Happy Birthday Shelf Awareness!

In honor of the Shelf Awareness blog turning nine years old last week, we’ve compiled a short list of some key publishing industry newsletters that should be part of every professional ghost's daily information diet. These staple subscriptions about writing, selling, and producing your book are our must-reads for keeping abreast of what's happening in the publishing industry.

Writer’s Digest sends an array of emails discussing tutorials, conferences, and special offers. Some cost a small fee, but their free articles and posts on writing are just as handy.  

Galleycat by Mediabistro hase everything from new book deals, to topics trending on social media, to award winners.  They also dedicate a section to new job openings every day. With “the first word in the book publishing industry” as their tagline,  the Galleycat newsletter is useful to those who are curious about the insides of publishing.

Shelf Awareness offers two types of newsletters, one for readers and one for book trade professionals, delivered daily. This includes book store closings and opening, events nationwide, author news, and 25 books of the week chosen by industry insiders.

Publishers Lunch is shared with more than 40,000 publishing professionals every day. Key stories of the day from the professional trade book community, all neatly presented in one place.

What do you subscribe to? Let us know in the comments below! 

Around the Word

Stranger than #Fiction. Twitter's has become a serious tool for building author platforms and marketing books, but lately it's taking on new roles in the writing and publishing processes. A company called Chirpify is developing a Twitter-based program to sell books directly. And we've been seeing the rise of Twitter fiction, with several ventures, like Twitter Novel Project, attempting to write a full-length book tweet by tweet, as well as entire narratives built on 140 characters, à la this fun experiment from The Guardian. Montreal writer Arjun Basu has had his Twitter short stories (which he calls "Twisters") optioned for film, and he just landed a traditional book deal. An even stronger sign of Twit-fic legitimacy came in October, when Twitter announced that it would be holding the first official Twitter Fiction Festival. Want to start your own Twitter-based masterpiece? Get some tips here.

'Tis the Season. All the critics are making their lists of the year's best and worst books, and checking them twice. BookRiot, Goodreads, and Publisher's Weekly have all decided the best books of 2012. Amazon, of course, has your bestsellers (bet you can't guess who won! Hint: it starts with an "F" and ends with "-ifty Shades of Grey"). About.com rounded up their "most disappointing" books of the year, and GalleyCat has made a "mix-tape tribute" to the most underrated. And because we're always thinking of the children, NYPL has a list of 100 must-read children's books published this year.

Give the Gift of Lit. Speaking of lists, here are some handy gift guides for book lovers of all sorts.

• HuffPo rounds up some "quirky" and "stylish" accessories
• If you feel like getting crafty, Martha Stewart has some DIY suggestions
• LA Times has ideas for sci-fi fans, history buffs, and audio book lovers
• Gawker.com knows what to get for the millenial in your life
• And some ideas from Book Riot for the indy Hobbit-obsessed

 What's on your list?

Labor Day: Writing Like Your Own Boss

In honor of Labor Day, we've been pondering the nature of freelancing and its rise as the "new normal" in our current economy. Here's a roundup of news specific to the freelance writer's life.

In a run-up to International Freelancers Day (September 21st), the International Freelancers Academy has released their 2012 Freelance Industry Report. You can read the report, or check out the breakdown in illustration form here.

We recently  took a pole of GG writers that echoed the high level of job satisfaction many freelancers seem to enjoy. But as we all know, being your own boss isn't always wine and roses. As the Freelancers Union points out, many independents experience issues getting deserved compensation (as demonstrated by their World's Longest Invoice project), and some report suffering from the loneliness of a life outside the office. But for many, the cost-benefit analysis is solidly in positive territory.

The "7 Days in June" project, which spent a week filming freelancers in the UK (using freelance filmmakers, natch), will release their finished project for the country's National Freelancer's Day in November.

Finally, check out GalleyCat's guide to union and guild resources for independent authors. And happy writing!

Around the Word

Big, bad Amazon. Tech news site PandoDaily doesn't feel bad for publishing companies these days. They share a long email from an anonymous publisher that's well worth a read, as it lays out a very pessimistic, very paranoid, and very probably true view of Amazon's long-range plans for a publishing industry takeover. The publisher's verdict: "Publishing is a quaint little industry based on romance and low profit margins. But now we're in Amazon's sights, and they're going to kill us."

Pin that speech! Are you using cool new social sharing site Pinterest? The site allows users to "pin" items of interests (videos and images) to themed boards, which are then visible to anyone who follows you. While early adopters have mostly been interior designers and wedding planners, speechwriting blog The Eloquent Woman shows how versatile the site can be, by creating a Pinterest board full of speeches by famous ladies, as well as "Ideas, information and inspiration for women (and men) on public speaking and presenting."

Novel groupthink. In Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald has facilitated the creation of the first crowdsourced novel, GalleyCat reports. The newspaper published each chapter, giving readers two days to submit the next one, and an editor selected the best of the bunch to publish. You can read the entire novel, called The Necklace, here.

Kill "caps lock"? Over on Slate, there's a terrific article filled with suggested commonsense tweaks to the modern computer keyboard, along with clear, justified reasons for each. It's terribly nerdy, but also terribly smart. Why do we still need keys like "pause/break"? Why don't we have a dedicated key for an ellipses or em-dash? Why is the exclamation point so far away from the period and question mark? We'd love to see some or all of these changes implemented. Do you have other ideas for a better keyboard? Share them in the comments.

Around the Word

Ladies who speechify. Although today is a day to honor Martin Luther King, one of the country's best-known orators, he's not the only one who could deliver an incredible speech. In early 2011, the blog The Eloquent Woman started compiling a list of outstanding speeches by women in a weekly feature, "Famous Speech Friday." They've got quite an impressive list—from luminaries like Sojourner Truth, Phyllis Schlafly, Helen Keller, and even Lady Gaga.


Classes for all: Want to take a food-cart tour, learn to print a poster, or study the art of great conversation? No? Well, maybe "Intro to Memoir Writing" or "Nuts & Bolts of Writing Nonfiction Book Proposals" are more up your alley. Either way, Skillshare, a community marketplace that aims to democratize learning, has you covered. Anyone can teach a Skillshare class, so the topics are eclectic, and courses are offered all over the country. If you're looking for classes on writing, GalleyCat has a short list of those here.

User-generated magazine: In a bold move, Ladies' Home Journal plans to start letting their readers write much of the content for the magazine, AdAge reports. This is especially daring for a publication whose readership skews older, and points to the brand's desire to court younger readers and remain relevant. And lest you think this is simply a way to stop paying for content, Editor-in-Chief Sally Lee allays those fear, saying, "We're going to pay [the writers] professional rates."

Wordy meals? In the latest attempt to revitalize their image, McDonald's will begin distributing something new in their Happy Meals across the UK—books! They've signed an agreement with HarperCollins to give away six different books from the Mudpuddle Farms series over the next few weeks. According to The Telegraph, "In 2011, sales of children's books averaged 1.16 million per week...which means that McDonald's will be handing out considerably more books than are usually sold in the UK in the same period." Incredible!

Around the Word

The best gift for a writer. For those of you who prize creative gifts that don't necessarily cost a lot, and especially for those having a Buy Nothing Christmas, GalleyCat has an excellent suggestion for the writer in your life: give the gift of time. Among other ideas, you can "let them borrow your office on the weekend...promise to babysit on a weekday evening...volunteer to do their household chores for a day...in short, do anything it takes to help your writer friend find a few consecutive hours of peace and quiet to write." In the article's comments, writers suggested a second (free) gift idea: read their book and give them a positive review on Amazon or another book site. Any other ideas for non-traditional gifts for writers? Tell us in the comments.

Winning words. PR Newswire revealed earlier this month that for the first time, Oxford English Dictionaries in both the US and the UK chose the same phrase for Word of the Year: "squeezed middle." Here at GG, we didn't think that was such a great pick. In contrast, this list from Flavorwire of the Most Memorable Words of the Year seems a lot more comprehensive, and includes some terrific ones, like "Arab Spring," "occupy," and "planking." Are there any words you think they forgot?

Losing words. Speaking of words of the year, Marist announced the results of their poll for the years most annoying word. We'll skip the suspense and tell you that for the third year in a row, the winner is "whatever," with "like," "you know," and "just sayin'" close behind. Do you agree?

Memorable closers. For those speech-givers and -writers out there, there are a lot of things to take into consideration when planning out a winning speech. You should of course consult our friend Fletcher Dean's terrific book 10 Steps to Writing a Vital Speech, and to supplement that, Ragan has a list of 5 great ways to close.

Around the Word

Self-pub superlatives: Highlighting the recent trend of self-published authors striking it big, the Wall Street Journal ran a story on best-selling author Darcie Chan today. Like other self-pub standouts, Chan had a great novel but no publisher. She turned to e-books to find and outlet for her work and has sold 400,000 copies, putting her on par with other successes like Amanda Hocking and John Locke.

A showroom of one's own: We wrote earlier this week about a recent poll finding that 24 percent of online book buyers purchase a book after seeing it in a brick-and-mortar store first, a practice referred to as "showrooming." In Time magazine this week, Emma Straub, a bookseller at Brooklyn's BookCourt, gives her two cents about this alarming trend. Though Amazon offers access to books for many people who aren't lucky enough to have a local bookstore, Straub takes issue with people who use BookCourt as a showroom. "We’re talking about the people who do live close enough to independent bookstores to stroll their aisles," Straub writes. "Because this story is about those people selling the bookstores out for a better deal." What do you think? Are showroomers soulless or just savvy shoppers?

Vital visibility: Online writers often struggle with a difficult challenge: how do you make your writing audible over the noise of the rest of the Internet? Author and content marketing expert Rebecca Lieb gave an illuminating interview to GalleyCat with tips on how to make your work stand out. For example, she says that writers have a leg up, given that search engines traffic in the written word. What tips do you have for writing attention-grabbing content?

Greatest gobbledygook: The Plain English Campaign is on a mission to end pretentious jargon and confusing public communication in the UK. This year, the organization has awarded the UK's Meteorological Office their Golden Bull "booby prize" for the worst offense in public discourse: The Met Office began predicting "probabilities of precipitation" instead of the chance of rain last November. The Plain English Campaign describes their motivations to the BBC: "Even though most people agree that plain English is plain common sense, our government needs to make it a legal duty that public communications are crystal-clear." Do you agree?

Around the Word

Stick-to-it-iveness: What lengths would you go to to keep writing? The L.A. Times has the story of Peter Winkler, author of the biography of Dennis Hopper that came out this fall. Winkler is so debilitated by rheumatoid arthritis that he had to type the entire manuscript one letter at a time, using a long red plastic chopstick. Now that's dedication to one's craft.


Make every month NaNoWriMo. Now that National Novel Writing Month has drawn to a close, GalleyCat gives us their final tip: Write every day. In addition, the post has some resources to track your progress and keep your spirits up. Did you participate in NaNoWriMo? Have any tips to add? Tell us in the comments.

Writer's life. Huffington Post has a lovely piece by memoirist Holly Robinson on the joy's of being a writer for hire. Says Robinson, "I love telling other people's stories. What other job would allow me to walk in another person's shoes so completely that I'd feel their blisters?"

Reader's life: Flavorwire has compiled a terrific list of quotes about reading by writers. Often these quotes reveal more about their authors than about readers in general, but it's still a wonderful collection. A few of our favorites:

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.” — Lemony Snicket (aka Daniel Handler)

“I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Knowing you have something good to read before bed is among the most pleasurable of sensations.” — Vladimir Nabokov

“We read to know that we are not alone.” — C.S. Lewis

Around the Word

Copycats: Inspired by the recent plagiarism scandal involving Brooklyn thriller novelist Q.R. Markham, Stuart Kelly at the Guardian takes a look at the history of plagiarism. In our constantly shifting new-media landscape, sometimes it can be hard to tell what is a mash-up and what is a copy. As Kelly points out, at least it was fans who detected Markham's misdeed and not a computer program -- showing that "real reading still exists."

Just the right recommendation: One inventive bookseller is combining the popularity of online shopping with the personal touches of a brick-and-mortar store. Roxanne Coady founded the website Just The Right Book, where subscribers can take quizzes, get personalized book recommendations from Coady's staff, and often earn coupons toward purchasing the books. Is this digital-analog combo the way of the future?

To link or not to link? One topic of hot debate in the e-book world is the pros and cons of including links. We've written about the anti-link position before, but now another author has weighed in on the side of links. David Meerman Scott tells GalleyCat, "It means you can check out the Twitter feed of the expert cited in the text. You can see the cool picture that was once worth 1,000 words." How do you feel about e-book links?

Literary locales: Looking for a vacation with some literary inspiration? National Geographic has picked the ten most literary places in the world. Although New York doesn't make the list, Portland, Oregon and Washington, D.C. are the two most literary cities in the U.S. Which city do you think has the most word nerds?