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Weekend Reads

May 1, 2010 By Mark 1 Comment

It’s an interesting time. Spring is busting out. Oil is washing ashore.

I’ve been in a low gear for quite a while now, partly for reasons of my own and partly due to circumstance. I feel like an upshift is coming, and that I’m personally ready to pick up speed, but the corners are still blind.

Do I need to keep my foot on the brake, against the straining engine, or can I drop the pedal and go? An interesting question, which I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to answer in advance.

It’s an interesting time.

  • The Big Picture: April 30, 2010

    I would give the first image a Pulitzer on the spot. The last image — if the hurricane-shaped sprawl is indeed oil — is rife with irony.

    If you’re wondering how hard it’s going to be to clean up this oil spill, imagine that a crude-oil bomb has exploded in your closet and your job is to clean your clothes. The immediate response you just had — that you would simply throw away your clothes and start over — is not available to flora and fauna. They have to wear it.

  • Shakespeare: The Question of Authorship

    A book review about a smart book that takes apart all those entertaining claims that Shakespeare could not have been Shakespeare.

    Every mystery is not a secret. Every silence is not a lie. The play’s the thing.

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Filed Under: ~ Tangents, Non Sequiturs, Publishing Tagged With: Weekend Reads

Weekend Reads

April 24, 2010 By Mark 4 Comments

Welcome to the independent writer’s life. Put up your short story collection at the beginning of the week, get pounded by malicious code injections the rest of the week.

To help keep your own chin high and lip stiff, I offer herewith a helping of distractions and items of interest that could very well make or break your ability to ever again confront the horrifying solitude of the keyboard. Drink up.

  • FINALLY: The Difference between Nerd, Dork, and Geek Explained by a Venn Diagram

    Found this via a tweet by Levi Montgomery. Easily one of the Top 5 most useful bits of information ever posted on Twitter.

    You laugh. I’m serious. Who can keep these things straight?

  • How To Correctly Pronounce Authors’ Names

    Another absurdly useful post. Bookmark it, or print it out for study in the library. (Make flashcards if you’re serious about name-dropping and party chatter.)

    On the platform subject, does it help or hurt an author to have an indecipherable name? Does it make people less likely to reference you, or does it make them more likely to talk about you, if only relative to the difficulty of pronunciation?

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Filed Under: ~ Tangents, Non Sequiturs, Publishing Tagged With: Weekend Reads

Weekend Reads

April 2, 2010 By Mark Leave a Comment

There is much I want to post about, but between working on my short stories and other projects I’m running short on time this week. Rather than leave a blank spot on the web, I’m going to attempt to fill that aching void with links to articles of interest.

More original Ditchwalk content will be coming soon to a screen near you. And it won’t require flash! Until then…

  • Only Branding Can Save the ebook Industry

    Jay Garmon at The New Sleekness throws down on an important question: how do publishers make themselves relevant in the digital age? I’m not sure I buy all of his arguments, and I’m somewhat convinced that a publisher’s branding is of little or no interest to consumers. (I’m entirely convinced that branding has itself been distorted beyond all meaning. Next time you visit your doctor — whether to fight the onslaught of aging or to set a broken leg — you will quite likely be told that the cure is good branding.)

    Garmon raises good questions, though, and they’re questions any author should be aware of. Publishing and self-publishing are not stable businesses, which means there is a good deal more risk baked into these activities than other things you might do with your time and money. Consider yourself warned.

  • Do I need the middle?

    Brian O’Leary at Magellan Media Partners picks up on Garmon’s post to make a related point:

    If the average e-book sells for $10 with a royalty of 25% of net, the average author earns about $1,900 a year. If that same author strikes an agency deal with Amazon … well, she or he need sell fewer than 300 units to break even.

    As I’ve noted before, the big question for mainstream publishers these days is deciding who their customers are. Back in the day (say, five years ago), publishing’s customers were retailers — both online and brick-and-mortar. Now that the internet has broken publishing’s lock on distribution and production, product is bypassing the old checkpoints and being sold to readers directly. Should publishers make readers their new customers? Authors? All of the above? Where’s the life-sustaining return on investment?

    O’Leary reverses the argument and asks why authors should care about publishers. And by the way: you should be reading Brian O’Leary regularly.

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Filed Under: Publishing Tagged With: Weekend Reads

Weekend Reads

February 27, 2010 By Mark 2 Comments

Over the past two months I’ve had three people work on my furnace. In order to use both outlets on the nearby drop box, one of these people unplugged the sump pump, then neglected to plug it back in.

Have I mentioned that it’s been raining a lot lately?

In order to take our minds off the joy of clean-up, I offer these links of interest. How much interest I can’t say, but definitely more than you would have in cleaning up a flooded basement.

  • How to Leverage Twitter When You Have Little Time

    I have a general distaste for the idea of maximizing anything. Books or people who encourage me to get the most out of everything from my in-between moments to my entire life are invariably asking me to heighten my already heightened sense of awareness to the point of overload. I understand that time-saving procedures and efficient processes can produce benefits, but only if they are themselves simple to understand, implement and practice. As such, this link passes the minimalism test.

    Twitter can take a while to understand precisely because you can’t really understand it until you’re using it. So take what you want here and ignore the rest. It will help.

  • “World Press Photo” Contest Winners Gallery 2010

    Found this link via my good friend, Jurie. I was particularly drawn to the images of street fighting from Kiev, Ukraine — a city I visited in 2008 while working on an interactive title.

    I didn’t get to see that side of town.

  • Art Is Everywhere

    Note: this is an image-intensive site, and as such may take a while to fully load.

    Back when the internet first burst onto the scene, this is what it was like. You’d find a site where someone had dropped anchor in order to look around, and it was invariably interesting to experience that person’s point of view. Today the average garden-variety site is sophisticated, breathless, trendy and slick, in keeping with a culture that cares more about being looked at and talked about than doing or saying anything of interest.

    Give me a point of view any day:

    I started this blog to show that Art is Everywhere.

    That’s site-owner Ashley Spencer’s mission statement. And she’s right: it is.

  • Roger Ebert: The Essential Man

    Speaking of sophisticated, breathless, trendy and slick, it’s clear that Esquire magazine lost its way at some point. Now a caricature of its former self, Esquire currently rides the cutting edge of metrosexuality, cutting ever closer to the bone. If you know what I mean.

    Real men don’t objectify women, and particularly not under the pathetic pretext of ogling revering them. If you can’t tell me why a woman is interesting as an individual without also showing me a two-page, soft-focus flesh-drape across a $9,000 divan, then your pictures are not actually worth thousands of reverential words.

    Which brings us to the eternal problem of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. In this case, the baby is a profile of Film Critic Roger Ebert, which answered a lot of questions for me. I knew he was sick, and that he’d lost the ability to speak, but I didn’t really know what hand he’d been dealt. I don’t think I ever really thought of the man as tough, even when it looked like he was going to come out of his chair and punch Gene Siskel in the mouth, but the man is tough.

    Like men used to be.

Stay dry.

— Mark Barrett

Filed Under: Non Sequiturs Tagged With: Weekend Reads

Weekend Reads

February 13, 2010 By Mark Leave a Comment

Call it the President’s Day long-weekend version. Speaking of which, a historical reminder: the single most important president in the history of the United States is George Washington. Standing apart from all of his other accomplishments, which were considerable, was his decision to relinquish power after two terms — a decision which created a tradition of orderly transfers of power which has sustained this country for over two hundred years. If you’re lucky, you’ve met one person in your lifetime who had that same combination of vision and selflessness.

(Bonus question: in the history of the United States, who was the single most important person? Answer below.)

  • Buzz off: Disabling Google Buzz

    Whatever you think of Google these days, it’s abundantly clear that they have fully transitioned from internet icon to corporate bully. Between their ongoing attempt to hijack the copyrights of millions of legally-protected works, to the opt-out, Big Brother, Microsoftesque we-know-what’s-best-for-you rollout of Buzz, Google has decided that it’s time to take the gloves off and go down swinging as just another morally-bankrupt company bent on leveraging its available cash. (Here Google plays the role of Godzilla, while you play a citizen of Tokyo.)

    Gone is any previous expression of sensitivity to the fact that Google has been collecting personally identifiable data on you for years, all with the promise that it would be treated with discretion. You’re now just an exploitable data point in a desperate advertising-driven bid to remain relevant in an internet world that is increasingly segregated on social networks. (Just as Microsoft didn’t see the internet coming, Google didn’t see the social-network threat.)

    More on turning off Google Buzz here. A slightly confused article about Google’s plans for global Buzz domination here.

    Update: Google makes privacy changes to Buzz based on “feedback”.

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Filed Under: ~ Tangents Tagged With: Weekend Reads

Weekend Reads

January 30, 2010 By Mark 1 Comment

An eclectic mix of articles this week(end). Some trendy and current, others obscure yet timeless. Enjoy.

  • ‘Space diver’ to attempt first supersonic freefall

    Have you ever watched one of those video clips where someone attempts a stunt, only to end up lying in a heap on the ground, writhing in agony? Of course you have.

    I’m not comfortable with clips that actually show someone being killed. I think death is another category of outcome. However, as long as the clip isn’t of a child (meaning, say, anyone under twenty) a couple of broken bones often strike me as hilarious.

    Why? Because these people are volunteering to do this to themselves. Somehow, some way, they’ve convinced themselves that what they’re attempting is a good thing to do with their free will as a human being. That they are so utterly and completely wrong even before they attempt the stunt usually has me in hysterics. That they are then proven so utterly and completely wrong only prolongs my paroxysms as I imagine them confronting their onrushing moment of realization.

    The problem here is that I can’t really see any moment of realization for this guy that doesn’t include him getting killed. If he pulls it off, hopefully he’ll be the last person to try. Because this is a fatality waiting to happen. (See also: The Darwin Awards.)

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Filed Under: ~ Tangents Tagged With: Weekend Reads

Weekend Reads

January 16, 2010 By Mark 3 Comments

First, an apology to regular readers for the lack of posts this week. There are a number of issues I want to talk about, but none of them lend themselves to short, pithy notes, and I’ve been finding myself short of available hours. It hasn’t helped that my ISP, Verizon, has seen fit to block access to my own website for five, seven, even ten hours at a stretch. I’m now hopeful, however, that my good and programmatically apologetic friends on the other side of the world have taken my issue to heart and escalated it to a level commensurate with actual customer service.

In other news, the mad sound of hammering you hear behind the curtain is indeed a sign of progress. I have some fiction I hope to be able to put up soon, provided I can navigate all the business and technological hurdles required to do so.  [ Read more ]

Filed Under: Publishing Tagged With: Weekend Reads

Weekend Reads

January 9, 2010 By Mark Leave a Comment

Call it the Year In Review edition. We’re nine days into the new year and nothing bad has happened yet. A record for the new millennium.

  • The Year In Self-Publishing
    One writer’s in-the-trenches take on self-publishing, complete with ugly earnings report. I admire the enthusiasm and the realism. I also think the new ability for anyone to cut out the middlepersons (agents, editors) and access readers directly, is a bigger deal than most people realize. I’m not saying it’s a more lucrative deal — just important. There’s also a good lesson here about not bastardizing your content in order to be trendy. The great freedom that is the internet means you do not have to compromise. If you’re willing to bend your work any which way in order to make a sale then you didn’t need the internet in the first place.
  • Dave Barry’s Good (Bad) Year In Review
    Dave Barry. Enough said.
  • Gamasutra’s Top 12 Games of the Decade
    I don’t have much quarrel with the games they chose, which is all the more impressive given the cross-platform nature of the list. I will note that 8 of the 10 are from 2005 or before. Feel free to reach your own conclusions.
  • Opinion: The 99 Best Free Games Of 2009
    If you’re really hoping to waste an entire day then you’ve come to the right link. Play #1 on the list, if only to break free of Nintendo/MicroSony/PC Blockbuster straitjacket.
  • My Favorite Book Covers of 2009
    My here refers to the author of the linked post, not to me. Still, some good choices, and a good selection betraying no detectable stylistic bias. My favorite: The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime. Runner-up: Columbine.
  • The Year’s Most Mesmerizing Mysteries
    I’ve read exactly none of these, but this is exactly the kind of best-of list that will help me catch up with the latest doin’s in the mystery genre. Speaking of which….
  • Note: I had another link on this list that I found on Twitter, but as I was reviewing the page a series of faux virus warnings splashed across my monitor. Should I ever inadvertently pass along a link to a malicious site, please let me know. [Tip: use the Alt-F4 key combination to close windows that you suspect may be used to trigger the downloading of malicious content or files.]

    — Mark Barrett

Filed Under: ~ Tangents Tagged With: Weekend Reads

Weekend Reads

January 2, 2010 By Mark Leave a Comment

Your presents are either broken, boring, or waiting to be returned. You’ve eaten all there is to eat. You have two days before the hammer drops again and someone somewhere expects you to do what they tell you to do.

Between now and then, freedom to read.

  • Persuasive Games: I Want My 99¢ Back
    Good solid data on the financial race to the bottom in iPhone app pricing, and good analysis to go with it. If you’re thinking of selling something on the internet, either through Apple, Amazon, or your own store, you need to read articles like this and think hard about what’s happening in the digital marketplace.
  • A world of hits
    More pricing discussion — this time tackling the long-tail/hit conundrum. Again: whether you’re a sole proprietor or planning on opening up your own social-media marketplace, you need to be up to speed on these issues.
  • The Trouble with Blogging, or: A Writer’s Dilemma
    On artistry, writing, being a businessperson and the problem with platforms.
  • Piracy
    The beginning of an interesting conversation and exchange about piracy and copyright, which continues in subsequent posts.
  • NSFW: Free as in “my publisher will disown me after I pirate my book on TechCrunch”
    Found on Kassia’s Kroszer’s Booksquare site, this deserves a read if you haven’t seen it. (Speaking of pricing issues, you get a free book for taking the time and trouble to click your mouse a couple of times. Good deal, or still too steep?)

There are very real opportunities opening up on the web, but there’s a lot to think about and a lot to learn. I’ve been thinking and learning for four solid months, and I’m only now getting a handle on where I need to go and what I need to do. And I don’t have any confidence that there’s money at the end of the road.

— Mark Barrett

Filed Under: ~ Tangents Tagged With: Weekend Reads

Weekend Reads

December 12, 2009 By Mark 5 Comments

More links of interest for your weekend reading pleasure:

  • Video Games Writing: Where We Are and What We Need
    Craig Stern updates the perennial question: why isn’t game writing better than it is? A good overview, and less needy than the usual game-writing rant. That nothing much has changed in the past decade says less about what’s possible than it does about calcification of the industry around a working business model. Buggy whips indeed.
  • A Long, Detailed Look at Distribution Windows
    Kassia Kroszer fills a hole in the old data bank, and does so in comprehensive fashion. The internet is wreaking havoc with all content industries as it destroys traditional distribution channels, but solutions for each industry will not be the same because industry products are not all the same. (See also Part One: Response to Nat Sobel.)
  • Study: 58% Of Users Buy Goods From Free-To-Play Games
    The title pretty much covers the subject matter, but this is another clear reminder that solutions to the problem of internet distribution necessarily vary for each content industry. Unless readers prove willing to plop down money for bonus adjectives, the book industry is not going to get a lot of utility out of the free-to-play games model.
  • Death and Taxes
    April L. Hamilton takes a look at tax time. Worth a read if you’re really thinking about writing professionally, or if you’ve never heard of a 1099 before.
  • Make-a-Flake
    A reader gift from Lou in the comments section. The user interface takes a bit of getting used to, but after that it’s joy. (Tip: to make a cut, center the scissors over an edge and click, then move the scissors to mark the first line of your cut.)

If you want to try making snowflakes with your own scissors and paper, origami paper works best because it’s very thin. You should be able to find it at any craft store.

— Mark Barrett

Filed Under: ~ Tangents Tagged With: Weekend Reads

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