nerves, ALA, and links

I admit, I've got a serious case of nerves going on right now, but guess what? It totally works out for YOU because if you offer a suggestion (or suggestions) for what I should talk about when I give a ten minute talk on writing during ALA, you could win an ARC of Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare (yes, really!)--just go here and leave your suggestion(s)! (Also, while I'm talking about giveaways, last week's winner was nymfauxx, and Wendy Tolliver will be in touch with the person who won the copy of Lifted)

And speaking of ALA, you don't have to be a member to go-=in fact it only costs $25 for a pass to see "the exhibits" aka the floor where all the books are! You can find out more (and register) here and if you get a chance to go to an ALA annual conference, you should. BEA is all about the big buzz books, and ALA lets you learn a lot more about the school and library market, which is very important to publishers of YA, MG, etc. books.

Finally, I've got loads of links:

I've linked to this post about self-promotion before, but it was very weirdly formatted. Now it's far more readable, and it is a post worth reading

Author Lisa Schroeder on amazon sales rank checking, sales, royalty statements, and another reminder as to some of the problems with bookscan's "sales figures"

A Day in the Life of a Writer -- I think this is tongue-in-cheek but I have yet to meet a writer who doesn't spend a least part of the day worrying about something writing or writing-career related.

And speaking of writing, how about some writing tips from the amazing Anne Tyler?--"The whole purpose of my books is to sink into other lives, and I would love it if the readers sank along with me."

A Genreality post about writing and the pressures of being online -- "Writing life isn’t just sitting at the desk (or on the couch, or in the giant chair) writing a book any more, maybe doing a book signing or two when something new drops. Now we teach classes and give book talks and have blogs and facebooks and twitter accounts…Not only do we need to be accessible to readers, there’s also pressure to be entertaining, informative, and/or profound all the time. That’s a lot of pressure."

Also at Genreality, a look at reviews

One last post from Maggie Stiefvater on revision

Editorial Anonymous--briefly--on something I haven't seen talked about before, but that does happen--an editor gets your requested book. And never responds

Also from Editorial Anonymous-- on YA manuscripts that are over 100K--make sure to check out the comments on this one!

Over at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management, there's a wonderful blog post about being pre-published--"Before publication, when she sat down to write, she could do whatever she wanted. There were no expectations about what she’d write, no deadlines to write to, and no promotional commitments to take her away from her creative time. So she wrote, and revised, and developed her craft on her own, at conferences and with other writers. She’s done very well for herself in her career, and she wouldn’t give any of it up, but she felt that she lost a little something when she became a published writer, and she wished that other authors would stop and enjoy the process." To which I say, EXACTLY.

Over at Writer Unboxed, two pieces on writing advice, one here and the other here -- the second one touched me, but I think it's because it made me feel no so alone about my habit of writing entire books before I try to sell them. (And also at Writer Unboxed, Kathleen Bolton follows up on her previous post on writing)

I know everyone is talking about e-readers and how e-books are going to revolutionize publishing, but I found these poll results from Pimp My Novel very interesting-- if the most plugged-in people on the Internet aren't all lining up to buy e-readers left and right, what does that mean? (I think e-books will take off when e-readers hit the under $100 mark, or when more people decide they want to actually, well--read. It's very easy to forget that there are plenty of people out there who read one, two--or scarier yet, zero--books a year.)

Agent Kristin Nelson on multi-book deals and one-book deals

Finally, agent Jessica Faust on What Is Love?