Weekend Links

We're into little bears here, so I was interested in this list of top 10 bear picture books at The Guardian.

Every time I pass on something here like Beware of Book Blurbs (Salon), I fear that I will one day have an agent or editor who will insist that I have to find some poor soul who will provide me with one. And yet I continue to pass them on.

The idea of a writing retreat is very attractive to me. I mean the kind where you really do live sort of like a monk for a while, not taking classes and networking, just writing and perhaps meeting in a critique group once or twice. (I would be willing to eat meals with the other writers. And not in silence. There's a limit to how far I'll carry the monk analogy.) I've never been to a retreat of this sort because of the time and expense involved. Plus, since I am alone in my house all day several days a week,  I get the feeling that the people around me view all my work days as a writing retreat. Given all that back story, you can understand why I had to read Planning Your Own Writing Retreat at Write It Sideways.

I've actually read three of Flavorwire's 25 Greatest Essay Collections of All Time.

I collect Twitter articles because I'm headin' there. Yes. I've made the decision to go over to Twitter because that's the social platform that makes all the difference. Plus, I read recently that writers should have 7 ways for readers to find them, and right now I have only 6. And they still can't find me. So, seriously, Twitter will make all the difference, right? Another back story that explains why I'm sending you to The Top Ten Most Prolific Authors On Twitter. Shoot. Looking at those slides has impressed upon me that I need a Twitter handle. I knew that, but I didn't know that. What I hadn't realized was that I'd also need a Twitter profile. Now I must angst over whether to go simple, direct, and straight to the point (Margaret Atwood) or reach for something endearing (Ian Rankin).

It's been a long time since I've posted anything here about Alloy and book packaging. According to Gwenda Bond in Pack(ag)ing It Up, Amazon has a licensing agreement with Alloy so it can publish fanfiction written around the worlds of books Alloy packages. Bond says she found the response to the Amazon/Alloy deal interesting because of "how few people immediately recognized these are all packaged properties. I have seen a lot of worry about the authors who created these characters getting money, and how the rights worked, and etc. etc. and I am reminded once again that lots of people--even savvy industry types--don't realize how prevalent packaging is in YA (and probably elsewhere too--I am most familiar with YA and so that's what I'm talking about here)." Her point is that for some of the series involved there isn't an author who will be impacted because the books are written by multiple people or that some of these authors are working for hire, so they don't have the some contractual intellectual property rights that other writers do. Read Bond's post. Gwenda will explain it all to you.