Kelly McCullough's Blog, page 87

What's lighting up nebula IRAS 05437+2502? No one is sure...

What's lighting up nebula IRAS 05437+2502? No one is sure. Particularly enigmatic is the bright upside-down V that defines the upper edge of this floating mountain of interstellar dust, visible near the image center. In general, this ghost-like nebula involves a small star forming region filled with dark dust that was first noted in images taken by the IRAS satellite in infrared light in 1983. Shown above is a spectacular, recently released image from the Hubble Space Telescope that...

Publishing Again

Having tucked in a photo of Neptune to put things into perspective, I though I'd go back to publishing.

It occurs to me, after reading Jim and Kelly, that it's important to realize that one's own experience may not describe everyone's experience. Which is an argument for hanging out with other authors, so as to find out what kind of experiences they are having; and also -- maybe -- to realize that not all writers are going to have the same kind of experiences. There are differences in the kind...

Astronomy Photo of the Day

Two hours before closest approach to Neptune in 1989, the Voyager 2 robot spacecraft snapped this picture. Clearly visible for the first time were long light-colored cirrus-type clouds floating high in Neptune's atmosphere. Shadows of these clouds can even be seen on lower cloud decks. Most of Neptune's atmosphere is made of hydrogen and helium, which is invisible. Neptune's blue color therefore comes from smaller amounts of atmospheric methane, which preferentially absorbs red light...

LITS

Jane Yolen had a post on facebook, which I have been unable to track down. She was replying to a guy who thought YA editors were prejudiced against male authors. Yolan said in all her years as a writer and editor, she had run into only one kind of prejudice, which she called, "LITS." This stands for "Life is too short." There are writers, both new and established, who are simply too difficult to deal with: prickly, paranoid, arrogant, unwilling to compromise...

I assume, if these writers are g...

Who Needs A Publisher?

A neat article from Newsweek on people who are self-publishing on Kindle and making it work. One guy, who had been turned down by every possible print publisher, ended up selling 4,000 books a week on Kindle and was picked up by Simon and Schuster. Another guy is making $100,000 a year. By eliminating the publisher, he can sell books for $2.99 and make a profit.

Publishing 1

Norman Spinrad has done a couple of posts on publishing recently. One was interesting, in that it told me things I didn't know. According to him, bookstores "buy to net," which leads to "the death spiral of publishing."

Suppose Barnes & Noble orders 10,000 copies of a book, and 80% sell. This is pretty good, especially considering they can return the unsold copies for credit, unlike every other kind of retailer. When a new book by the author comes out, the buyer at B&N looks at the records an...

PUblishing 1

Norman Spinrad has done a couple of posts on publishing recently. One was interesting, in that it told me things I didn't know. According to him, bookstores "buy to net," which leads to "the death spiral of publishing."

Suppose Barnes & Noble orders 10,000 copies of a book, and 80% sell. This is pretty good, especially considering they can return the unsold copies for credit, unlike every other kind of retailer. When a new book by the author comes out, the buyer at B&N looks at the records an...

Publishing 2

Spinrad then did a second post on how one of his novels got really bad treatment from the big New York house Alfred Knopf.

I posted this on facebook:

Spinrad's horror story is pretty ordinary, except that he was dealing with a 'literary' press, whose people thought they were better than those tacky sf publishers and editors. The snobbery and lack of courtesy sounds seriously angering; and the sub-under-editor he was dealing with sounds far less competent than any sf editor I have ever met...

Friday Cat Blogging

Bookend cat sees your stupid camera and refuses to pose.



Bookend cat sees your stupid...



Silhouette cat deep and thoughty.



I iz king of teh pillow, fear me!



The melt ray is coming, save yourself! Me? Going to nap.

Smart Things

Sarah Monette saying smart things about learning.

Michelle Sagara explains why she's not fussed about people not reading her books. I am in complete agreement with this post.

Jim Hines saying smart things about how rapidly publishing has been changing. Or why pros who entered the filed at different times may give you wildly different advice on the same publishing questions.

Via Lilith Saintcrow: Michael Bhaskar on the production costs of ebooks—I think he misses a few things in terms of places w...