Writing Quote of the Week 09/25
Seressia September 25th, 2006
Again we borrow from the words of E.L. Doctorow:
“Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.”
There are days, weeks even, when this is especially true.
Archive for September, 2006
Authors Cite Problems with Genesis Press - 9/18/2006 - Publishers Weekly
Seressia September 18th, 2006
Click here to read the PW article.
It’s not an easy thing for writers to complain about their publishers, especially to this extent, which goes way beyond the “teacher’s lounge” decompressions of many a writers group meeting. It may be even more difficult for women, most of whom aren’t raised to be anything other than decorous and polite and long-suffering.
However.
For most of us, writing is not a hobby. For most of us, writing is something we want to make a career of doing. We all dream of combining our love of something with making a living. While many of us write because we can’t not write, we publish and enter into contracts because we want to make money. When we agree to a contract, we believe what it says, that if we do our part, they will do theirs.
We expect to get paid the advance as contracted, before the book comes out (which is what “advance” means).
We expect to receive royalty statements and payments as specified in those contracts.
We expect to be notified of book club sales, reprints, and new publishing editions, because all of those impact our career, and our monies.
We expect to get our rights back when the book is no longer available to purchase through regular channels. This is a good definition of “out of print.” Having a few dozen misprinted copies in a dusty corner of a warehouse where someone may be able to get a copy if they call the publisher and the office staff can track it down if they can even find it in their database does not count as being “in print.”
I think these are reasonable expectations. I would hope most people think these are reasonable expectations. I hope people understand why authors felt they had to speak up. I’d like to think that people would sympathize with an author who hasn’t seen any information from the publisher on a book published in 2000 that is still making sales. Or the book in 2002, or 2004.
Writing is an art, but I don’t want to starve for it.
Monica Jackson wrote in her blog about it. I don’t think I can add anything more than that.
I Pledge Stupidity
Seressia September 12th, 2006
crossposted from WildWomen
File this one under “What Were They Thinking?”
According to the Associated Press and UGA’s Redandblack.com, the University of Georgia suspended the Chi Phi fraternity last Friday for flashing images from a porn magazine at passersby on campus.
Here’s the kicker: the magazine is called Black Tail, so you can guess the ethnicity of the women in the magazine. And the pledges photographed people’s reactions as they flashed the photos.
Chi Phi president Matthew Hughes said the fraternity is “embarassed” by the incident, disavowed any prior knowledge, and refused to explain why the pledges were showing this magazine in Tate Plaza in the first place.
WTF?
1. Showing porn to the unsuspecting and photographing their reactions without their consent.
2. Showing this particular magazine, as if no one would be upset at a predominantly homogenous university (which is actively seeking diversity) who has pledges who think this is “funny.” (Yes, one of the pledges actually said that to a reporter. Funny.)
Don’t women have a hard enough time as it is? Especially black women? We’re either objects to decorate a rap video or overweight grandmothers playing the movie going audience for laughs. And don’t get me started on the MTV cartoon that showed black women on leashes squatting on all fours. It’s one thing to be into bondage, but this was something else.
At least in romance novels, black women can be portrayed as the intelligent, successful, well-rounded women we are. Women who demand and receive respect. Women who get wild because they choose to, not because it’s the only option. Women who are not objects, but object to being treated like one.
So to my romance-writing sistahs, thank you.
Writing Quote of the Week
Seressia September 12th, 2006
“Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing.”
Writing Quote of the Week
Seressia September 6th, 2006
Writing is more than anything a compulsion, like some people wash their hands thirty times a day for fear of awful consequences if they do not. It pays a whole lot better than this type of compulsion, but it is no more heroic.
-Julie Burchill, British journalist
Vegas Bites Final Cover
Seressia September 4th, 2006
Here’s the final cover for Vegas Bites. I loooooooooovvvvvvvvvvvvvveeeee it!
