Inspired Links – Mar 6, 2011

Things have been a bit slow over here at "Inspired by Real Life" … I still have inspiration but the "real life" part is encroaching on my meager writing time.  Hopefully that will change soon.

These are some of my favorite links that I've come across in recent days.  Feel free to click or not as you like

One of the hottest topics to be burning up the Twitter airwaves in recent days is self-publishing YA and UF writer Amanda Hocking.  Her name has been popping up a lot in blog posts, most of them saying things like she represents an enormous "threat" to traditional publishing due to her high sales.  For example, she's mentioned in this post by Mark Coker of Smashwords "Nietzsche and the Downfall of Big Publishing."  To get up-to-date on the drama, you need to check out first her post where she sets the record straight and tries to put her success into context.  I love her points that 1) self-publishing requires an incredible amount of work and 2) even if you put in the work it's difficult to predict the success of a book.  You also need to read Nathan Bransford's post which puts the success of self-published authors like Hocking into proper perspective.


In this short but sweet post by Joel Friedman, he advises writers who are self-publishing on a budget (and who isn't!) to focus their financial outlays in two areas:  editing and book cover design.  This is assuming, of course, that you spend the time to educate yourself on other areas so that you can do them yourselves properly such as manuscript formatting, marketing, etc.


I enjoyed this post over at "Novel Publicity" that provides some useful tips for getting from a vague notion of an idea to a full concept for a novel (or even a story or novella).  It also includes some perspective on meticulous plotting vs. "pantsing."


If you like the old-fashioned paper-markup method for editing a manuscript, then you may find Tony Noland's tip he outlines in this post to be helpful.


Writers, if you're thinking about self-publishing an e-book, take note of this post over on The Creative Penn by Michelle Halket from "ireadiwrite" publishing.  She discusses including a signed dedication in customized e-book copies.


I also loved this post over at "Spunk on a Stick" that emphasizes the world of publishing is not a "one size fits all."


If you missed them, you will want to check out the most recent Friday Flash report (a double issue with 109 stories) and the most recent Tuesday Serial report (19 serial installments).

If you're wondering about my methodology for compiling this list, rest assured that there isn't one.  It's simply a collection of interesting things I've come across recently that I thought might be of interest to you  Let me know what you think!