Opinions are divided among Western authors and publishers as to whether free fiction available online boosts or damages the sales of physical product – witness Pixel-stained Technopeasantry. Wired reports that the book business in China is in fact undergoing a renaissance thanks to the increasingly popular pastime of reading novels online, and that the stories go on to be used in other media like television and computer games. The question is, will the same model work in the West?
Tag Archives: Fiction
Writing tips round-up
There seem to be a lot of posts containing advice for writers in my RSS reader at the moment, so I thought it would be nice to share them with everyone. Let’s see …
First up we have Jeff Vandermeer reposting the start of his “Evil Monkey Guide to Creative Writing” at his recently-relocated blog.
Futurismic blogger and rising science fiction novelist Tobias Buckell is too modest to plug things from his own blog when he writes here, but I have no such shame; he’s got links to some extensive notes on plotting that were taken at the Taos Toolbox writer’s workshop.
Finally, Jetse de Vries is e-submissions fiction editor for Interzone, but he’s a writer in his own right, too. He shares with us the lessons he’s learned from reading the slush pile, and discusses the value of “trunking” stories that you just can’t seem to sell.
[Cross-posted to VCTB]
Another William Gibson interview
In case you missed it, William Gibson is interviewed briefly over at Wired about his forthcoming novel, Spook Country … interviewed by grumpy comics genius Warren Ellis, no less, so a double-dose of win, as far as I’m concerned.
Slush survival tips for short story writers
If you write short fiction with an eye to getting published, you’re probably hungry for advice on how to make your manuscript survive the slush-pile process. So give thanks to Doug Cohen, fiction editor for Realms of Fantasy Magazine, for sharing this insightful essay where he looks at the openings of genuine slush-pile survivor stories, and analyzes what it was about them that saved them from the default rejection note. Of course, not all parts of the writing process are quite so easily explained – witness Jim van Pelt talking about where story ideas come from. [Cross-posted to VCTB]
Nobel winner writing new novel online – and giving it away for free
The science fiction genre is full of authors who, with a few exceptions, understand the value of giving content away for free as a marketing ploy (and we love them for it, too). The same attitude is less prevalent in the world of ‘proper’ literature, but the literary cachet of Nobel prize winner Elfriede Jelinek, combined with her enthusiastic adoption of a new publishing paradigm may change that fact. A recluse in real life, Ms Jelinek feels more able to communicate with people online, describing the internet as “the most wonderful thing there is. It connects people. Everyone can have input.” As an experiment into using the internet to raise an author’s profile, I’d say it’s been a success – Nobel Prize or no, I’d never heard of her before now. I wonder if the story’s any good?