- It's been too me-me-me around here lately (okay, so this is my place, but STILL), so first off some links to elseplaces I've been collecting. (And then another me-me-me post. SORRY. It's book launch time. *runs around with hair on fire*)
- A fascinating map of Europe's "typogeography" circa 1901.
- The most excellent Austin Kleon at PW on how his book tour made him fall in love with independent bookstores: "It took me going on this tour and discovering what independent bookstores have to offer to learn this lesson: the best salespeople are the ones who are in love. Whether they’re yours or not, if you love books, you can’t help selling them."
- And via Austin's tumblr, an interesting collection of "15 Rules for Success by Creative Industry Insiders." Good stuff there.
- Zoë Marriott with a typically great post on writing, this time tackling "rules" about pacing and other things that may lead to watered-down–rather than good–writing.
- "Everything is Fiction" by Keith Ridgway at the New Yorker: "I need to care about what I’m writing—whether about the characters, or about what they’re getting up to, or about the way they feel or experience their world. I know that my job is to create a perspective. And to impose it on the reader. And I know that in order to do that with any success at all I must in some mysterious way risk everything. If I don’t break my own heart in the writing of a book then I know I’ve done it wrong. I’m not entirely sure what that means. But I know what it feels like."
- Sara Zarr continues to share her journey in admirably open, honest fashion.
- Two links about Angry Robot's Clonefiles experiment, partnering with an independent bookstore in England to offer customers who buy Angry Robot physical copies a free digital copy, and the results: at FutureBook and the Digital Reader. I was particularly struck by the comments from the bookseller perspective, from Mark Thornton:"Suddenly indies are able to take their traditional strengths – edited and curated choice, personal service and recommends – and stick a 'plus digital' on the end. It is genuinely a game-changer. … But Clonefiles has been much more important than that. It has allowed us to engage with customers and break the 'ereader taboo' with people coming into the shop." If you care about these things, well worth reading the whole pieces.
- And some good advice, as usual, from Gretchen Rubin:
