Blog Entries - May 2007

Why Do Book Fairs? Revisited!

rkelly

This is my follow up to a post a few weeks ago on the importance of book fairs.

Exhibiting at a book fair provides you one of the best ways to get in front of a lot of readers and prospective readers in a relatively short amount of time. Book Fairs provide the chance to not only fair your book, but also create that all important first impression. According to a Simmons Market Research Bureau study, 85% of respondents ranked Book Fairs as "extremely useful" as a sour [...]

DOs and DONTs for marketing your small press titles

rkelly

Here are a few marketing tips to keep in mind when you're considering launching a new campaign to support that new title!

DO NOTS
Do not spend a lot on paid ads. I've yet to see it pay off. The only ads I'm paying for now is a online, and that's an inexpensive gamble.

Do not spend a lot on paid tables at conventions. Maybe it's just me, but I haven't found them to be a break-even proposition. You can argue that the exposure is good regardless, but [...]

Sci-Fi on the defense!

scififan

This is the best sci-fi related news I've read all day! Sci-fi Writers Pournelle and Niven have more imagination and brainpower in their fingernails than the Department of Defense!

Pournelle especially. The man's resume' and collaborations are a "who's who" of modern strategic warfare. Google "Project Thor" or "A Step Farther Out" to see an example of how these people think about real-world problems. Or just go to Pournelle's [...]

ABC interviews chimps

stevenl

As a follow-up to my post on songbirds learning grammar, comes this: ABC interviews chimps.

Interestingly, I once read a National Geographic article (I think it was in the early 1990's) in which a researcher described a single conversation (in American-Sign-Language) between 3 species: a human, a gorilla, and a chimpanzee. Here's an excerpt from the ABC article:

The Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa, is home to seven bonobos -- a close relative of the chimpanzee -- and t [...]

Extentions! (sic)

stevenl

Good news! If you're running behind on your taxes, you can always file an extension.

Many of those with editors, however, say you can file an extention. And they are wrong, wrong, wrong.

You'll find dozens of botched references to extention on Google News. For the record, it's extension. Extention isn't a variant.

Lethally dead

stevenl

My only stand is on behalf of better writing. I take no sides in the debate over capital punishment, which gives rise to today's point.

Too often, articles on Google News say someone is to be executed by lethal injection or is sentenced to be put to death by lethal injection. In each case, lethal is redundant. An injection that kills is lethal to begin with.

This type of redundancy also shows up in references to past accidents and disasters: deadly tsunami that killed ...; de [...]

Passively considering , actively seeking

stevenl

I am passively considering a career change. I'm passively pursuing a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian situation. I'm passively engaging others in debate about better writing.

What is it that possesses bureaucrats to say they are actively considering, actively pursuing, actively engaging? For example, the paper told me this week my governor is actively considering a tax on 401k plans.

Is this like a submarine movie in which the captain searches with active and pass [...]

The wayward apostrophe

stevenl

It's called the wayward apostrophe, the superfluous apostrophe or the errant apostrophe. I call it the #@%*&$@ apostrophe. It's the erroneous use of an apostrophe in common plural words and in other contexts.

You've seen it: a carved sign declaring The Smith's live in the home; a scrawled banana's for sale; a menu listing fresh prawn's. Some usage guides call this a greengrocer's apostrophe, as it shows up so often in the produce section (orange's, gr [...]

Assessing the damages

stevenl

After a storm, tornado, hurricane, flood, etc., bureaucrats assess damages. Speakers of English assess damage.

After a flood, one bureaucrat was quoted in the newspaper offering "a statement of damages from the storm events we had." He added that more money "would help us to recover some of the costs for the damages that occurred."

This kind of bureaucrat-speak is why God created paraphrasing, GrammarHell.com suggests. We'll simply wince at storm events and [...]

Bloc vs Block

stevenl

Trying to bloc out time for a vacation? It'll never happen.

An alliance or alignment of people, groups, nations, investors, voters, etc., is a bloc. Block applies in any other case in which block or bloc is used.

Odds are when you read voting block, Soviet block, communist block, Eastern block, economic block or political block, someone has made a boo-boo.

Block as a noun covers "a quantity, number, or section of things dealt with as a unit," such a [...]

Disburse money to me

stevenl

An article says a certain state normally has so many millions of dollars each year to disperse to law enforcement. Unless officials plan to toss bills into the wind, letting cops run for them, the writer meant disburse.

This is a common error and warrants an especially involved entry in Garner's Modern American Usage. Disburse means to pay out, as from a fund. Disperse means to scatter or spread widely or in all directions.

Those with editors are as confused as anyone. You' [...]

A (boldly) going concern

stevenl

One grammar guide tells me Star Trek Capt. James T. Kirk should be reprimanded for splitting an infinitive when he says, "to boldly go where no man has gone before."

Heresy, I say. Would it mean half as much if Kirk had said, "to go boldly where no man has gone before?" Yech.

A split infinitive occurs when a word, usually an adverb, separates the infinitive marker to from the verb (for more on infinitives, click here).

In general, you want to avoid splitt [...]

Songbirds may be able to learn grammar

stevenl

Check out this article I found online.

The simplest grammar, it says, can be taught to a common songbird. That's if you believe research some supposed expert has put forward.

The simplest grammar, long thought to be one of the skills that separate man from beast, can be taught to a common songbird, new research suggests.

Starlings learned to differentiate between a regular birdsong "sentence" and one containing a clause or another sentence of warbling, accordi [...]

Aussie Comedy-SciFi Writer Wins American Literary Award

scififan

Got a recommendation for you folks , really something different. It's from Australian comedy science fiction writer Ian Taylor, author of the popular Spindle series, has just won the 2007 Indie Excellence Award for Science Fiction. Spindle, the 2005 comedy science fiction novel by Ian Taylor, has won the 2007 Indie Excellence Award in the Science Fiction category.

Spindle tells the story of Peter Turner, a 22nd-century Earth guy who joins the Space Force, expecting an exciting [...]

The difference between Marketing, PR, Advertising and Branding

anthrasula

Editors and copywriters working away in the small press biz sometimes have a difficult time understanding the differences between Marketing, Advertising, PR and Branding (as well as their importance). Marty Neumeier's illustrations—taken from his book "ZAG: The #1 Strategy of High-Performance Brands"—provide the best explanation we've seen:

Cryptonomicon hurts my brain

scififan

Scifi and fantasy are my greatest loves when it comes to what I read, admittedly, however, there is a hell of a lot of science fiction and and fantasy that I simply don't understand.

A lot of it seems to center aroung the technology or science and the characters play second fiddle-that's just not the way it's supposed to work. I prefer a story that take seriously cha [...]

Press kits and marketing packages

rkelly

I get asked a lot about marketing packages for media. People want to know how to present them, what's in them, etc. I have been asked over and over again to write articles on the subject, so here you are: a brief crash course on marketing packages for media. Your marketing package is your calling card. It will introduce you and your small press to the people you need to help move your press forward. Make it interesting, exciting and entertaining. Capture their attention and make them want [...]

The Importance of Book Fairs

rkelly

Regardless of your genre, whether it's westerns or crime fiction. romance or non-fiction, decidely you will share something with writers of other genres: the need for promtotion of what you have written.

While the world wide web has made available new sytems of marketing to authors, from websites and weblogs to sites like myspace, facebook, and the small press exchange, there is still something to be said for meeting readership where they make themselves available -- small press boo [...]

Foetry closes up shop

stevenl

Thanks Alan Cordle and Foetry.com!

If you weren't aware foetry.com (whose dedicated members doggedly pursue cronyism and cheats in the pobiz) has closed up shop. In there three years, foetry.com exposed some major universities, publishers, and well-known poets who were involved in contests and complicit in rigged contests-causing students, friends, and lovers to win.

This caught me off guard. Indeed, while posting seemed to be down on the site, no one thought they [...]

Writer's block

scififan

Well, I beleive I am suffering from writer's block. And that has resulted in very little posting online, or any desire to post to my weblog. Nothing interesting to post. While it lasts at least, when I am on the Internet, I'm catching up on my favorite weblogs. So I imagine it isn't time wasted anyway.

So, summer is here! The last few days around here have been amazing. Sunday it was like 65! I'm so happy to be finally be able to throw open the shutters and let breeze ro [...]