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Nathan Bransford is the author of JACOB WONDERBAR AND THE COSMIC SPACE KAPOW, a middle grade novel about three kids who blast off into space, break the universe, and have to find their way back home, which will be published by Dial Books for Young Readers in May 2011. He was formerly a literary agent with Curtis Brown Ltd., but is now a publishing civilian working in the tech industry. He lives in San Francisco.
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By: Nathan Bransford,
on 3/20/2013
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None of us would be who we are today without the influence of the books we've read throughout our lives. And for those of us who are writers, books have shaped us so much we have chosen to write them ourselves and hopefully leave behind works that resonate with a new generation of readers.
As a way of giving thanks, I'm going to hand write thank you notes to five authors for the impact they've had on my life.
I'm so excited to kick off the #ThankAWriter project with my good friend Maggie Mason, who blogs at Mighty Girl, and is one of the cofounders of Go Mighty, a site built around making a list of your life goals, finding people who can help you achieve them, and sharing your stories as you complete them. My profile is here.
One item on my life list is to give thanks to my favorite authors. So once a week over the next five weeks, Maggie and I are going to hand write thank you notes and then mail or deliver them and post our stories about it.
Please join us in this project! It's super easy and will be very rewarding. Maggie and I will also be linking to some of our favorites.
Here's all you have to do:
2) Create a life list goal of thanking authors (Here's mine)
3) Every time you write a thank you note, post a photo or the text as a story on GoMighty with a #ThankAWriter tag. Like this one. You can see all the goals and letters here.
That's it!
My first thank you note will come as no surprise to long time readers. Here's my note to Ian McEwan:
I'm sending you this letter of thanks for being one of the writers who has inspired me and truly changed my life.
To say that I admire your work is an understatement. I believe you to be one of the best, if not the best living writers in the world and I think you're up there with the greats of all time. As a novelist myself I know how difficult it can be to stand back for a moment and see anything but how one could have been still better, but I hope you appreciate what a great accomplishment your novels represent.
When I read Atonement, Enduring Love, Saturday, etc., I was an assistant at a literary agency with no idea I'd go on to become a novelist of my own. From you I've learned that one can be literary while maintaining a grasp of the plot, and the importance of complex relationships as a way of learning about characters.
Above all, you've taught me humility. Because I'll never be as good as you.
Thank you for your work, it has impacted me tremendously.
Nathan Bransford
By: Nathan Bransford,
on 3/18/2013
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It's NCAA tournament time and we're back with the 5th Annual Blog Bracket Challenge!
Who is the greatest literary bracket prognosticator of them all?
Whichever of you knows least about basketball. Or the most. Or somewhere in between. THESE THINGS ARE TRICKY.
In order to enter, all you have to do is pick winners in a tournament field of 68 teams. You will do well with science or the complete lack thereof. You might have a vaunted "color of uniforms" system, or a "anything but Duke" approach. Whatever your secret is, it will probably be better than mine.
Here we go, this is fun!
The winner with the most points at the end of the NCAA tournament will win
a query critique and a signed galley of JACOB WONDERBAR AND THE INTERSTELLAR TIME WARP!! (or other suitable agreed-upon prize)Here's how to enter:
1. Go to the front page of the ESPN tournament challenge:
http://games.espn.go.com/tcmen/frontpage2. Make your picks.
3. If you have an ESPN username and password from last year you can log in when you submit your picks, otherwise you may need to create a new user ID and password. But don't worry, it's not onerous and you can decline to receive updates in case you're spam conscious.
4. Hover over the link that says "My Groups" and then click "Create or Join a Group"
5. Search for "Bransford Blog Challenge." Enter the password, which is "rhetorical" and then click Join Group.
Then you're all set! You can make changes to your bracket by clicking on it until it locks on Thursday (and yes, there are play-in games before then, but the bracket still doesn't lock until Thursday).
All updates/trahstalking will occur in
this dedicated thread in the Forums, so make sure to join us there.
Good luck!!
Photo: Dr. James Naismith, the inventor of basketball.
So. I'm embarking on a project to self-publish a
Guide to Writing a Novel.
What are the best resources for self-publishers? What are your favorite blogs, message boards, and books?
Art: The bookbinder by Anonymous
There is a lot to love about the time we live in.
We're more connected to each other than ever. We can be more productive. We can do more with less time. We very often take it for granted.
I remember when my parents had to sit down once a month to "do the bills," which meant spending an entire night writing checks, balancing accounts, licking envelopes, and driving to the post office the next day.
Now, I write precisely one check a month and it's to my landlord, and in fact, it's one of the few times a month I write
anything by hand. There are few bills I don't pay automatically, and it's easy to manage things online.
I remember phone chains where people scheduled events and spread the word about changes in meeting times by going down a list and calling people one by one. I remember how precarious it could be to meet someone when they could have an unexpected delay and had no way of letting you know. I remember how I sometimes didn't know baseball scores for two days because the games ended too late to be printed in the next morning's newspaper.
And I'm only 32!
At the same time, as the Arcade Fire memorably put it,
We Used to Wait. We used to have to be patient. We didn't have to unplug because the default state was unplugged.
The consequences of this constant bombardment is well-documented, whether it's car accidents caused by texting or an inability to sleep because of blue light from the laptops we tote to bed or chronic short attention spans.
For me personally, I find the consequences most acute when it comes to brainstorming new creative ideas and especially when I try to making decisions.
Creative thinking requires a calmness and a blocking out of distractions in order to let ideas come to you. Decision making requires you to truly be in touch with how you feel and to stop and listen to yourself. They require concentration, which can be in short supply.
It's not at all easy for me to find calm moments when inspiration can strike, so I try to block off one day on the weekend for a trip to the park or a walk through a museum or both. Even then it's hard not to peek at my phone, but the fresh air of the park, the sunshine, the quiet... it's vital. I don't always make it, but I do my best to carve out small spaces for myself when I let myself be still.
As we do more and more sometimes it can be productive do less.
How do you carve out calm moments in a distracted world?
Art: Pastoral Landscape by Alvan Fisher
By: Nathan Bransford,
on 3/11/2013
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Thanks so much to everyone for the great response on my
guide to writing a novel! I'm so excited to be doing this in Internet era. I mean, instant feedback on what to include and I'm not even done writing it yet.
There were some really awesome ideas and some questions as well. A few answers:
- This guide is just going to be focused on how to write a novel. Just the writing part of the novel, uh, part. So there won't be anything about query letters or marketing or promotion or anything like that. Assuming this all goes well, however, I could definitely see making those separate projects.
- A few people asked why I decided to self-publish instead of pursuing traditional publication. To be honest, I never even really considered traditional publication for this. I'm extremely curious about the self-publishing world and thought this would be a great way to experiment with it. My publisher and agent know it's in the works so I didn't shock them with my post, but even if a publisher made me an offer I wouldn't take it (except maybe if the offer was solely for print rights). This is going to be fun.
- I don't envision this as just a beginner's guide to writing a novel. I'm really hopeful that even people who have written novels before will enjoy reading it and get something out of it.
- Other than that, you basically know what I know. Which is very little! I'm so excited to embark on this process and have already started putting out feelers for editors.
Most of all, THANK YOU for the terrific ideas. So exciting. Here's a rundown of the suggestions that people made.
These topics are already in the guide:
- Revisions
- Point of view and narrative distance
- Character development
- Voice
- Dialogue
- Crafting a good opening
- Choosing what to write about
- Planner/panster approaches
- How to find and work with a critique partner
- How to know when it’s done
- Conflict
- Outlining vs. freestyling
- Writing through the middle when the honeymoon of brand-new-shiny-idea is over
- Setting
- Transitions and chapter breaks
- Structure
- Likeability
These are ones I'm thinking of adding:
- How to focus (Nora Murad)
- Writing description (Judith Rivard)
- Research (Rick Daley)
- How to take a vague idea and build around it (Sara)
- How to get unstuck creatively (Sarah)
- Humor (Kourtnie McKenzie)
- Weaving in backstory (David Kazzie)
- When to break up with a novel (thewriteredge)
And there were also some great suggestions about the nuts-and-bolts of the publishing process, but as mentioned those will be for later projects.
This is already fun. Thanks again, everyone!
Art: Still Life With Books by L. Block
By: Nathan Bransford,
on 3/7/2013
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Now that the
Jacob Wonderbar series is wrapped up, I'm very pleased to let you know what I'm doing next: A guide to writing a novel, which I'm planning to self-publish!
I'm incredibly excited to learn more about the self-publishing world, a wondrous land that I currently understand more in theory than in practice. It's going to be an exciting experiment, and one I can't wait to learn from.
And I hope to include you all every step of the way. The reason I'm announcing this now is that I'm planning to open things up and blog about every step of the process, from finding people to edit and copyedit it, to designing the cover, to getting it up for sale, to setting the price, to all the stuff I don't even know about right now but I'm sure will encounter along the way. Are there self-publishing goblins? If you self-publish in the Amazon does it make a sound?
I will soon find out. And then, by the time it's all finished and out there we'll have a virtual guide to self-publishing a book too.
The guide is about 90% written, and is a mix of material drawn from the blog but rewritten and polished with a fine glossy shine plus original material. You may have noticed that I have been light on the writing advice on the blog lately, and that is because I have been channeling my energy into the guide.
Also: I need your help! If there's anything I've learned in the course of writing this blog it's that the commenters are far smarter and experienced than I am, and I'm really looking forward to drawing upon your expertise as I figure out how in the heck one self-publishes a book.
First up in this collaborative experience:
Are there any novel-writing topics you would like me to tackle in the guide? If I incorporate your ideas into the guide I will be sure and give you a shout out in the acknowledgements.
Here we go!
Art: Stepan Razin by Boris Kustodiyev {{PD-1923}}
As I'm sure you heard, during the Oscars the humor site The Onion tweeted an
extremely unfortunate joke attempt about nine-year-old Oscar nominee Quvenzhané Wallis.
The outcry on Twitter started off merely aghast. Then, as can happen when people collectively find something to be outraged about, the anger cascaded and multiplied. People called The Onion out, called for resignations and firings, called for heads, and often in language as offensive as the language people ostensibly found objectionable.
On a night where my Twitter feed had started with people being complete jerks to Anne Hathaway for no apparent reason, all the negative energy swirling around Twitter suddenly found an even easier target.
I'm not defending The Onion's tweet by any means. It wasn't a good joke and they
rightly apologized for it.
But it's kind of amazing to me how the Twitterverse can be correct about something but manage to take its self-righteous outrage so far it somehow starts feeling wrong.
It starts feeling like a
witch hunt. In a medium that by its nature is effectively devoid of nuance to start with, whatever balance is possible is completely lost. And good luck to anyone who tries to stand in front of the herd and appeal for reason.
It reminded me of a similar feeling after Hurricane Sandy, when Mayor Bloomberg had decided the marathon should proceed. The Twitteverse reacted with complete and hysterical outrage.
Before the marathon was eventually canceled, the runners themselves were called out for their decision to run, nevermind that many had spent the entire year
raising money for charity, some had been volunteering to the relief effort leading up to the race, and whether the marathon would go forward or not was outside of their control.
A lot of people on Twitter had tons of ideas about what the runners should be doing with their time, apparently missing the irony that they were doing so while staring at their screens and not really doing anything to help. And if you lived here and tried to volunteer, you may have been turned away as I was because there were already more volunteers than were needed.
A lot of the vitriol was channeled when the
New York Post spotted some generators used to power the marathon press tent while some of the city was still blacked out. In classic Twitter fashion people were outraged about it, while missing the nuance that those generators could not have been used to power anyone's home or apartment because of technical limitations, and in the end
weren't used at all.
Meanwhile, that same Sunday the New York Giants football game was allowed to proceed in hard-hit New Jersey with nary a complaint on Twitter, despite all of the emergency personnel and food needed for such a huge event. And after the Oscars, I couldn't help but wish that people felt 1/1000th the amount of outrage about
8,000 people in Haiti dying due to alleged U.N. negligence that they did about one stupid tweet.
I initially scoffed when Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article asserting that the revolution will not be tweeted, but I now wonder if he's more correct than I gave him credit for. He argued that the weak ties between people in the social media sphere
don't readily lend themselves to actual concrete activism.
I still think Gladwell underestimates social media (it's basic human communication after all). But it does seem to me like it gives people the illusion of action without being actual action. It doesn't readily lend itself to compassion for the people the Twitterverse decides has erred.
Woe betide someone who crosses Twitter, but woe betide us if we don't take a step back from an instantaneous medium devoid of nuance and stop and think. Chances are there's something out there more important to be outraged about and something far more productive we can do to channel our anger.
Art: The Deluge by Francis Danby
Over at Writer Beware, some important information about the various reasons
why it's unnecessary to register copyright in a novel prior to publication:
Well, for one thing, you're fully protected by copyright law from the moment you fix your work in tangible form (write down the words). In countries that have an official copyright registration process--and many don't--registration provides no additional copyright protection.
It does confer various legal benefits. Where available, official registration provides prima facie evidence of copyright ownership that can be used in court. In the US only, registration is a pre-requisite for filing a copyright infringement lawsuit.
However, you are not in danger of copyright infringement at the submission stage. Many authors have an unreasonable fear of theft by agents and publishers--but good agents and publishers won't risk their reputations this way, and in any case it's easier just to work with you than go to all the trouble of stealing your work and pretending it belongs to someone else. As for bad agents and publishers...they aren't interested in your work at all, only in your money.
Check out the whole post.
Art: The Illustrated Newspaper by Platt Powell Ryder
By: Nathan Bransford,
on 3/4/2013
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Children's book author Terry Deary
stirred up some controversy last month when he said libraries have "had their day" but no longer make sense in today's world. He cites the lack of compensation for authors and damage to bookstores, who have to compete with an institution giving away the book for free:
"People have to make the choice to buy books. People will happily buy a cinema ticket to see Roald Dahl's Matilda, and expect to get the book for free. It doesn't make sense."
Deary may have staked out a particularly anti-library position, but he's hardly the only person within the publishing industry who is grappling with the role of libraries in publishing economics in an electronic world. Penguin was among other publishers who
pulled their e-books from libraries before
restoring them with a new program.
There's no doubt that libraries have played an important role in society in democratizing access to information and reading, and fostering a love of reading in children. Libraries are also an important source of sales for small presses in particular. They do buy books, and they can be a significant customer for publishers.
At the same time, libraries also foster an expectation that books should be available for free and can potentially undercut an author's sales. They're absolutely indispensable and important for people who can't afford to buy books, but I have to admit that I cringe a bit when well-off people borrow from the library instead of buying the book. Here in the US those print circulations don't result in extra income for the author, though there are some different approaches when it comes to e-lending.
More broadly, as we move to to a world of near-universal Internet access and with it an unprecedented amount of information online for free, are libraries as crucial as they used to be? What role should they play in an electronic era? Should they continue to lend free e-books to customers and what should the economic balance there be?
Art: In der Bibliothek by Maurice Leloir
Lots of good links from the last few weeks, let's get to it!
It's been tough sledding for Barnes & Noble lately. On the heels of announcing earlier in the year that they plan to
shutter one third of their stores (link is to CNET, I work there), they had an earnings call this week in which they revealed that their
Nook business is struggling, with losses at $190.4 million. Publisher/editor Peter Osnos notes that B&N
has not benefitted greatly from the Borders bankruptcy and wonders if the large chain bookstore is endangered (something I
blogged about two years ago), though it should be noted that the stores themselves are still profitable.
The last of the publishers sued by the Department of Justice for conspiring to raise e-books
has settled. In a
letter to authors, Macmillan CEO John Sargent said "Our company is not large enough to risk a worst case judgment."Apple has not yet settled.
Meanwhile, publishing consultant Mike Shatzkin has an interesting look at some
possible directions for the future of e-bookselling, which could get more atomized and dispersed across the Internet rather than concentrated solely with the large online vendors.
In book news,
happy book birthday to friend o' the blog Shawn Odyssey, Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson have been cast in the
film adaptation of The Book Thief, and I
gave my shortest interview ever to Ted Fox.
Two of the world's smallest publishers announced a
groundbreaking merger (via
The Rejectionist).
Some authors are
buying their way onto bestseller lists.
Working with publishers can occasionally be quite frustrating, as one author and independent bookstore
recently discovered. When the bookstore wanted to order 450 copies the publisher refused to give them more than 200 (Why? Because they don't do things that way), so the bookstore ended up going to Target to get the books instead.
There really is no such thing as a typical writing path. Malcolm Gladwell has a great post on just
how diverse paths to literary success really are.
In writing advice news, Donna Thorland has
advice on book trailers, Natalie Whipple has a great post on some of the different things to consider when
building a setting.
A blogger plans to review
every bestselling book of the year for the past hundred years.
Atari's co-founder has launched a new venture that hopes to
make the self-publishing process much easier by giving authors the ability to contract out different parts of the process in exchange for flat rates or royalties.
A designer
re-imagined classic albums as book covers (via
Simon the Boy).
The Forums!! I have been receiving lots and lots of writing and publishing questions lately, and time constraints prevent me from answering them all. To save time and to hopefully benefit more people, I answer publicly in the Forums, where I am happy to answer any publishing question I can
right here. You can also review previous questions.
And finally, a photographer put together a truly incredible and dare I say moving Tumblr of Calvin and Hobbes
photoshopped into real landscapes (via
Martha Mihalick), but after it went viral it was
shut down because of copyright claims. Alas alas.
Have a great weekend!
Photo by me
This is one of the cooler things I've seen on the Internet lately.
Make your own pulp magazine cover!
(via
CNET)
Hachette publisher Michael Pietsch gave an interview with NPR recently where he said
we're in golden age for traditional publishers:
I think we're in a golden age for books — reading, writing and publishing. And the ways that publishers can work to connect readers with writers now are the kinds of things that publishers have dreamt of doing since Gutenberg first put down a line of type.
The full interview is worth a read/listen.
Do you agree? Is this actually a golden age for publishers?
Art: Interior of a Gothic Church by Pieter Neefs
One of my favorite predictions I have put down on pixel and screen is
this one from 2007, when the Kindle had just been announced, e-book sales were virtually nonexistent, and the iPad was but a glimmer in Steve Jobs' eye:
In my opinion there will never be a widely used iPod of books, a device that people buy specifically for books -- e-books will take off when they can be easily downloaded and easily read on a device like a larger iPhone-of-the-future, something people already have, which evens out the economics since you don't have to plop down a significant chunk of money before you even buy a book. This would give e-books the decisive edge in economics, which might just tip the world of books toward e-books. Until then? Printed page for most of us.
I would argue that this is pretty much what has happened in the last six years. Yes, Kindles have sold pretty well and you see them around town, but they're nowhere near the ubiquity that iPods were in the mid-2000s. Print is still a majority even as Kindle prices dropped below $100. We haven't yet reached a majority e-book world, and it's still "printed page for most of us," as the last paragraph suggests.
And yet... I'm actually a little worried about this prediction.
The second part of the prediction is that e-book sales would reach a majority when most everyone has a "larger iPhone-of-the-future," aka an iPad, iPad Mini, Nexus 7, Kindle Fire, Nook HD... you get the picture.
We're almost there. There are now tons of tablets in the world. Apple sold 22.9 million iPads
in the last quarter alone (link is to CNET, I work there, opinions here are my own).
Some people, including Nicholas Carr in the previous link, see the leveling off of as proof that people are simply still attached to print books. I don't doubt that this is the case for many people.
My fear is that books are losing ground to other forms of handheld portable entertainment. Tablets should make it easier for people to read more because there is no delay between deciding you want to read something and being able to read it. It's (usually) cheaper to buy e-books. But that doesn't seem to be happening at the moment.
And this is where publishers have to realize that they are not competing against just books anymore when they're setting e-book prices.
Basically: Buy a new e-book for $11.99 or buy Angry Birds for $0.99? If you want to be entertained for six hours while you're commuting and you're cost conscious, that extra $10 goes a long way, and it adds up quick when you're talking about buying multiple books over time.
E-books have to be priced in a way that makes sense relative to its competition. They're not simply competing against other books anymore, they're competing against very very cheap (or free) forms of entertainment on the same device. Books and magazines aren't the only game in town for portable entertainment anymore.
I don't think the book world should be patting itself on the back that e-book sales have slowed. Yes, print books will absolutely still exist and people are still attached to them. But if people aren't reading books on tablets the book world will be in serious trouble as tablets become still-more ubiquitous in the future.
Art: Take Your Choice by John F. Peto
A debate has ignited in the bookosphere after news surfaced that Amazon had applied for a patent on technology that would
let people sell "used" e-books through Amazon.
Author John Scalzi initially
reacted harshly: "I’m awfully suspicious that it means nothing good for writers who want to get paid for their work using the current compensation model" and then reacted even
more harshly: "I would rather you pirate the eBook than buy it used."
Consultant Mike Shatzkin rightly cautioned that just because Amazon has the technology
doesn't mean they're going into this business, and at TeleReads Marilynn Byerly notes that a group called the Owners Rights Initiative is
fighting to give digital owners the rights to resell digital works.
For me personally, it's hard to wrap my head around what a "used" digital files even means. A digital copy does not get worn, the pages don't yellow over time, there are not dog-eared corners. A "used" digital copy is exactly like a brand new digital copy. The idea of "used" digital anything is pretty meaningless.
While details have been somewhat scarce on the specifics of the technology Amazon possesses, what I'd guess it involves is the ability to transfer the ownership of a single digital copy from one person to another, deleting original copy so ownership is only retained by one person. When I'm done reading about the fiftieth shade of Grey, I can sell the copy to someone else and I no longer have access to it.
So. In this new world you would have "new" e-books for sale alongside "used' e-books, only the two are completely indistinguishable from one another. But the "used" e-book would inevitably be cheaper, because the seller is more motivated to sell. If I'm done reading something, I'm willing to take less than I paid for it if only because I want to ensure I get something back. It's no skin off my back to undercut the list price.
Authors and publishers are not currently compensated for used e-book sales, and if that paradigm were translated into the "used" e-book world, they would be undermined by
completely identical and cheaper copies for sale alongside their "new" e-books. It's hard to imagine any scenario other than the pie shrinking even further for authors and publishers.
And yet... There are
plenty of people who want to do away with DRM and sharing speed bumps entirely, which would make it
extremely easy for people to sell or share their "used" e-books with anyone who wants it, whether that is a personal friend or someone they've met in a discussion forum or anywhere else on the Internet. People who are opposed to a used e-book paradigm should consider that one alternate scenario is one where non-DRM'd books are running rampant throughout the Internet (or rather, even more than they already are currently).
Lots of readers have been rankled by the fact that when you buy an e-book you don't have the same rights and flexibility as you do for a print book. It's hard to give it away and it's impossible to resell it. It's a license, not true ownership. It's frustrating when you just want to pass it on to a family member or friend like you can a paperback.
It's always seemed to me that the realities of digital publishing should account for the difference in physical form. Digital copies are fundamentally different than print copies, and arguing that we should treat them with the exact same rules strikes me as disingenuous. We have to strike a reasonable balance between the convenience of consumers and fairness to content creators.
Is a "used" e-book marketplace the right way of striking that balance? I'm not sure. A mechanism for transferring ownership of an e-book on a one-to-one basis is appealing, and as a reader I think I might like to have that option. I'd like it even more if authors were compensated for resales.
It's certainly not the worst solution I've ever heard. What do you think?
Art: "Novgorod Marketplace" by Appolinary Vasnetsov
In wizard news from last week, Scholastic released a new
Harry Potter cover
to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the publication of
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone. The designer is Kazu Kibuishi, and the covers will appear on the trade paperback version of the books. Hollywood.com
had an interview with Kibuishi, who is the author of the
Amulet YA graphic novel series.
What do you think of the new vision? Do you have a preference between the new and old?
After many
many delays and
much speculation, a joint venture called
Bookish was launched by Penguin, Hachette and Simon & Schuster.
(Disclosure time: I work at CNET, which is owned by CBS, which is the same parent company of Simon & Schuster. I'm also published by Penguin. All opinions expressed here are my own, and I don't have any insight into Simon & Schuster operations.)
Bookish is a site where you can save books to shelves, rate them, get book recommendations, read some original content, and, very significantly for publishers, buy books directly from the site in various formats. This is a big step for the major publishers into a direct to consumer vertical.
Right now the site feels like it's in beta. There seems to be social sharing built in but I wasn't able to get it to work yet, and even after adding books to my shelves I'm actually still not sure how to get recommendations except by just adding books to a very specific recommendation engine. There's nothing along the lines of Netflix's recommendations based on the things you've rated and told the site you want to read (at least, not that I've been able to find, and I suppose this could be coming).
I've been waiting for this site for quite a while, and had some conversations with people familiar with the direction of the site as it was being developed. Now that I've explored a bit and taken a look, I definitely think Bookish has promise. The design feels polished, the checkout path feels smooth, and I do think there's some value in a good recommendation platform.
But the concerns I had as Bookish was being developed remains. Basically: How often does someone need to visit Bookish?
Aside from the original content, unless you actually need a recommendation for a book or find the book buying process superior there doesn't feel like a specific reason to visit the site. How often do you find yourself needing a recommendation for a book? Maybe a couple times a year? And even if you do want a recommendation, is this where you'll seek it out? And if you want to buy a book, isn't it already easy to buy it through existing channels?
Perhaps more importantly, in the social book recommendation sphere, sites like Goodreads had a major head start and is
growing in popularity. And it's done this by being a fun part of the entire reading experience. In addition to saving and rating books, which you can do on Bookish, on Goodreads you can track your progress, organize your books into shelves, and there's a seamless experience for sharing to Facebook.
But the crucial part of Goodreads is that it's social. I can see what my friends are reading and they can see what I'm reading, which is extremely fun. Shelves are conversation starters. It keeps me coming back to the site.
I don't see a similar reason to return to Bookish. As a platform it has promise. But unless they can find a way to become indispensable to readers it's hard to see it as a game changer. I'm not sure what will prompt me to return.
My feeling: Bookish could become the basis for a Hulu for books, a place where readers can gain access to exclusive e-book subscription plans or be a place for exclusive free content. They could really leverage the participation of the publishers. Right now it doesn't feel geared toward that, but the platform is there.
Or perhaps Bookish could finally be the place for something readers have clamored for forever: Bundled print and e-book editions.
Whatever it is, it seems to me that while it's a good first effort, the site needs another killer ingredient.
What do you think? Have you tried out Bookish and what do you think it should be?
With their vast scope and the unparalleled ability to bore into someone's head, novels have perhaps the greatest potential for affecting us emotionally. As much as I love movies and television, novels have the ability to move me the most.
So which novel most affected you? And what was the part that did it?
As a kid I remember being deeply affected by classics like
Johnny Tremain, The Bridge to Terebithia, My Brother Sam is Dead and
Where the Red Fern Grows.
As an adult, well, I'm not actually much of a crier, but I was pretty moved by
The Sky is Everywhere,
The Secret Year and, of course,
The Book Thief.
What about you?
Art: Never Morning Wore To Evening But Some Heart Did Break by Walter Langley
I've written lots and lots of writing advice tweets over the years. Here they are, all in one place!
I will keep adding to this list as I tweet them out and as Twitter allows more access to older tweets:
 |
| Madison Square Park - Photo by me |
First of all, before I get to the bazillion links I have saved up... I smell something. Is that a... I think... why, yes, I think I know what that is. A CONTEST IS COMING.
And not just any contest. One of the
big huge ones. It's been too long. This one is going to be good. I'm very excited. Stick. Around.
Or maybe just come back on Monday. You don't need to literally stick around.
Now then, these links aren't going to link to themselves.
A new
Jacob Wonderbar is also coming next week! Yes indeedy, the third and final installment of the Jacob Wonderbar series,
Jacob Wonderbar and the Interstellar Time Warp, is coming out on Thursday! Make sure to pre-order so you and the kids in your life can be hipster middle grade readers and say you read it before it was all popular and stuff. I'm very excited to have this series all wrapped up and ready to be read in full:
Jacob Wonderbar and the Cosmic Space KapowJacob Wonderbar for President of the UniverseJacob Wonderbar and the Interstellar Time Warp
Whew! Excitement! I swear adults will enjoy them too. They're not just for kids.
Okay now for the real links.
Author Stephen Elliott had a great post called
The Problem With the Problem With Memoir, in which he has this priceless quote:
...celebrity memoirs are rarely interesting, despite how interesting their lives appear from the outside. The problem is not that they don’t live interesting lives, it’s that they’re not writers.
In book promotion news, a pertinent question for our age:
Why do literary readings always make me want to kill myself? (via
The Millions). And Adam Mansbach has a hilarious and very timely post on the state of book promotion:
Hell is my own book tour.
Gosh. If I didn't know any better I'd think authors
hate self-promotion.
In new book ventures, esteemed blog The Millions is
launching an e-book venture, and Random House is launching a Facebook app to help people
share and discover books.
When you're alone and life is making you lonely, you can always go downtown. When you've got no worries all the noise and the hurry seems to help I know, downtown. At least,
that's where HarperCollins is going.
In io9 writing advice news, these are the character names
that should be banned forever, and here is a
writing tip that really does work, in fact I have employed this one myself from time to time.
Agent Mary Kole has advice for
getting the most out of a writer's conference, and agent Rachelle Gardner has a new e-book out on
deciding between traditional and self-publication!
Publishing industry expert Mike Shatzkin had too good posts lately on
the importance of bookstore buying and inventory management decisions and also about what Barnes & Noble's recent
contraction announcement means for publishers.
In social media news, Scientific American has a terrific posts on the
pros and cons of comment threads and moderation.
GalleyCat has a list of
free places to back up your work online.
And award news!
You get a Newbery! You get a Caldecott! You get a Printz!These past few weeks in the forums: mourning
the end of Game of Thrones Season 2,
making meaning out of the adolescent years,
giving yourself permission to fail,
your 2013 writing goals, and do you
have to listen to everything a beta reader says?
And finally, a
seriously awesome article about love.
Have a great weekend!
By: Nathan Bransford,
on 2/4/2013
Blog:
Nathan Bransford
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It's the grandaddy of them all. The big kahuna. The 32 oz porterhouse with a side of awesome.
It's our FIFTH Sort-of-Annual um don't point out that the last one was two years ago oops too late Stupendously First Paragraph Challenge!!!
Do you have the best paragraph of them all? Will you make Charles Dickens wish he ditched "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" for your paragraph when he wrote A Tale of Two Cities?
Let's see.
First and most importantly: ALL THE PRIZES.
The ultimate grand prize winner of the SUFPC will win:
1) The opportunity to have a partial manuscript considered by my wildly awesome agent Catherine Drayton of InkWell. Who does Catherine represent, you might ask? Why, only authors such as Markus Zusak (The Book Thief), John Flanagan (The Ranger's Apprentice series), Becca Fitzpatrick (Hush Hush), and many more amazing writers. This is a rather excellent prize. You don't even have to write a query letter!
2) All the finalists will win a query critique from me trust me I've still got my query-revising skillz. Said critique is redeemable at any time.
3) All the finalists in the USA (sorry non-USAers, international postage is bananas) will win a signed copy of my new novel, last in the Jacob Wonderbar trilogy, in stores and available online on Thursday, Jacob Wonderbar and the Interstellar Time Warp!! Please check this bad boy out I swear you'll love it and you won't even get eaten by a dinosaur:
Jacob Wonderbar and the Cosmic Space KapowJacob Wonderbar for President of the UniverseJacob Wonderbar and the Interstellar Time Warp4) All finalists and winners win the pride of knowing that you are in some truly fantastic company. Let's review the now-published authors who were finalists in writing contests on this blog before they became famous and fancy published authors:
Stuart Neville! Victoria Schwab! Terry DeHart! Michelle Hodkin! Michelle Davidson Argyle! Joshua McCune! Natalie Whipple! Josin L. McQuein! Jeanne Ryan! Peter Cooper!
Are we missing anyone? I sometimes forget THERE ARE SO MANY.
There may also be honorable mentions. You may win the lottery during the time you are entering this contest. Who can say really?
So! Here's how this works. Please read these rules very carefully:
a) This is a for-fun contest. Rules may be adjusted without notice, as I see fit, but this one will always be here: Please don't take this contest overly seriously. This is for fun. Yes, the grand prize is awesome and I would have willingly picked a fight with Mike Tyson to have had my manuscript considered by Catherine Drayton without ever having to write a query, but please don't let that detract from the fact that this contest is for-fun.
b) Please post the first paragraph of any work-in-progress in the comments section of THIS POST. If you are reading this post via e-mail you must click through to enter.
Please do not e-mail me your submission it will not count.
c) The deadline for entry is this THURSDAY 7pm Eastern time, at which point entries will be closed. Finalists will be announced... sometime between Friday and the year 2078. When the finalists are announced this suddenly becomes a democracy and you get to vote on the stupendously ultimate winner.
d) Please please check and double-check your entry before posting. If you spot an error in your post after entering:
please do not re-post your entry. I go through the entries sequentially and the repeated deja vu repeated deja vu of reading the same entry over and over again makes my head spin. I'm not worried about typos. You shouldn't be either.
e) You may enter once, once you may enter, and enter once you may. If you post anonymously please be sure and leave your name (no cheating on this one).
f) Spreading the word about the contest is very much encouraged. The more the merrier, and the greater your pride when you crush them all.
g) I will be the sole judge of the finalists. You the people will be the sole judge of the ultimate winner.
h) There is no word count limit on the paragraphs. However, a paragraph that is overly long or feels like more than a paragraph may lose points. It should be a paragraph, not multiple paragraphs masquerading as one paragraph. Use your own discretion.
i) You must be at least 14 years old and less than 178 years old to enter. No exceptions.
j) I'm on the
Twitter! And the
Facebook! And the
Google+! And the
Instagram! It is there I will be posting contest updates. Okay maybe not Instagram but pretty pictures!
That is all.
GOOD LUCK. May the best paragraph win and let us all have a grand old time.
Nice project. I actually enlarged the image and struggled to read your handwriting ... only then did I see that you'd transcribed it for us. Still, in the same way it's almost always better to read the book before seeing the movie, I preferred it that way.
JohnO-
Yeah, my handwriting has seriously deteriorated due to lack of practice the last few years.
Love this! Going to do it now :D
I'm seeing one of my favourite authors at a signing this weekend, so I can give it to them in person! Great idea :)
Oh! I love this. Such a wonderful idea. I'll start writing mine right now :)
McEewan's Saturday was a huge help to me as a writer; one of my novels exists solely because of that book.
Is it too cheesy and cold to type a note because no one--not even me--can read my handwriting.
I am so doing this! Writing my notes today. Well, to the living ones because notes for the dead creep me out.
A beautiful project! It might be difficult to choose only five though...
What a cool effort! I have to think of which of my favorite authors are still alive. Yikes. :)
I think this is a great idea. I'm jumping on board and for the next five days, I'm going to give thanks to five authors/writers who influenced me starting with Theodor Geisel.
It is a wonderful idea and I am going to definitely do it...just waiting for Go Mighty approval :D
The key is finding an address for an 87 year-old who has managed to keep herself relatively hidden from the computer world.
What a wonderful project! I'm in!
Very cool idea, and the handwritten touch is perfect.
I got three letters just like that I've never sent. One was to Ray Bradbury, and now it's too late.
Great idea! Though it also makes me a little sad to think that some of the writers I would love to be able to thank for making my childhood a little more wonderful are no longer with us.
Still, for the ones who are, this is an awesome idea.
This is so awesome. Personally, I've been extremely fortunate in that I've had a chance to meet my favorite living author, and share some excellent single malt with him.
I love this idea! And I can only imagine how fantastic it must feel to be the authors who receive these letters.
I love this idea for myself, and I've also passed it on to our children's/teen librarian to use with the book groups.
It's a nice idea, Nathan. Ursula le Guin, maybe, and the author of Interview with a Vampire, Anne Rice, are two writers who've given something special to my reading and writing experience.
Ooh, I so love this idea. I'm on board! I think I will also have my 8th-grade English class participate for just one favorite author. I know they will really get into it.
Love this idea! Only problem is narrowing my list of 76 (and I know there's a ton more but by brain hurt after thinking of 76)down to five.
This is recommended by Carolyn See in her book, "Making a Literary Life." I actually wrote her a note after finishing her book because I enjoyed it so much. Unfortunately, I haven't kept up with this exercise, but your project reminds me how important it is.
AHH! What a great project! I am hopping right up on this bandwagon.