June 2009

Time Management Tools

June 29, 2009

Time tracking is essential for freelancers, and I’ve been doing a little exploring in the last couple months to find an effective time management system for myself. There are to-do list programs like Tracks that are free, and are very good for what they are, but I needed something with more of a stopwatch feature [...]

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Submitting Partials

June 25, 2009

If publishers want me to have my manuscript completed before I start shopping it around, why do they only want to see my first few chapters? In this electronic age, do you see publishers skipping the “sample chapters” step in the future? If I’m just sending a file, it doesn’t take up that much more [...]

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Next Generation Indie Awards

June 22, 2009

If you’ve had a book published by a small press in 2009, or will be published in early 2010, consider submitting your book to the Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Submissions are open until March, 2010. While the entry fee may be a little steep at $75, the awards range from $100-$1,500 and include promotion [...]

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Down From Ten – launching Saturday!

June 18, 2009

This Saturday marks the launch of DOWN FROM TEN, a new podcast novel by J. Daniel Sawyer. In early January, a group of friends get together for an annual retreat; eight artists, scientists, and authors cloistered together in a mansion in the mountains above Redding, California for ten days of games, conversation, exhibition, and hedonism, [...]

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Fiction is Subjective

June 15, 2009

In your interview with Michell Plested, you said that fiction is subjective. What did you mean? To talk about how editing fiction is subjective, it’s easier to start by talking about how editing non-fiction is concrete. In non-fiction, a fact, a grammatical issue, or an ambiguous word choice is more often either right or wrong, [...]

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Exacting Standards?

June 11, 2009

…Yes. (But it’s still not a crapshoot!) Click through the image of Tuesday’s comic (above) and continue forward — it seems to be the start of a story arc!

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It’s a date!

June 8, 2009

Actually seeing it in print makes me want to jump up and down!  According to Pip, a November 2010 print date has been announced for GEIST. She’s already hard at work on the sequel, which bears the catchy working title of GEIST 2 (real title forthcoming!). And congrats also to Ms. Ballantine for winning the [...]

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David Eddings – 1931-2009

June 4, 2009

I discovered The Belgariad when I was twelve. I remember immersing myself in the first four books and waiting anxiously for the fifth to be released, and then following The Malloreon, the follow-up series, avidly forward. While I can’t say that The Belgariad was the first fantasy I’d ever read, I can certainly say without [...]

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From Screen to Page

June 1, 2009

A lot of steps are involved in taking a book from a document file to a printed and bound collection of paper. This eleven-minute video demonstrates the bookbinding process. Edwards Brothers, Inc., located in Lillington N.C., binds the C-SPAN book ABRAHAM LINCOLN, with a guided tour to lead the viewer through the process. Then, step [...]

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