At Guide to Literary Agents: How to BackUp Your Blog and Save Content
I missed posting this back when it was first up, because I was hiding out in Australia with zero internet access. If you’ve been wondering how to back up your blog, head on over for the details for Blogger, LiveJournal, & both WordPress options. Blogging is hard work. Once you’re set up, there’s idea generation, writing, proofing, posting, and interacting with your readers, usually two or three times a week. And if you spend at least an hour a post (I spend an average of two),...
Read MorePlaying With The iPad Comes Easily To A 10 Month Old
Over the weekend, I had a chance to play with an iPad in the Apple store. The selection of apps available was limited, though I did spend some time reading (tiring on the eyes) and typing (surprisingly easy, though I spent a lot of time watching my fingers). One kids’ book app had a demo: Dora the Explorer Coloring Adventures (pictured left). From the iPad app store: “It’s time to explore and color in “Dora the Explorer Coloring Adventures!”. Kids can go on adventures in...
Read MoreOnline Presence Linkage for Writers
This Saturday past, I facilitated the Online Presence Special Interest Group at the New England Regional SCBWI (#nescbwi10) conference in Fitchburg, MA. The group was filled with marvelous people with great questions, and we talked about everything from Twitter lists through the difference between LiveJournal and WordPress. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be writing up articles based on the things discussed, but in the meantime, here’s a collection of links for folks still sorting out how to...
Read MoreTeam Book-Book vs. Team E-Book: reading deeper, experiencing less?
We love them, we hate them, we’re frightened of them. Some think they’ll kill the book. Others think they’ll save it. Team E-Book & Team Book-Book may regularly clash, but I think one thing is clear: e-books aren’t going away anytime soon. Lately, I’ve been reading several books at once–Shades of Grey (Jasper Fforde; my latest review title) and Dreamsongs II (George R.R. Martin) in print, The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins) and The Thief (Megan Whalen Turner) on my Kindle....
Read MoreYA Fiction: What is Cyberpunk and Why do I Care?
Dystopias may be the hot YA trend right now, but cyberpunk (and its bosom buddy, steampunk) is on the rise. In fact, you may have read some YA cyberpunk without even realizing it–books with a high level of technobabble but a low standard of living, like The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins), Kaimira: Sky Village (Nigel Ashland, Monk Ashland), The Softwire Series (P.J. Haarsma), and Little Brother (Cory Doctorow). What is Cyberpunk? There’s a lot of debate over when exactly cyberpunk...
Read MorePenguin & the iPad: Taking Books to the Next Level, or Leaving Them in the Dust?
Earlier this week, Penguin CEO John Makinson debuted a concept video demonstrating some of the ways the house is planning on tapping the potential of Apple’s new iPad. With interfaces less like a book and more like an iPhone app, it’s clear the company is taking this new platform seriously. John Makinson, from PaidContentUK: We will be embedding audio, video and streaming in to everything we do. The .epub format, which is the standard for ebooks at the present, is designed to support...
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