First, Stephen King. This gets a big shiny gold star from me for how he says teaching can be like a brain suck. Also: he threw away Carrie. I'm sure you've heard the story before, but it's still cool.
I found these questions that you should ask a copy editor before hiring him quite intriguing. It also confirmed that, although I am a self-professed grammar queen, I am perhaps not suitable to be employed as a copy editor. I certainly don't have a favorite dictionary.
Book sales. They suck. Except for, yanno, kid lit. Which kinda rocks for me and everyone else writing kid lit. But I liked this article because it filled me with spiteful glee (as, personally, I think it would be better for publishers to invest more cash in debut authors than slapping down too many bills for a sophomore novel):
Other big titles showed mixed results. “Her Fearful Symmetry,” the second novel by Ms. Niffenegger, author of the best-selling “Time Traveler’s Wife,” sold just 23,000 copies in its first week, according to BookScan. Publishing insiders suggested that was a disappointment given that Scribner, the unit of Simon & Schuster that published the book, paid Ms. Niffenegger close to $5 million for it.
Lastly: I won this in a Twitter contest. How cool is that? Will update you all on it's usefulness, if you'd like.
I feel like I need to pull out some Stephen King because his name keeps cropping up on my radar today!
ReplyDeleteCool Twitter prize :)
Congrats on winning your contest. Twitter is fun but I still like blogs better.
ReplyDeleteI don't know that I mind a sophomore book getting more cashy-cash...if it's mine! LOL! No, in all seriousness, it might be cool to take $1M of that money and spend it on an awesome advertising campaign...but she could've done that, too. So, who's really responsible there? The publishing house or the author? If she wants a third book, maybe she could invest some of her advance on a little advert. I'm just saying...
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting the King video - I like hearing him talk about writing.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the links. I especially enjoyed the King video. Card says the same things about not really being able to teach people creative writing. We just have to read and write. write. write.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the King link!
ReplyDeleteI can't see what you won, but congrats!! Maybe I'll try when I get home and the district firewall isn't blocking everything. :)
ReplyDeleteCool linkage! Thanks so much!
ReplyDeleteIt is my first message here, so I would like to say hallo to all of you! It is uncommonly pleasure to be adjacent to your community!
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