Fun Fridays – September 10, 2021
Enjoy the delightful storytelling of Andy Andrews. Afterward? Impress your friends with your own versions. The lesson here? There are many ways to sing a tale, but only one is the way the author intended. But it’s still okay to laugh. (If you cannot see the embedded video in your newsletter email, please click the headline and go directly to our site to view it.)
Fun Fridays – September 3, 2021
Todays’ video is both hilarious and sad because it pokes at the “look at me” nature of social media! I laughed so hard the first time I watched it. (Which does suggest multiple viewings.) Enjoy! Oh, and try not to make a similar connection to your writing life.. . . . ahem. (If you cannot see the embedded video in your newsletter email, please click the headline and go directly …
Singing the Slushpile Blues
by Steve Laube
The unsolicited pile of proposals in my office (aka "the slushpile) taunts me every day.
"Come over here!" it says, tantalizing me with immanent possibilities. I say to myself, "Maybe it will be the next one I look at. That will be 'The One.'"
I've been told that many of you enjoy hearing some of the offbeat letters or intriguing proposals I see. Here is a sampling from …
Fun Fridays – August 27, 2021
Today is a 10-minute video talking (rather rapidly) about a number of strange borders in the United States and how they came to be. Do any of you live near places like these? Is it a big deal in your community or only a conversation piece?I read of a library that is split with one half in Canada and the other in the United States (article click here). Do you need a passport to go over to the …
Need Help Writing Your Pitch?
Today’s post is a bit of silly fun. Why not? We are nearing the end of summer and your kids may already be back in school. Need help creating the pitch for your book? It is a common thought that there is a formula for the pitch of a new book. (It’s sort of true.) I’ve been inspired by the article found on the Electric Lit website from March 28, 2019. Visit their page and website. …
Fun Fridays – August 20, 2021
Enjoy the jump-rope talent of World Champion, Adrienn Banhegyi. Breathtaking! Do you see yourself as a writer jumping over various obstacles? Sometimes over and over again? But with each jump, the next one is “easier” and less of a challenge. But you have to start somewhere! (If you cannot see the embedded video in your newsletter email, please click the headline and go directly to our …
Books Are Signposts Along the Way
By Steve Laube
The novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, is a series of stories linked together in the small town of Macondo in South America. It is surrounded by a swamp and thus is known for its isolation.
One day the town was infected by a plague which causes insomnia. The people of the town were not unhappy at first …
Fun Fridays – August 13, 2021
Human creativity seems to know no bounds. Today’s video is a road in Hungary that plays music as you drive over the grooves in the asphalt. You have to go the speed limit You have to go the speed limit Hah! Watch the video and then imagine a Ferrari zipping over the pavement at 120 mph. Little bit of trivia? The same thing was attempted in Lancaster, California, and it did not go well. Here …
What Goes on the Copyright Page?
I have an odd habit born of being in this industry for four decades. Whenever I pick up a physical book, I look at the front cover, back cover, and then the copyright page. I know, it’s a rather nerdy thing to do; but you would be surprised what information can be found there and what it means. The copyright page is placed after the title page and should always be on the left-hand side …