The Particle on "Dying Speeches and Bloody Murders" reminds me of a book I scanned and helped prepare for Project Gutenberg some years back. It's called "Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences", and it amounts to a collection of such broadsides. Only a few illustrations, though. You can find it here, if you're interested: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/13097
My proudest moment as a clerk working in my dad's hardware store was when a lady came in looking lost. So I asked if I could help her, and she told me she was looking for "the thing that's the thing that when the door, umm, it's the thing..." and waved her hands around, and I led her straight to the strike plates.
To this day, when the toilet breaks, or a window does, and I need to fix it (my husband doesn't do hardware unless it's electronic) my first step is to stand there and tell myself, out loud, how to fix it. I listen to myself, and that's how I do it.
The best advice is to go to the bookstore, and look for books that are similar to yours. Yes, I know your book is unique, but almost all books fit into some genre or style. Look to see who published those books. Go to the library, and get the reference librarian to help you look up those publishers, or go online to the publisher's website, and find out their submittal guidelines. Follow them carefully. Just because someone tells you it'll "get you noticed" to write your manuscript in green crayon on pizza boxes, doesn't mean it'll be GOOD notice. If the submittal is in the publishers approved format, the format will be invisible, and they can concentrate on your words, which is what you want them to do.
Traditional publishers will have an art department and will do the cover art. It's very unusual for them to use cover art from the author.
To get an agent is pretty much the same deal; find books that feel similar to your book, and try to find out who the agent was for that book. Your reference librarian may be able to help you, or you can query the publisher of that book. Look up the agency guidelines, and submit your manuscript to them in that format.
Unless they say otherwise, you can generally only submit your full manuscript to one agent at a time, but you can send query letters to as many as you like. Same goes for publishers. It's ok to have a manuscript out to a publisher and an agent at the same time.
If a publisher bites first, don't sign anything immediately; re-query the agents you're interested in and let them know you've got a contract waiting to be signed. Don't expect a non-specialist, even a lawyer, to understand book contract law: what's acceptable and what isn't. Part of an agent's job is to vet the contract and cross out the stuff the publisher hopes you won't notice.
All of the above applies to fiction; non-fiction may be different; I don't know.
And remember, the money always flows towards the author. Agents take a percentage of sale; nothing up-front. If you never sell, they never get money. Art comes out of the publisher's pocket, not yours.
Hope this helps. And I'm sure where I got anything wrong (and I quite likely did), one of the many authors and editors who read this site will be happy to correct me.
Raven @ 386
Are you sure it's not just that you're not aware of mystical Christian practices? I've got an Anglican friend who is extremely mystical in outlook, and he regularly uses Ignatian visualization, for instance. Not harsh, not painful, and formally approved since 1548.
Very generic post, with a suspicious link in the name.
Lucy Van Pelt held the ball
for Charlie Brown to kick,
But Linus had a better lure:
"Come here and suck my dick!"
An’ it’s who’ll slash ye this time
Who’ll slash ye noo?
The lass who slashed ye last, lad,
She no will slash ye noo.
geekosaur @ 103
Oddly enough, a Mexican (not sure if he's naturalized American or not, but almost all of his family is still in Mexico and he visits them whenever possible) coworker of mine, when I mentioned fish tacos, looked disgusted, and said that fish tacos aren't REALLY tacos. I presume that means his family is from a region of Mexico that doesn't do the fish taco thing; I know he's told me the state he's from, but I can't remember it.
As someone from the Chicago area, I'm strongly inclined to agree with DDB about what's "real pizza", except that I'll allow ham-and-pineapple even though I purely hate that set of toppings.
Perhaps I should say that all those weird toppings, like barbecued chicken for instance, aren't "Chicago pizza". Which is saying something, since there are three different styles of Chicago pizza. (Thin crust, deep dish, stuffed. Our thin crust is different from New Haven thin crust and New York thin crust. I'm not sure if it's different from San Francisco thin crust, or if the San Francisco pizza I had was just an unusually awful sample.)
Note that I've had some very nice non-Chicago style pizzas, but you'd never find barbequed chicken on a proper Chicago pizza.
Jordin Kare zaps mosquitoes with lasers!
Xopher @ 136, a long time ago
I've never heard it formulated as "don't spill wine to other gods than YHWH"; just "don't commit idolatry". I'm perfectly happy to believe you (in fact, I'll be thrilled if you're right!), but I'd really someone who reads Hebrew to chime in here, if one would be so kind. It would be useful information in my ongoing debate with an anti-Gentilic Orthodox Jew I know. (He quite literally thinks that all non-Jews are out to massacre all Jews, and would if they could only get away with it, as far as I can tell.) And he bullies every non-Orthodox Jew, too.
Leroy @ 129
Eating the limb of a living creature is so very not-kosher that even we non-Jews are supposed to refrain from doing it, and we're not expected to follow the rest of the kosher laws. It's one of the Seven Noahide Laws that are supposed to have been given to Noah to give to all his descendants (i.e. everyone on the planet). Genesis 9:4.
The other Noahide laws are: Don't murder, don't commit idolatry, don't steal, don't commit adultery, don't blaspheme God's name, and a positive law: set up courts of justice to enforce these laws.
John Houghton @ 341
Mustn't forget the cross-temporal non-linear dimension, yes.
I forgot to mention that I'm grateful that you gave me the dimensions of the box as well as the cards! I hadn't thought to ask for that.
janetl @ 333
Thanks for the Fluxx deck dimensions. I asked because I saw a plastic (soap?) box at my local American Science and Surplus that looked like it might be fat enough to hold a deck of Fluxx cards, and I know some people whose deck's box is falling apart, that I'd like to surprise with a box-holder if it's the right size (or a bit bigger). Now I've got the dimensions, the next time I'm there I'll know whether I should buy one or not.
I love my American Science and Surplus. It's a very strange place.
While we're asking questions, would someone who owns (or has access to) a (standard) Fluxx deck inform me of the dimensions of said deck?
Allan @ 262
If you browse using Firefox, you may be interested in the Leetkey addon; one you've installed it, if you highlight text and hit the right mouse button, your context menu gives you a list of possible actions you can do to that text, including "Text Transformers", under which is Rot13. Click the Rot13, and it'll decrypt (or encrypt) the highlighted portion of the text for you, as if it had been typed in plaintext. I learned about it from a post here, and I gladly pass it along.
Mutt @306
It's very important to remember, from now on, that money only ever flows toward the author. Never away from him, except in some specialized non-fiction writing circumstances that you're not going to run into. If anybody, whether agent, editor, or publisher asks you for money (and they're not up front about being a vanity press like Lulu) they're scamming you.
There's nothing wrong in getting Lulu or a similar company to print your books for you, just so long as you realize that you'll only ever sell (or give) the resulting books to friends and family. And at least, unlike WL, they're honest about it.
Michael @613
It would be interesting to find out what happened if a bunch of kids showed up to school wearing Richmond Red Devils t-shirts.
Would they suspend kids for showing school spirit?
(I had another similar comment go to moderation; I think I screwed up the link. Feel free to delete it, moderators.)
Michael @ 613
Have kids been suspended for wearing Richmond Red Devils t-shirts? It would be interesting if a large flock of kids showed up in a t-shirt celebrating their high school, and got suspended for it....
Yay team spirit.
Angiportus @ 364
It's cached on Google, at least for the moment. Of course, you can only read the tops of the comment threads. You can, at least, see the original post, however.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2009 | 43 |
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