Mochi vs. the Sofa Cushions

We've got a foster kitten who likes to play with her favorite string on the sofa. Only, we forgot to feed the sofa before play time...

Publishing Industry News

Publishing news and industry blogs for 6/1-6/14. This week, it seems like the moral of the story is to quite simply don't be a jerk. Good advice no matter what you're doing.


Publishing News

The SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America) has been on the social media airways for all the wrong reasons: after their bulletin came out with a cover a woman in a chainmail bikini and an article written by a couple of members referencing women as "lady writers" and "lady editors" instead of "writers" and "editors," members and many, many others began speaking out about the inappropriateness of allowing such to be printed on a bulletin meant to represent a professional organization. The president of the SFWA, John Scalzi, took responsibility for the issue and apologized for allowing these to appear, agreed they were inappropriate, and appointed an organization to investigate sexism in the organization, and the editor of said bulletin resigned. Author Jim Hines has a nice collection of links about the outcry here. (Edit: added late) Nor was that all... one of the members who had run for president (and thankfully lost by a landslide) took to the group's Twitter account to run off on a racist spiel. His posting privileges were subsequently revoked and the tweets deleted, but the account is open to all members (who don't abuse it). Hines offers a run-down on that event here, with his personal opinion on the issue (disappointment, disgust, and dislike). (I'm sure there will be an official news article written about it soon, although I haven't seen one quite yet--but I haven't looked too hard yet, either, so there may already be one out there.)


Skyhorse & Start Publishing acquires Night Shade Books.

The Apple vs. the DOJ e-book price-fixing lawsuit, which claims that Apple and 5 major publishers conspired to fix e-book prices in a method detrimental to competition, began on June 3. Brought to the stand as witnesses are Macmillan's CEO and an Apple executive, the HarperCollins CEO, the Simon & Schuster CEO, and the Penguin CEO . The Random House COO was not called to the stand, which upset Apple's lawyer. Three Amazon executives also testify, as does the Google Director of Content Partnerships, the Apple senior vice president, and (the very first witness called to the stand) Apple's associate general consul. (Each link goes to a summary of the witness's interview, summarized by Publishers Weekly.) Meanwhile, the government calls on Steve Jobs' paper trail as a "witness."

In an eight-year-old antitrust lawsuit versus Mastercard and Visa, whom are being sued on grounds of price-fixing and fees, booksellers are opting out of a settlement that would grant $7.25 billion (USD) but that booksellers feel does not actually address the issue, and that would deny those accepting the settlement the right to future litigation.

The Penguin-Random House merger is now okay'd by China.

Now that NewsCorp has split into two distinct entities (or will be split, as of June 28), HarperCollins CEO testifies to investors the continued value and profitability of publishing.


Industry Blogs


QueryTracker's Publishing Pulse for 6/7 and 6/14.

Writer Angela Quarles offers the inside scoop on how to get into independent book stores, based on her experience working in one. Hint: Don't be a jerk.

Rachelle Gardner talks about how to create a style sheet for your manuscript. Style sheets are basically instructions on the details, used to create consistency--does one character always speak a certain way? How? What color is that's character's eyes? How does x work? (As a copyeditor, I use these all the time to keep formatting consistent on each project. They are invaluable.)

Crista McHugh drops by the FF&P blog to talk about love triangles, and how to deal with them. Remember: having an obvious good-choice, bad-choice destroys the tension.

Does it seem like nobody likes working with your agent? That could be a bad sign, Kristine Kathryn Rusch says: if your agent is a jerk, it could very well work against you. And you might not even know you have bad "help" that's actually hurting you until it's too late--ask questions and do your research. She also notices a pattern that's going on worldwide, as the publishing world transitions to being indie-publishing friendly and writers switch to being indie-writers.

On QueryTracker, Rosie Genova talks about whether or not to use real-life tragedies in books. She eventually decided not to, but mentioned the tragedy and why she left it out in an afterward.

Former editor and current chair member of the Association of Authors Representatives Brian DeFiore shares how much authors make from sales compared to how much net profit publishers make from sales, and says authors should make more, especially in e-book royalties.

Free e-book formatting and marketing guides gathered at GalleyCat.

SocialTimes editor Devon Glenn gets interviewed by GalleyCat about Pinterest, and offers some interesting factoids about pins, such as that 70% of clicks happen within the first 2 days of a pin.


What major publishing news have you encountered in the past couple of weeks?

Critique Groups and the power of structure

You may have heard that I'm part of two local groups, one of which is the Heart of Carolina Romance Writers, a chapter of the national group Romance Writers of America. But I'm also a member of a science fiction writing group that I met through Meetup, one that's a subgroup of the Durham Writers Group.

These organizations are very different. The HCRW is very business-of-writing oriented, great for networking and learning about the publishing business. Through this group you can also meet critique partners and learn about the role of editing in what you do, ask others for recommendations on good editors, and other editing-related business, but the group focuses on the business as a whole, not just feedback.

The science fiction group acts as an actual critique group, focused on helping its members improve through personal feedback. Several of its members have published one or more short stories professionally, and can give recommendations on where to publish and how to publish, but the main focus of the group is providing quality feedback for one another, four readers per session.

Usually I talk more about the HCRW and RWA, because they're national and, well, bigger. But today's a shout-out to the Meetup group, which has 25 members and still manages to provide meaningful feedback to almost each and every one.

The place we meet is a whimsical
indoor-outdoor cafe.

If you get the chance and want to meet some up-and-coming science fiction and fantasy writers, take a look at some of their blogs:

Rich Matrunick

Heather Frederick (And don't forget to visit the blog of Timber Howligan, Secret Agent Cat!)

Allegra Gulino

Travis Smith

Bill Ferris

Fraser Sherman


That's only a few, but it gives you an idea of the spectrum of writers within: From middle grade to adult, from pre-published to multi-published, and from short stories to novels, we've got someone writing just about everything.

Another secret is to choose a
place that makes you want to write.

One of the major secrets to keeping this group productive despite being so large is a firm schedule. Once we start, the first reader reads for up to 15 minutes, limited by a timer. Once the timer goes off, finish that sentence and you're done! Then each listener has exactly 1 minute (again, someone with a cell phone timer keeps track, usually one of the group's designated leaders) to give feedback. Anything more than that, and they have to write it down and e-mail it to the reader, or just hand the paper over. At the end of the round of minute-feedbacks, and only then, there's a two-minute free for all, usually begun by the reader giving some clarification based on comments, or extra information to make the story make more sense.

When that time runs out, the next reader gets 15 minutes, followed by feedback, and then the next and then the next, for a total of four readers.

Behold the "path of writers,"
which leads to "the usual spot."

After the last free-for-all, we take a moment to choose four readers for the next week. And, because life happens, we also choose two to four "back-up" readers, who will read if one of the original readers can't make it. These backup readers automatically become the next session's designated readers, should they not be called on to read. We do provide an exception for new members: new group members are given priority to read at the next session, and if there are too many back-up readers, one will volunteer to be bumped down to back-up reader again.

The group's full of awesome people, so there's always been a volunteer willing to step down and wait.

Keeping everyone focused is hard work, and our group leaders do a truly awesome job of getting us back on task. It does help that after the meetings, anyone who wants to chew the fat heads down to a local restaurant for evening snacks and late-night gab. So there's a place to chat and follow up.

 Having a successful critique group, be it four friends who send reviews over e-mail or twenty-five who sit down together in person, is one of the greatest boons a writer can have. What I've learned from this group is the value of structure: have a plan and stick to it, and you'll accomplish what you planned.

Does it work? Well, quite a few of our writers entered this group having never published anything, or thought of writing as more than a hobby, and ended up with short stories in pro-rate magazines, and others are published novelists or on the track to being so. So ask them.

How big is your critique group? What kind of procedure do you follow to make sure you accomplish everything you plan?

Creating Custom AutoCorrect Settings

 Jonathon Jou, in a doctoral program at Duke University, drops by to teach us how to create custom AutoCorrect settings. These help us format our manuscripts as we type, catching common errors and creating the correct punctuation when we ask for it.

1. Once you've opened Microsoft word, left click on the "File" button on the top left corner of your window. For those of you with Office 2007, that's the fancy Office Coin in the same place.

2. The resulting menu will contain a column on the left, with "Options" as a choice. Left click on that choice.

3. This brings up (yet another!) menu, of which "Proofing" will be in the left column. Left click on that choice. 

4. As you can see, the "AutoCorrect Options" button is now in plain sight! Left click on the big shiny button.

5. This brings us to the actual window where we can add new AutoCorrect choices. Type "--" into the left side...

6. ....and an em dash into the right. 

7. The "Add" button has become available for clicking! Add your new AutoCorrect text replacement to the table by clicking that button.

8. Hit OK as many times as it takes to get back to your marvelous wordsmithery. 

It's worth noting that you could change anything to anything automatically! Auto-censoring or office pranks are a very real possibility. (Lock your computers when you leave them; I highly recommend not getting pranked.)

Let's say you replaced every word in "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" to an equally wordy pangram, "Pack my red box with five quality jugs." I've color-coded the replacements to make it especially clear!

The possibilities are endless. And probably not productive. But it was fun making this, and I hope it helped!

What AutoCorrect options will you create?

Never judge a book...

Writers, readers, and members of the publishing community, in general, are some of the most open-minded and accepting people I know. Almost of those I have met have been people who stand for equality and a peaceful, accepting, always-bettering-itself world.

Compared to all those who do, there are relatively few do not fall into this category. Relatively.

As a child, your parents may have told you the old saying, "Never judge a book by its cover." Good advice.

But far sillier, far shallower, is to judge a book by the cover of its author.

Nationality, gender, age--none of these are worthy standards of judgement. A book should be judged by its content, not by the exterior of its writer; a writer's ability should be judged by what he or she writes, and not by his or her physical features.

Because a book should be valued for what's within, not without.

Because, while most people believe this, there are still a few who do not. Who speak loudly and promote hate and inequality.

I'd like to remind everyone that, for every unkind person out there, there are thousands who believe in love and equity. To be a thousand voices, a million voices, a billion voices worldwide drowning out the voices of those who hold on to inequality. To remind the world how many people stand for equality, and to ask those who do not to lay down the hatred, and join those who do.

We cannot stop those who speak for hate. We cannot change cruel or shallow words. But we can speak back, and we can tell them that we disagree with what they say.

I invite you to find a mask, put it on, take a picture, and share it with this phrase. Or hold up a piece of paper with these words, and take a picture of that.

I invite you to to use this image if you don't have a mask of your own, or don't want to use your own image. To link here, or re-blog this; to copy it word-for-word or put it in your own words, with credit or without.

There are blogs, feeds, twitter accounts for which statements such as this do not fit with the tone or mood or content. If it fits in yours, I invite you to join in. I invite you to post or tweet, to add your mask as a writer or a reader with the hashtag #maskedwriters or whatever else you choose.

But most of all, I invite you to simply share your voice, and to say you're one of the majority who believe that it's not okay to promote superficial judgments.

That you are among those who believe what is inside a book is far, far more important than the physical features of the writer. That writing ability, not race, not gender, not beauty nor lack thereof, should be how a writer is evaluated. 

Wednesday Writing Exercise

Trolls: they live under bridges, on the internet, or in attics with neon hair and sparkly belly buttons. Sometimes they're nasty in-laws, and sometimes they're actually helpful--for the right price.

Metaphorically, any creature that stands in the way of your characters and their goals could be a "troll," an obstacle to be overcome. But in most stories, the troll is not the main villain (unless your characters are billy goats). It's one of the many obstacles that thwart the characters while the action ramps up, something that adds tension to a scene and to the plot as a whole.

What kind of troll would your characters be most likely to encounter? How does this "troll" get between them and their goals? And how do they get past?

Using the Replace function for common manuscript formatting fixes

Formatting a manuscript for submission? Here's some quick tips for solving common manuscript mistakes, using the replace function:

Need to remove an extra space between sentences? Ctrl+H is the replace function. Type two spaces in the "find" bar and one space in the "replace with" bar.

Need to change from web formatting (single-spaced with a space between paragraphs) to standard submission format (double-spaced with indents and no extra spaces between paragraphs)?

• To get rid of extra paragraph breaks, ctrl+H, and fill in ^p^p in the "find" bar. Put ^p in the "replace" bar. (^p stands for "paragraph" as you cannot hit "enter" in this menu function). You can now highlight the entire section, go to format->paragraph, and double space.
• To get rid of tabs, ^t goes in the "find" bar, and nothing goes in the "replace" bar. It will delete all manual tabs. You can now highlight the work, got to format->paragraph, and select "first line" under "indentation". (^t stands for "tab" as the tab button has a different function in this menu)
• Check your page margins to be sure they're set to 1 inch.
• Check your font to be sure it's Courier or New Times Roman.

Sometimes, when copyediting, I've encountered documents that have manual spaces at the end of each line, single-spaced, with double spaces between paragraphs. This usually happens because either the page settings are not working correctly, or the document was initially written in a webpage, or a project requires unusual margin formats.

If you need to get rid of extra spacing and the project has double spacing between paragraphs, one trick I've found that works efficiently is to Ctrl+H, put ^p in the "find" bar, and put a single space in the "replace with" bar. Then Ctrl+H again, put two spaces in the "find" bar, and ^p in the replace bar. Now you will no spaces within paragraphs, and a single space for each new paragraph. You then can select and change to double-spacing, and add automatic indentation.

Want to change -- into an em dash, when moving from a program that does not create em dashes to Word? Type an em dash into Word (hyphen hyphen space should automatically create one), highlight it, copy (Ctrl+C), and call up your Replace menu. Type two hypens into your "find" bar and paste (Ctrl+V) the em dash into your "replace with" bar.

Need to remove smart quotes? First, find your AutoCorrect options and make sure your settings have "auto smart quotes" deselected. Copy a non-smart quote. Highlight a smart quote, Ctrl+H (which should automatically put the smart quote in the "find" bar), and paste the straight quote in the "replace with" bar.

Want to add smart quotes? Find your AutoCorrect options and make sure you settings have "auto smart quotes" turned on. Put a quote in the "find" bar, and another quote in the "replace with" bar. All quotes of this kind should automatically become smart quotes.

What computer functions help you quickly format your manuscript?