What happened to the epic novel?

December 15, 2008 | 32 Comments

Last month, a friend of mine who is reading The Proviso said to me (paraphrase), “You know, a publishing house editor would have made you cut some of this.” Beat. “But I don’t know what it could have been.” At 283,000 words, it’s actually right on track for a novel that chronicles the romances of [...]

Dec

12

To be or not to be

December 12, 2008 | 11 Comments

Offended.
I think I’m supposed to be. I’m told I should be. My neck twitches just slightly when I know I ought to be. But I don’t think I am. Am I?
Bodice ripper.
I just can’t muster up the outrage necessary to protest the term. I mean, there are seriously a bunch [...]

Nov

15

The book as art

November 15, 2008 | 15 Comments

I said something in my little rant the other day that’s stuck with me: The book is the art.
To me, Harry Potter’s fabulous because it’s a whole experience. The cover art and the story work together. It’s got color, movement, focus, texture. You’re sitting there in your reading chair on a [...]

Nov

13

Book design: ur doin it rong

November 13, 2008 | 21 Comments

Thank Mike Cane for this rant.
I’ve read a few self-pubbed books lately. None of them were egregiously horrible in the design department and a couple of them were even fairly decent. And frankly, after I converted them to digital and put them on my ebook reader, it wasn’t an issue at all. But [...]

Nov

13

Misckellaneous

November 13, 2008 | 3 Comments

I’ve had a lot on my mind lately that I haven’t been able to untangle, much less unpack on an issue-by-issue basis. What are they?
1. The election
2. Prop 8 in California
3. “Black October” in publishing
4. Independent publishing
5. Agents and editors (the “Gatekeepers”)
6. Mormon writers/Mormon literature
But a couple of posts on Nathan Bransford’s blog yesterday [...]

Nov

8

The Proviso reviews start coming in…

November 8, 2008 | 12 Comments

…and it’s good!
SamQ read and enjoyed.
I had never read a romance book like this one before; one that mixed Mormonism, Libertarianism, politics, Wall Street, and love, with a hot, at times blunt, dash of sex. It deals with pretty weighty themes and moral tightropes, yet never in a preachy way. The author has [...]

Nov

4

I’m a series whore

November 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Okay, let me clarify: I’m not so crazy about the ones where you have to read them in order, especially if they’re not marked on the cover as being part of a series (Covenant, are you listening to me?) and which book it is. I like the ones you can read out of [...]

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