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Nathan Bransford

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This Week in Books

This Week in Books 12/3/10

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This! Books! Week!

NaNoWriMo is over!! Congrats to all participants, and hope everyone is enjoying some non-writing activities. Would you believe that the event produced 2,799,449,947 words? That’s two BILLION. Good work, people.

My former client Natalie Whipple has written one of the most beautifully honest posts I’ve read in an extremely long time. She dared to speak something that writers usually don’t discuss: the agony of being on submission for fifteen months. A truly amazing post, and she followed it up with a post on what she learned.

And speaking of great writing advice, agent Rachelle Gardner talks about one of the most important lessons about staying sane as a writer: it doesn’t work to compare your situation to others.

My wife sent me this amazing link that really is too incredible for words: Terrifying Nixon-era Children’s Books.

But in actually-good book news, just in time for the holidays, my former colleague Sarah LaPolla has an amazing roundup of her favorite books of the year to help inspire your shopping list.

Simon & Schuster gave a book deal to God. Or at least God’s Twitter account.

And e-book distributor Smashwords announced that it is ending discounting and is moving to a model where the author or publisher exclusively sets the retail price. CEO Mark Coker explains their reasoning behind the shift. Closely related to all of this, for all you publishing wonks out there, Mike Shatzkin reviews the biggest story in publishing in 2010: the shift to the agency model.

This week in the Forums, the strange things we think about, where do you find your list of agents, history buffs unite, wondering how “terrible” books get published (Nathan gnashes teeth), and what’s your addiction?

And finally, via smasover in The Forums, a hilarious video that has been making the rounds: So you wanna write a novel…

Have a great weekend!

Last Week in Books 11/26/10

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We are a little late on This Week in Books, what with the post-Thanksgiving food coma and Christmas tree procuring, but there were tons of great links last week, so let’s check out what all happened.

Also, a bit of a programming change. I’m in crunch-time mode for the delivery of JACOB WONDERBAR #2, and will need more minutes out of the day to spare for writing and editing. So I’m going to move over to a Monday/Wednesday/Friday blog schedule for December, and am hopeful to get back on our regular programming come January.

News!

The big news of the week was that HarperCollins sued Gawker for posting excerpts from Sarah Palin’s new book, following Palin’s tweet, “Isn’t that illegal?” A federal judge subsequently ordered Gawker to take down the excerpts in advance of a hearing, and Harper and Gawker ended up settling the lawsuit. Gawker agreed not to post the excerpt in the future, and no word on any financial considerations.

And Borders announced that they were closing seventeen more stores, though they also announced that they will be using Google’s Local Availability to create a more interactive shopping experience.

Slate had an excerpt of a fantastic article by Chad Harbach that is running in n+1, about the rise of MFA programs and the literary balance of power between the MFA world and the  New York publishing industry, and its effects on writers and literature. Some really great insights, factoids, and analysis and I highly, highly recommend reading it all the way through. Best factoid: did you know that the number of degree-granting creative writing programs has risen from 79 in 1975 to 854 now?

Your friend and mine The Rejectionist is having another uncontest, this one a Participatory Self-Actualization Opportunity wherein she is hosting pre-resolutions for the New Year. Because all resolutions are likely best if they are pre-tried. Also, don’t miss the Rejectionist’s The Book Release Party: A Tragic Monologue.

In agent and publishing advice news, Jessica Faust at BookEnds has an interesting post on the what-to-knows about launching your book via the Kindle, The Write Thing has an extensive post about creating a writing bible (via GalleyCat), and Eric from Pimp My Novel gives you everything you need to know about returns (and why debut authors shouldn’t necessarily wish for their demise).

In an article for Shrinking Violet Promotions, my former client Jennifer Hubbard talks a bit about how to build a following online, and also reveals a bit about how she and I maintained our separate blog presences while also maintaining a positive working relationship that kept the things that needed to be confidential confidential. Jennifer also rounded up four YA novels where the main boy character is a nice, good guy.

The Lonely Planet had a roundup of their choices for the Top 10 bookstores in the world, and the LA Times book blog has an incredible photo of Lello Bookshop in Lisbon, one of the honorees.

And blogger Metalia has a hilarious post and two great cover ideas for her book idea for a book about a year of reading books about people doing weird things for a year.

This week in the Forums, don’t forget about the Query Critique Forum, where there are people helping each other perfect their query and offer feedback for each other. Some other topics of discussion this week: some people somehow find a way to upstage the Turducken (warning, the video isn’t for the faint of meat), our favorite mis-heard song lyrics, discussing muses and being the creator vs. the channel for creation of writing, and now that NaNoWriMo is just about over (congrats to all participants!), discussing successful post-NaNo strategies.

Comment! of! the! Week! goes to Nate Wilson, who had hilarious gallows humor about the post about the Nine Circles of Writing Hell:

It appears my circles have formed into a hellish Venn diagram from which my novels can never hope to escape. That’s not good, right?

And finally, this isn’t publishing related, but I found it extremely fascinating. It’s an evolving map that shows 88 years of the shifting red-blue divide (via TPM):

Have a great weekend! I mean, week!

This Week in Books 11/12/10

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Surprise!

It’s our new Friday feature, This Week in Books. Which will look a lot like This Week in Publishing! Only, since I’m not working in publishing I thought it should have a new name. Thus: This Week in Books. Stay tuned on Friday for your linkage goodness.

FIRST AND MOST IMPORTANTLY! It’s still HARRY POTTER week, so please please don’t miss the bottom of this post, where you’ll have your chance to end HARRY POTTER week with a contribution of your own.

We’re also bringing back Page Critique Fridays. Page Critique Fridays may not be complete until Page Critique Saturday or Page Critique Sunday, but the page up for critique is posted in the Forums. UPDATE: My critique and the importance of specificity posted here.

Meanwhile, I’ve been storing up lots of links over the past few weeks, and off we go!

How are the NaNoWriMo-ers doing?? There was actually a bit of controversy around NaNoWriMo as Laura Miller posted an article calling NaNoWriMo a waste of time and energy, while Carolyn Kellogg riposted point by point with a post called 12 Reasons to Ignore the Naysayers. Where do you stand?

Lots and lots of e-book news this week. The NY Times announced that they will have an e-book bestseller list in 2011 that will divide e-books into fiction and nonfiction, Engadget has a preview of a color e-ink reader arriving in China in March, Eric from Pimp My Novel notes that e-books are closing in on the $1 billion a year benchmark, and CNET (where, disclosure, I am employed), has a comprehensive post on how to self-publish an e-book as well as a breakdown of Kindle vs. Nook vs. iPad.

And in less than rosy news, GalleyCat picked up on a report that adult hardcover sales were down 40% in September, and overall sales were down 12%. Yikes. But speaking of those e-books, they were up 158%.

In really creepy and weird news, there was a significant controversy at Amazon this week around a guide to pedophilia that was self-published as an e-book. Amazon initially defended its decision to sell the book, stating to TechCrunch, “Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable,” but by this afternoon the book had been de-listed without further statement by Amazon.

The Wall Street Journal confirmed a rumor that was making the rounds while I was in New York: Random House is significantly reducing its office space and will be leasing out the rest. Random House spokesman Stuart Applebaum states that this is not a sign that the company is planning layoffs.

In honor of the new fictional Roger Sterling memoir, the Onion AV Club surveyed 30-plus books written by fictional characters (via BookSlut). Which fictional character do you want to see write a memoir? I’m going with Omar from The Wire.

There were two separate posts on the benefits and consequences of the Internet and social networking. Veronica Roth talked about how sometimes not writing is as important as writing, and Sarah LaPolla wonders if social networking is making us dumb (hint: her conclusion is rosier than that).

And the great Tahereh has a great and accurate list of 7 Things Your Characters Do Too Much.

This week in the Forums, talking about my decision to leave agenting and what it’s like being an agent, debating the Kindle vs. Nook, your daily NaNoWriMo encouragement courtesy of Somner Leigh, do you have to be serious?, and what to do when you’re losing the spark.

Comment! Of! The! Week! goes to Lindsey, who put a great image together with the concept of J.K. Rowling, clutch writer:

Here’s my image of Rowling’s final clutch touchdown: My daughter and I are standing in the parking lot of BookPeople in Austin, Texas. It is the midnight release of the seventh book. Thousands of people up and waiting. The Austin Symphony is playing Hedwig’s Theme. Bookstore employees and fans are dressed as HP characters. All manner of games, mazes and foods related to the world of HP are tucked into different areas of the parking lot. My daughter looks around at some of the fans and says, “They’re so old.” (She was ten, ‘they’ were 20-somethings.) And that’s when I got Rowling’s amazing play: She reached generations of readers with this story. She created a world and we all entered in. Parents, grandparents, children, teens…we all know what a muggle is.
What a run, what a marathon.

And finally, a massive, huge, endless thank you to all of your kind words this week as I made my transition from the publishing world to the tech world. I can’t say enough how thankful I am for the kindness of the Internet and this community! I never knew when I started this blog that it would lead to so many great friendships (and if I had, I would have started it in like 1992). Thank you thank you. I really, truly appreciate it.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST. It’s been a blast hosting HARRY POTTER week, but now it’s your turn!! If you’d like to write your own HARRY POTTER/J.K. Rowling post, add it to the list below. And be sure and stop back by to see what everyone else posted!

Have a great weekend!