branta

That’s where hiring a great freelance publicist with knowledge of social media and online reading communities comes into play, not someone to aggressively market your book so much as someone who can help spread the word on your behalf, and, where appropriate, make introductions that could result in meaningful coverage.
Samantha Haywood/Open Book Toronto

For almost every recent transaction I’ve made on Kobo, I arrived—inspired in the moment like many of us who live in a mobile culture, smartphones in hand—in pursuit of an indie title that I ultimately couldn’t find. As a self-diagnosed text fetishist, if I’m going to spend $10, $20, $30 on anything, it’s more often than not going to be a book. But if the mood strikes and I’m not in a bookstore, or the bookstore I’m in doesn’t carry the title I’m after, what does the mobile consumer do?
@bookmadam

[I]n a world dominated by blurbs, tweets, and sound bites, we need more mailing lists, not fewer. Reader, I’m asking you to join me in a new mission—let’s save listservs! If you’ve got a favorite mailing list, e-mail me the name and topic or post a comment below—I’d like to learn about it even if it isn’t widely accessible or if it’s on a subject that I probably won’t care about (like sports).
Farhad Manjoo/Slate

Sometime during the middle part of June the Netfirms e-mail account I had been using for Branta business first swallowed all but a handful of letters then followed that trick up by kicking me out completely. So I apologize if you sent in queries or submissions or anything over that last couple of months, but that stuff appears to be in the world wide dead letter office of the web.

Our cabbie likes to mix things up by reading both fiction and nonfiction; new releases and older volumes; serious tomes and lighter fare; and, of course, a healthy helping of whatever people leave in the back of his cab. Here’s a list of what Will Grozier loves right now, books that captivate whether you’re poring over them on the beach or sampling them on a short taxi ride.
NPR

Jane Friedman, executive director of Writer’s Digest, lists several tools from social media, word processing, blogging, organizing and so on that might keep you on the right path towards productivity. Or at least creative ways to waste your time while you’re not being productive.

BookCamp Halifax is a user-generated unconference designed to bring print publishers, educators, community builders, and the tech community together – for free! BookCamp Halifax is an opportunity to explore the present and future of books and book-like technologies. It’s open to anyone interested in the publishing industry and the potential dynamics of the reader/creator/publisher relationship. Join us for a day of sharing new ideas, radical notions and engaging conversation! We’ll consider the future of the book as an object; examine its ongoing role as a delivery mechanism for stories, information and entertainment; and examine how publishers can leverage themselves for success in the digital age.

I started to think of my own writing of fiction in a comparable way. I need a certain amount of quiet, a room of my own, a mental state in which my own concerns are not too pressing, and then in my writing I can enter into the life of a literary character about whom I am writing. In doing this, I think I become better able to understand both others and myself. I can’t always achieve a state of apartness but, when I can, the idea of putting aside my own concerns and entering reflectively into the life of another seems an apt description. I can sometimes lose myself in a novel or short story I am writing. In Eastern meditation, thoughts are allowed to enter and move through the mind without one becoming attached to them. Writing isn’t non-attachment. Instead, thoughts of a certain kind, for instance those of a character in a novel can become central. They are pursued, expanded, and can find their way onto the page.