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May 28, 2009
May 21, 2009
Cheap Kindle Fiction
Yes, I'm trying to play with Google search queries, but I like how this looks:
Besides ebook uploading, I got a new job, working for Savings.com. Makes me very happy - an hourly job, with benefits, still working at home. No more hustling so hard to find freelance writing work. I was getting very nervous because a freelance outlet I was working for went from content writing to web design. I've seen countless web start-ups fall through, but this one's on the way up and growing. A long time coming, this sense of stability. I had a day last week where I thought the bottom could have been dropping out. Bad time to be looking for work, but I had a couple of interviews and got the job. Nicely faith restoring. Life never makes me rich, but it gives me what I need. I knock on wood.
Besides ebook uploading, I got a new job, working for Savings.com. Makes me very happy - an hourly job, with benefits, still working at home. No more hustling so hard to find freelance writing work. I was getting very nervous because a freelance outlet I was working for went from content writing to web design. I've seen countless web start-ups fall through, but this one's on the way up and growing. A long time coming, this sense of stability. I had a day last week where I thought the bottom could have been dropping out. Bad time to be looking for work, but I had a couple of interviews and got the job. Nicely faith restoring. Life never makes me rich, but it gives me what I need. I knock on wood.
May 20, 2009
Dreams
Yesterday I was feeling particularly toxic, which was worrying me. As I’ve written about, my health isn’t so great. Last night I had a dream about beating up my ex-wife’s new boyfriend, who turned out to be very tan and sinewy (haven’t met the guy), and then hanging out with Henry Rollins and my daughter, where diamonds littered the pavement. This morning I woke up feeling fine and refreshed, even though I woke up at 6:30 and didn’t actually get a lot of sleep. I think my health has as much to do with how I input and process information as it does with potassium, protein, salt, and everything else I need to watch. That’s true for everyone, but for me toxicity is a deeper issue.
Note: The American Book of the Dead is about a writer who resurrects his faith in himself through a series of prophetic dreams.
Note: The American Book of the Dead is about a writer who resurrects his faith in himself through a series of prophetic dreams.
May 19, 2009
Read North of Sunset
Uploading North of Sunset to all the ebook sites, in preparation for doing the same with The American Book of the Dead. Here it is from Scribd:
North of Sunset
North of Sunset
Dan Baum
If you haven’t read Dan Baum’s (no relation) Twitter tale about working for and getting fired by The New Yorker, it is good reading. $90,000 a year for 30,000 words? Incredible. I should be a millionaire for the number of words I write a year – albeit nothing 1% as good or as necessary as The New Yorker (web content). But seems an absurd figure for the # of staff writers they have. A window into writing on that level:
Finally:
Writers have problems at the top and the bottom.
New Yorker stories are so easy to read. Of course, the magazine does run everything through the deflavorizer, following
Samuel Johnson’s immortal advice: “Read what you have written, and when you come across a passage you think
Is particularly fine, strike it out.”
Finally:
Remnick called to say he wouldn’t renew my contract come September. He said he didn’t like my work. There were those five long stories that were killed.
That’s a lot in three years, he said.
I argued that in all five cases, the quality of the work wasn’t the problem
Writers have problems at the top and the bottom.
May 18, 2009
Hollywood Novel
Thanks to Smashwords, you can now download North of Sunset in a number of formats - you set the price.
May 15, 2009
May 11, 2009
Typos
Potentially burning a bridge. Do I really want to criticize my current agent? Probably not, but do I really think I’m going to publish traditionally again? Probably not. If I do, it will be because a book I’ve put out myself was successful, in which case the criticism of my agent today won’t mean much. But my agent rejected my novel based on typos. She mentioned other things, but the fact that she mentioned typos at all is extremely very puzzling. Would an editor reject a book based on typos? It would be a day’s worth of work to fix.
The full criticism is:
I’ll accept everything else she said, but typos is just bizarre to me. Even if she was looking for some way to let me down easy, typos shouldn’t enter into the equation: because they can be fixed and fixed easily. Anyway, it’s confirmed now that I’m releasing the novel myself. I really, truly need the money of a book deal, but I really, truly don’t see how this is possible in the current state of things.
The full criticism is:
That being said, I am afraid that I cannot accept your novel for representation at this time. There are several grammatical errors and typos that require editing, and I would also consider rewriting your introduction. Also, I fear you spell things out for your reader that would be better served being subtly hinted at. Since you possess such strong skills in character development, many of Eugene’s spoken opinions are unnecessary because you expose them in his interactions and dialogue.
I’ll accept everything else she said, but typos is just bizarre to me. Even if she was looking for some way to let me down easy, typos shouldn’t enter into the equation: because they can be fixed and fixed easily. Anyway, it’s confirmed now that I’m releasing the novel myself. I really, truly need the money of a book deal, but I really, truly don’t see how this is possible in the current state of things.
May 9, 2009
Star Trek & Me
J.J. Abram's dad was the landlord of the house I grew up in. I went to high school with writer Alex Kurtzman, a year below me:
Alex Kurtzman & Bob Orci Interview - Star Trek from FirstShowing.net on Vimeo.
Literary Worth
I wrote one of my favorite posts I’ve written for the Self-Publishing Review. One of the reasons I’m so attracted to self-publishing is that it is so maligned. The same goes for UFOs. Something with such profound implications is treated as a joke. Self-Publishing is the UFO of literature. People mock it, denigrate it, but at its core it is such a great development: all writers have the ability to reach readers. No one is without a voice, no one is locked out.
That type of free expression should be celebrated, but it is more often criticized. It is a total mystery. Self-publishing’s not perfect by any means, but its positive implications outweigh its flaws.
So I wrote a post about how writers have often not been accepted during their own time. The method of publication should not determine a book’s artistic worth. The book had the same value before and after it was accepted by the artistic establishment. To say otherwise is to say that money determines artistic value. Just wrong. I write:
There is something to be said for the magic of a movement. Kerouac’s On the Road wouldn’t have meant the same if it wasn’t a literary phenomenon that represented an entire generation. An argument could be made that if Kerouac was able to self-publish via print on demand in 1951 this would have limited his artistic impact. That’s a fair point, but it says nothing about whether or not the book is more or less worthwhile once it hit it big.
In our world, crap rises to the top- the lowest common denominator is often the most successful, so to say that success equals literary worth makes no sense at all. And who knows, maybe self-publishing can be a literary movement like the Beats, giving rise to artists taking over the system. In this day and age, maybe an On the Road being released through Lulu is exactly what leads to that book’s reputation. It’s a much different environment than 1951. If that’s even a possibility then self-publishing’s got merit, which is why people should let up with the criticism.
That type of free expression should be celebrated, but it is more often criticized. It is a total mystery. Self-publishing’s not perfect by any means, but its positive implications outweigh its flaws.
So I wrote a post about how writers have often not been accepted during their own time. The method of publication should not determine a book’s artistic worth. The book had the same value before and after it was accepted by the artistic establishment. To say otherwise is to say that money determines artistic value. Just wrong. I write:
On the Road was written in 1951 – but it was not published until 1957, towards the end of the decade. Jack Kerouac did most of the writing that’s part of his legacy before On the Road was ever published. Is On the Road a better book in 1957 than it was when it was initially written in 1951? I think most people would say no: publication doesn’t determine worth. The book is the book.
There is something to be said for the magic of a movement. Kerouac’s On the Road wouldn’t have meant the same if it wasn’t a literary phenomenon that represented an entire generation. An argument could be made that if Kerouac was able to self-publish via print on demand in 1951 this would have limited his artistic impact. That’s a fair point, but it says nothing about whether or not the book is more or less worthwhile once it hit it big.
In our world, crap rises to the top- the lowest common denominator is often the most successful, so to say that success equals literary worth makes no sense at all. And who knows, maybe self-publishing can be a literary movement like the Beats, giving rise to artists taking over the system. In this day and age, maybe an On the Road being released through Lulu is exactly what leads to that book’s reputation. It’s a much different environment than 1951. If that’s even a possibility then self-publishing’s got merit, which is why people should let up with the criticism.
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