Archive for the ‘Writing/Publishing’ Category
When the rules change, everyone goes back to the start
Quite a nice followup to my earlier post about e-books changing the publishing/bookselling industry, and notes from Mark Coker. Booksellers: Why Publishers Will Go Direct by Martin Taylor. Quite simply, no one believes that Random House has any more influence over the digital supply chain than a brand new start-up with minimal staff or track […]
Character, not rhetoric or ‘celebrity’: what we SHOULD demand of our politicians
Here are the last few paragraphs of a very good column in the Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) from former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan. She’s writing about the US midterms elections, and does it with insight and verve, and her point goes wider … Conservatives talked a lot about Ronald Reagan this year, but they have […]
Is anything on the web ‘public domain’ — as this editor asserts?
Tell that to Rupert Murdoch! Here’s the story, and it’s brazen, baby, really brazen…
Nice to be clear – Mark Coker on e-Books
I enjoyed a fascinating and informative day at the NZ Society of Authors seminar, Publishing for Authors — the whole picture yesterday. One of the keynote speakers was Mark Coker of Smashwords who talked about the past and preset of e-books, trends in the market, and the mistakes he sees US publishers making that perhaps […]
Farewell Limewire
As noted in this earlier post, high profile file ‘sharing (or stealing?) service’ Limewire lost a federal case brought against them by outraged record companies. The death blow/shut down order was suspended in May while the victorious owners and licensees of the intellectual property at issue and the thieves who built a business distributing what wasn’t […]
Words that may not be spoken
Last week I wrote to the local Howick & Pakuranga Times about a long-running local issue of importance to me and my family. I was intrigued by some of the deletions and alterations in the resulting published Letter to the editor. See what you think: My family and I fully support the moves to rebuild the […]
‘No comment’ with reasons = ‘an interview’? Nope.
So the Sunday Star Times rang Paul Henry for an interview. He said ‘No, sorry, won’t/can’t talk’ (meaning on the record) or words to that effect and was courteous enough to have a brief chat with the journo… who later transcribed the discussion, and the paper published it. THIS sort of behaviour, in my opinion, […]
A sharp foil is a wonderful thing
I am reading and SO enjoying Your Movie Sucks, a collection of reviews by Roger Ebert. My goodness, he’s got the skills. Wonderful. A review of the collection over at Blogcritics includes this line: Like most critics, these negative reviews are an outlet for the creative side of Ebert’s writing to shine. That’s well said. Yes, […]
The escape of exnzpat, Part 4
The Attic I woke from my dream. Looking up I found both Lilith and Lincoln staring down at me. Lincoln licked my face, I pushed him gently aside. “Yeah Okay, that’s enough Lincoln.” I rubbed the sleep and his slobber from my eyes. I stood, saying nothing more. It was dark outside now and the rain […]
Bishop Eddie Long — the unravelling of bling theology
Last week as I referred to in Shame, not shock, we learned that the cult-leader Bishop Eddie Long, the ‘spiritual father’ of Destiny Church’s Bishop Brian Tamaki was being accused of sexual abuse of young men in his ‘flock’. Here’s an insightful article — harsh, in parts, but fair, it seems to me — about Bishop […]
Don Draper is the devil?
Here’s a fantastic review of Mad Men, by Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times, suggesting Don Draper is … the devil. While everyone has been sidetracked by tortured-soul vampires and loveable werewolves, Don has been quietly taking over the world, one manipulative half-truth at a time. She makes a good case. (Very good writing […]
Perfect Symmetry, Episode 6
James shuffled slowly to the edge of the railing. He was afraid of what he might find. No human could survive in this atmosphere without the proper apparel. The girl had been wearing a dress of all things! Something like one might wear to the summer picnic at the lake! James gripped the railing, knocking […]
Good ideas, well expressed
I’m reading the fascinating and cleverly written book about the worldwide spread of the English language: Globish by Robert McCrum. Gosh it’s a good read. I am learning a lot, and I’m really enjoying the care he takes with his writing. He uses long sentences (like wot I do) and carefully, sometimes exquisitely chosen words. […]
An utterly useless waste of a person’s time
This popped up in a random Google search this morning … He does “gaming” of the computer game kind. I told him I had a blog and that while blogging was an utterly useless waste of a person’s time, “gaming” over the age of 10 seemed to be a hundred times more futile. – from […]
Backstabbing, conniving, and insensitive — just what we need?
From a New Yorker profile of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg: “He stole the moment, he stole the idea, and he stole the execution,” Cameron [Winklevoss] told me recently. The dispute has been in court almost since Facebook was launched, six years ago. … To prepare for litigation against the Winklevosses and Narendra, Facebook’s legal team searched […]
