I will not fully engage my snark here because Jacqueline Howett does not seem to fit in the same category as professional authors undergoing a review meltdown (Anne Rice for example).   She seems slightly more entitled to a bit of sympathy for her misstep. Her repeated misstep. Missteps ending with the eloquent:

“Fuck Off.”

More’s the pity because the review in question actually suggests that she has promise as a writer, and just needs some fairly serious copy-editing. (Note to self-publishers:  Everyone needs copy-editing.  Get yourself some before you start uploading files. This is one of the responsibilities you assume by bypassing traditional publishing.) Now, because of her public tantrum, she’s now known for being the author who had a hissy fit over her own bad sentence construction. (She’ll be lucky if the following sentence does not become an internet meme: “Don and Katy watched hypnotically Gino place more coffees out at another table with supreme balance.”)

So it doesn’t matter if you’re professionally published, self-published, or uploading things to fanfiction.net.  All public internet whining gets you is a fist full of abuse from folks who love this sort of thing, and a reputation as one of “those” authors. I mean, editors do Google you, and it doesn’t help you if this or this is one of the top results.

Colleen Lindsay:

Thank you for making it clear, through your response to my query, that you are unquipped (sic) to represent fiction writers who are working at the very highest level today.

Best of luck with your list of minor writers, third-rate writers, irrelevant writers, non-writers.

You lose, silly woman.

Patrick Roscoe

I pointed, I laughed, I moved on with my life. Imagine my surprise when today, in my spam filter, I find a comment from someone coming to defend Mr. Roscoe’s honor from such ill deserved mocking engage in an attempt at their own mockery at the expense of myself. Turns out, someone put my Roscoe post up on Reddit and it started a tiny little flame war with Mr. Roscoe’s champion. I’m sort of flattered.

Yes Monica, I have been doing this for 3 decades, having been an editor at The Voice, Housitonic Home and Connecticut Woman Magazine. I do know about copyright laws. It was “my bad” indeed, and, as the magazine is put together in long sessions, tired eyes and minds somethings forget to do these things. But honestly Monica, the web is considered “public domain” and you should be happy we just didn’t “lift” your whole article and put someone else’s name on it!

Editor fail.  Copyright fail.  Ethics fail.  And, public relations fail.  (Just note the comments on their Facebook page.)  You see, when you decide to be an asshat to a blogger, especially in such an interestingly twisted and completely asinine fashion, they tend to blog about it.  And, when your statements have reached such an epic level of complete  cluelessness about the nature of the medium itself, it becomes entertaining for other people to blog about it.  So the relatively unknown person you’ve stolen from blogs about it and gets a linkback from the relatively known Nick Mamatas.  The latter, being relatively known, inspires even more relatively known bloggers to mock the stupid whose name is  Judith Griggs.  Scalzi takes a swing with the cluebat and makes a palpable hit in front of his 30K of daily eyeballs.  (What’s the circulation of that magazine again?  Just wondering.)  And the Smart Bitches of equally vast viewage take multiple swipes and offers a present of Google.  Then, at last, the meme goes nuclear when it crosses the radar of Instpundit.

So, Judith Griggs, you are now an internet meme.  I wonder if permanently associating yourself with this kind of asshattery in the minds of a few hundred thousand people was worth the few hundred bucks you saved by not actually buying the rights to your articles.

A paperback book was hurled towards President Obama seconds after he completed a Democratic rally in Philadelphia on Sunday, but aides say the incident in no way affected the event.
[...]
The US Secret Service found and interviewed the man who threw the book onstage. He was deemed to be an “overexhuberant” supporter who wanted the President to have a copy of a book he had written, according the Special Agent Edwin Donovan of the Secret Service in Washington. “He was deemed not to be a threat and was not arrested,” Donovan told ABC News.

Joe Moore at Kill Zone gives 8 tips on writing a strong query letter.

A.C. Crispin from Writer Beware on How to Write a Query Letter.

For counterexamples we have Slushpile Hell, (via Redlines and Deadlines)

Then there’s a whole site devoted to query critique I found recently, Query Shark.

Dorchester Publishing looks at its bottom line and decides OMG we can’t afford to do this anymore, switches to e-publishing launching the Greek Chorus chanting “death of print, death of print.”

This is premature for a number of reasons. (Not the least of which is the technical reasons I listed in an earlier blog post.)  But the primary one is the fact that this maneuver wasn’t an attempt to make money, it’s a last ditch effort to stop hemorrhaging and keep the doors open.  As such, it probably has a 50/50 chance of staving off bankruptcy.  It has little, if anything, to do with e-publishing vs. print.  It is a desperate attempt to cut costs, which may in fact backfire if the authors who are being screwed (and getting e-pubbed with a print royalty is being screwed) decide to start with the lawsuits.  This is only an indicator of the death of print insofar as it is a marker of the financial health of the publishing industry. . . And I think someone somewhere might have noticed that we’re in a major recession where just about every industry across the board is suffering from sudden overcapacity, red ink, and the need to downsize.  Everything’s readjusting, and everything is volatile.

If you’re a writer my suggestion to weather the economic storm is the following:

1. Grow relationships with as many publishers as possible.
2. Hang on to every subsidy right as you can (foreign sales, audio, e-pub).
3. Avoid committing to projects with deadlines more than 18 months out.
4. Get the option clause as narrow as you can (i.e. strike out “right to see next book,” in favor of “right to see next urban fantasy,” or even better “right to see next series title featuring this particular protagonist.”)
5. Get as much money up front as you can.

Bottom-line: Negotiate every contract as if the company is going into Chapter 11 tomorrow and all your future contact is going to be with a court-appointed lawyer who doesn’t particularly like you or your agent.

If you do, meditate on the two following facts:

• Nobody likes everything.
• Everyone hates something.

#1 Means that it is impossible to write something that every single reader will enjoy. Don’t even try to delude yourself it is possible. Look at the bestselling books on Amazon, and how many 1-star reviews they collect. Look at all the hate sites that are devoted to ripping on popular works of fiction. The more people read your work, the more people will find they dislike it. Sorry, that’s the way it works.

#2 Means that, whatever you write, some reader somewhere, will find some element, trope or character you’ve used to be feloniously objectionable and will invalidate your entire work based on that fact. The list of things that can do this to some people is endless: violence to animals, any depiction of rape, women written by men, homosexuality, pre-marital sex, drug use, positive depictions of Republicans, magical nanotech, pop-cultural references, alternate history, unhappy endings. . . Face the fact that whatever you write will contain someone’s hot-button topic. And note, unless the person reacting is a professional reviewer, they may not even be aware of their hot button— until someone points out that they’ve given a one star review to every book they’ve read that has a first person female narrator.

Accept these truths and your life as a writer will be much more pleasant.

Here we see the cover of the Blackstone Audio version of Wolfbreed coming out March 20th.  Much coolness, and it’s interesting seeing a cover that’s clearly influenced by Spectra’s cover, yet different.  I can’t wait to get this on my iPod.

Zoe doesn’t seem too impressed, but it may be because she can’t read.

If you want to buy it on-line, but you’re pissed at Amazon’s antics of late, you can buy it here. Or here.

Here’s the press release:

Philip K. Dick Awards

c/o 153 Deerfield Lane
Pleasantville, NY 10570
(914) 769-5545
http://www.philipkdickaward.org
January 16, 2010
For Immediate Release

2009 Philip K. Dick Award Nominees Announced The judges of the 2009 Philip K. Dick Award and the Philadelphia SF Society, along with the Philip K. Dick Trust, are pleased to announce seven nominated works that comprise the final ballot for the award:

BITTER ANGELS by C. L. Anderson (Ballantine Books/Spectra)
THE PRISONER by Carlos J. Cortes (Ballantine Books/Spectra)
THE REPOSSESSION MAMBO by Eric Garcia (Harper)
THE DEVIL’S ALPHABET by Daryl Gregory (Del Rey)
CYBERABAD DAYS by Ian McDonald (Pyr)
CENTURIES AGO AND VERY FAST by Rebecca Ore (Aqueduct Press)
PROPHETS by S. Andrew Swann (DAW Books)

First prize and any special citations will be announced on Friday, April 2, 2010 at Norwescon 33 at the Doubletree Seattle Airport Hotel, SeaTac, Washington. The Philip K. Dick Award is presented annually with the support of the Philip K. Dick Trust for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. The award is sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and the Philip K. Dick Trust and the award ceremony is sponsored by the NorthWest Science Fiction Society. Last year’s winners were EMISSARIES FROM THE DEAD by Adam-Troy Castro (Eos Books) and TERMINAL MIND by David Walton (Meadowhawk Press). The 2009 judges are Daniel Abraham (chair), Eileen Gunn, Karen Hellekson, Elaine Isaak, and Marc Laidlaw.

For more information, contact the award administration:
David G. Hartwell (914) 769-5545.
Gordon Van Gelder (201) 876-2551
For more information about the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, http://www.psfs.org
Contact Gary Feldbaum (215) 665-5752
For more information about the Philip K. Dick Trust: http://www.philipkdick.com
For more information about Norwescon: http://www.norwescon.org
Contact NorthWest SF Society: (425) 686-9737

But, in addition to that, look at what I got in the mail:

These are the faux trade-paper bound galleys, like I got for Prophets.  I still think it’s way cool seeing them in this format.