Today’s video features Victor Borge at his concert-conducting best. One of the finest musical comedians of all time.
Criticism Is an Unhappy Part of the Business
I would like to tell you about a most enjoyable day. Our agency's guidelines request that unsolicited manuscripts come via the post (I know it's old-school but it works for us), but we still receive e-mail submissions. I spent an entire morning going through that particular in-box, having an assistant send standard e-mail rejection letters, since none were anything our agency could/would …
Even the Best Get Rejected
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I've written about rejection before and yet it is a topic that continues to fascinate.
Recently Adrienne Crezo did an article on famous authors and their worst rejection letters. I thought you might enjoy reading a couple highlights of that article and some additional stories I have collected over the years.
George Orwell's Animal Farm was rejected by Alfred Knopf saying it …
Fun Fridays – April 12, 2019
For those among the thousands who were snookered by my April Fool’s Day post last week, imagine if your 4th grade teacher gave you a spelling test like the one in this video. It would have been fun if he had thrown in a real word like floccinaucinihilipilification. The word’s definition is “the action or habit of estimating something as worthless” – sort of like this …
Fun Fridays – April 5, 2019
Gene Kelly was a master of dance. But this scene from “It’s Always Fair Weather” takes the cake. While the song lyrics are rather lame, the dancing on roller skates, beginning at the 2:09 mark, is pretty incredible. Warning: Don’t Try This at Home.
Breaking News
NewsCorp Tells HarperCollins to have Thomas Nelson Publishers Sell The Satanic Bible Since Thomas Nelson is the world’s largest publisher of Bibles, their ownership decided it would be a good idea to have them diversify the types of Bibles they produce. Publication date for The Satanic Bible is set for October 31, 2019. NewsCorp Director, Cashme Aut, said, “Our global community is just …
Fun Fridays – March 29, 2019 – More Book Puns
Last May we had some fun with puns. Let do some more. None of the below are original. They have been gathered from a variety of sources online. Care to add some of your own? 25 Book Puns Metaphors be with you. Brontë? What a breath of fresh Eyre. ISBN thinking about you. Never read Fitzgerald? You Gatsby kidding me! Broken pencils are pointless. Bad spelling makes me [sic]. What do you call 2,000 …
Lifeway Stores to Close
Last week the Lifeway Christian Store chain announced the closure of all 170 of their stores by the end of this calendar year. This is follows the closure of the Family Christian Stores in 2017 (240 locations). And in 2012 the Cokesbury chain closed (35 stores). Over 400 total locations closed in seven years. You may also recall that Borders closed 500 locations in 2011. (I started my career in …
Fun Fridays – March 22, 2019
With two of our three daughters still in the dance world and the third in the music world as a pianist, I could not help but enjoy today’s video. It takes hard work to choreograph a mistake-filled ballet. This piece is called the “Mistake Waltz,” which Jerome Robbins choreographed in 1956. It happens to be our ballet-teaching daughter’s birthday today. Happy Birthday, …
Who Gets Paid in Publishing?
The economics of publishing is a bit of a mystery if you are just coming into the business. With all the talk about indie publishing vs. traditional publishing and the talk about how writers can get rich if they follow a certain plan, I got to thinking. Maybe we should do a quick look at the economics of publishing to see if anyone is making off like a bandit. Sorry for you non-numbers people, but …