10 Links for Readers and Writers, including 30th Neuromancer Anniversary

Baby Got Books! (via Reddit)

1. 30 Years of William Gibson's Neuromancer - A retrospective on the highly influential cyberpunk novel. (via Kirkus)

2. Writing Emotion: Does Your Hero Shrug, Smile & Frown Too Much? - Writers tend to fall back on some obvious character tags like smiling and frowning. I'm guilty, too. (via Writers Helping Writers)

3. Rise Up from Science Fiction Monoculture! - There tends to be a certain stereotype of militaristic science fiction, but this article goes over some books that broke the mold (via The Tyee)

4. Amazon launches Netflix-like service for books - Amazon proves that Netflix-style book reading is the future with Kindle Unlimited. (via TIME)

5. Street Teams: The Fraudster-author's Indie Publishing Secret Weapon - I've seen other authors using "street teams" and never thought much of it, but this author has a serious beef with the ethical implications of them. (via Witch Rants)

6. Amazon's 10 Best Books for Children - There are some classics on this list. (Via Huffington Post)

7. My Advice to Aspiring Authors - You've probably seen advice successful authors give to new authors, but you've never seen frank and realistic advice like this. (via Hugh Howey)

8. Personality Tests for Your Characters - I don't care for personality tests, but Psychology Today has found a use for them: fleshing out your characters. (via Psychology Today)

9. 21 Books That Changed Science Fiction And Fantasy Forever - Hitchhiker's Guide is number one, so you know I love this list. (via io9)

10. Love knows no color: Interracial romance novels find growing audience and acceptance - I don't read romance, but diversity in any genre is a good thing (via TIME)

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10 Interesting Links for Readers and Writers 3/7/14

Every week, I browse the web for interesting stuff related to reading and writing. Here are ten I've found:

1. Writing Awesome Sales Copy - Writing a cool blurb for your book (via Epublishunum)
2. Character Brainstorming Worksheet - This is a very useful questionnaire to answer to help flesh out your characters. (Via Martina Boone)
3. Now Anyone Can Use Getty Stock Photos for Free - If you run a blog and search for good photos, this is big news. Getty is one of the biggest stock photo sites and charged high fees to use them legally, but now they allow you to embed their photos free! (via Mashable)
4. How To Write And Sell Books - Now that you've written your book, how do you market it? Indie author bestsellers Hugh Howey, Liliana Hart, and Matthew Mather weigh in. (via Karen Woodward)
5. Hugh Howey’s Author Earnings Report is Going to Cut the Anti-Self Publishing Crowd at the Knees - Howey created a comprehensive report on how much indie authors earn, and it's shocked the industry. (via The Digital Reader)
6. Two Ways That Flash Fiction Can Make You a Better Writer - I can vouch for this with my 100-word sci-fi stories. (Via Nat Russo)
7. Is eBook Distribution Enough? - I haven't made hard copies of my books yet, but this breaks down why you should (via BookBaby)
8. Seuss Sales Double Thanks to Reading Initiative - The top ten lists are in a jam, Seuss' birthday boosted sales of Green Eggs and Ham. (via Publishers Weekly)
9. This Popular Grammar Advice Is Totally Wrong - An article in defense of adverbs (via The Huffington Post)
10. 10 Tips on How to Write an Author Bio - I need to rewrite mine (via The Huffington Post)

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10 Interesting Links For Readers and Writers 2/28/14

1. The Difficulty for Men Writing Female Characters - Women can create great male characters, but men often struggle with female characters. Here's a good overview of why. (via Hobbes Lives)

2. Great Character Descriptions from Science Fiction and Fantasy Books - The introduction of a new character can be a great moment. Here are some of the best. (via io9)

3. The squalid truth about call girl lit - There are some really popular novels and memoirs about high-class prostitutes. Here's a good editorial about how they glamorize a very ugly reality. (via Femail)

4. How Not To Write Female Characters - Another good article on writing women. In case you haven't guessed, I've been researching this topic. (via impishidea.com)

5. Beginner's Guide To Book Cover Design - As someone who's dabbled in designing his own book covers, I can say it's given me new respect for the art form. Here are some really good tips on cover design. (via Hongkiat)

6. Writing a Strong Book Description, a.k.a. The Blurb - Another skill I've had to learn in self-publishing is the art of writing a good blurb. This article goes over a good system for creating the perfect copy. (via Digital Pubbing)

7. 4 Easy Steps to Creating the Perfect Book Blurb - I love this article, a perfect four point system for creating a blurb. (via Digital Book World)

8. Fear of Flash Gordon and Sibling Rivalry: Why Authors Use Pen Names - I've known a few authors who've used pen names, and I have considered using them throughout my career. I think indie publishing takes away one of the major reasons for them (pressure from publishers), but there are other reasons why authors use pseudonyms. This is a good overview. (via Bookriot)

9. Why is Indie Music So Much Cooler than Indie Books? - One thing I'll never understand is why the band in their garage playing music is cool, but an author writing his own novel is not. Here's why. (via Indie Reader)

10. 11 Movies You Won't Believe Were Made Into Novels - When I was a kid, we didn't go to a lot of movies, so I read a lot of novelizations. Bad ones. How about Clueless: a novel based on a movie based on a Shakespearean play? That and ten more crazy novelizations (via Huffington Post).

Related Posts:
10 Interesting Links For Readers and Writers 1/17/14
10 Interesting Links for Readers and Writers 12/27/13

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10 Interesting Links for Readers and Writers 1/17/14

Here are ten articles I found this week that I thought writers and readers would enjoy...

1. Indie Authors-How to Make It In Self-Publishing/ via To Become a Writer.com

2. Who Coined the Horrible Term "Amazeballs?" via Slate

3. The Allure of the Print Book via New York Times

4. Top 5 Insane Fictional Writers via Thought Catalog

5. 8 Unexpected Places To Find Your Next Favorite Book via Huffington Post Books

6. Prize-Winning Mystery Writer Turns Out to Be Convicted Killer via NPR

7. See The Original Alice In Wonderland Manuscript, Handwritten & Illustrated By Lewis Carroll (1864) via OpenCulture

8. 10 Ways to Make Readers Loathe Your Antagonist via Helping Writers Become Authors

9. 7 Ways to Create a Killer Opening Line For Your Novel via Writers Digest

10. 9 Best Books That Don’t Exist via Publishers Weekly

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10 Interesting Links For Writers and Readers 12/27/2013

Peanuts' Charlie Brown on Essay Writing

1. Pay-what-you-want ebooks 'bundle' makes $1.1 million in two weeks via The Guardian

2. Neil Gaiman novel wins 2013 Book of the Year via The Guardian

3. Why Everyone Should Read More Science Fiction via @Huffington Post Books

4. With the success of 99-cent book bundles, Dear Reader asks, "Do the Bestseller Lists need recalibration?"

5. Just in time for Festivus, it's the top five literary references in Seinfeld via Zola Books

6. The Greatest Literary Catchphrases via Flavorwire

7. Five Overlooked SF/F/H Books of 2013 via The Barnes & Noble Review

8. The 7 Stages You Pass To Become a Writer via Write_practice

9. Fabulous First Lines of 2013 via Publishers Weekly

10. The 10 Best Debut Novels of 2013 via Flavorwire

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10 Useful Links for Readers and Writers 12/6/13

Bookmarks for every death in Game of Thrones, Source: Wired

Here are ten links that I found this week that I think readers and writers will find useful and interesting.

1. Why I Won't Watch The Hunger Games: Catching Fire by Jenni Wiltz has some good points about why Hunger Games (the movie and novel) doesn't really work.

2. Writing a Victorian novel? Here's a generator that will create some Dickensian-type names

3. Saudi government bans Arabic SF novel HWJN, raids bookstores - via BoingBoing

4. 40 Book promoting Sites by epublishabook (Part 4!)

5. Fiction Character Worksheet by Martina Boone. An excellent form to fill out to help flesh out your characters.

6. 5 Excellent Writing Tips by Paul Harding, via Publishers Weekly. For example, "Don’t write your books for people who won’t like them."

7. The Zings and Arrows of Dave Eggers' The Circle - The Atlantic breaks down why Dave Eggers' novel skewering social networking is unrealistic.

8. Infographic on Publishing in the Digital Era by Visual Loop http://bit.ly/GFLjeb

9. Reading Pride and Prejudice for My Mother - A moving story about Jane Austen and family by Huffington Post Books

10. More Girls Target Archery, Inspired By 'The Hunger Games' by NPR

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