June’s been an inordinately busy month in RL, particularly with managing my mother’s health care, but it’s thrown up some interesting items in the writing world which have been a welcome distraction. Here’s the best of them.
Pilgarlic – A bald person; or a person who is held in humorous contempt or treated with mock pity. Word means peeled garlic.
Early June buzzed with authors reacting to a professional photographer on FB (someone who you’d think might understand about copyright) putting out a plea for URLs to sites providing pirated ebooks for free. When called on it, she was unrepentant, claiming poverty made her do it and that authors can afford it, they’re so rich. Bollocks, sez I and an awful lot of authors. Here’s three posts, with the best at the top. Sarah Madison’s post went viral, and with damn good reason.
Sarah Madison – Dear Broke Reader, Your Sense of Entitlement Is Killing Me
F E Feeley – You Aren’t A Pirate, You’re A Parasite
Ravenna Tate – How Real Authors Live
Please don’t ever download a stolen book from a pirate site. It’s theft.
JK Rowling on the Benefits of Failure. Her Harvard Graduation speech from several years ago now, but still strikes home.
20 Writing Tips From Famous Authors One of Writers Write’s cool infographics.
Vexed About Voice – Cassandra Kraw writing at Chuck Wendig’s blog.
Yoon Ha Lee: Five Things I Learned Writing Ninefox Gambit
Anne Frasier: Five Things I Learned Writing The Body Reader
Eliot Peper: Five Things I Learned Self-Publishing Cumulus
Steven Spohn: I Am Not Your Plot Device – Spohn guesting at Chuck Wendig’s gaff with a thought-provoking post about people with disablities and how they’re treated in literature.
Body Parts Don’t Do Stuff, People Do – Philip Athens at Fantasy Authors Handbook with an amusing post on independent body parts. I worry how many times in the post Galen got punched in the eye…
Fine-Tune Your Dialogue To Serve Your Story (And Your Reader) – Amy Sue Nathan at Writers In The Storm
Botched Beginnings—Common First-Page Killers – Kristen Lamb with sage advice on getting your story off the ground.
The 8 Worst Clichés In Fiction – Michael Cristiano at A Writer’s Path. Amusing, but right.
Keeping Your Story Real…Even When You Are Lying – helpful post from PJ Parrish at the Kill Zone about writing crime thrillers.
Double Jeopardy: Hooking the Reader’s Brains and Heart – Janice Hardy at Fiction University.
What Are You Really Saying? (The Use of Subtext) – James R Tuck guesting at Fiction University. Some simple but useful tips here. I loved his way of not answering a question in dialogue.
Are You Botching Your Dialogue – great post from Kristen Lamb
From Writers Write:
The Only Character Questionnaire You Need to Complete
7 Simple Things To Remember About Setting
60 Things For Your Characters To Do When They Talk Or Think
How To Convey Setting In Dialogue – Without Sounding Like A B&B Brochure
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What Exactly Makes A Damn Good Story? Plot? Plot is easy. Plot is simple… But Plot is not Story.
Formatting Your Book With Scrivener
Authors Are Paying for Ads and Their Books Aren’t Being Seen – good advice at Indies Unlimited.
Publisher Threatens Writers Association With Defamation Suit After Being Kicked Out For Not Paying Royalties – more developments in the unedifying Ellora’s Cave saga.
Samhain Set To Keep Publishing – but how many authors got their fingers burnt earlier this year when Samhain said they’d be closing down? Many were promised their rights back and have spent money on things like reformatting and new covers, only to find Samhain will be groovin’ on. Can’t see many authors trusting them now.
Think You Couldn’t Possibly Lose Your Amazon Publishing Account? Think Again – the story of one writer’s tussle with Amazon. Take it as an Awful Warning.
Sneaky Money Grabs, An Important Notice on The Non-Compete Clause and Thugs, Lawyers, and Writers – more from Krystine Kathryn Rusch on contracting. This is a series you really should not miss reading.
A Wa
rning About Nondisclosure Clauses – Susan Spann continues her series on contracting at the Writers In The Storm blog. Again a great resource.
The Legal Side of Writing for Anthologies – Susan Spann writing at Writer Unboxed.
Editing Tools – some free and online. I use EditMinion – with care
What Is A Style Guide And Why Do I Need One?
Recommended Cover Artists – with thanks to author Sarah Madison for compiling the list
Black Jazz Design (Garret Leigh)
Anna Butler 
[…] Book Cover Design: How self-publishing authors can do it best – article and infographics at Reedsy. Hell, did I choke over their suggested price tags, but work through some of the principles and then go and look for a cover designer who doesn’t want you to sell them your kidneys. Six months ago I published a list of cover designers. Try one of these (scroll down to the bottom of the page) […]
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