March 9th, 2010 
fanaticalpupil 
From Charlie Stross’ blog: Why books are the length they are. An interesting read on why the coming ebook revolution will set authors free – provided that it happens soon enough that people actually still read things besides blogs and status updates.
February 25th, 2010 fanaticalpupil Hope for the Hopeless. Or Clueless.
Jim Macdonald posted a letter from Publish America over on the Making Light blog. According to this letter, authors “published” by Publish America can now have up to 5 copies of their book sent to Random House (for the mere cost of 10 copies of the author’s book).
For those who might actually think this sounds like a good idea, here’s another idea you can do at much lower cost: Finish your novel, order a copy from a POD (Print On Demand) company, and mail it to Random House yourself. A brief check tells me that it would cost $7 to print a 200 page book on Lulu. Add another $3 to mail it yourself, and another $3 to mail it to Random House for a total of $13.
The cheapest sci-fi book I see on Publish America is $12.95. If you order 10 books (the minimum order to get the extra copies sent to Random House) at 50% off (they provide a coupon code) + $1.99 shipping per book, that’s $64.75 + $19.90 = $84.65.
Do-it-yourselfers save about $70 and probably have the same chance to get their book published by Random House as the PA authors.
Posted in Books 
Tags: Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Publish America, Self-Publishing, Traditional Publishing 
View Comments January 8th, 2010 fanaticalpupil I mean, in this post about getting her latest book published (DarkShip Thieves
I’m glad she persevered though, and not just because it gives me hope, but because it’s a fascinating story that is probably a good read for any aspiring novelist… and because Darkship Thieves sounds like it’s a lot more like something I’d like than her other books (no offense, since I haven’t actually read any of them, of course).
Posted in Writing Tags: Being A Writer, Darkship Thieves, Horror Stories, Sarah A Hoyt, Traditional Publishing, Writing View Comments
