A couple days ago Chris posted about social media. Specifically, he asked about how to generate conversations, and well, stick to something that doesn’t come naturally to him. Any form of social interaction that doesn’t come naturally to you is uncomfortable. A couple things to remember: No matter what ridiculous or insane thing you say, [...]
Posts Tagged ‘publishing’
Baffled By Editors And Agents?
Posted: August 27, 2012 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: evil agentry, publishing, reality
Note for this post the definition of reading is the second one discussed in this post. A lot of people wonder what makes agents and editors tick. Or more specifically, what about the jobs warps us into our peculiar jaded mass. Let’s start with the proto-agent or proto-editor who is an avid reader. They read [...]
Market Collapse or Product Collapse?
Posted: July 13, 2012 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: books, movies, publishing, pulpit pounding
Over the last few months I’ve heard the phrase “collapse of the paper book market” thrown about by editors, writers and best of all financial analysts. The lower volume of sales (so much as they are tracked accurately) is undeniable. You can’t make up the collapse of one of the two largest chain retailers over [...]
Silly Kirkus, Cuttlefish is For Kids (Well, teens…)
Posted: May 31, 2012 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: cuttlefish, dave freer, insane reviewers, publishing, Steampunk, wtf
Some reviews are bad, but ok because they just show the reader picked up the wrong book. I’ve done it, some books just aren’t for me and I can recognize this. I grok that not everyone thinks the same, or likes the same things. Romances, or novels that spend more wordage on emotional exploration than [...]
Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing Is Flying Solo
Posted: May 17, 2012 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: publishing, pulpit pounding
One of the odder and most disappointing things about sff publishing in particular, and the industry as a whole, but particularly our genre is how often it reaches back to touch its past. I’ve heard or seen innumerable times editors and publisher that they were looking for “Phillip K. Dick” or “Heinlein” or the like [...]
Perspectives On Voice
Posted: May 10, 2012 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: chuc, chuck gannon, dave freer, evil agentry, irene radford, james enge, publishing, pulpit pounding, the art and science of writing
I keep telling people an important thing about my blog: I am not a writer. Really. I don’t have that urge to create. If i blog I have something to say. If i don’t blog reason number one is that anything that occurs to me to write is likely to bore me to sleep before [...]
Climate Change Needs To Cause Corporate Culture Change
Posted: May 8, 2012 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: publishing, pulpit pounding
The publishing industry has undergone a number of big changes over the last century. Publishing went from a country club for intellectuals to a mainstream way of aiding education and information, and then entertainment. Like television it went from a number of major sources that could be counted on one hand to a large lumber, [...]
Let Them Eat Cake
Posted: March 27, 2012 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: #HumanWaveSFF, people are strange, publishing, pulpit pounding, wtf
I’m going to start off with a shocking and possibly even blasphemous fact about the publishing industry. The Publishing industry is an entertainment enterprise. Just like comic books, movies, television, major league sports and music. People turn to fiction, and some forms of non fiction for entertainment. A handy definition of entertainment is: “something [...]
Espresso Book Machine
Posted: October 25, 2011 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: human behavior, people are strange, publishing, reading, wtf
I’ve been watching the instant print machines for years. The first time I heard of one was about ten years ago. I was really expecting them to take off then well, instantly. With all the other things done instantly (or claimed to be done instantly) or at least quickly they idea that a book that’s [...]
Reader Impact: Why you should preorder
Posted: May 10, 2011 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: advice, examples given, publishing, pulpit pounding, tools of the trade
There is nothing more frustrating to me than finding a great book, reading one or two more by the author and then finding out they are no longer being published. Sometimes its just because I have found a writer who has passed away, decided they don’t wish to go through all that is need to [...]
Why it can hurt
Posted: April 14, 2011 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: advice, evil agentry, professionalism, publishing, pulpit pounding, reality
One of the impactful questions that lurks behind the question of self publication (or in some cases micro-presses and scam organizations) is: Why does self-publishing have a stigma? There are two answers to this, the first is the simple one, the second will no doubt get me unfollowed on twitter, unfriended on Facebook, and generally [...]
For those who missed it…
Posted: July 23, 2010 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: friends and fiends, guest blog, publishing
This is the link to my guest post at Mad Genius Club last week. A special thanks to exobrain Kate Paulk for helping me find the right word when i needed it.
Guest post
Posted: July 16, 2010 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: friends and fiends, guest blog, publishing
The fantastic folks over at Mad Genius Club decided to lower the tone by having guest posts. After they’d scraped the bottom of the barrel, then dug up underneath it, they eventually dug deep enough to get to me. They will be posting my blithering nonsense tomorrow morning at about 7am. I won’t actually be awake [...]
Agent’s Value
Posted: November 13, 2009 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: agents, industry stuff, logic, professionalism, publishing, reality, writers, wtf
There have been a few posts lately about the value of agents across the internet. Some by agents, some by writers who love their agents, and some by people who seem to think agents are on the far side child molesters on their list of favorite kinds of people. Leaving completely aside the debate of [...]
Posted without comment
Posted: March 31, 2009 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: professionalism, publishing, reality, up very late
http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/wrg/1092910697.html Except a hat tip to a dark haired lady who added me on FB recently.
Curiouser, and curiouser…
Posted: March 4, 2009 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: friends and fiends, markets, people are strange, publishing, pulpit pounding, wtf
I’m not sure I’ll ever figure out the publishing industry. Leaving aside some of the arcane intricacies of how things are paid for, and the interesting paths a book may take from writer to publisher to book stores, there are all sorts of weird things going on. The latest and at least to me most [...]
Remedial Agent Seducing
Posted: February 19, 2009 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: advice, professionalism, publishing, reality, up very late, vodka
I’ve had the pleasure of meeting several of my competitors over the last couple years. While we all have our own personalities, we do have several things in common. Near the top of that list is a dearth of time. This is true of those of us building our lists, and those who have lists [...]
Basic incompetence
Posted: October 28, 2008 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: professionalism, publishing, the art and science of writing, wtf
I really do wonder how it is that I, or any agent or editor is expected to believe that some people believe they deserve to be read when they can’t even put the energy into finding out the basics of submission. Never mind following all of them in their varied and sometimes insane variations. Just [...]
More ‘What Do You Want?’
Posted: September 15, 2008 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: publishing, questions answered, reader likes
chipaatsua asked several questions that I’ll attempt to answer. First was: 1. what goes into making the decision on whether to offer representation, First I have to like, really, like a book. Then i have to know where it’s going to go first and what I’m going to emphasize in the cover letter to those [...]