Thursday, December 12, 2013

Links! Self publishing, gifts, and not-so-guilty pleasures

First of all, I wanted to note that my next post, two weeks from today (which is December 26… less than two weeks till Christmas… AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!) is my favorite books of 2013. Everyone else should do that for their posts too, if they don't have anything else planned, be it favorite books or movies or music or anything else! I love year end lists.

These first two links I found through Dear Author, my very favorite review site on the web. Focuses on all sorts of romance novels, but has amazing near-daily link roundups of everything relating to reading and publishing


This has made the rounds on facebook too, but it's so much fun. I want 3, 5, 9, 14, 20, and 22. Oh, and 23, because they were all out of the tents with 'giant nerd' written on the side.
Seriously though, I would buy that tent if it's adequately roomy and waterproof.


I never really thought I'd be thinking too much about self publishing, that is, until we published Alchemy. So I'm even more interested now in graphs like this. Of the group, this one on motivation is the most fascinating.

As the article says about that graph:
For aspiring and self-published authors, the next most popular answer was “to satisfy a lifelong ambition.” In contrast, traditionally published and hybrid authors were more likely to choose “to make money from my writing.” As a priority, “sharing my personal experience” or “sharing my particular expertise” were more popular choices for self-published authors than for others, but these priorities were not at the top of the list for most self-published authors
  

I found this link at the same website as the others. I think we can always use some reminders that even though rejection will always hurt, you're in good company. And you've got to keep on going.

  

I love this New Yorker essay, in which the author says, 
"But the guilty pleasure seems to me the distillation of all the worst qualities of the middlebrow—the condescension of the highbrow without the expenditure of effort, along with mass culture’s pleasure-seeking without the unequivocal enjoyment. If you want to listen to Rihanna while reading the latest from Dean Koontz, just go ahead and do it. Don’t try to suggest you know better. Forget the pretense and get over yourself. You have nothing to lose but your guilt."
Right on. I'm always fighting embarrassment talking about things I love. Really, why do I care if people think it's silly that I've seen every season of America's Next Top Model? It's not like I'm watching it for their approval. I do too many other things for other peoples' approval. I'm doing all these things to make me happy. You should never, ever be ashamed of doing something that makes you truly happy.

Me? I love romance novels, anime, and any book (no matter how terrible) about women disguised as men. Well, you all know most of that already. But that's because you're awesome and non-judgmental.


What are your favorite happy pleasures?

4 comments:

  1. First of all..yes. lets all do our favorite books of 2013. For reals that's awesome, and I want to read all of your posts.

    second. How have we been friends this long without sharing our mutual love of ANTM, and the Shakespearean awesomeness that is a female character dressed as a man?

    Great post!

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    1. I think we talked about women dressed up as men... one of us did a post a while back. Possibly me, possibly both of us. But yes, ANTM rocks, because it is ridiculous and crazy and I can't stop watching it just for the photo shoots.

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  2. Great links. I want that personalized library embosser, way cool.

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  3. So I actually tried to purchase a couple of these, and they aren't easy links. And that Wicked Witch bookmark was $25.00. Really??? I ought to get me an etsy store. If only I was creative like that.

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