On Nantucket, business journalist Peter Barnes overheard a tourist asking a bookstore owner for a children's book about the island, reports the Washington Post's Elizabeth Chang in Making It: Children's Books Read More
Writers and Editors (RSS feed)
Keep libel courts out of science: British Chiropractic Association v Simon Singh
June 28, 2009
The British Chiropractic Association brought a libel case against science writer Simon Singh in London for his criticism of chiropractic procedures in the book Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts About Alternative Medicine and in a Guardian article, "Beware the Spinal Trap" Read More
The detour into misery that makes a character or narrative compelling
June 27, 2009
"It takes a rare kind of courage to live like a character in a story, and not many real-life human beings have the nerve to try it—perhaps because the elements that make a narrative compelling also make life miserable," writes Adam M. Bright in a story for Good Magazine about Lea Thau and the Moth, Read More
Covering health care reform
June 25, 2009
Having trouble thinking through the key issues in health care reform? A good place to start reading is Trudy Lieberman's interview with Wendell Potter, who left the health care industry because he "didn’t want to be part of another health insurance industry effort to shape reform that would benefit the industry at the expense of the public." Read More
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Will e-books make traditional publishers irrelevant?
June 22, 2009
"The reason you make money as a publisher is that authors believe your participation adds value," writes Bryan Rosner, in a fascinating story for IBPA, the independent publishers association. "Although editing and graphic design are important, the major area in which you add value involves your knowledge of, and access to, printing and distribution resources. If you’re publishing e-books, authors may decide they don’t need you." Read More
Finding vintage music from a particular year or place
June 17, 2009
For audio-visual presentations and video tributes, here are sites where you can track down music from a certain place or period, and sometimes actually listen to bits of the music. Links below will take you to good sites for finding vintage music and a Web page with links to sources for royalty-free music, images, video clips, and Read More
Want help picking a self-publishing (print-on-demand) publisher?
June 11, 2009
Dog Ear Publishing has an interesting negative-marketing approach to competition among self-publishers (subsidy publishers), which might be useful to the those considering various print-on-demand publishers. Dog Ear first lists the Self Publishing Pros & Cons, suggests a strategy for comparing various POD publishers/printers Read More
Arguing About Process Journalism ('Beta' Journalism)
June 9, 2009
Instead of the finished story as published in a print newspaper in, say, 1980, fully researched, reported, fact-checked, and final, stories on the Web are being reported as they are investigated. Here are some pieces online about process journalism (which is apparently different from link journalism but I'm not sure how), in Read More
Memoir: Show AND Tell (an interview with Patricia Hampl)
June 6, 2009
"I think that the reason memoir is a dynamic form today is not because we happen to be a tell-all society," Patricia Hampl said in an interview in 2004. "What I think really has given torque to the genre, has made universities suddenly make room for this genre has to do with...this thing called a story, Read More
The difference between marketing, publicity, and advertising
June 3, 2009
In an excellent audio interview on the Great Writers Book Marketing Series, John Kremer (author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books)-- get the Sixth Edition) explains the difference between publicity, advertising, and marketing. Publicity is getting some form of media to do a story about you. (You may have to pay someone to help you Read More