Monday, November 22, 2010

Some Book Recs

I'm up at my mom's doing Holiday Stuff, plus trying to write, and (kinda-sorta) keep up with online stuff only not really, so this is going to be short.

Judy Tarr has published a collection of her horse blogs in a book called Writing Horses -- The Fine Art of Getting it Right. This is a book about writing horse stuff the right way, by a writer who also breeds horses. I've been reading these blog posts all along over at the Book View Cafe, and I definitely want this book so I can have all the good stuff in one place. The info is presented in a way that particularly serves writers who are writing about horses. I've written a bit of horse stuff using horse reference books intended for people who have and/or ride horses, and Judy's method is definitely better if you're writing instead of riding. Highly recommended.

I know I've mentioned Kristine Kathryn Rusch's Freelancer's Survival Guide here before. She started posting chapters on her blog for free back in early 2009, believing that the economy made it imperative that the info get out to people immediately, rather than in the year or three it would've taken to shop a proposal around, write the book, then wait for the steady but slow gears of New York publishing to get it into bookstores. This is an awesome collection of info, experience, do-and-don't lists, things to think about, assorted resources, and things you never knew you absolutely needed to know. It's useful for freelancers of every kind, but examples pertaining to writers turn up fairly often. :) The link above goes to a page where you can buy the paperback version (580 pages!), but it's also available as an e-book, and it's still up on Kris's blog in chunks for free. Any writer who's making or hoping to make money on their fiction should read this, in whatever format. Me, I'm going for the paperback.

Angie

5 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

Hope you have a good holiday.

Angie said...

Charles -- the writing has come to a screeching halt, but we've been baking cookies, so it kind of evens out. :) You too, have a great Thanksgiving! {{}}

Angie

Caryn Caldwell said...

I always think it's so cool when people are able to make books out of their blog entries. It's kind of inspiring.

Angie said...

Caryn -- in Kris's case, at least, the original intent was for it to be a book. I'm not sure about Judy, but that's possible too.

Do you ever read John Scalzi? He published a book a couple of years ago that actually is just a collection of individual blog posts. It's great fun, though, and I recommend that one too. It's called Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: A Decade of Whatever, 1998-2008.

Angie

Suzan Harden said...

Homemade cookies definitely outweighs the writing. Hope you had a great holiday!