At some point soon I’ll start talking about of-the-moment stuff, but a lot happened out In The World while I was away so I thought some of you might like a book-related recap of some of the things that struck me.
From Mike Shatzkin’s Idea Logical Blog comes news of a benchmark event in publishing. There’s going to be a lot more of it. I think this is the most fluid I’ve ever seen the industry. Exciting times.
The Nebula Awards were announced.
And the Lambda Literary Awards. (I need to get me one of those nifty gold badge things. Though, umph, they look a bit lopsided to me. Is it just me?) I find award lists handy for potential reading material. I hope you find something too.
Want to know what Virgina Woolf sounds like? She sounds, well, creepy and weird, but I’m guessing most of that is a product of her milieu and the technology. (Odd to think of tone and timbre as cultural artefacts, as well as accents.) Timmi, over at Aqueduct, ran this clip of Woolf reading from her own work:
Oh, and while we’re on video, here’s something from The Cliks, “Dirty King.”
Nope, it’s nothing to do with publishing but I got the link from j.s. over at the Yahoo group I run, so it’s kind of (oh, okay, not very) connected. It turns out that The Cliks have just gone through a big lineup change, so don’t get too attached…
And, finally, here’s a useless fact: more than 5% of this blog’s traffic is now coming from mobile platforms, e.g. iPhone, iPad, Blackberry. If you’re one of those users, drop me a line and let me know how this blog works on those platforms–what would you change?
Nicola Griffith 
It's good to have you back.
I've thinking about the fluidity of language lately, and I'm wondering if Ms. Wolf would approve of all of the new words that come and go these days. Last week I had two product reps tell me their product was “bomber.” I had to look it up on urbandictionary.com to find out:
In rock climbing, a hold that is really big or deep or otherwise so good that it is “bomb-proof” [is considered “bomber.” “Bomber”] can also be used of equipment that is so good as to be infallible.
Wow. Amazon and $2.99. Seems like they could've at least gone for $4.99!
Looks like the photo of that badge needs to rotate to me.
I saw the Cliks and The Dresden Dolls on that True Colors tour he mentions. Didn't know about the lineup change. Very surprising. Wonder what this means for the Dresden Dolls with Brian joining The Clicks? The Dresden Dolls were the best of that tour I thought. Sorry to see the lesbians go, but this new group sounds like it will be good.
DianneorDi, thanks. Especially for the new word. Bomber. Cool…
jennifer, that's the thing–he doesn't need to charge that much to make a hugeous profit. As for the Cliks, well, for those who still buy albums the only track worth listening to (in my opinion) is “Dirty Kings.” Lucas's voice is actually pretty boring on the other tracks.
I know, I saw that, but makes me worried if that's really enough and establishing that as a price point. Never get it up again. Is he paying for his own editor, etc? Also it's working for him because he already had a built in readership that Amazon could tap in to – not much marketing cost. At least that was my impression. But what do i know about it anyway…
Yeah, I like The Dresden Dolls better. But after I wrote that I looked them up, and they are on “hiatus”. Guess they wanted to do their own thing.