Latest news in writing/publishing

I always think I want to blog more, and then I never do. I don’t know what my blogging block is; maybe I think if I’m writing many words a day it should be on fiction? Maybe I feel that going on in a nonfic/news format isn’t really my style; maybe I just feel that people are reading others’ blogs and have already seen the news.

Or maybe I just think few people actually visit this blog, and only download the podcast via RSS.

Regardless, I don’t think any of those things are necessarily true. Maybe I’m just lazy. (And speaking of lazy, ISBW 101 is going up later today.) Still, a lot of things have been happening in publishing and writing, and I wanted to talk about them here.

• Tobias Buckell (who I met at DragonCon and who has agreed to be on the show sometime soon!) has three chapters of his novel, Sly Mongoose, up on his blog. You guys know how I feel about free/new media, so please, go there, check it out. The book is out in stores now (along with Crystal Rain and Ragamuffin, his other two books). Chapters One, Two, Three
• Speaking of Buckell, damn him, he may have forced me to get an Audible.com account. I prefer Emusic.com audiobooks (despite their horrendous practice of giving you books in 300+ bite sized files with incomprehensible ID3 tags) with no DRM, but admittedly, their catalog is not as big as Audible’s. But Buckell, along with Elizabeth Bear, John Scalzi (ISBW interview here), Karl Schroeder, and Jay Lake, has done an Audible project called Metatropolis: The Dawn of Uncivilization. This looks amazing.
• Some authors have book leaks and respond to it irrationally (I can understand being upset that your book is leaked - not everyone lives by the “sell more by giving it away” mentality, and I respect that - but I think some of Meyer’s actions went a little far…). Now Techdirt reports that David Weber, instead of releasing a snippet of his WIP, Storm from the Shadows, he accidentally released the entire 250K word version. Instead of freaking or suing or ending Honor Harrington’s story, Baen Books has decided to offer the unedited “Oopsie” version up for sale. Savvy. Smart. Reasonable.
• The Writer’s Technology Companion blog just listed 10 Podcasts For Writers Worth Listening To - there are several here I hadn’t heard of, so I’m going to be checking them out. (and yes, squee, ISBW made the list!)
• Blogger and agent Kristin Nelson has posted about “overnight success” on her blog, listing how many people think that some authors just blaze onto a scene with no prior obscure toiling - but of course there was obscure toiling; THAT IS WHY IT IS OBSCURE. It hurts to realize, but you will likely be a writer for many years before you’re noticed. And this is pretty true; I have been trying to write seriously for 7 years now, and just got my first fiction novel published this summer. Persistence!

I have more news I want to talk about, but don’t want to overwhelm. And I have a podcast to edit. So do you want me to blog more? No? No opinion? Let me know in the comments.