publishing

For anyone who’s ever fussed over conscientious book-buying and the care and keeping of indigent authors, Nick Mamatas advises on How To Buy a Book (or where, really). Much of it seems to come down to whether a retailer feeds into BookScan, a book-sale data compiler that informs many publishers’ decisions. More interesting details with which to inform your future Amazon vs. indie decisions over at the post.

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If you’ve ever found yourself wondering what China Miéville would look like with hair, you may well fall within the target audience for this blog: Could They Beat-Up China Miéville? In a sort of long-form, extra-nerdy variation on Chuck Norris facts, two bloggers take turns scripting deathmatches between everyone’s favorite weird-fiction pioneer/nerd sex symbol and a variety of cultural icons, e.g. Sting and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Why not?

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I’ve always been curious about the logistics of actually trying to make a living off of being an author (a sci-fi/fantasy author in particular, of course), so a couple of blog posts, both recent and older, have been particularly interesting and informative in this respect:

• John Scalzi talks about why he doesn’t try to make a living off of short fiction, and follows that up by enumerating, down to the cent, how much he’s made on short fiction throughout his career. Pretty fascinating to see some hard numbers. (This all started in response to Scalzi’s contentious accusation that the $0.002/word payment of a recently established zine was “insulting to authors.”)
• On the other side of the coin, the famously prolific Catherynne Valente talks about why short fiction sales keep her afloat.
• And on the novel side, Daniel Hoyt presents an amusing and highly informative breakdown of the kind of timelines and income an aspiring novelist can expect…
• …and the Editorial Ass discusses what one can consider “good sales” for a literary novel.

I hope these kind of link aggregations aren’t too overwhelming (or irritating); I like compiling them as much for my own reference as for the purposes of propagating interesting links.

Go to:
John Scalzi
Catherynne Valente