Around the Word

Does America have the write priorities? Over at Slate, the celebrated baseball stat guru Bill James explores why the U.S. is so good at developing world-class athletes yet so lousy at producing comparably accomplished writers. Could the talent that was present in say, Shakespeare's London, be a random cluster? Or, James muses, are we at fault for our inability to hone the type of creative genius that precedes great authors?

The art of Kickstart: One of the most buzzed about DIY services on the Web these days is Kickstarter, a fundraising site that helps creative types quickly leverage small donations from around the globe to finance their projects. Nathan Bransford explains why this is a particularly useful tool for self-publishing authors and offers a series of tips for getting the most bang out of Kickstarter for your book.

In the "No": In her latest public service to struggling authors, literary agent Rachelle Gardner explains why it is so easy for agents to know when to reject a project -- and so much harder to say "yes."