Adam Heine's Blog, page 31

INCARNATE Giveaway and Gushing

You guys know Jodi Meadows, right? I don't see how you could not. She's the most awesome person that ever awesomed (even before she became an Air Pirates fan).



And she wrote a book. It's called INCARNATE about a world where everyone is reincarnated and remembers their past lives and builds on their past lives . . . except for one girl. Ana's new, and nobody knows why, and worse, they don't know what happened to the person who was supposed to be reincarnated in her place.



So yeah, it's a ...

What Are Your Top 5 Books?

(Random note: Author's Echo has been nominated as a Top Writing Blog, along with other amazing blogs like Miss Snark's First Victim. It needs your votes though. Vote here (as many times as you want, apparently).)



So, your favorite books. I know, I know. Choosing favorite books is like choosing favorite children, but I figured I'd give it a shot. For the record, these are my favorite books, which is a different thing than what I would consider the "best" books. For example, the best Nazi movi...

My New Kindle

Yeah, I finally got an e-reader for Christmas (Kindle Touch, specifically). Some of you know where I stand on these things. Let's see how the talk measures up to my actual experience.



LOVE:


I can buy any book and read it RIGHT NOW. (My previous solutions have been to either (a) pay shipping costs equivalent to the price of the books or (b) wait months and months until some trusted friend can bring my Amazon purchases to me).
I can carry around hundreds of gigantic books in one hand.
It...

Books I Read: Les Miserables

Title: Les Miserables

Author: Victor Hugo

Genre: Historical Fiction

Published: 1862

My Content Rating: PG cuz people die



Jean Valjean is an escaped convict, recaptured in a small French village for stealing from a bishop. But when the bishop vouches for him, even gives him more than he stole, Valjean devotes his life to helping others. His sins catch up with him, however, when a relentless police inspector named Javert comes looking for him.



No, I am not going to summarize everything. T...

On Blog Fatigue

In the last couple of months, I've seen a LOT of bloggers suffering blog fatigue: that thing where they lose interest or don't know what to write about or feel like it's all been said, and consequently they stop blogging (or at least cut back significantly).



Ain't nothing wrong with that. Blogging's hard, and the benefits are often nebulous. Often, I find myself hating every topic I've thought of. I can't speak for anyone else, but these are the things I tell myself when my motivation sta...

Sketch: Billy Horrible

(Reposted from Anthdrawlogy)



Guys, if you haven't seen Dr. Horrible yet, find a way to see it RIGHT NOW. It's only 45 minutes long, and it's the best Joss Whedon supervillain musical starring Nathan Fillion and Neil Patrick Harris EVER.

The Secret to Being Talented

Let me chat up my brother for a bit. The guy plays piano, bass, and guitar at a professional level. The San Diego Union Tribune once described his singing: "like if Jack Johnson weren't so dang annoying." He makes art and sells it for actual money. He does graphic design, marketing, and was a founding member of San Diego's art collective, Sezio.



Also, he's a college-educated engineer and (thanks to Iraq) a war veteran. So yeah, talented.



For years, I was in awe of what he could do. I'm s...

Query Letters: The Difference Between Not Screwing Up and Being Awesome

I'm going to start with a little formal logic here, but don't be scared. Logic is AWESOME.



So we all know the following is true:


If you screw up a query letter, then you will get a rejection.

 However, we often tend to assume this means the following:


I got a rejection.
Therefore I screwed up my query letter.

THIS IS NOT NECESSARILY TRUE. Not only is it a logical fallacy, but believing this will cause you to obsess over your query letter when the problem may lie elsewhere.



Even i...

Artificial Word of Mouth

They say -- quite rightly -- that the most effective kind of publicity is word of mouth. But in my experience, word of mouth has two kinds.



There's the natural kind, where someone reads a book (or sees a movie, or whatever), loves it, and tells their friends about it because they want to share the love. Natural word of mouth is extremely effective, because it's honest and it comes from people you trust.



Then there's the artificial kind, which is harder to define. It might be tweeting abo...

How I Got a Referral

You may recall that, before I got an agent, I had a referral to another agent. A lot of writers believe you have to know someone to get an agent -- that the industry is exclusive and likes to stay that way. It's an understandable belief what with all the rejections we all get, and there's even a teeny tiny bit of truth to it (e.g. we read things more favorably if we know the person).



This leads to the further belief that a referral is gold: just get someone to like your work, and you're in. ...