So what about reviews? If you get a good one—from a stranger, not your mom—it’s cause for major celebration: dancing around the room, busting out the champagne, wildly bursting into a song from The Sound of Music. But if you get a bad one, well, nothing can ruin your day faster. Now that your baby, aka your “book,” is out in the world and earning its keep, how do you deal with the emotional highs and lows of audience reaction?
Author copyright is a common and often intimidating subject. We don’t intend this to be a comprehensive overview, but we do want to set the record straight on a few important points.
In the United States, copyright is a form of legal protection granted to “authors of ‘original works of authorship,’ including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works.” (US Copyright Office). This covers both published and unpublished works. In a nutshell, the Copyright Act of 1976 […]
by Doug Wagner
Recent unkind words about Dr. Louann Brizendine’s The Male Brain are truly baffling. She’s been taken to task for employing “the best-seller strategy” in high-profile publications like Newsweek and the New York Times’ Sunday Book Review. The question this raises strikes me as so obvious that I hesitate to raise it for fear that it’s me who’s missing something equally obvious. But I’ve thought it through, and I’m pretty sure it’s not me. The question: Who in […]
Like most writers, we all have day jobs here at The Editorial Department. We’re fortunate that our everyday activities are centered around writing and helping other writers get their books into print but we know how hard it can be to make the time to write. We also know how important it is make time for writing and make the most of the time you set aside.
Everyone has their own ingredients for creativity. Think about the times […]
By J.S. Anderson
For years I struggled with this common little sliver of advice.
What did I know? I was not a detective or former prosecutor. I was not a physician or politician or Olympian or scholar of history. What I knew well was health care administration for the elderly. But despite its many trials and tribulations, that subject matter just did not seem to be fertile ground for scintillating (let alone marketable) fiction.
I’ve recently published a novel, […]
by J.S. Anderson
In the city that draws the eye up, ever up, mine were on the commanding Beaux-Arts façade of the New York Public Library. I nearly missed the series of bronze plaques set into the sidewalk on East 41st Street, right there under my feet.
I find myself wanting to sort out the first three lines and come up with an answer. Inflections, or innuendo? But it was the fourth and fifth lines that first fired my mind.
