I really, really should resist the urge to take a peek when a stranger begs me to look at his (and so far it's always been a guy) self-pubbed novel. It never fails. It's always crap ( Read more... )

Dear Person Who Claims to be a Grammarian ( Read more... )

Ranty McRant time, folks.

Y'know, I admire planetalyx for a number of reasons, starting with her being a pretty darned kick-ass writer (not to mention that it's because of her I ended up meeting another kick-ass writer, jess_ka, and yes I'm pimping both their work because if I'm going to be evil and ranty about bad writing, I might as well direct people to good ( Read more... )

From Sayers to Stout. Heck of a switch, but when I get on one of these mystery-reading kicks, there's no telling where it will take me. I'm not sure you could find two top mystery writers who're any more different. British. American. Female. Male. One had a private life that can politely be described as "messy." The other had a more ( Read more... )

Yep, it's yet another post from me about the whole Harlequin Horizons thing. (Harlequin has said that they are officially dropping the "Harlequin" off the "Horizons" imprint, but they're still going to funnel their slush pile rejects towards Horizons, so this drop is, IMO, only superficially cosmetic.) However, instead of yet another rambly rant ( Read more... )

But instead of a huge rambly post from me, I'm just going to provide a link to Writer Beware's discussion of the differences between publishers--commercial/traditional, vanity, subsidy, self/POD ... every flavor currently out on the counter.

I'll say up front I don't know what the answer is, nor do I think I have the experience or expertise necessary to discuss the question beyond a pretty superficial level, which is why I'm writing this as a blog post rather than an article I plan on shopping around for money ( Read more... )

Yes, this is related to my recent rants and rambles about Harlequin. Cut tag is deployed for those who don't want extra scroll added to their FL view. ;)

( It's not competition; it's corruption )

Some people on my FL may've heard of The Pleistocene Redemption before now, and perhaps blessedly put it out of their memory.

For those who haven't, this book is a pretty good example of why the average pro writer is not afraid of competition from someone who's gone the vanity-press route. If you don't want to read the review I linked to, I'll ( Read more... )

Yes, another one, though shorter than the others. This one where I wonder about some very scary possibilities.

( Dear god, is anyone still reading these? )