You get a link list today. Aren’t you excited?
Actually, you should be. I’ve complied some interesting and thought-provoking links for you, and I even included a fun video. Enjoy.
It seems Amazon is flexing its mighty muscle against independent publishers – again. They’ve decided to pull titles from their website after negotiations failed. Yikes! Does make you wonder if they would pull that stunt against any of the publishing world’s big six (that’s Hachette, Macmillan, Penguin Group, HarperCollins, Random House, and Simon & Schuster).
Chuck Sambuchino, the guy who does Writer’s Digest Guide to Literary Agents, seems to have a new feature. Well, it’s something I just noticed. New Agent Alerts! If you are in the game of looking for an agent, check ’em out.
And for those of you in the self-publishing frame of mind, here’s a hopefully soon to be success story that is already a success in my mind: the story behind That Bear Ate My Pants! A long post, but lots of interesting things to note if you plan to be the author that does it all.
Until later, outline the hell out of your stories before starting to write. Or not. Just do what works for you.
Oh, and here’s that video. It’s old, but I never tire of watching it.
N. E. White 
They actually already did target one of the Big Six — they pulled all of Macmillan’s titles over a contract dispute.
That’s why I’m leery to jump on the Amazon bandwagon. For as vertical as they’re going with their business, I don’t like the way they would have so much control, and it’s only a matter of time before indie authors don’t have enough volume or momentum left over from the initial waves to continue providing the high numbers of growth seen last year. I’d be surprised if those numbers didn’t start falling off even in the first couple quarters of this year. Once they reach a kind of equilibrium, I’m curious to see what they do.
I love Chuck Sambuchino (or at least am rather fond of the guy). He helped me hone my pitch at WDC, and he knows his stuff. And his book “How to Survive a Garden Gnome Invasion” is pretty funny.
Ah, I did not realize that other incident was Macmillan. It does seem like we are at the mercy of one system or another.
Still, I’ll probably jump on that dragon, but I’ll be ready to jump off at any moment…
I do pop in and read Chuck’s blog every now and then. He always has good, helpful posts. I’ll check out his books.