There’s been a bit of a kerfuffle in the SF blogosphere about what writers should be paid for short fiction, which has led to a lot of people posting lists of their short fiction and what they were paid for it (Scalzi has links to most of them). This naturally leads me to wonder what… Continue reading On Market Rates
Category: Books
Why the Record Industry Sucks, Aleph-nought in a Series
As a companion piece to Steve Albini’s famous rant about how the pop music industry systematically screws its artist, theToo Much Joy blog provides a look at their royalty statement: I got something in the mail last week I’d been wanting for years: a Too Much Joy royalty statement from Warner Brothers that finally included… Continue reading Why the Record Industry Sucks, Aleph-nought in a Series
More Early Reviews of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog
The official release date for How to Teach Physics to Your Dog is three weeks from tomorrow, but a couple of new reviews have been posted, one linkable, the other not so much. The linkable one is from one of our contest winners, Eric Goebelbecker, at Dog Spelled Forward (an excellent name for a dog-related… Continue reading More Early Reviews of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog
Science: Notable at Last
The New York Times list of “Notable Books for 2009” has been released, which means it’s time for my annual rant about how they’ve slighted science books. So, how did they do this year? Here are the science books on this year’s list: The Age of Entanglement: When Quantum Physics Was Reborn By LOUISA GILDER… Continue reading Science: Notable at Last
Spoken Like Somebody Who’s Never Read Slush
Windows is pleading to be allowed to install updates, so I’m going through closing browser tabs that I opened foolishly thinking I might write about them. In that list is yet another blog post on how electronic books will kill traditional publishing. This one is fundamentally an economic argument, claiming that it will soon be… Continue reading Spoken Like Somebody Who’s Never Read Slush
Creepiness Is Contagious
It’s always kind of distressing to find something you agree with being said by people who also espouse views you find nutty, repulsive, or reprehensible. It doesn’t make them any less right, but it makes it a little more difficult to be associated with those views. So, for instance, there’s this broadside against ineffective math… Continue reading Creepiness Is Contagious
Inside of a Dog by Alexandra Horowitz
I’ve gradually gotten used to the idea that as a semi-pro blogger, I will occasionally be sent review copies of books I’ve never heard of. These are generally physics books, and I have a stack of them sitting next to the bed at the moment, not being read nearly fast enough. It’s only recently that… Continue reading Inside of a Dog by Alexandra Horowitz
Why Editors Matter
There’s a nice post over at “The World in a Satin Bag” on the important things editors do. The emphasis is on fiction publishing, but most of it applies to non-fiction as well: Editors make you into a better writer. Emphasis on better. They don’t make you into the greatest writer ever, but they certainly… Continue reading Why Editors Matter
Great Moments in Targeted Advertising
We subscribe to Locus, the SF review and news magazine, and every month when it arrives, I flip through it quickly to look at the ads. This is a useful guide to what’s coming out from various publishers, but it’s also kind of fascinating to see how the different publishers market their stuff. In particular,… Continue reading Great Moments in Targeted Advertising
Generalists, Specialists, and the Slappable
There are at least as many ways to write really interesting essays as there are people writing really interesting essays, but for the most part, they break down into two broad types. There are the ones that completely change the way you look at some subject you thought you knew about, forcing you to change… Continue reading Generalists, Specialists, and the Slappable