As self-publishers gain legitimacy, the Writers’ Union of Canada is considering membership for the indie authors. The story was first reported on CBC (and linked to on The Passive Voice). The union represents more than 1,900 authors in Canada. The voting will take place at the end of the month in Ottawa. “I think it's been bubbling under the surface for a few years," John Degen, TWUC's executive director, told CBC. “There are a lot of young writers who are sold on the idea of having that level of control over their careers, which has nothing to do with their success in...

Two stories crossed my inbox this morning on the rise of the fudnraiser book. The first was a review about an anthology called Orange Karen that was conceived as a fundraiser for author Karen DeLabar, who is recovering from a battle with toxic shock syndrome. Fellow authors, both amateur and professional, contributed to the book, with the proceeds going to fund her medical expenses and recovery efforts. Meanwhile, numerous sites (including MediaBistro, where I read the news) are reporting about sci-fi author Dave Wolverton (aka Dave Farland) whose teenage son has been injured in a sports accident. There is no specific fundraiser...

I've seen at least four stories today on the Scott Turow editorial in this week's New York Times (for example, here and here). Turow's editorial was a mishmash of all sorts of trending stories, offering his comments on used books, libraries, the Kirtsaeng decision, Amazon, and who knows what else. He has been derided, and rightly so in my opinion, for taking a somewhat extreme and out of touch view of the current marketplace. But what I think often gets lost in this knee-jerk reactionary stuff (both on the part of the originator and the various respondents) is that these pieces often do...

Robert Ebert was my first and last source for movies and writing. The iconic film critic died Thursday at 70 years old, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. More than 10 years ago, movies were one of my main joys. With my film passion came the need to write. So I created a website for my movie reviews. I would watch a film, write a review and then read Ebert’s review. I felt inadequate every single time. But I didn’t hang my head in disgust. Ebert made me want to be better. I found his writing engaging and passionate, two qualities that stood out in...

Joanna Cabot has been writing about Evernote and her newfound love of it recently, and I thought it was time to share my thoughts about the usefulness of Evernote as a tool for authors. I love Evernote so much that I'm glad I wasn't an author before it existed. What are some of the challenges for writers, and how does Evernote help solve them? I'm glad you asked! 1. Capturing ideas Because Evernote is on all my devices, and my phone is always on my belt, I never have to worry about losing an idea. My husband has a "bad" habit of coming...

Yes, I was male suburban cliché: Like thousands of other disaffected middle-class white kids before me (and many more after, I'm sure), I discovered Jack Kerouac's On the Road in high school—I'm proud to say I still own the very same copy I picked up at a long-since shuttered Borders Books in McMurray, Penna. It was the first book I ever read, front to back, in one sitting. (Embarrassing as it is to admit, Bukowski's Ham on Rye was the second; The Catcher in the Rye was the third.) I have a few other good Kerouac stories: When I moved to San Francisco...

By Christina Jones Storylane, the personal blogging platform and social space, just announced it’s joining forces with Facebook. The latest News Feed update wasn’t enough to show how much the social networking giant understands the value of visual content. “This is an exciting opportunity,” said Jonathan Gheller, Storylane’s CEO. “Facebook’s mission of connecting the world has always been at the center of our work, and like our friends at Facebook, meaningful connections are what our team is most passionate about.” Storylane’s mission was to give users a platform where they could share more meaningful stories, making it a good fit for Facebook. You felt a...

I've always been a sucker for stories about the history of American pop culture. So when TeleRead founder David Rothman sent me an email last weekend with a subject line that read, "This Was the First Word Processor Ever Used By a Novelist. It Weighed 200 Pounds and Had to Be Brought in Though the Window," I bit. Truth be told, I don't know the first thing about the history of typewriters or word processors—or pencils or papyrus or stone tablets, for that matter. Matthew Kirschenbaum, however—an author and associate professor of English at the University of Maryland—has spent years researching the literary...

Allen Schatz published his first book two years ago. After things didn’t work out with an agent, he went the self-publishing route and knew he had to market on his own, which meant contacting reviewers. Some said yes, many said no. But Schatz noticed a change in the business around this time and self-publishing didn’t seem like a death sentence for his writing career. “By the time my former agent released me, things had changed enough for me to go the self-publishing route,” said Schatz, whose first book was Game 7: Dead Ball. “It really wasn’t hard finding reviewers. There are a number of...

TeleRead's Toronto-based senior writer Joanna Cabot, currently our most prolific blogger by a long shot, wrote over 100 articles for this site in 2012. (And that's not counting her daily Morning Roundups.)  What were some of her best-loved and most popular stories of the year? For your holiday reading pleasure, here are a few you may enjoy revisiting ... or reading for the very first time!  —Ed.   • My Top Reads of 2012 • My eBook Market Predictions for 2013 • Is Digitization Enabling Minimalism for a New Generation? • Why Interactive Storybooks are a Bad Idea • What We Can Learn From the Troubles of Martha Stewart • It is Now Illegal to Break...

By Kara Robart | for Book Business As an intern here at NAPCO (the parent company of Book Business and Publishing Executive), I am constantly exposed to new, exciting things happening in the publishing industry. Two weeks ago, I wrote an article celebrating this year's kickoff of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). In that article, I challenged all you publishers to one month of literary abandon in which you (yes, you!) could become authors yourselves. I wanted to take a minute to check in on your progress, and to share my own NaNoWriMo experience with you. That’s right, you are currently reading the words of another first-time WriMo. NaNoWriMo—in...

I've seen reporting pretty much everywhere about the troubles facing Martha Stewart and her company these days. She's laying off staff and folding magazines, she's reporting a 17 percent decline in revenues and she's taking for herself the lion's share of her company's earnings. But is this just about money management and changing media directions, or is something else going on? An article in the Hamilton Spectator offers an intriguing secondary hypothesis. The trouble with brands based on a living person, they say, is that they come with a "high risk of calamity" as they rise or fall on the escapades...