Speakeasy

A self-published cookery book by two Queensland women has been the surprise No. 2 to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in the 2007 Bestsellers.

4 Ingredients by Kim McCosker and Rachael Bermingham tipped 350,000+ sales and has been a national bestseller since June last year. Plans are currently in place to launch the book in the UK and there are also discussions about a possible television series.

Initially ignored by publishers, McCosker and Bermingham opted to self-publish: producing, distributing and marketing the book themselves. It features 340 simple recipes made using no more than 4 ingredients. Recipes cover the whole spectrum of foody-fare from roasts, to cakes, casseroles and desserts.

Other titles on the bestseller list include Rhonda Bryne’s The Secret (267,000) and Bryce Courtney’s The Persimmon Tree (166,000 since its November launch).

See The Sydney Morning Herald for more…

…As chosen by the Guardian.

I wish they all had pictures.

According to The Age and the Guardian, a recently-released Marvel storyline in the Spider-man series has wiped out 21 years of Spidey’s history!

During the One More Day storyline, Peter and Mary-Jane Parker make a deal with a devil-like villian, exchanging the memories of their marriage to save the life of Peter’s Aunt May. The couple married in an issue in 1987, and according to Marvel, their marriage has been a problem for writers ever since.

Convenient, then. The deal with the devil also erases another contraversial storyline: Spidey’s unmasking. Spide-man pulled off his mask at a press conference in an issue released in 2006.

What fans are understandably concerned about is the continuity problems this raises. How will the writers deal with everything that’s taken place in the last 21 years? Will they just recycle the same storylines? Will Spidey just have to fight the same villains all over again? 

This has been sent out by the nice folks over at Articulate:

The ABC’s arts weblog Articulate (http://blogs.abc.net.au/articulate) is calling for pitches for a new opinion section, the Soapbox.

Please send your one-sentence pitches to Gary Kemble, via: http://blogs.abc.net.au/articulate/contact-us.html

…here’s how to write your own!

Seriously, Maria Schneider of Writer’s Digest has come up with 20 very good tips for would-be bloggers, based on her experience developing her own blog. Entertaining, too. For example:

Tip #6: Remember that blogs are forever. I also like to call this tip “friends don’t let friends post drunk.” Like a tattoo, a piercing, or those expensive shoes you bought that kill your feet, a blog post may be around for a long, long time, so use due consideration before posting something inflammatory, overly critical or anything that could get you fired/expelled/sued/grounded.

Very sensible. Here’s the link.

This week’s big story is Cassie Edwards, a romance writer who’s been accused of plagiarism. She’s allegedly lifted whole paragraphs out of various articles on nature, anthropology, and apparently a 1930s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Her publisher seems to be standing by her for the moment, but the Romance Writers of America looks pretty uneasy about the whole situation.

The best bit, I think, is that the whole story was brought to light in a fairly accidental way by some folks over at Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books. It started in this post, and then there was this one, this one, and later this one. Now, the story has been picked up by the New York Times.

Apart from the obvious ethical considerations about plagiarism, and the irritation at how much money this woman has made off her novels, I’m actually more tempted to wax lyrical about the media involved. The original post on smartbitchestrashybooks.com went up on January 7, and the New York Times article is dated January 12. A whole five days between the first inklings of a story, and coverage in an internationally distributed newspaper. And now I’m blogging about it, here in Oz.

Of course, it could have been picked up just because a NYT staffer happened to be reading the blog on her lunch break, but I choose to see it as online communication at it’s finest.

There’s also something to be said here for accountability. With so much information so accessible all the time, it’s that much harder to get away with this sort of thing. Even ten years ago, Smartbitches probably couldn’t have Googled whole passages of Edwards’ books to see if they matched anything, and might not have made the effort to look further. Ethical enforcement like this is an interesting and perhaps unexpected benefit of online material. Yes, it makes plagiarism easier, but it makes it much, much easier to catch, too.

It’s a Mission Impossible for Andrew Morton’s latest celebrity biography, as leading Australian bookshops have bowed to increasing pressure from the Church of Scientology and promised not to stock controversial book Tom Cruise: An Unauthorised Biography.

Cruise is one of the most high-profile members of the Church which has threatened to sue Morton in the US, reportedly saying that the book is ‘full of lies’ and an attack on its teachings.

So far Dymock’s and Angus and Robertson have issued statements to say that they will not be stocking the book - a move which has found favour with the Church’s International general counsel Elliot Abelson who has praised Australia as a ‘classy country’.

Publisher St Martin’s Press is standing by the book and author.

Read more at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

Not sure how long this post has been up, but we’ve just found it: an excellent entry on Justine Larbalestier’s blog on re-writing. She gives some fantastic advice, great examples, and tips to help you through that tricky first draft re-write. And your second and third re-writes, as well.

Justine has lots of other great posts about writing, on everything from deadlines to Scrivener, and she’s got a blogroll full of links.

SA Writers Centre Chair, recent AWM Forum guest and all-around ace Sean Williams has just been shortlisted for the Phillip K Dick Award! His novel, Saturn Returns, has been shorlisted for this prestigious science fiction award along with works by Elizabeth Bear, Minister Faust, M. John Harrison, Jon Armstrong, Adam Roberts and Karen Traviss.

Source

Alright, so everyone knew that already. Everyone knows the American Writers Guild, both East and West divisions (that’s Hollywood and New York, people), have been on strike for about ten weeks now. The Golden Globes have been cancelled. Letterman and Leno are writing their own jokes. All of my favourite shows, including Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, are off the air. When will the madness end?

This dispute is between the AWG and the AMPTP, which is the trade organisation that represents TV and movie studios. It’s about the contracts that regulate minumum wage, royalties and all that. DVD sales and online broadcasts are the bone of contention - writers want to get paid for these, too.

But do you know what I found out yesterday? The Screen Actor’s Guild (SAG) also has contracts with the AMPTP, and these contracts come up for renewal in about six months. The outcome of this strike could have a lot more impact in Hollywood - if the studios win, they’ll be in a pretty strong position when it comes to negotiations with SAG. If they lose, will SAG take them to the cleaners?

I know it’s been published elsewhere, but the last Hollywood strike lasted for 5 months in 1988, and cost roughly $500 million in lost production. With inflation, what will be the cost of current negotiations? What will happen to Hollywood? Will the Daily Show ever go back on the air? Will we be stuck with repeats and reality television FOREVER?!?

PS: There’s a great blog by Grace Egan, a TV writer who’s written on Smallville, Dark Angel and is currently on House, and she’s discussed the strike at great length. Here is one post that talks about her motives for striking. It’s a great insight into the Hollywood system.