-Article: Songwriters Anonymous - Part Six by Mary Darwson
-Article: The Girls in the Basement by Lani Diane Rich
-Article: Learning to Write With a Sledgehammer by Alan Alda
-Book Review: Category 7 by Bill Evans and Marianna Jameson
-Article: To Outline or Not to Outline by Timothy Hallinan
-Article: Shoot the Rhino by Alex Keegan
-Book Review: The Taste of Night by Vicki Pettersson (Urban Fantasy)
-Article: Songwriters Anonymous - Part Five by Mary Dawson
-Book Review: The Alchemyst by Michael Scott (Fantasy/YA)
-Book Review: The Dark River by John Twelve Hawks (SF)
-Book Review: Pendragon: The Pilgrims of Rayne by D.J. MacHale (YA)
-Book Review: The Secret Servant by Daniel Silva (Thriller)
Kindle: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device
Amazon.com is excited to introduce Kindle - a wireless, portable reading device with instant access to
more than 100,000 books, blogs, newspapers and magazines. The Kindle's revolutionary electronic-paper
display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper. It is simple
to use: no computer, no cables, no syncing. Whether you're in bed or on the train, Kindle lets
you think of a book and get it in less than a minute.
Click Here!.
**Self-publishing Section
Don't miss our Self-publishing resource. With articles, features and links,
this section will help you find out the information you need to
self-publish. We've also got an entire section on book promotion to help
you get the word out about your new book.
Self Publish Your Book For Less!
Instantpublisher.com offers professional quality book printing at affordable
prices, with great customer service. Choose from many options including 7 binding styles,
color printing, 4 paper styles with quantities as low as 25 copies and
much more. Click here for more information and instant online price quotes.
to learn more!
Children's Writing Section
Do you think you might be the next J.K. Rowling? There are so many kinds of books
for children: from picture books to chapter books and everything in between. How
do you find the best resources on the Web for children's writing? Please
visit our Children's Writing Section. With articles,
interviews, features and comprehensive links, this new section can help you find
the information you need to pursue your dream of being a children's author.
How To Make It As A Songwriter
Mary Dawson's new book, How to Get Somewhere in the Music Business from Nowhere with
Nothing, gives you the inside scoop on how to make it in the music business as a songwriter. Mary
teaches you all you need to know to make your songwriting dreams a reality.
Phillip Margolin Gives Some Writing Advice
Phillip Margolin discusses
his work habits and his new legal thriller, Executive Privilege, in which the president of the United States is a suspect in a terrible crime. Margolin has been a criminal defense attorney for 25 years. He still goes to the office at 7:30 am every morning, but now he's there to work on his latest book, not to write legal briefs.
Q: Was this novel timed for an election year?
A: "No, I had the idea in the early 1990s. Writers like to push the envelope so I thought what if you had a president who was a serial killer? I usually get an idea for a book and think about it for quite a while. I kept getting ideas but could not work out how to end it. Then I was in my car about two years ago and the ending popped into my head. It just so happened to come out in 2008 in the midst of a presidential election."
*****
Q: Any advice for aspiring writers?
A: "The first thing I tell people is not to rush. If you get an idea the natural instinct is to get excited and start writing. I say put it away, work out an outline and an ending first. Scott Turow took 12 years writing "Presumed Innocent" on the train to and from work. The other thing is to do an outline. Work out the book completely before you write so you won't get writer's block. And be organized. People think authors get up at 10 and get a snifter of brandy and pull out a quill pen and let inspiration come. That is not how it works."
At least none of our current presidential candidates is a serial killer. Still, what an intriguing idea. This book just landed on our summer reading list.
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Consumers Do Listen to Movie Critics, After All
Erik Lundergaard of Slate crunches the numbers and determines the consumers really do listen to movie critics. With more newspapers cutting jobs in the entertainment and arts sections, there has not been much joy in the ranks of those who write movie reviews.
It's almost a given these days that movie critics are elitist, while moviegoers are populist. When the highest-grossing films get panned by critics, what good are critics? As publishers across the country dump their reviewers, this is not exactly a rhetorical question.
Believe it or not, though, critically acclaimed films generally do better than critically panned films at the box office -- if you measure their performance in the right way.
After this, the math starts. But the end result is that people really do pay attention to movie critics. So take hope, critics. People really are listening.
Your Ad Could Be Here!
Get your message out with a text advertorial. Text Advertorials consist of
50 words of text, a graphic and link to your website.
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The Return of Sherlock Holmes
Well, here's some casting news for you: Sacha Baron Cohen is set
to play Sherlock Holmes and Will Ferrell will his bumbling sidekick Watson.
Etan Cohen ("Tropic Thunder") is writing the script, and Judd Apatow and Jimmy Miller will produce.
The comedy is inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes tales. Though the thrust is different, the Baron Cohen-Ferrell pairing is the second major studio project featuring the supersleuth, as Warner Bros. is prepping the Anthony Peckham-scripted drama "Sherlock Holmes" with director Guy Ritchie.
The Col project reteams Baron Cohen and Ferrell, who played rival racecar drivers in Columbia's 2006 hit comedy "Talladega Nights," which Apatow and Miller also produced.
"Just the idea of Sacha and Will as Sherlock Holmes and Watson makes us laugh," said Col co-prexy Matt Tolmach. "Sacha and Will are two of the funniest and most talented guys on the planet, and having them take on these two iconic characters is frankly hilarious."
Suddenly, Sherlock Holmes is incredibly hot in Hollywood. So, Sacha and Will as Holmes and Watson. Comedy gold or a literary travesty?
Jonathan Karp, the publisher and Editor in Chief of Hachette Book Group imprint Twelve, has a most interesting piece in The Washington Post today. He dishes on editing books by everyone from Manuel Noriega to Clay Aiken (Aiken was harder to work with) and discusses what he calls the phenomenon of "disposable books": books that sell easily but which don't stick around for posterity. You know, the far left and far right wing political diatribes, the pop culture books and the endless array of increasingly bizarre memoirs. But there is hope.
The barriers to entry in the book business get lower each year. There are thousands of independent publishers and even more self-publishers. These players will soon have the same access to readers as major publishers do, once digital distribution and print-on-demand technology enter the mainstream. When that happens, publishers will lose their greatest competitive advantage: the ability to distribute books widely and effectively. Those who publish generic books for expedient purposes will face new competitors. Like the music companies, some of those publishers may shrink or die.
Many categories of books will be subsumed by digital media. Reference publishing has already migrated online. Practical nonfiction will be next, winding up on Web sites that can easily update and disseminate visual and textual information. Readers of old-fashioned genre fiction will die off, and the next generation will have so many different entertainment options that it's hard to envision the same level of loyalty to brand-name formula fiction coming off the conveyor belt every year. The novelists who are truly novel will thrive; the rest will struggle.
Consequently, publishers will be forced to invest in works of quality to maintain their niche. These books will be the one product that only they can deliver better than anyone else. Those same corporate executives who dictate annual returns may begin to proclaim the virtues of research and development, the great engine of growth for business. For publishers, R&D means giving authors the resources to write the best books -- works that will last, because the lasting books will, ultimately, be where the money is.
The entire article is well worth your time. Karp really needs his own blog.
Bestselling author John Grogan is working
on a follow up to his book Marely and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog, which is currently being made into a feature film starring Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston and a very cute Labrador retriever. The Longest Trip Home will be published by William Morrow in October 2008.
"It is the powerful, often hilarious story of a son in the making, and of growing up in a loving, but comically old-school Catholic family," said the statement issued by Morrow. "From his troublemaking childhood to his courtship of a fiery blonde named Jenny, Grogan writes about how he came to terms with who he is and what he believes."
"Even before Marley & Me was published, I knew this was the story I wanted to tell next," Grogan, 51, said in a statement. "The Longest Trip Home is a story very close to my heart."
The film version of Marley and Me has a a hilarious trailer out. Take a look:
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