Celebrate Reading, Book Trailers and More
SLJ’s Trailie Award Finalists are Announced: The Best Book Trailer Award
The voting is open. On my sister site, BookTrailerManual.com, I’ve posted the videos for you to watch. Be sure to vote for your favorite. Awards will be announced on October 22.
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Celebrate Reading
Holly Cupala is celebrating! She says, “In honor of YALSA’s Teen Read Week and National Book Month in October, I invited a bunch of my favorite bloggers to tell me what they’d like to see on the YA shelf. “
My contribution will be up on Tuesday, October 4. Read the series and comment to be entered in her contest for great prizes.
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5 Myths about Book Selling
True or false:
- Newspaper reviews sell books.
- Bookshops are only interested in best sellers.
- The buyers in the big chains know a great deal about retail but not so much about books.
- Publishers can bribe their way to the front of store
- Book Promotions, such as Buy 3 for the Price of 2, are too powerful. (This is a promotion technique used at Waterstone, a UK bookstore.)
Read the answers here.
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Literary Agents Open the Door to Self-Published Writers IF . . .
What makes the difference? Why would this self-published author be of interest and NOT this one?
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Agency Pricing for Ebooks
Where in the supply chain is the value? Does the author had the value for the reader and everyone else just gets in the way? I’m still trying to sort out ebooks and how selling them works best.
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Malcom Gladwell’s Story Process
Some have criticized this non-fiction author of popularizing and simplifying information too much. Still, I like Blink! and his other books. Read about his story process here.
The discussion of Princess Bride was very good. I think everyone agreed the male relationships; friendship, and father/son were very well written. Male-female relationships not so much. And, Buttercup is basically a tool. A plot tool, that is. The movie went with the book very well, although we could have used more fight scenes.
In light of our great discussion, we planned the next books until November. And, they are:
July - My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger
August - TH1RTEEN R3ASONS WHY (audio version) by Jay Asher (request now on interlibrary loan)
September - Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
October - Teen Read Month in Oklahoma! Read any vampire book you want. Books with Bite, Bay-beeee! [Teen Read Week 2008 | Books with Bite @ your library].
November - Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt Book Review by the New York Times
Enough of you have been emailing to ask why I wants to know about lying and DNA testing and race that I feel I should offer some kind of explanation, or several even:
- I am hard at work building a lie-and-DNA-detecting robot.
- I was bored.
- Maureen Johnson made me ask you cause she’s too lazy to do her own research.
- It’s for my new novel.
- It’s procrastination to avoid work on my new novel on account of Scott took my IM capability away.
- I am distracting myself from certain sad events on The Wire.
- None of the above.
I hope that’s cleared everything up to your satisfaction.
So Apple unveiled a fancy-pants new computer today. As much as I would totally dig finishing my novel on a MacBook Air, it really won't do anything except make your lap lighter. I can't say it better than Gawker.
Still, if you've got a MacBook Air, you might as well use it like Jeff VanderMeer and pay off the credit card bill: Write Your Novel in Two Months:
"In my twenties, I was known to spend six months on a single short story or novella. Factored into this time span, however, were all of the editing, publishing, nonfiction, and hours spent at a full-time job. I think you’d also have to factor in that as a writer in your twenties and, to some extent your thirties, you are still getting comfortable with your writing."
What happens when a bit of literary detective work doesn't pay off? Sarah Weinman is on the case, and she'll get 'em next time.
Finally, New Orleans journalist John McQuaid has a critical column about The Wire's newsroom setting. Yesterday I told you what the show can teach writers. McQuaid thinks it can't teach you everything. Check it out:
"David Simon seems to have taken a bunch of industry trends and put them in a blender with an admixture of his own resentment and nostalgia. And what came out, in contrast to the show's amazingly cool, disciplined eye for every other aspect of urban society, has so far been the worst possible thing for a drama, both preachy and sentimental."
Last night I finally caught up with the fifth season of The Wire. Besides having the best writers in television (Richard Price and Dennis Lehane and George Pelecanos for gosh sakes!), the show has a dark look at the inside of a contemporary newsroom--full of layoffs, cutbacks, and overworked reporters.
David Simon created the show after he got laid off from his reporting job at a major newspaper (meet him in this essay). His fictional city editor Augustus "Gus" Haynes grapples with small staffs and corporate interests in his newsroom, but the story never discusses how the Internet is killing print outlets around the country.
Instead of feeling sorry for yourself this season, read this. Here are two examples of journalists struggling to reinvent themselves in this new era, the kind of stories writers need to read right now.
At the Huffington Post, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Nancy Cleeland is detailing her struggle to maintain her career after she lost her dream job at the Los Angeles Times. Check it out:
"I'm across the country at an influential Washington D.C. think tank -- the Economic Policy Institute -- puzzling over how to pour two decades of newspaper experience into a new job of translating economic research and policy for a broad audience ... But there's a key difference: My writing now will be unabashedly informed by a point of view."
Then, check out Paul Lamb over at MediaShift Lab, this business technology expert is advising newspapers how to use mobile phone innovations in the newsroom. Read "When Phones Become Reporters." (thanks to Maud Newton for the Simon essay)
Ah . . . The Wire.
Thanks for the mention of Paul Elkman in your last post. I found an article about him from 2002 that is really interesting, and I also put in a request for one of his books at the library. I’m hoping it will help my writing because I have a hard time showing and not telling emotion.
But it makes me wonder . . . how do you read someone’s face in after they’ve had their Botox treatment?
Poke Scott in the tummy and tell him that he should give you back your IM.
Tell him it’s research.
I don’t know, maybe try out some of your new lying techniques to see if you can come up with a good enough story to convince Scott to do that one thing for you…
I’m not sure, you think of something. You’re the one who tells stories for a living.
oh yes. that clears everything up!
The Wire…ah, perfection…but too often, too sad. I still miss some we lost seasons ago…
And I think they should have Omar do Honey Nut Cheerio commercials…
Emily
personally, i’m blaming maureen.
Yeah, I’m more inclined to believe that Maureen is too lazy to do her own research, but, then again, I don’t think you would do research for her so enthusiastically. So I’m just hoping it’s for a new sekrit book that no one know about just yet.
What? What? This has nothing to do with me! Though I am enjoying the vote of no-confidence I am getting from all sides.
I vote for the robot. But I think it should also know CPR so it can save lives.
Now, Justine, you can be honest. We all know you’re researching ways to use high-schoolers’ DNA to make zombies, and trying to learn how to lie convincingly so as not to let the zombie out of the bag too soon.
~Mary
Aw Justine, you can tell us about the zombies, we promise we won’t tell anyone, loyal fans and all that. And you should definitely poke Scott in the tummy, with a cookie, repeatedly, until he gives you back IM.
I know some people who could get you IM’ing without Scott being able to block it. It’ll cost ya, but you know, when you need it, you need it.
1. Justine…your post on Imitation of Life has caused me to scurry to the video store where I’ve purchased both. I owe you a response and have not forgotten. But, as you know, WORK must come first.
2. The Wire. I am unhappy. Very unhappy. [redacted for spoilerage-ness]
3. Glad Scott took away IM. I have weaned myself off of it, as well. IM is a time and brain suck that does very little towards making the work go faster.
4. [redacted for spoilerage-ness]
5. Since you’re so VERY good at it, can you talk for a minute about what makes for a good public reading of one’s work? How you decide which sections to read from…whether you feel its appropriate to make editorial revisions on the text you’ve chosen to read, etc. ?
Certainly, it must get easier over time, right?
Right?
Doselle: Let us not speak of The Wire right now.
5. Flattery will get you everywhere! I guess I could post about that. I am in hate for reading aloud. It sucketh. But general rule: keep it short. Ideally ten minutes or less. I prefer self-contained pieces. Though it can be fun to leave every on a giant cliff-hanger. Hehehehehe.
Why do you think reading aloud sucks so hard then, eh?
I mean, like, what could possibly suck about a performance anxiety-inducing exercise in public speaking before a crowd of stranger OR WORSE respected friends and acquaintances?
I mean, it doesn’t sound THAT bad, does it?
And no–let’s NOT speak of The Wire for the moment! The scene where Bunk puts on a corset and performs a scene from Pride and Prejudice seemed entirely out of context to me, but whatever!
Yowtch!
When I first started doing readings I was afraid no one or very few would show up, but now I look forward to that cause it means I don’t have to read and we can just chat casually (if there’s very few) or I can go home.
But mostly I don’t read at my appearances anymore. I tend to tell some anecdotes and then switch to Q & A. Is much more fun for me and the audience.
I really liked that scene with Bunk! I love anything Bunk does.
The best part about Bunk was his unexpected reaction to Detective Griggs as ‘Mister Darcy.
Who knew any human could make that kind of sound with a piece of black licorice and a tea cozy.
That was a tea cozy?
Yes! Yes! I know it looked very much like a miniature anteater, but it was almost certainly a tea cozy. I take my tea cozy collection quite seriously, so I would obviously be in a position to know about such things.
How Bunk was able to to fit it over Kima’s head with the teapot still inside it is another question entirely. Guess its really not just television.
Its HBO.