Mallory Ortberg on Texts from Jane Eyre: 'Writing was the simplest part of the process'
theguardian.com – Tuesday July 19, 2016
Texts from Jane Eyre was the first book I ever wrote, or even tried to write, and when I found my agent, I rather assumed my part in the process was done. She had approached me about the project, so I assumed an editor would approach her in turn, and I would continue to attract publishing attention like a sea anemone attracts shrimp. This turned out not to be the case: it took over a year, and quite active shopping, to sell the book proposal, rather than seeing it snapped up straight away.
American Literature Needs Indie Presses
theatlantic.com – Sunday July 17, 2016
For better or worse, writers and readers live in an age of the million-dollar book deal. The Big Five publishers (Penguin Random House, Hachette, Macmillan, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster) increasingly gamble on massive book advances in hopes that they might put out one of the biggest hits of the year. Last fall, Knopf—a division of Penguin Random House—paid an unprecedented $2 million advance for the first-time novelist Garth Risk Hallberg’s City on Fire. Other recent million-dollar debut deals include Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers, Stephanie Clifford’s Everybody Rise, and Matthew Thomas’s We Are Not Ourselves—and the list goes on.
Russell Smith: Why publishers think pink for book covers
theglobeandmail.com – Thursday July 7, 2016
It has just occurred to me that my last four books, all works of fiction, have had an image of a woman on the cover. The books, however, largely represent masculine points of view. One of the books is even called Young Men. It still has a beautiful girl on the cover.
The reason for this repeated imagery is simple and economic: Most readers of fiction in North America are, by a wide margin, women. The books are being marketed to them.
How to Start a Freelance Writing Career for $0
sitepoint.com – Saturday June 25, 2016
You’ve heard the old saying: “You have to spend money to make money.” That’s true in almost every field of work, whether you want to open a restaurant or start a blog. The problem? Some people with entrepreneurial spirits have just enough to get by and not a penny more. Not everyone has a good amount of dispensable income to spend to start a career.
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