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There’s a good interview with Chuck Palahniuk in the October issue of Writer’s Digest. The Fight Club author makes some suggestions that are useful to us all. When interviewer Jordan E. Rosenfeld asks how he knows an idea can support a novel, Palahniuk responds, “It’s usually a premise that I can present in a short [...]

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You know you’re a musical badass when there’s a beat named after you. So let’s all hope that guitar icon Bo Diddley recovers quickly from a heart attack he suffered recently. Get well soon, Bo.

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I often tell people about the industry expertise and reporting of Galleycat. Ron and Sarah do a great job of getting primary source quotes and insider info about the publishing industry. The website really is required reading for anyone who wants to learn about the business of books. And lately, I’ve really enjoyed their commentary. For example, [...]

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Or, at least when it’s not the right time for research. We’ve previously discussed the seductive allure of research when you’re writing. It’s easy to get sucked into a rabbit hole trying to find some little tidbit of information and suddenly you’ve lost a whole day. That happened to me last night. I was looking [...]

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I’m all for authors being proactive in marketing their books. I’m all for determination, dedication, and even a bit of fanaticism. But this is just ridiculous. Galleycat points out a report about Bill Schneider’s Oprah Book Club lie. Scheider, an administrative director of tourism in Provincetown, wrote a book entitled Crossed Paths. Galleycat reports the book [...]

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I’ve often complained about the lack of good books about how the publishing industry really works. I don’t mean the shelves full of texts that tell you “don’t send your horror novel to Harlequin Romances” or “An agent can help negotiate a better deal.” I’m talking about a resource that breaks down publishing contracts and [...]

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> So by now, you’ve undoubtedly seen the news that Rolling Stone guitarist Keith Richards sold Little, Brown and Company the rights to publish his memoir. The ticket price was reportedly a staggering $7.3 million. Other reports place the amount somewhere in the range of seven to eight million. Regardless, it was enough to make Richards’s [...]

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