Devoted to publishing, publishers and to those who craft the written word

Everybody is so worried that the Internet will wreck book publishing, but ultimately, the web is our best chance to keep our writing world alive.

Yesterday Wired Magazine profiled the good folks at The Emerging Writers Network, a site with a well-deserved spot on my RSS reader. They took a community of fledgling writers and launched an entire publishing company, a beautiful story.

Even better, the article features tons of commentary about how other small presses are adapting to new media--this goldmine of links in particular caught my attention.

Let's stop whining and start writing:

"McSweeney's, one of the most successful new small presses, took a financial hit when AMS collapsed. To raise funds, it held an eBay auction of first editions and signed illustrations. Now it features pictures and bios of Subscriber of the Week on its site. To promote Matthew Sharpe's Jamestown, Soft Skull Press put up a MySpace page for Pocahontas, one of the novel's main characters. Unbridled Books produces regular YouTube videos and podcasts."

For all you webby writers who aren't quite ready for large-scale projects, Jakob Nielsen has some shocking news--writing in the famously-hated-by-writing-teachers passive voice can actually  grab more readers in the topsy-turvy world of the Internets.