style sheets, as it were -- a listing of all the proper nouns (and often hyphenations), unique words, etc. Now, I can simply look them up on the wiki.
• I recently created a Google+ account. Within my profile, I created a "Professional" circle for all my followers. I think I've checked my Google+ Stream maybe a couple times a week. Personally, Twitter and Facebook now require so much of my time that I simply don't have the desire to venture forth into yet another social media time-suck. I see Google+ as having two useful features that are currently unavailable on either Twitter or FB: First, you can create multiple circles, limiting those circles to specific people (say, immediately family, or employees, etc.) and then posting a msg only to that circle, which no one else will be able to read. Second, is the "hangout," which is more of a real-time group chat, ideal for brainstorming meetings, critique groups, or just, well, hanging out. Poynter.org has a blog post on the Google+ hangout, how to set one up, suggested parameters. etc.
• My friend Pat Cadigan (@Cadigan) announced this past month that her entire backlist of titles would be published as part of the new Gollancz "SF Gateway" program. According to the press release: "Gollancz, the SF and Fantasy imprint of the Orion Publishing Group, announces the launch of the world’s largest digital SFF library, the SF Gateway, which will make thousands of out-of-print titles by classic genre authors available as eBooks.... the SF Gateway will launch this autumn with more than a thousand titles by close to a hundred authors."
  

June Links & Things

This is my monthly wrap-up of June's Links & Things. You can receive these links in real time by following me on Twitter: @martyhalpern. Note, however, that not all of my tweeted links make it into these month-end posts. Previous month-end posts are accessible via the "Links and Things" tag in the right column.

June was a very busy month, for whatever reason; one would think that the online chatter would have lessened, what with vacations and such, but that wasn't the case. So, I'll be doing a bit less editorializing in order to get through this list.

• Mark Teppo's (@markteppo) novels, Lightbreaker and Heartland -- books 1 and 2 in the Codex of Souls series -- are currently available for the Kindle for 99-cents each. I don't know how long this rate will last, but I would encourage Kindle readers to take advantage of this special. You can read more about my editorial involvement in these two books here (which also includes excerpts from reviews). Mark has informed me that he is now hard at work on book 3, Angel Tongue.

• I also wanted to share with readers the passing of anthologist Martin (Marty) H. Greenberg, whose Tekno Books was instrumental in my co-edited anthology Is Anybody Out There? being published by Daw Books last year. I first learned of Marty's death via tweets from Bill Crider (@macavityabc) and @LawrenceBlock. io9 has this obit.

• I attended Westercon 64 this weekend and on more than one occasion, and in multiple panels, Ralan's Market Report and Webstravaganza was discussed. If you are a writer -- novice or pro -- looking for available markets, and/or the current status of existing markets, then Ralan.com is where you need to go. And sign up for the e-newsletter, too; the July 5 newsletter has just dropped into my Inbox. I'm shocked with my own self that I haven't mentioned Ralan previously (or, at least, I don't recall having ever done so; shame on me).

• I've just learned of a couple new markets: 1) BayCon, the San Francisco Bay Area's regional convention, will celebrate its 30th anniversary in 2012. Beginning in 2012, BayCon will begin publishing one original short story and one original flash fiction piece in the program book. This market is aimed at newer writers. Guidelines (via @CandlemarkGleam and @deirdresm); 2) The Galaxy Project: a "contest to select one novella or novelette [to] be judged in the spirit of H. L. Gold and the great magazine of which he was founding editor." Guidelines (via @sfsignal).

• And with story submissions come story rejections, unfortunately. Former lit agent, now author, Nathan Bransford blogs that "Rejection Is Not Personal" even though it feels personal.

May Links & Things

As I've previously mentioned, I backup my working data daily and the entire "My Computer" weekly, all to an external hard drive; that external hard drive, in turn, is also backed up daily and weekly to another external drive. But all of that means very little when the power supply decides to give up the ghost. Early Saturday morning, just prior to leaving the house for Baycon, I realized that I needed one more piece of information in preparation for my interview/chat and slide show presentation with Artist Guest of Honor John Picacio later that afternoon. I went to turn on the PC and, well, there was no "on" -- not even any noise, other than the click of the on/off button. So I snagged the info I needed from a book that just happened to be handy, and left for the con, knowing I would have to deal with a dead PC come Tuesday morning. Long story short, a new OEM power supply was ordered Tuesday, installed Wednesday (yesterday), and by last night all was as it should be (or should have been).

This is my monthly wrap-up of May's Links & Things. You can receive these links in real time by following me on Twitter: @martyhalpern. Note, however, that not all of my tweeted links make it into these month-end posts. If you are new to this blog, and wish to catch up on my previous month-end posts, just look for the "Links and Things" tag in the right column.

• Advertisement of the month:
  
  
  
  
  What concerns me in the ad are the words: "Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed." If anybody responds to the ad successfully, I would surely appreciate your sharing with us in the Comments section! (ad courtesy of Libi Kavanah's Facebook page)

If you haven't yet subscribed to mediabistro.com's eBookNewser and GalleyCat blogs, which are delivered daily to your email inbox, then what are you waiting for?

• Links by the number:
  
  From GalleyCat: "10 Nontraditional Ways To Promote Your Book." GalleyCat has collected 10 tips on self-promotion from a thread on the Amazon discussion boards. The tips, in turn, are linked to the author's specific explanation.
  
  From GalleyCat: "5 Free Formatting Guides on How To Publish Your eBook." This brief article mentions these five guides along with their respective links: Smashwords Style Guide, Amazon Kindle Publishing Guidelines, Barnes & Noble ePub Formatting Guide, Apple iBookstore Style Guidelines, and Calibre User Manual.
  
  Now that you have the guides, here are the tools, from eBookNewser: "Six eBook Formatting Tools." These six tools are mentioned, with their respective links: Calibre, Aspose, Mobi Pocket, Jutoh, Feedbooks.com, and BookGlutton.
  
  Okay, you have the formatting guides, the formatting tools, now you need to know how to publish -- from eBookNewser: "Five Tools For Self-Publishing Your eBook." Explained in this article, with links, are these self-publishing options: Kindle Direct Publishing, Barnes & Noble PubIt, iTunes Connect, Smashwords, and Lulu.com.

There are undoubtedly more eBook formatting guides and tools and eBook publishing sites, but these are worth serious consideration, and at least provide a baseline for further research.

April Links & Things

This is my monthly wrap-up of April's Links & Things. You can receive these links in real time by following me on Twitter: @martyhalpern. Note, however, that not all of my tweeted links make it into these month-end posts. Hopefully, you will find some value in what follows; if you are new to this blog, and wish to catch up on my previous month-end posts: just look for the "Links and Things" tag in the right column of this blog; there are 29 previous blog posts.

• On April 29, renowned feminist SF author and critic Joanna Russ -- best known for her novel The Female Man -- passed away, following a series of strokes. PW's Rose Fox shares some personal thoughts on Joanna Russ on the Genreville blog, which includes a link to Ms. Russ's still-powerful, Nebula Award-winning story, "When It Changed," originally published in 1972 in Again, Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison®.
• Short story collection George Alec Effinger Live! From Planet Earth, which I originally acquired and edited for Golden Gryphon Press in 2005, has now been released in eBook format courtesy of E-Reads. This collection was a joy to compile: I contacted George's friends and former editors, including Michael Bishop, Bradley Denton, Gardner Dozois, Neil Gaiman, and Howard Waldrop, to name but a few, and asked them to select their fave Effinger story -- and once they did, I then asked each of them to write an introduction to the story for this collection. A wonderful tribute, indeed, to Effinger's unique work.
• SFSignal.com (@sfsignal) reports the return of Michael Moorcock's New Worlds Magazine. The website is slated to go live in June/July, with the first issue scheduled to appear this September/October. The magazine is currently open to submissions from authors and artists.
• You gotta love this title for a blog post: "Premature Plot Ejaculation" -- written by Benjamin Tate on the Apex Publications blog. Tate writes: "I have just recently finished up the first book in a new series and I experienced something toward the end that *ahem* authors don't like to talk about. It's a little... embarrassing. We all experience it, but it's... awkward to talk about, and we'd rather our fans think we're perfect, that 'accidents' don't happen.... But 'accidents' do happen. To the best of us. And it's time someone talked about it. Yes, yes, I'm talking about premature plot ejaculation. There, I said it! It's out there! Now let's deal with it." (via Danny O’Dare's Facebook page)
• I would recommend this next blog even more so if it weren't for the nag "Follow Us" link that's glued to the left side of the window, constantly covering the text so that I must scroll, and scroll, and scroll to maintain the text at eye-level, yet move it from under the nag link. So be forewarned unless, that is, you enjoy being nagged. The blog is courtesy of the Novel Publishing Group, LLC (@novelpublicity), and the blogger, Emlyn, shares with us "The Importance of Editing: 6 Tips to Help Make the Most of Your Manuscript": 1) Write through your first draft; 2) Learn to pinpoint your most common mistakes; 3) Your beta reader is your new best friend; 4) Never underestimate the usefulness of Ctrl+F; 5) Don’t box yourself in by insisting upon a precise number of drafts; and 6) When you think you're finished, you're probably not.
• Another by-the-numbers blog post that should intrigue you, especially if you are a serious reader and wish to support your favorite authors -- this one by Keith Brooke (@keithbrooke) entitled "Seven things you can do to help an author": 1) Play tag; 2) Customer reviews; 3) Other reviews; 4) Like us; 5) Follow us; 6) Engage; and 7) Word of mouth. Some of these bullet points aren't directly intuitive, like "Play tag" so you'll need to check out the blog post for the details.
• If your book is published by a typical New York publisher, you most likely have little, if any, say in the cover art. Some independent publishers will allow the author to provide feedback on the cover art (although there is no guarantee the publisher will do anything with that feedback); a few indie publishers will even work directly with the author. But what if you are self-publishing your book? Author Steve Thomas provides us with a 3-part in-depth discussion on his cover art experience. In Part 1, Steve chooses a cover artist; Part 2 follows the progress from description to final cover; and in Part 3, we get to hear from the artist himself. Extremely well-done series, especially if you are planning on self-publishing -- and don't think that real cover art matters. The link above takes you to part 3, but the first paragraph contains links to parts 1 and 2. (via @indiebookblogge)
• You've written your novel, you've got the cover art, and now you are ready to publish. What do you do? Joanna Penn (@thecreativepenn), on her blog The Creative Penn, provides us with a detailed breakdown of her book launch for her novel Pentecost. From book trailers to guest blogging to launch day competitions, Joanna tells all, including the costs. She then does a postmortem, looking at what she did well, and what could have been done better. Excellent.