I’ve already posted this to WFG’s forums, but here it is for those of you who’ve missed it: Writer’s Digest has a Self Published Competition going on. The grand prize is a sweet $3000 in cash, and a sweeter endorsement for reviews of the winning self-published book at 10 major reviewing establishments (ie: The New York Times, The Washington Post). And there are 10 first place winners, of $1000 each, with a collection of publishing industry-related presents like magazine subscriptions, ebooks, etc. Only one catch: each submission costs you $100, and I do suspect that it’s a crudely designed (and profit-making) filter for badly written self-published books. Still, for 10 reviews in 10 major newspapers … things like that, when they happen, usually mean a publishing deal and some form of mainstream book career further down the road. A $100 fee seems quite reasonable for a shot at stardom …
Other things to look at:
- John Siracusa explores the past, present and future of ebooks and digital reading in what is probably the definitive op piece on the subject. Almost everything that can be said about ebooks is said in that essay. Read it.
- Here’s a curiosity: a 1983 (!) essay from the Virginia Quaterly Review predicting, amongst other things, Wikipedia, e-book readers and political blogs.
- Nicholas Carr writes about the current newspaper industry and makes some startling observations of how newspapers dying and consolidating is a good thing for the publishers.
- Good writing: Granta’s archives’s got this essay by A.L. Kennedy on her grandfather and the mechanics of boxing, and it’s one of the most beautiful, mint-perfect pieces of fine writing I’ve read in quite a bit. I finished it with a lump in my throat.
- Boing Boing on what software to best use for writing a book.
And I guess I’ll close with this bookstore ad I found through Sharon:
Wonder how long they took to do that!
