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Sep28
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 Publishing models have shifted dramatically, but don't let that crazy situation guide your writing career.
Read this article if you don't believe me. The Economist makes the shopworn point that print publications are in trouble while making the not-so-shopworn point that magazine advertising rates are holding steady. What does this mean for us? Keep pitching magazines. They pay better, people read them, and they will survive this publishing earthquake, in one form or the other. The article makes this winning point: "Whereas newspapers have concentrated on transferring print journalism to the internet, magazines offer people useful, fun services online—Lagardère's Car and Driver website, for instance, offers virtual test drives, and Better Homes and Gardens online has a 3D planning tool to help people redesign their homes." Notice that the quote lacks hyperlinks to the sites it mentions. When you follow my advice and end up writing for print/online magazine hybrid products someday, teach everybody how to code a HTML hyperlink, especially when highlighting a good example of web savvy publications. That's the second thing I learned from The Economist.
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Sep27
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Where will the great investigative journalism of our century happen?According to Wired magazine, it will all happen on small, online publications like Sharesleuth.com, not the powerful media organizations. I'm not bashing The Big Bad Mainstream Media when I say that,...
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Sep26
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Can a crack team of online readers replace agents?Slush Pile Reader thinks so. They just announced a service where fledgling writers can upload manuscripts so the site's community can pick their favorites. The best books score a contract where "Slush...
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I ask myself that question every day when I post, wondering if I should chop my extra paragraph about some sort-of-related-but-not-really point about writing or if I should keep my post short and simple for your overtaxed web reading list.Today...
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Sep25
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Do you need an agent? An anti-agent manifesto at the Guardian has rekindled that whole writing debate in the lit-blog world. More importantly, more writers are wrestling the question, what do you expect to get as a novelist looking for an...
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After a couple years stuck inside teenaged bedrooms and bolted to computer monitors, video storytelling is finally going on the road.The good folks at the Goethe-Institut New York (who put together a fabulous screening and lecture with film-making madman Werner...
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Sep24
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A good spreadsheet could save your career. I bet you never dreamed you'd read that here, but it's true. Half the battle of being a writer is keeping as many irons in the fire as you possibly can without burning...
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If we escaped our everyday grind, could we finish our novels? Right now, a creative vacation to a forest, beach, or French cafe sounds perfect. Where do you go to write? Should we flee to quiet, empty places to write or...
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Sep21
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"My father, as he lay dying, was astounded when I told him that I was writing a memoir, with its claims to the tradition of a Bildungsroman, and perhaps he was right to be skeptical."That's a trip through the mind...
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Where should writers live? The question is so so so important. I nearly starved to death during my first year in New York, living on a book clerk's salary and paying nasty Manhattan rent. It was a terrible financial and...
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Sep20
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"I was terrified that Henrietta was going to mention Trudy's rumored infidelities, but something else happened: she stiffened, spittle leaked from the side of her mouth, and an instant later she slumped over, as if she were having a seizure....
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Write what you know. It's a cliché, but you can turn it upside down--trust your own crazy uniqueness and don't write what everybody else is writing. If you want to know what everybody else is writing, check out the slush...
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Sep19
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They say that journalists are writing the first draft of history. What happens when a professional journalist writes a novel set inside the second or third draft of a historical moment?Our special guest Jeffrey Frank is a senior editor at...
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Writers have all these amazing technologies at their disposal, but too many of us sit around blaming them for ruining the business.Ed Champion and James Marcus reported from the Columbia Journalism School debate about the future of book reviewing last night....
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Sep18
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"It's hard for me to focus on very much these days, perhaps because, like Trudy and everyone, I'm waiting for this boring election to be over and I've run out of things to say about it." That's a a clueless academic...
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Can blogs build homes for long-form literary criticism?I struggle with that question every day, trying to come up with an acceptable balance of smart content and speedy delivery. Like the first silent movie directors, we are playing with a medium...
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Sep17
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"I really can't stand most of the people I work with ... there's Guy Tomanty, who does the weather twice a day and thinks he's just about the funniest man in the world; he can't understand why the networks haven't...
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Do you remember the giddy thrill of book fairs and book orders in grade school? As a kid, I used to live for those days when some bookseller would brings cases full of the newest Hardy Boys books to my...
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Sep14
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The Internets have been buzzing about Dave Eggers all week, applauding and booing his $250,000 grant from the Heinz Foundation--an award going straight to Eggers' non-profit writing center, 826 Valencia.No matter what you think, you should listen to the man's...
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Sep13
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A big fat scandal just exploded over at ABC News and the Nixon Institute. The French academic Alexis Debat consulted with both places as a Middle Eastern expert, and allegedly faked a number of interviews he did with American leaders...
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You want to know the big, fat secret to pitching stories to magazines? Embrace rejection.Seriously, before embarking on a series of magazine pitches, prepare for the worst. For every story you manage to sell, another twenty editors will send you...
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Sep12
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Are you writing in the wrong genre? Short story writer and essayist Steve Almond just wrote an essay about how he figured out he wasn't a poet. It's an unexpected tribute to C.K. Williams poetry:"Somehow, in the midst of manifest suffering,...
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How do you survive the tough times as a writer? What do you do when you feel, ironically or un-ironically, like the "Leave Britney Alone!" YouTube girl who channeled her frustrations into a hysterical video about a pop star, and...
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Sep11
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We talk a lot about how music affects our writing, but today I'm thinking about how writers affect music. I've spent the last two weeks obsessed with the Okkervil River song, "John Allyn Smith Sails." I won't ruin the tune for...
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Sep10
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Putting their enthusiasm for William Gibson to good use, science fiction fans have re-invented the critical wheel.BookNinja reports how some webby readers created a carefully tagged collection of criticism that acts more like an A.I. Book Reviewing Machine than a...
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Over the summer, I decided that science fiction writers are the first-responders of the web-based literary world.Long before any other genre discussed the Internet, computer culture, or any of the reality-changing digital shifts in our lives, science fiction authors were...
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Sep 7
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What's your secret to survival? To be honest, I've been having a nerve-wracking, over-crowded, and tough time lately, and the first thing that suffers is my writing. I haven't cracked my novel in two weeks and everything I write sounds all...
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People love to make fun of bloggers. They call us pajama-heads, wanabe journalists, and opinion surfers. All these debates and funny names will seem quaint in ten years. Soon we will realize that bloggers are one thing, and one thing...
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Sep 6
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We have the power to write the most interactive stories ever invented. How do we do it? A few months ago Clive Thompson (collision detection), asked that question in a review of the game, Hotel Dusk--basically an attempt to write...
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Sep 5
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From our discussion with bandleader/novelist Willy Vlautin to my Best Music of 2006 Post, I love writing about how music can change your writing process.Today, Miranda July is over at the Papercuts blog, sharing her favorite music. The atmosphere of...
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Should you pay attention blogs when you publish your book? The answer isn't "Yes" or "No" anymore. The correct answer is "How?" Over a year ago, novelist M.J. Rose told me why she blogs: "blogs, websites, listservs and news and entertainment...
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Sep 4
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After years of reading and thinking about The Believer magazine, I finally landed my first story in one of my all-time favorite magazines (MediaBistro asked me how I did it). If you get a chance, check out my new piece,...
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Believe it or not, I just spent an hour and a half stuck in a subway tunnel. As my twenty-minute commute stretched past the hour mark, I started brooding about what happens next in my life. It's a good question...
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