Tag: books

WHAT WORRIES ME IS THAT THEY’VE CODE-NAMED IT “CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN:” Quantitative Easing 2 Sets Sail Friday: Central bank’s latest $600 billion plan gets going with first round of Treasury purchases.

Now THAT is amusing. Of course, you really have to know your Stross to understand why….

I have repeatedly urged those who would be professional writers to pursue it as a fulfilling hobby, not a lucrative profession, because conventional publishing is a dying industry. My thesis tends to be supported by the fallout from the latest Duke scandal. Read, writer, and despair:

In the last 24 hours, we’ve received several of these types of inquiries. This is from a woman at the William Morris Endeavor agency, who requested her information because they want to represent her:

We think this thesis was GENIUS! Can you help in any way? Would be amazing & much appreciated.

I’m an editor at HarperCollins publishers, where I specialize in pop culture and entertainment books. I’m intrigued and entertained by [the writer]’s PowerPoint “f*ck list,” which is making the rounds online and am wondering if you could give me her email address or forward my note of interest to her.

At least Katie Price demonstrated that she had superlative self-marketing talent in addition to her aggressive plastic surgery and willingness to take her clothes off anytime anyone pointed a camera in her direction before being handed her book contracts. This rather unattractive young woman doesn’t even have that going for her.

The Ferenghi have abandoned literary capitalism:

“I’ve decided not to publish any more books in the traditional way. 12 for 12 and I’m done. I like the people, but I can’t abide the long wait, the filters, the big push at launch, the nudging to get people to go to a store they don’t usually visit to buy something they don’t usually buy, to get them to pay for an idea in a form that’s hard to spread … I really don’t think the process is worth the effort that it now takes to make it work. I can reach 10 or 50 times as many people electronically.

Granted, I appear to have skipped the whole “bestseller” bit unless you want to count a very specific and esoteric niche, but I am leaning more and more towards small publishing houses despite the various offers I have from traditional publishers. That being said, WND Books did a very nice job with RGD, so I’ll probably continue to do my non-fiction with them.

In which the OC brings to our attention another milestone in the long descent of the publishing industry into the dustbin of history.

n June 20, 2002, the United States Supreme Court decreed, in the case of Atkins v. Virginia, that the mildly mentally retarded were categorically exempt from capital punishment, reasoning that fully functional adults of diminished mental capacity were as a matter of law not as culpable for their acts. Writing eloquently in dissent, Justice Scalia drew a sharp distinction between the severely mentally retarded (who are truly not responsible for their actions), and the merely stupid (the category into which Mr. Atkins undoubtedly fell). Scalia argued forcefully that, with respect to the merely stupid, at least sometimes they deserve to be punished for their antisocial and destructive behavior.

This article, of course, is not about capital punishment. It is a book review of Dirty, Sexy Politics by Meghan McCain. However, the above discussion is relevant because I initially had reservations about writing this book review at all. After all, it is clear to everyone who has read Meghan McCain’s twitter feed, her “articles” on The Daily Beast, or her ill-fated campaign blog that Meghan is not a paragon of clear reasoning, exemplar of familiarity with facts, nor a model of English language expertise. And after subjecting myself to 194 continuous pages of her “writing,” it became clear that none of the above-described works truly plumbed the depths of mental vacuity in which Ms. McCain aimlessly and cluelessly drifts.

Even as an AWCA, I find myself lost in admiration at such a vituperative work of art. Especially since it is so well-merited.

The Original Cyberpunk contemplates anthologizing himself:

Which brings us to the last question: what makes for a good single-author anthology, anyway? What do you like to see? Just the hit singles? Something you haven’t seen before? As many stories as can possibly be fit into a book? Stories focusing on just one particular style or theme, or a good cross-section from the writer’s entire career? And what about the writer’s voice: do you like it when the writer includes a little something about the story? Do you prefer a big something; e.g., longer comments about what the writer thought he was trying to do when he wrote it and what it took to make the story publishable? Or are you happiest when the writer just shuts up and stays the heck out of the way of the stories?

First, I think the idea of an anthology of Mr. Bethke’s work is a great one. And in my opinion, the name is obvious: The Original Cyberpunk. Considering the word is his singular contribution to the English language, it would be a travesty of both marketing and justice were the central collection of his best short fiction not pay homage to it in some way.

As for the actual question posed, I prefer to see a Best Of collection. Unless one is a Major Writer or prolific short story writer who publishes multiple anthologies, the book is likely to become the definitive view of the author’s work for many readers. And I very much enjoy an introductory page preceding each story providing the reader with additional information, either about the idea for the story, the process of writing the story, or deeper aspects of the story that may not be apparent to the average reader.

Small bloggers rejoice! If the New York Times can be believed, one’s literary ambitions are best served by keeping one’s daily readership under 1k per day.