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Godwin's Law: ""As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches"
~ Mike Godwin, creator of Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies, fearing glib use of the term will dilute the meaning of "Never Again" |
E-mail Pat (pat at patmcnees dot com)
Dying: A Book of ComfortThis site built to support the book expanded into Illness and Recovery
Writers on Writing(complete archive of the NY Times series, writers exploring literary themes. Requires free membership.)
Letters of Note (fascinating letters, postcards, telegrams, faxes, and memos--that you were never expected to see)
Aha Moments (from the brilliant Mutual of Omaha campaign to record people's stories about moments of clarity, defining moments when they gained the wisdom to change their life)
TED: Ideas worth sharing Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world
Freelance National Anthem (Bill Dyszel, 4 minutes)
KeepMeOut (addicted to a website? bookmark this page and it will remind you to get back to work!)
Today's Front Pages (check out Newseum's U.S. map -- move your cursor across the map and see the front pages change)
Online Education Database150 resources to help you write better, faster, or more persuasively
Help a reporter out (HARO)(useful for reporters and for sources)
Paris Review "Writers at Work" Interviews (selections from 1953 on, a gift to the world, and with a single click you can view a manuscript page with the writer's edits)
The Onion (if the news is making you sick, try this approach)
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June 2, 2013
Tags:
ISBN, ISBN barcodes, EAN, GTIN
Novices in self-publishing tend to get stuck on practical details such as how an ISBN is different from a copyright, and whether and why you should have both (and how many to purchase!). Copyright has to do with who owns the right to copy (reproduce) various versions of a book (or another creative product). The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a product identifier, which helps booksellers (in stores or online) identify the product they want to order or sell. It may distinguish not only one book from another but various versions of the book (e.g., hardcover, paperback, e-book) from each other.
I've put together these links to good explanations so those not in the know can work their way toward a fuller understanding of what to do and why, how, and when to do it.
• ISBN FAQ (frequently asked questions)
• International ISBN Agency
• A concise guide to book industry product identifiers (more…)
May 1, 2013
Tags:
ASJA conference, narrative nonfiction, e-singles, e-books
The 2013 conference of the American Society of Journalists & Authors was discouraging in most ways, encouraging in some, and offered much to learn. Being a writer-entrepreneur is more important than ever. Some trends, in a nutshell:
• Nobody knows where things are going to shake out in book publishing, things are changing so fast and in so many ways, but self-publishing has definitely (more…)
March 16, 2013
Tags:
Social networking, reader reviews
You'll find a helpful range of reader reviews on these social networking for bookworms sites. Check out LibraryThing, GoodReads, Shelfari, BookCrossing, BookMooch, Book Movement, (more…)
March 13, 2013
Tags:
ebooks, ePub, mobi, Kindle, formatting
Updated March 13, 2013. Original post appeared May 12, 2011.
Mobi and ePub are the two basic eBook formats
It's not enough to know which book you want to read; now you need to know which devices will read which books, with which features. At a tutorial on eBook basics organized by the Washington (DC) Biography Group, we learned that the main standard formats for eBooks are ePub (for most e-readers) and Mobi (the proprietary format read by Amazon’s Kindle) (more…)
March 2, 2013
Tags:
editing, copy editing, copyediting, mark-ups, Adobe Acrobat Reader, trimming flab
You can learn a lot about editing online, sometimes for free. Here are good examples of what's out there:
• How to use Adobe Acrobat Reader XI to mark up a PDF (more…)
March 2, 2013
Tags:
productivity tools, timesavers, footnotes, endnotes, archive, organizing notes
"Once you get it, they say, you live and die by Evernote, the five-year-old, everything-in-one-place personal organization application that is hyped by its creators as your 'external brain.'" So writes Rob Walker on Bloomberg BusinessWeek ( As Evernote's Cult Grows, the Business Market Beckons , 2-28-13). (more…)
January 18, 2013
Tags:
copyright, rights, Buzzfeed
In this space (updated occasionally) I'm posting links to stories about egregious violations of creators' rights (rights of writers, photographers, artists, or other original creators of original works). On this week's Bad Behavior' Roundup:
• BuzzFeed announces $19.3m (more…)
January 14, 2013
Tags:
PEN, ESPN, literary awards, prizes, honors
February 1 is the deadline for nominations for the fairly lucrative PEN Literary Awards. Each year, with the help of its partners and supporters, PEN confers more than $150,000 to writers in the fields of fiction, science writing, essays, sports writing, biography, children’s literature, translation, drama, or poetry. Full details are here: http://www.pen.org/literary-awards
PEN's several awards are described below:
(more…)
December 28, 2012
Tags:
Arlene Friedman, Arlene Shepherd, Harold Shepherd, tributes, The Godfather
Arlene Friedman
My farewell to a long-time good friend, Arlene Friedman Shepherd, appears in this wonderful annual year-end series in the New York Times Magazine: The Lives They Loved. For someone who graduated from a secretarial school and never went to college, Arlene's career in book publishing was astounding. It is shocking to me that the New York Times did not see fit to give her an obituary--but at least there's a nod to her in the magazine. (more…)
December 5, 2012
Tags:
Posen Foundation, Jewish fiction, scholarship
The Posen Foundation is pleased to announce the Posen Society of Fellows, a new
$40,000 international fellowship in Jewish fiction writing and scholarship. Jonathan
Safran Foer will be judging the fiction writing application. The deadline for
applications is January 15, 2013. For more information, eligibility and application
criteria please see visit (more…)
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