September 18, 2003
JD's Bookstore opens for business
I spent a couple of nights putting together a list of some favorite books and best-sellers. JD's Bookstore is open for business. I hope to put together a page for gadgets, DVDs and other media when I get some free time.
September 15, 2003
How four magazines decide what books you buy
Slate: How Four Magazines You've Probably Never Read Help Determine What Books You Buy. A "motley" group of underpaid, anonymous reviewers at Publishers Weekly and other trades wield significant influence in the book industry, writes Adelle Waldman.
Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.
August 26, 2003
Students set up a storytelling site
Bruce Joy, a self-described resident mad professor in Melbourne, Australia, emails to say he discovered my article last fall on digital storytelling and that he and some university students have opened a community storytelling website called BotWot.com. (BotWot stands for "Best of times, Worst of times.")
He invites creative people to send along stories, poems, or other material. Writes Joy: "It's free and we're keen to develop this to be something more than most writing sites as it creates a fictitious tropical island known as BotWot off the Eastern coast of Australia. Castaways are welcome to take up residence!"
August 22, 2003
Write a story, go to jail
Wired News: A student who wrote a violent short story on a school computer may face 10 years in prison. Prosecutors say they are trying to prevent more school massacres; the student's defenders say they're fighting attempts to criminalize thought.
This is unbelievable:
Brian Robertson was just months away from graduation at Moore High School in Moore, Oklahoma, last year when he found the beginnings of what he thought was a short story on a school computer. He copied the file to another computer, added some paragraphs to the initial text and then promptly got arrested.Robertson, who was 18 when he wrote the story, was charged with a felony count of planning to cause serious bodily harm or death. The story he wrote, titled "Evacuation Orders," (PDF) described preparations for an armed invasion of his school that included directions to unnamed fellow commandos to kill the senior class principal and then plant plastic explosives around the campus.
After searching Robertson's car and his parents' home, authorities found no weapons, traces of explosive material or any other evidence that the teen was planning to attack his school.
But authorities said the story Robertson wrote was sufficient to charge him under an Oklahoma state statute, which was passed in the wake of school shootings across the country in the last few years.
The statute, passed in July 2001, makes it illegal for anyone to "plan, attempt, conspire or endeavor to perform an act of violence involving or intended to involve serious bodily harm or death of another person." Robertson, if convicted, faces up to 10 years in prison. ...
Uncle Bob said:
I'm sure John Ashcroft will be noting this with interest and try to make it happen in the rest of the states.
So apparently the Constitution does not apply in Oklahoma. Free speech is so inconvenient anyway, especially when practiced by teenagers.
New from CaliforniaAuthors.com
New from CaliforniaAuthors.com:
Cody's, the venerable Berkeley bookstore that I used to call a second home, has entered the blogging world and discusses the upcoming book Salam Pax: The Clandestine Diary of an Ordinary Iraqi.
Novelist Mark Lee kicks off a new series from California authors on tour.
And FBI agent William Rehder spent three decades chasing L.A. bank robbers of every description, and it was his job to give them the catchy nicknames that play so well on the evening news. "Every bank robber has a tale to tell," says Rehder, who teamed up with journalist Gordon Dillow to write "Where the Money Is: True Tales from the Bank Robbery Capital of the World." Read an excerpt here.
August 20, 2003
August 15, 2003
Mind Wide Open
Author Steven Johnson (Emergence, Interface Culture) is posting chapters of his latest book, Mind Wide Open: Your Brain, Neuroscience, And The Search For The Self. He discusses the theme of the book and blogs a chunk on mind-reading as his blog readers weigh in.
August 14, 2003
A Young Writers' Round Table
NY Times: A Young Writers' Round Table, via the Web. Here's the nut: "in patches around the country, teachers say that online technology is now becoming a powerful tool for improving, rather than undermining, students' writing skills."
August 13, 2003
Cory in the running for a Nebula
Cory Doctorow is up for a sci-fi award for his short story "0wnz0red," which Salon published at Salon last year. Good stuff. Congrats, Cory.
August 08, 2003
Making the web pay for writers
Guardian UK: Blogger Ben Hammersley reports on the writers and artists who are earning money through the internet with micropayments.
August 07, 2003
New from California authors
CaliforniaAuthors.com (they've even got an XML feed) offers up items on California Dish and Indigenous, carries an early excerpt from School of Dreams, and points to Poynter's Book Babes column, with Margo Hammond, the book editor at the St. Petersburg Times, enthusing over the California literary scene.
August 06, 2003
Love stories online
Steve S. Saroff spotted my thriller online and sends a pointer to the first 50 pages of his novel and some new short fiction here. Two of the love stories were published in Redbook "back when they published serious fiction," says Steve.
July 28, 2003
First chapters of new books
The New York Times: First Chapters page delivers opening pages of hundreds of fiction and non-fiction books. I've been advocating this for a long time.
This is a good start, though I can't understand why publishers are squeamish about delivering what they promise. This excerpt from Wired: A Romance, for example, offers only the first four grafs.
Thanks to Susan H. for the pointer.
Paul Murray said:
Makes sense to me, too. At CNN's site I once stumbled across a chapter from a book about the making of Alfred Hitchcock's movie "Psycho." It was so intriguing that I purchased the book. (Okay, I found it used, so the publisher didn't make any additional money, but that's not the point...)
Gary Wolf said:
I posted the Intro and first chapter of Wired -A Romance at www.wiredaromance.com. Eventually, I may be able to post the whole book.
July 27, 2003
'Wired': The Coolest Magazine on the Planet
The Sunday NY Times books section reviews ''Wired: A Romance,'' a book by one of the magazine's contributing editors, Gary Wolf. Excerpt:
''Wired: A Romance'' is less a love story than a theological autopsy of a religion that flourished and went away in less than a decade. Things happened quickly for Wired -- remember ''Internet time''? At its height in the mid-90's, Wired could be found in the lobbies of venture capitalists, on the light tables of designers, underneath the coffee cups of computer geeks and in the middle of the only conversation that seemed to matter. It was, briefly, the coolest magazine on the planet.
Marc Canter said:
Yes and now they've gone away, came back and still refuse to die. Well at least they publish on-line all their content.
Joe said:
I still subscribe... it's cheap as hell and chalk full of good writing...
July 23, 2003
Art and commerce collide in book world
Business Week: Three novels set in the book publishing world -- "The Last Days of Publishing," "Foul Matter" and "The Storyteller" -- dissect the sorry state of the industry. Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.
July 21, 2003
Amazon Plan Would Allow Searching Texts of Books
NY Times: Amazon Plan Would Allow Searching Texts of Many Books.
July 20, 2003
Tri-Valley magazine launches
I'm a contributing writer for Tri-Valley Magazine, a regional magazine here in the SF East Bay, which just launched its first issue. The website just went live. I've got two articles in Issue #2, including a profile of customized motorcycle legend Arlen Ness. Another Sacramento Bee alum, Ed Murrieta, is the restaurant critic.
Chris said:
That's 'regional'. Here's hoping that Tri-Valley Magazine has good copy editors! (I kid, I kid).
JD said:
Fixed. On the Net, everyone's an editor! :~)
July 11, 2003
SF Chron critic on best beach reads
From today's Californiaauthors.com:
This morning, on a madeñforñTV beach in New York City -- shoeless and sporting a surfñmotif shirt -- San Francisco Chronicle Book Critic David Kipin did an animated ìbeach readsî segment with the Today showís Katie Couric. California authors Ellen Ullman (The Bug) and Paul Collins (Sixpence House) make his summer reading picks list, but our favorite exchange was about California readers:Kipen: ìIt often happens that a book will make the best seller list in the San Francisco Chronicle and in a few weeks it will catch on in the rest of the country.î
Couric: ìAre you saying that you set the agenda for books in America?î
Kipen: ìNot me! the readers of San Francisco!î
You can see a streaming video of the interview on MSNBC here.
July 09, 2003
Hi-tech babble baffles many
BBC News: Hi-tech babble baffles many. Most people are confused and flummoxed by the jargon used to describe new technology, says a survey.
July 08, 2003
Unemployed writers tell their stories
The San Jose Merc's Mike Cassidy tells the story of 8goodpeople.com. Excerpt:
8goodpeople.com was launched to attract the attention of potential employers, but it's creating a group narrative that will speak to many in Silicon Valley and beyond. Read together, the essays cover a range of issues that accompany the loss of a job.The stories are little stories -- about coaching Little League, lusting for a fancy Aeron chair, the loss of courtesy in the job-hunting processes, job postings, the battle to think positively and more.
Little stories with big and universal themes for the unemployed. There is the initial feeling of liberation, of finding time for children and life's joys. There is the disappointment and frustration of sending rÈsumÈ after rÈsumÈ and hearing nothing in response. There is the cold fear of worrying about survival and one's sanity. There is even some humor, because after all sometimes all you can do is laugh.
July 03, 2003
July 02, 2003
Guru.com is sold
Looks like Guru.com, which I used a few times both to find freelance talent and market my own services, has a new owner: eMoonlighter.
June 19, 2003
Money in online journals
New in OJR:
Mark Glaser: One-Man Blogs Prove There Is Money to Be Made by Online Journals. PaidContent, IWantMedia are going a long way toward proving that advertisers will support relevant content.
News Sites Experiment With 'Dayparting' by Tailoring Content. Studies show people have different interests at different times of the day, so Web editors are testing the waters by changing the lineup for day and evening viewers.
June 14, 2003
Ziff Davis pushes for retroactive rights
ASJA: Ziff Davis Media Inc. recently sent a new master contract to its regular freelance writers who were told to sign by the end of the month or forfeit the chance for future assignments. Among a number of poor terms is the demand that writers forfeit all rights to their previous work for Ziff Davis without a penny of compensation.
Journalist/blogger Ryan Pitts collected some background (including a story I wrote about publishers' actions following the Tasini decisioin) and blogged on it in Dead Parrots. Writes Ryan:
Today, you'd think most publishers would just recognize the new reality laid out by the court: Although old free-lance contracts might not have anticipated electronic archival, new contracts need to offer appropriate compensation. But some are still going after story rights retroactively. ...Of course these publishers have the right to make such demands. ... But it seems to me to be quite a statement: A few dollars saved toward the bottom line is more important than ensuring their readers have access to the best writing available, past and future.
Well said.
June 12, 2003
From newspaper's blacklist to bestseller list
Miami Herald: Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, a reporter who quit the Los Angeles Times with a 3,400-word resignation letter, landed a $475,000 deal for a novel she wrote in six days at Starbucks. The Dirty Girls Social Club has landed on the bestseller lists.
I like happy endings.
Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.
June 09, 2003
For the literary-minded, Californiaauthors.com
Just recently came across a site for California writers called, appropriately enough, Californiaauthors.com.
Great stuff here. Marcos M. Villatoro, a poet and novelist, has a new anthology out this month, The Misread City: New Literary Los Angeles. A chapter on Literary Radio begins:
Los Angeles, many told me, is the place where no one reads. This I learned in the first few days of moving here in 1998. No one reads books, not like they do in that other city ó you know. The Mecca of Publishing. The tabernacle of world lit. Here, we do movies. We read contracts, we write (or sign) deals. We spread ourselves across the broad screen. Youíre a writer? they said to me. Well son, youíve come to the wrong place.
In fact, Villatoro reminds us that Angelenos actually buy more books than New Yorkers do.
I'll be a regular visitor to this well-done site.
May 18, 2003
Indie journalism fueled by reader donations
Interesting things going on in Maine. Freelance journalist-blogger David Appel made an appeal to his readers for him to pursue an investigative story. On first blush, it's highly unorthodox for a journalist to ask readers to pony up money for a piece of journalism. On second blush, isn't that what newspaper publishers do every day?
Here's the story from David, from Blogads, and from kpaul. Excerpt from Blogads:
Wednesday, journalist/blogger David Appel pitched his blog readers to support a story filled with "big politics, big science, and big money."David has been investigating a sugar lobbying group's attempt to get Congress to kill funding for the WHO, which offended the sugar daddies. "Usually, at this point I'd query editors of various magazines and, usually, get assigned an 800 word story or so, paying anywhere from $400 to $1,000 or more."
Instead, he asked 40 readers to donate $5 each, so he can publish the story on his blog. $200 "is a fraction of what I'd usually get for this type of work, but I want to try it for the idea of it all." David is "a full-time freelance science journalist living in southern Maine... has appeared in Scientific American, Salon, New Scientist, Nature, Audubon, the Boston Globe, Discover, Psychology Today, and many other publications."
May 14, 2003
On racy postmodern literature
Susannah Breslin, aka The Reverse Cowgirl, asks: Would you like to become an important part of the exciting future of racy postmodern literature? I bet you would. I know I would.
Today is the kickoff of The You're A Bad Man, Aren't You? Fundraiser. You can read more below.
The Reverse Cowgirl tells more:
Future Tense Books is a wonderful, one-man publishing house in Portland, Oregon, helmed by the unstoppable one-man publishing crew of Kevin Sampsell.This summer, FTB is publishing a collection of my short stories. The title is You're A Bad Man, Aren't You? The contents feature a baker's dozen worth of my tawdry tales.
What does this have to do with you? Future Tense Books is very great, but it is also very small. To make a nice looking book, The Reverse Cowgirl's Blog is attempting to raise $1,200 for it by the end of this month.
Future Tense Books will be using this money to work with the insanely talented Pete McCracken at Crack Press to print a fiction collection worth of your fondling.
You can read more on The Reverse Cowgirl's Blog here.
April 30, 2003
First sci-fi in Biz2
Cory wrote a short science fiction story for Business 2.0, the first ever published by the publication.
April 28, 2003
Rights for Creators website
The National Writers Union has created a Rights for Creators website that targets unfair, restrictive contracts for freelance writers.
April 22, 2003
Dead bloggers live on
In Wired News, a report by Christopher Null (how's that for a tech reporter byline?): Online, Some Bloggers Never Die. The messengers are gone, but their messages live on. The final posts from webloggers now deceased have become a popular topic of discussion on some weblogs.
April 16, 2003
The Da Vinci Code
This sounds interesting:
Dan Brown's latest novel, The Da Vinci Code, published by Doubleday Books, is about the famous Renaissance artist and the oblique references to the occult contained in his equally famous paintings. It's also about ancient secret societies, modern forensics, science and engineering, and the history of religion.Most of all The Da Vinci Code is about the history of encryption -- the many methods developed over time to keep private information from prying eyes.
Book review in Wired News.
February 20, 2003
Thrillers online
Oliver Willis, erstwhile weblog celebrity, humorist and pundit, has posted the first two chapters of his novel online. Valley Girl is a thriller about what happens when an
adult film star becomes the object of affection for a diabolical senator.
I'm there, guy.
Meantime, not long ago I posted all the chapters of my own thriller online. Return of the Legends is the story of a businessman who launches a DNA grave operation to retrieve the genetic profiles of history's most famous legends.
