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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."

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No dough for Huffpo, yes or no? With all the harrumphing in the media universe about whether the unpaid bloggers at Huffington Post are being exploited or not, a team of researchers at UC Santa Barbara has decided to finally ask the bloggers themselves. As Forbes reports today, the Santa Barbarians have launched a survey of Huffpo regulars to find out why they do what they do -- and if they now want a share of that cool $300 million the site made in the recent sale to AOL.

The Justin Bieber-ing of politics: Politico takes on the hot political literary trend of "premature memorization," looking at the growing number of political memoirs being written by relative neophytes like Scott Brown, Christine O'Donnell and Rand Paul before they are even sworn into office.

eBook 2.0: GalleyCat gives us a preview of one of the latest greatest innovations in eBooks -- a cool new app that enables readers to mark up the text, copy and save passages, and tweet with a book title's hashtag without every navigating away from the digital text.

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Borders Epilogue: If you are interested in getting past the teeth-gnashing about the Borders bankruptcy and understanding the broader implications, check out this excellent deconstruction in this month's Economist.  

Is there such a thing as being too social? We recently posted an item about how it's never too soon for authors to start promoting their books, even before a page is written. Over at Publishing Perspectives today, they offer a contrasting perspective about the dangers of being overly social online, questioning whether writers are too naked in front of their fans, losing their sense of mystery, and failing seduce audiences to read their work. 

Midwrite snack: Writer Dave Hakkens has done a tremendous favor for pen-chewing scribblers everywhere by creating an edible version made of candy (think sweet tarts or candy bracelets). Flavors range from peppermint to kiwi. Hakkens tells the full (if not filling) story on his site. 

Equal tip time for fiction writers: Most of the tips on getting published we posted yesterday from super agent Larry Kirshbaum applied to non-fiction writers. But we did not want our fiction-focused friends to feel left out, so we wanted to share a few inside words of wisdom from literary agent Rachelle Gardner's latest blog post about what fiction editors look for in a manuscript.

Super Agent Larry Kirshbaum's Top Tips for Writers

By Kristyn Williams

It’s 1996. President Clinton is three years into his first term, and so far as the public knows, he hasn’t yet (not) had sexual relations with a woman whose name, arguably, would grow to be more infamous than those words.

It’s 1996. David Baldacci, an unknown lawyer from Alexandria, Virginia, has been trying, unsuccessfully, for three years, to get his first novel, Absolute Power, published.

It’s 1996. Larry Kirshbaum the then head of Time Warner Book Group receives the manuscript from Baldacci’s agent and reads it over night. He describes the novel, the story of a President who believes everything he does, including his extra-marital affairs, is beyond the reach of repercussions, as “…one of these epiphanies that happen so rarely in ones editorial life.”

Sound like an overstatement? Maybe, but Kirshbaum backed it up by offering what was then an almost unheard of, $2,000,000 advance for the book. It became a best-seller overnight, and David Baldacci would go on to become one of the most celebrated thriller writers in America, with a total of 17 novels translated into 37 languages and more than 40 million copies in print.

So what does Larry Kirshbaum see and know that others don’t? Baldacci is just one of  Kirshbaum’s many noteworthy acquisition: He is responsible for launching the careers of Malcolm Gladwell, Alice Sebold, Anita Shreve, Nicholas Sparks, and Michael Connelly. And since leaving the editing world behind to start his own top-selling literary agency, Kirshbaum has represented books by Steve Forbes, David Ellis, and Anita Hill, among others.

Kirshbaum graciously agreed to share some of his inside insights at a meeting of the New York Speechwriters Roundtable last week, where he offered his Top 10 Tips for Writers searching for literary success. We thought our readers would benefit great from his words of wordly wisdom. So we took good notes – and would encourage you to do the same.

1. Have a strong, simple thesis. Think “Elevator Pitch”-- you want to simply define your premise, but you also want to make sure you do it memorably.
   
   
2. Whatever book you are writing, you MUST appeal to women. Women purchase about 70 percent of all non-fiction books, many of which -- especially self-help books -- with the intent to give them to the men in their lives. So remember, if you can’t see a woman buying it then you probably aren’t going to sell it.
   
   
3. Have crisp and concise prose. Ever heard the phrase, “too much description spoils the broth?” Kirshbaum recommends looking to writers like Elmore Leonard for examples on how to write mainly using dialogue while interjecting tight, memorable one-liners.
   
   
4. Study the competition. Writing a memoir? Go to Barnes & Noble and browse the first couple of pages of memoirs you think yours resembles. Take notes on what’s working. Like a famous editor once said, “Everything has been done before; the question is how do we get away with it one more time?”
   
   
5. Establish your platform. We recently posted an item suggesting it’s never too early to start using social media to promote your book – the expert we cited advised launching your presence three years before your book comes out. Kirshbaum recommends you think about marketing from Day 1, before you even put the first word on paper. Remember, it isn’t enough to just write a book -- you have to be able to sell it.
   
   
6. Develop a dazzling proposal. According to Kirshbaum, “It is very rare that the book is better than the proposal.” That isn’t to say that it doesn’t happen, but just that editors will almost always judge the book by its pitch. Things to keep in mind when writing your proposal: Have a 2-3 page introduction, a few sample chapters (preferably in order, but it isn’t a deal breaker if they aren’t) and summaries of everything else.
   
   
7. Marketing is key. This is one of the hardest things for writers to accept. Be sure to include a marketing section in your proposal. This is where you get to make use of the personal platform you’ve invested so much time creating. Highlight your uniqueness, the edge you have on the competition, and the contacts you have to help promote the work. Remember that you aren’t just writing your proposal for one specific editor, but for his colleagues as well. Colleagues that control the purse, if you get the drift.
   
   
8. Find an agent. It is important to have someone that not only can interpret a book contract, but also understands the industry, negotiating on your behalf with the publisher. Kirshbaum recommends that the best way to find an agent is to look in the acknowledgement section of your favorite books. That way, when you query, you can establish your admiration of a work that they produced and/or know in advance that the agent you are querying is interested in works like yours. Agents can spot mass queries in a second -- and nothing turns like off like seeing their name misspelled. Invest a little bit of time and add that personal touch and you’ll be much more likely to reap rewards.
   
   
9. Once you get a deal, invest in an outside publicist. During the Q&A session, someone in the audience mentioned how unfair it seemed that his publishing company had a dedicated marketing division but that he had to shell out for his own publicist if he wanted any real exposure. Kirshbaum’s comment was a curt, appropriately humorous “life isn’t fair.” The reason many authors should invest in their own publicists is that the publishing house is investing 90 percent of its time and resources in their superstars. Not to sound cruel, but if Stephanie Meyers comes out with a new installment of Twilight, it doesn’t matter if your book purportedly contains the secret location to the Fountain of Youth.
   
   
10. If all else fails, self-publish. Self-publishing is rapidly evolving and no longer carries the same stigma of failure that it once did. Self-publishing gets you a book,  gets you exposed, and can generate great success. (Think Amanda Hocking who has sold more than 900,000 books since opting for a DIY approach.
    

Williams is an associate at Gotham Ghostwriters

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Stories, Neuroscience, and Experimental Technologies. . . Leave it to the Pentagon to come up with a project title as bureaucratic yet mind-blowing as this one. According to The Book Bench Blog in The New Yorker, The Defense Sciences Offices (DSO) of The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) at the US Department of Defense (DOD) assembled a group of linguists, sociologists, anthropologists, and other “ists” to answer the question raised by middle school English teachers across the country: “What makes a good story?”

Why is the government so interested in the nuts-and-bolts of narrative all of sudden? Have the DOD’s researchers found preliminary evidence that the best defense is a good prologue? One possible explanation the New Yorker came up with, courtesy of a Stanford literature professor, is that the project “may have to do with the rise of the conspiracy blogosphere and its power over otherwise rational mind.” Care to share your own conspiracy theory?

The Big Self-out, Continued: If you still think self-publishing is a gateway to the literary ghetto, just consider the gold-plated book deal that DIY author Amanda Hocking signed this week. After Hocking’s self-published books sold more than 1 million copies, St. Martin’s press bought her next four young adult novels for $2 million. The New York Times reports that Hocking has become “a reluctant spokeswoman for the practice of self-publishing,” but opted for a traditional publisher so that she could focus on her writing (though we would guess that the cash doesn’t hurt).

Automatic for the people, copy-editing edition: Are you one of those people who feels compelled to clean up your apartment before your housekeeper comes to visit? Then you will probably love a new tech toy called EditMinion, which writers with OCD tendencies can use to scrub their copy before sending to a human reader. According to a promo for the program on Galleycat, the rhetorical robot is still in beta testing, and it shows. We did a quick test and found it a little limited in its abilities, marking  any sentence with “is” as the passive voice. But maybe you'll have better luck. Try it out and let us know what you think.

GG Featured on Mediabistro

We are proud to report that our new Bookwriters division is being featured as Mediabistro's "Startup of the Week." You can find the full profile on Mediabistro's Webnewser blog.

How To Succeed In Publishing Without Really Writing

Most writers live in fear of the empty page. Shed Simove is cashing in on it.

With his latest effort, What Every Man Thinks About Apart From Sex, the author-comedian-entrepreneur promises to reveal “the true depth of a man’s mind”—all 200 blank pages worth. The book may be a one-liner made manifest, but so far, the sales have been no laughing matter. According to MediaBistro, Simove’s gag volume has sold out its first print run and hit No. 744 on Amazon, clocking in ahead of more “traditional” bestsellers The Da Vinci Code (2,910) and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2,406).

Capitalizing on the content-free success of his latest venture, Simove told AOLNews there’s more where that came from. "I am thinking about a follow-up called 'Reasons to Trust Politicians,'" he said. Inspired, we want to know: what are your best titles for blank books waiting to happen?